Liquified natural gas (LNG) is being promoted as a green transition option to replace dirtier fuels. But when renewables are coming in cheaper than new gas- and coal-fired plants for two-thirds of the world, why is this the case?

LNG’s economic prospects are waning because renewables price declines are having a bigger impact than anticipated, and there is an LNG global market glut. The shale gas industry is also experiencing more costs than revenues, and greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the LNG supply chain may be as bad as coal.

But, as with the case with oilsands, Canada chooses to ignore the signs of a global evolution to a green economy at its own peril while heading toward stranded assets.

Yet the Government of Quebec is now promoting an LNG facility north of Quebec City and a pipeline to bring in Alberta shale gas using the same clean energy transition export messages as those used for the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat, B.C. and the Coastal Gaslink shale gas pipeline.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the globe will be massively investing in, and defining policies for, economic recovery. With all fossil fuel sectors in decline, what better time to make the transition to a green economy?

And what better time for the federal government to develop an electric vehicle (EV) national strategy?

Canada does have a significant electric vehicle sector, primarily lin Quebec, and the beginnings of an EV segment in the Ontario auto industry. The current Canadian EV sector covers the entire ecosystem, such as EV school buses, trucks, urban transit buses, powertrains, batteries and raw materials, and charging infrastructure. This is backed up by world-class research capabilities.

But the piecemeal, one project at-a-time approach doesn’t make any sense when we are up against 400 electric vehicle technology manufacturers in China. In Quebec, there are 147 EV firms, which collectively employ 6,000 people.

Covid-19 has fixated world attention. And what attention is focused on fossil fuels is mostly tuned to Trans Mountain and Keystone XL oil sands pipelines that have made it back into headlines. But there is another Big Oil story in Canada that has fallen through the cracks. This other story is about a shocking bending of all the rules regarding an environmental assessment for fossil fuel offshore exploration on the Newfoundland coast.

On March 4, 2020, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Jonathan Wilkinson authorized a derogation of the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) to allow exploratory, offshore oil-and-gas drilling on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, pending an online consultation process. Originally, this was to be a 30-day consultation process terminating April 3, 2020, but has been extended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It has been estimated that the area to be explored has a potential to produce 650,000 barrels per day.

Yet public information about the online consultation, in particular the derogation of the IAA, has been well-hidden from the radar screen of those likely to be concerned about the Grand Banks project. The only portrait I found on the political machinations is in a Le Devoir article from March 23.