Canada and its growing climate exposure

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/08/2025 (223 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The International Court of Justice has just put Canada and all other petrostates on notice. You’re responsible for the climate damage you wreak.

This is a turning point in history.

As of July 2025, both government and industry can no longer hide from their climate culpability. Promoters of fossil-fuel development after this date now face the certainty of legal action over the rising cost of climate damage.

Anyone paying attention could see this train coming from a long way off and Canada is tied to the tracks. We’re hugely exposed to climate lawsuits.

We supply five per cent of global oil and six per cent of the methane (natural gas). We’re amongst the heaviest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases on the planet and are in the top 10 nations for legacy carbon emissions.

Yet like a teenager given a no-limit credit card by irresponsible parents, our fossil fuel industry wants to run up the tab even more. If we let them, Canadian taxpayers face a bill running into the hundreds of billions, if not more.

When someone abuses a credit card, you take it away and make them pay their debts.

The fossil fuel industry can start right here. The unfunded liability for cleanup of their foul mess of abandoned wells, mines, contaminated tailings ponds (1.4 trillion litres of toxic water), and rusting pipelines now approaches a staggering third of a trillion dollars, according to internal documents of the Alberta Energy Regulator.

And how much is in the industry clean-up fund to take care of the mess?

Less than $2 billion, leaving roughly 99 per cent of the cost for taxpayers to pay when oil and gas firms conveniently declare bankruptcy to dine and dash on the bill. And we’ve already started, by allocating $1.7 billion of our federal tax dollars to this in 2020.

Sooner than most think, the international community, especially the Global South, will seek reparations for the climate damage of fossil fuels. But in Canada, Big Oil & Gas not only wants to continue production of their planet-burning products, but jack it up and fast. They demand removal of emissions caps to expand production of methane and tar sands oil, and new pipelines to export into fading global markets.

China, the biggest oil importer in the world, is building out renewables at breathtaking speed. Their oil demand will peak by 2027 (and may have peaked already) and decline afterward. The International Energy Agency, not a bunch of granola-munching hippies, now forecasts a permanent oil glut by 2030.

There’s no longer any economic case for expanding oil production in Canada. Our tar sands oil requires expensive processing and pollution abatement. As the global oil surplus grows, demand for Canadian oil will wither as the world turns to cheaper sources. And the last time supply exceeded demand (2020), the price of Alberta oil turned negative. You had to pay people to take it away.

We’re now at the point where renewables with storage (wind/solar and batteries) are less costly than fossil fuels, especially when you add in the price of carbon capture.

It’s game over for the fossil fuel industry.

We now need an orderly renewable energy transition and to start paying down the fossil fuel bill. The first step is ending all fossil- fuel subsidies. They amounted to roughly $30 billion in Canada in 2024 alone – e.g., we subsidize oil exports through the TransMountain pipeline with below market tolls.

Second, there can be no more talk of subsidies for carbon-capture for the fossil fuel industry. They can pay their own way.

Third, levy a windfall profits tax on an industry refusing to clean up its mess. Alberta has failed to implement any serious plan, leaving Canadian taxpayers to pay for a fossil-fuel industry that has outsmarted gullible politicians for decades.

And fourth, no more pipelines.

In Manitoba, our premier promotes fossil fuels and pipelines to Hudson Bay. He defended this by noting that trucks and chainsaws used by firefighters battling wildfires (ironically the direct effects of climate change) use gas and oil. Does that justify new pipelines? Hardly. The premier’s argument is what logicians call a non sequitur: it does not follow.

We’ve no difficulty supplying gas and oil for firefighters now. And we’ll have no difficulty tomorrow. Going forward there will remain niche uses for fossil fuels, but most consumption is in urban centres and transport where fossil fuels are easily replaced by renewables. There is zero need for new production.

Those promoting increased fossil fuel use want to run up the enormous tab on our credit card even higher. It’s time to take it away.

Scott Forbes is an ecologist at the University of Winnipeg. The opinions expressed above are of course his own.