FOURNIER: Axe the Tax, Ignore the Cap and Nix Net Zero

Another year around the Sun is drawing to a close and keeping with what has become the Western Standard tradition, I am honored to write my year end synopsis for 2024 and my thoughts looking ahead to 2025.My year end synopsis is Canadians must Axe the Tax, Ignore the Cap and utterly Nix Net Zero!I encourage all Canadians and their Conservative constituency associations to simply prioritize getting back to the basics and demanding that our elected officials retreat from all global commitments and initiatives relating to CO2 emissions.Instead, let’s strive to make 2025 the year when we began to transition back to a common sense based way of life, where we focus on family, law & order, responsible wealth generation and to ending crony capitalism.My call to go beyond just Axing the Tax and Ignoring the Cap, was motivated by this year’s 29th international climate summit (aka COP29,) held last month in Baku, Azerbaijan, where China and much of the Developing World demanded that the West pay $1.3 trillion per year to help them and their neighbors in their fight with climate change.This demand is not new and its justification is that because the wealth of the West was built upon legacy carbon sins going back to the start of the Industrial Revolution, the West owes China and the Developing World reparations to compensate them for the misery inflicted on them by Western-caused climate change and to aid them in transitioning to low carbon intensive economies.Insanity.Reuters has just reported that “Global exports and use of thermal coal will reach all-time highs in 2024, despite the record roll-out of renewable energy generation capacity across all major continents.”According to Reuters, 2024 has seen coal use increase by 175 million tonnes since 2023, which of course represents an additional 500 to 600 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year from increased coal assumption alone.Note that Canada’s entire estimated annual emission rate is within that range.This will make four straight years of growth in coal consumption globally, with the vast majority of this growth occurring in Chinese and Asian markets.Why does this matter to me?First, China is adding another 1 billion tonnes per year (btpa) of coal mining capacity to its already massive 4 btpa capacity and by 2030, will be mining 2x more coal than the rest of the World combined.Building coal mines speaks of a long term commitment to coal.Second, Canada could entirely shut down its oil-and- gas sector overnight and within three months, CO2 emissions from growth in global coal demand alone, would obliterate any gains in emission reductions.Meaning, current emissions reductions policies in Canada are pointless.In fact, Canada could have fallen off the global map on January 1st, and by December 31st of this year, growth in global coal related CO2 emissions alone would have wiped out any gains made by our demise as a Nation. Third, Western nations' rapidly growing trade deficits with Asian countries and China in particular, are driving this massive growth in coal consumption. Canada’s trade deficit with China has grown from $32 billion in 2013 to $59 billion in 2023.Fourth, punitive environment regulations in the West, together with its aggressive Net Zero ambitions are likewise accelerating the growth of coal consumption in Asia..The chart above shows that half of China's GDP growth rate in 2023 was fueled by its increasing production of solar PV, wind and battery storage components and materials.China is so gung-ho on its Clean Tech manufacturing sector that it has been diverting profits away from other market segments and into its Clean Tech sector as part of its effort to rapidly build out manufacturing over capacity.This is another way of saying it is flooding the global Clean Tech market in an effort to bankrupt its competitors and to further capture global market capitalization.This practice is why many Western nations, including Canada, are imposing tariffs on Clean Tech imports.Carbon Brief estimates that China’s 2023 Clean Tech revenue was US$1.6 trillion.In view of this massive revenue stream, it is highly questionable for China to claim that it needs Western climate reparations to help fund their fight against climate change.Seems to me that this is what we have been doing for China already.By my estimates, Alberta alone has invested close to $17 billion in wind, solar PV and battery storage since 2015 and 80 to 90% of the supply chain for these trinkets are Chinese owned.So let’s summarize the basis for this Nix Net Zero case.1. Net Zero is leading to a resurgence in coal use in China and Asia.2. China owns most of the Clean Tech space, is making trillions from selling these products to the West and it now demands trillions more in climate reparations from the West.3. There is nothing clean about Chinese Clean Tech and its use of slave and child labor.But folks, these are not the ultimate reasons why I am saying Canadians must Nix Net Zero.The source of the Net Zero by 2050 agenda is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC.)Without going into a history lesson on this UN subsidiary, let me give you a quote from Pierre Eliot Trudeau’s point man (Maurice Strong) to the UN, who is one of the architects of the UNFCCC to give you a sense of what motivates them."What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries?... In order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"This quote from Maurice Strong was from when he was the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1997. For many, the motive behind the UNFCCC’s Net Zero agenda is exactly as Maurice Strong suggested, which is to collapse Western nations to save the planet and to transfer their wealth to the developing world and to China by way of climate reparations and growing trade deficits.The fact that the UNFCCC can advocate that trillions be directed through them to China and the developing world, while China is already making trillions on its monopoly over the Clean Tech space, is a serious red flag.Likewise, the fact that the UNFCCC ignores the fact that Canada, like much of the Western World is denying their citizens access to their coal resources, while China and Asia invests trillions in developing their own, is clear evidence of willful ignorance. And hypocrisy.Finally, it seems like every few days we hear of carbon credit scams and utter failures of carbon related public policies in producing measurable evidence of emission reduction outside of causing the de-industrialization of Western nations.Canada is no exception to this general rule.As far as I can see, this has crossed over from incompetence and ignorance, and into the realm of malice and organized crime.In closing, I will declare that the "Net Zero Emperor is Naked"! Let us stop fooling ourselves and demand of our legislators that we Nix Net Zero in Canada in 2025.

FOURNIER: Axe the Tax, Ignore the Cap and Nix Net Zero

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