In the rollicking world of net-zero policy-making and initiatives, Canada aims to be a global leader. The country’s bankers, mining executives,
auto companies, electricity producers and political leaders have merged
into a unified machine around the idea that a new green economy can be
achieved via a just transition to a global energy system free of carbon
emissions.
The nationalist clatter
last week around the possible sale of Teck Resources of Vancouver to
Swiss mining giant Glencore reflected the new official Canadian
corporatist approach. As a key global player in the business of
producing “critical minerals” – copper, zinc, molybdenum – Teck is seen
as a vital cog in the wheel of economic fortune swirling around the
net-zero objectives.
The Trudeau Liberals’ enthusiasm for the
new national economic model was captured in ‘The Canadian Critical
Minerals Strategy’, a report
released last December by Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson
and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne. “Critical minerals
are the building blocks for the green and digital economy. There is no
energy transition without critical minerals: no batteries, no electric
cars, no wind turbines and no solar panels. The sun provides raw energy,
but electricity flows through copper. Wind turbines need manganese,
platinum and rare earth magnets. Nuclear power requires uranium.
Electric vehicles require batteries made with lithium, cobalt and nickel
and magnets. Indium and tellurium are integral to solar panel
manufacturing.”
Both Ministers signed a letter
in defence of Teck Resources as a national corporate champion. Teck,
they said, is “of central importance to our country as we expand our
critical minerals value chain and build a clean economy.”
But exactly how clean and green is the net-zero economic strategy? It’s a question raised in a revealing commentary
by veteran Canadian environmental journalist Andrew Nikiforuk. Writing
in The Tyee, a Vancouver-based online publication, Nikiforuk reviews the
work of academics and a “rising chorus of renewable energy sceptics”
who believe that the great transition to a renewable energy future is a
green techno-dream that is “vastly destructive.”...<<<Read More>>>...