Burning the planet to own Putin

Response to invasion of Ukraine can't be increased fossil fuel production

Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, pictured in 2021, want to increase fossil fuel production to assist European in transitioning away from Russian energy. (Facebook)

The Canadian government, which loves to boast of its commitments to combating climate change, says it’s ramping up oil and gas production to help shut Russia out of European energy markets in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Canada will boost oil production by as much as 300,000 barrels a day and natural gas by 16,000 cubic metres a day — neither of which will come close to replacing Russian energy, which Europeans consume to the tune of four million barrels of oil and 158 billion cubic metres of gas a day.

“Wilkinson said the bump in production would not alter Canada’s pledge to slash greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change by at least 40 per cent over the next eight years, and argued the country has an obligation to sell more oil and gas to Europe to aid in Ukraine’s time of war,” the Toronto Star reports.

This won’t impact Canada’s climate commitments because the emissions are being offloaded to other countries, of course.

The EU plans to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027.

“It would be incredibly irresponsible for Canada to say, ‘we don’t care, we’re going to stick our fingers in our ears and pretend that crisis doesn’t exist,’” Wilkinson said, referring not to the climate crisis but the push to ostracize Russia from the global economy.