2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference

[Muzza]

Attendance by Canada at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference was a complete waste of time and money, as according to the following environmental organization, Trudeau is already reneging on the promises made there:

http://action.environmentaldefence.ca/p ... _KEY=19459

Therefore, what was the reason for sending all those people there, and spending all that money, other than feel good photo ops for our Prime Minster?

[Veovis]

Good PR? Image? TV time, photos. Everything a reality TV star needs to keep in the spotlight and not actually work.

[dieseluphammerdown]

It goes with the reoccurring theme of liberal self entitlements.
Plus how could JT and crew miss such a big party? After all it wasn't him or the liberals footing the bill it was just us taxpayers, so that in itself is justification enough for the liberals.

[The Green Barbarian]

Remember Kathleen Wynne flew not once, but twice to Paris for this UN party. She is that important.

[hobbyguy]

It may just be a dose of pragmatism crept in.

The pragmatic approach is to stick with what is doable. From what I have read, we are just a few years from a number of game changing technologies that will make it practical and cost effective to start a serious switch off of fossil fuels.

In the meantime, Alberta can not afford to be "kicked while they are down". They need some breathing room to adjust.

So backing down on an unrealistically high target is probably good policy, provided it is accompanied by building out the necessary infrastructure for the future. Most notably for EVs, which are likely to replace 2+ million bpd of oil in the next 8-10 years. The new fleet efficiency targets from the US, EU and China will also have a huge impact, probably dropping the market for oil by a similar amount.

IF the government were to fund the build out of EV charging stations and perhaps more nuclear power for Ontario... now that would move things forward, but the actual immediate GHG reductions would be minimal.

And the federal government is going to have to put some money back into Alberta to help them transition. Again, without much immediate, but a significant long term benefit.