Thread by @DataStruggle

Canadian capitalism's climate contradictions. Canada acts like a renegade petrostate when it comes to the #ClimateCrisis. But the energy sector is only a moderately sized and declining share of GDP, so why does it have such a dominant role in Canadian capitalism?

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Since oil/gas production takes giant investments of capital, few jobs are created in the sector. Other than in Alberta, it's a really minor share of total employment. So the 'jobs, jobs, jobs' rhetoric they trot out to defend their climate mega-projects rings rather hollow.

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Oil/gas plays an important role in filling Canadian capitalism's needs for new investment b/c of the sector's capital intensity.

That means that big corporate players in the industry now command huge amounts of capital, which confers considerable economic/political clout

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Canada's big banks have always been deeply involved in financing fossil fuel development domestically and internationally. Despite substantial greenwashing efforts, the Big 5 Banks invested $558B USD into fossil fuels from 2016 to 2020. Yes, over a half-trillion dollars.

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Another reason for fossil fuel's oversized importance is Canada's role in global capitalism. Energy products have been the most important trade good by far since the oil boom, with other climate destroying sectors rounding out the top 5.

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Nobody in mainstream pol has been able to offer an alternative strategy/vision to Canada's global role other than as a main colonial/imperialist resource and energy grabber. To the contrary, both Liberals and soc dems in power have gone all in on an energy export strategy,

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The Trudeau Lib's "upgraded" climate plan from late 2020 plans for a decade of greatly increasing fossil fuel production.

Under it, Canada's cumulative emissions will greatly surpass it's fair share of remaining global carbon emissions to avoid 1.5C and 2.0C warming.

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Our far share of a carbon budget w/ best chances of preventing 1.5C warming will be blown ENTIRELY by increases in fossil fuel production. Oil production will grow from 2.6 to 6.2 Mm/bd by 2030, almost entirely for exports. Tar sands alone are over 50% of our 1.5C fair share

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The Liberal government again "upgraded" their climate plan in April of 2021, but the targets are still inadequate for preventing 2C warming and afaik they haven't produced any actual data/projections to examine. Either way, Canada has never actually met a climate target.

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