Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has made his feelings clear about Canadian provincial premiers’ move to relieve financial burden on Canadians at the gas pump by dropping their fuel tax..Guilbeault discussed the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) goals, as well as Canada’s own climate plan, when he appeared on CPAC’s Prime Time Politics. He said other crises may come and go, but climate change will always remain..He claimed it was vitally important provinces not reduce fuel taxes and prices, arguing it was undermining the federal government’s objectives to tackle what many global leaders are calling a climate emergency..Ottawa pledged to reduce emissions 40% below 2005 levels by 2030 while aiming to achieve net zero by 2050, but emissions in the oil and gas sector have increased 20% since 2005. Canada was the only G7 nation to see carbon emissions go up..“It goes against our efforts to fight climate change,” Guilbeault told the Prime Time Politics host Peter Van Dusen..“We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that we’ve gone through a pandemic, there’s a terrible crisis happening in Ukraine, we’re seeing inflation. But all of these crises will go, and climate change will still be there, and climate change is killing people in Canada,” said Guilbeault, who said that 700 deaths in BC last year were because of “heat domes.”.Guilbeault implied the premiers’ introduction of discounts at the pump was a move to increase their own popularity with the electorate..“They’re just going for the easy solution, and probably one that is short-term in terms of political popularity,” he said.. school-strike-4-climate-4057675_1920Image by Goran Horvat from Pixabay .During the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed to capping Canada’s oil and gas emissions..“We’re in the process of consulting provinces, territories, indigenous leadership, obviously companies and other stakeholders,” he said..In a recent comment to news site The Narwhal, Guilbeault said that he hoped to see Canada’s fossil fuel industry phased out within two years..“So in the next two years, more stringent methane regulations, zero-emission vehicle standards, net-zero grid by 2035, cap on oil and gas, and obviously phasing out fossil fuels. All of these things must be in place in the coming 18 months,” said Guilbeault. “Maybe 2024, but that’s the type of time frame we have to work with and it’s going to be tough because on the one hand, some people are going to criticize us for not giving them enough time to be consulted, but the state of climate change is such that we need to learn to do things faster and that’s certainly true of us as a government,” Guilbeault said..In January 2022, psychologist and popular media personality Jordan Peterson blasted Guilbeault saying Western Canadians were going to come under the hammer of the federal government’s climate policies and targets..“Beware, citizens of Alberta and Saskatchewan. You’re going to be sacrificed to the climate gods,” Peterson said..This followed Guilbeault’s announcement the federal government intended to dismantle Canada’s natural resource industry..Peterson took Guilbeault’s comments and used them as a warning to Alberta and Saskatchewan, adding Guilbeault had “lost touch” with Western Canada..“You have completely lost touch with the Western provinces. You’re going to destabilize the country. You’re going to make people cold and poor. All to sustain your idiot moralistic utopian delusions. What in the world do you think will replace fossil fuel? Your good wishes?” he said in a tweet..Amanda Brown is a reporter with the Western Standard.abrown@westernstandardonline.com.,.Twitter: @WS_JournoAmanda
