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As a Canadian it’s hard for me to be upset given we still emit far more carbon per capita than China or India.

brailsafe 2y ago
I suppose there could be worse problems though. According to Bloomberg, as of a few years ago there were more people in India who didn't have access to electricity at all than live in all of Canada, and not insignificant portion of our population is of recent Indian descent. This source reports ~10% of their population https://www.iea.org/reports/sdg7-data-and-projections/access-to-electricity https://www.iea.org/reports/sdg7-data-and-projections/access... As a Canadian (but not Albertan) I've never had direct access to the residual economic effects of oil resources, or the slight tax offset that comes with having no Provincial Sales Tax, aside from general gov redistribution. I've never not had electricity, and I've never not had renewable electricity, which is quite remarkable.
azinman2 2y ago
But would that be true if Canada had 1 billion people?
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  IIRC most people's carbon emissions come from transportation, electricity, heat. My guess is the efficiency of scale at ~40M is within spitting distance of what it would be at 1B. So it ought to scale linearly, for the most part?
  - Waterluvian 2y ago
    It depends how we situate ourselves. We have a lot of land and a lot of potential to hypothetically grow to 1B in the dumbest way possible.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    A lot of it comes from consumption, material goods, food ect as well.
- abdullahkhalids 2y ago
  BC electricity is completely hydroelectric. And they encourage homes to go all electric with no gas. If BC's population went up by a factor of 1.1B/40M = 27.5x, most likely the hydroelectric resources in the province would become insufficient and BC would have to switch to alternate forms of electric power. Maybe that is solar+wind+nuclear, but maybe it's just gas and coal. Please note that in Canada, electricity, heat, and transport emissions dwarf those from all other sectors [1]. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?time=latest&country=~CAN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t...
486sx33 2y ago
“Canada could already be absorbing 20 to 30 per cent more CO2 than we emit” https://financialpost.com/opinion/canada-may-already-be-carbon-neutral-so-why-are-we-keeping-it-a-secret https://financialpost.com/opinion/canada-may-already-be-carb...
- Waterluvian 2y ago
  If “all this undeveloped land is a huge carbon sink we want to take credit for,” then we’re going to have to take responsibility for the terrible amount of carbon release as peatlands continue thawing. This is frankly a dumb article. It’s an unhelpful reframing of the issue at hand by trying to take credit for what’s happening across large swaths of undeveloped land that happen to be within our border. It will quickly be abandoned the moment the natural carbon release of former permafrost regions cause us to be a colossal emitter instead. Consider how unhelpful it would be if countries began trying to solve their emissions issues by laying claim to vast swaths of ocean, to take credit for algal carbon sinks.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

I suppose there could be worse problems though. According to Bloomberg, as of a few years ago there were more people in India who didn't have access to electricity at all than live in all of Canada, and not insignificant portion of our population is of recent Indian descent. This source reports ~10% of their population https://www.iea.org/reports/sdg7-data-and-projections/access-to-electricity https://www.iea.org/reports/sdg7-data-and-projections/access... As a Canadian (but not Albertan) I've never had direct access to the residual economic effects of oil resources, or the slight tax offset that comes with having no Provincial Sales Tax, aside from general gov redistribution. I've never not had electricity, and I've never not had renewable electricity, which is quite remarkable.

azinman2 2y ago

But would that be true if Canada had 1 billion people?

rootusrootus 2y ago
IIRC most people's carbon emissions come from transportation, electricity, heat. My guess is the efficiency of scale at ~40M is within spitting distance of what it would be at 1B. So it ought to scale linearly, for the most part?
- Waterluvian 2y ago
  It depends how we situate ourselves. We have a lot of land and a lot of potential to hypothetically grow to 1B in the dumbest way possible.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  A lot of it comes from consumption, material goods, food ect as well.
abdullahkhalids 2y ago
BC electricity is completely hydroelectric. And they encourage homes to go all electric with no gas. If BC's population went up by a factor of 1.1B/40M = 27.5x, most likely the hydroelectric resources in the province would become insufficient and BC would have to switch to alternate forms of electric power. Maybe that is solar+wind+nuclear, but maybe it's just gas and coal. Please note that in Canada, electricity, heat, and transport emissions dwarf those from all other sectors [1]. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?time=latest&country=~CAN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t...

486sx33 2y ago

“Canada could already be absorbing 20 to 30 per cent more CO2 than we emit” https://financialpost.com/opinion/canada-may-already-be-carbon-neutral-so-why-are-we-keeping-it-a-secret https://financialpost.com/opinion/canada-may-already-be-carb...

Waterluvian 2y ago
If “all this undeveloped land is a huge carbon sink we want to take credit for,” then we’re going to have to take responsibility for the terrible amount of carbon release as peatlands continue thawing. This is frankly a dumb article. It’s an unhelpful reframing of the issue at hand by trying to take credit for what’s happening across large swaths of undeveloped land that happen to be within our border. It will quickly be abandoned the moment the natural carbon release of former permafrost regions cause us to be a colossal emitter instead. Consider how unhelpful it would be if countries began trying to solve their emissions issues by laying claim to vast swaths of ocean, to take credit for algal carbon sinks.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]