• Dearche@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    The sad thing is that Canada is actually in one of the best places to make it’s individual targets compared to most other countries. We’re a rich nation with plentiful resources and all our needs are met domestically. Our major sources of greenhouse emissions are well known and clearly defined. They are also things that all have existing solutions to.

    Even if complete elimination isn’t possible, at least doing enough to reach our climate goals should’ve been easy. Heating and fossil fuel production account for more than 30% of our CO2 emissions, both things that could be replaced with electricity from clean sources like nuclear.

    • zephyreks@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Frankly, I think Canada would have a much greater impact on emissions if we put our highly-educated workforce towards developing clean technologies for export to the US. That’s what we should be working on, because we’re already operating in that weird part of the climate curve where it takes disproportionate investment to get any return in terms of GHGe.

      If BYD opened an EV plant in Canada for export of $10k EVs to North American markets, we could wipe so may ICE vehicles off the roads across North America.

      • Dearche@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        The problem is that there is no existing truly green technology as it stands. Wind and solar causes so much pollution in its construction that it’s not much better than natural gas as it stands. Especially once you consider that they need to be replaced every 10 years.

        On the other hand, I do agree that we should push on energy development for export. The Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Albertan governments have teamed up to develop SMRs, and hopefully we’ll have a working model in the near future, ripe for mass production and export. It’s not 100% green, but far cleaner than any other technology we can expect to have within the next decade.