Western Canadians were hopeful this spring as Canada’s newly minted Prime Minister Mark Carney declared his intention to make Canada an energy superpower with the “strongest economy in the G7.” Such bold claims were reiterated by Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, in media appearances at the Calgary Stampede. Like Carney, Hodgson especially highlighted his interest in the Pathways Alliance Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) proposal. CCS captures carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industrial operations and transfers them by pipeline to be stored deep underground. This project would supposedly help Canada meet Net Zero climate targets.Sounds like a wonderful corporate carrot, but it comes with a big stick to beat taxpayers, a stick of which they are blissfully unaware.Robert Lyman is a retired energy economist, former federal public servant, and diplomat. In his May 28, 2025, report “Energy Superpower Vs. Net-Zero? Don't Jump!” He wrote, “The Liberals promise to advance the Pathways Project to capture and store some of the carbon dioxide emitted by oil sands production. This project would be hopelessly uneconomic without major government (i.e. taxpayer) subsidies. The Tax Credit for Carbon Utilization and Storage already offers to cover 50% of the costs of the Pathways Project. The Government of Alberta, through the Alberta Carbon Capture Incentive Program, is providing a 12% grant for all CCUS projects. The Pathways Consortium wants subsidies raised to at least 75%, leaving Canadian taxpayers on the hook. The new Carney government, it claims, will try to implement pragmatic policies that build energy infrastructure so as to facilitate access for Canadian oil and gas to more domestic and export markets. Yet, the government cannot ignore the fact that the principal barriers to such developments are its own policies and legislation.”.Why, then, would the Liberals be interested in CCS? Probably as a means to set a high floor price for industrial carbon taxes. The goal of European climate activist scientist Johan Rockström, who recently did a webinar with Canada Pension Plan Investments, is to have a base carbon price of $400, and to institute a global carbon tax law. A large CCS project in Canada would help lock both of those in and empty your pockets.Meanwhile, our largest trading partner and largest oil/gas customer, the US, has just issued a new climate science report titled, “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate.”The report presents remarkable insights on climate science and economics rarely heard in the mainstream press. Regarding climate-related economics, “…economists have long been reluctant to endorse attempts to “stop” climate change or even aggressively reduce GHG emissions because the costs would not be worth it.” Immediate decarbonization is too expensive. “Most climate economists thus recommend humanity to just wait-and-see.”.The US is Canada’s largest trading partner and will remain so for decades to come, despite efforts to diversify our trading partners. How long can Canada continue pushing expensive Net Zero policies that rely on taxpayers to fund them when our closest and most important trading partner is taking a wrecking ball to climate hysteria? The US vehemently rejected the International Marine Organization’s efforts to impose Net Zero targets on the shipping industry as a “global carbon tax.” The USA is dismantling the so-called “climate cartel” which they claim has declared war on the American way of life. This “climate cartel” has been cornering much of corporate America into Net Zero promises that no one can keep, for which taxpayers have to pay the tab. While there are large CCS pipeline projects in the US, Robert Kennedy’s documentary “The Pipeline Deception” reveals the shocking outcome of a pipeline break and the devastating risks to human health, including death, when concentrated CO2 clouds settle in communities. A leaked plume of ~95% CO2 from a CCS pipeline is heavier than air and takes time to disperse. The air we breathe typically has a harmless minute concentration of CO2. There has been no discussion of this risk aspect of the Pathways Alliance project at all in the press. In Lyman’s May 2022 report, he sees CCS/CCUS as the ultimate “Carbon Capture and Storage Trap – for Taxpayers.” He warned us then that, “Whatever its technical merits, carbon dioxide capture and storage remains fundamentally a money-losing option that can only be made viable through the transfer of immense subsidies from taxpayers and energy consumers to the oil-producing industry. It is a bad solution to the non-problem of impending climate emergency. It is imperative to expose the non-problem for what it is — an economy-destroying trap, and instead to abandon the Net-Zero goal.”
