Please read the following op-ed written by Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich–Gulf Islands and Co-Leader of the Green Party of Canada, shared in today’s edition of The Hill Times.
Electrify everything!
We must combine our newly energized national pride in reforming our economy to be more self-reliant and self-sufficient with massively increasing our climate ambition.
Green Party Co-Leader Elizabeth May
My headline is the title of an encouraging analysis from Australian Saul Griffiths. From the Green Party point of view, we are more agnostic as to specific technologies, and we focus on how we—as a nation, and as an economy—can pull our fair share of the work to reduce the volume of warming gases to the atmosphere to avoid worst-case climate scenarios.
The consequences of runaway global warming—self-accelerating and unstoppable—pose the greatest threat to the survival of human civilization, other than a nuclear war. In fact, that was exactly the conclusion of the international scientific conference the Canadian government hosted in Toronto in June 1988. The consensus statement from the conference, “Our Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security,” opened with the following words: “Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to global nuclear war.”
Back in 2003, when Canada ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, I was executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada. Looking at our economy, and the technological gaps where they existed to delivering on our Kyoto target—a six-per-cent cut from 1990 levels of carbon dioxide to be achieved between 2008 and 2012—we realized that Canada could achieve deep reductions by focusing on two things: stopping the burning of coal for electricity, and getting rid of the internal-combustion engine (ICE). There were, of course, thousands of policy options to choose from—carbon pricing to regulatory action requiring steep pollution cuts from individual sectors, to changes in our built infrastructure and transportation systems. But boiling it down to two things helped when we were talking to Canadians—two things are doable!
Here we are in 2025, with our emissions approximately 16 per cent above the 1990 levels. By the way, the other industrialized countries that committed to Kyoto hit or exceeded their targets with the European Union having cut more than 40 per cent below 1990 levels. In 2025, Nova Scotia is still primarily burning coal for electricity, and other provinces burn fracked natural gas with the same carbon footprint as coal. Our interprovincial trade barriers have prevented access to what Canada really needs to make the shift to 100-per-cent renewably sourced—cheaper—electricity: a functioning national electricity grid, east-west and north-south.
Back in 2003, it was not clear which emerging technology would replace the ICE—the hydrogen fuel cell, or the electric car. We were agnostic on which technology would cross the finish line first. At the moment, it is clear the electric vehicle (EV) is ahead with far greater penetration in the market, but the fuel cell and hydrogen could still play a big role. At the same time, Greens are concerned with equity. We do not assume a transportation system between large cities must be based on personal ownership of a car. The domination of urban spaces by personal automobiles was well canvassed by the late writer and activist Jane Jacobs. Greens will always push for a reliable, and affordable public transit system as called for in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Canada has a very long way to go. Not only are we the only nation—under then-prime minister Stephen Harper—to have legally withdrawn from Kyoto, but also, of all industrialized nations, we have grown our emissions above the 1990 baseline.
So yes, we need to move away from the ICE. But we have options: help people buy EVs, or more significantly revolutionize ground transportation systems to reduce the need to own a car. Otherwise, we remove the choice for Indigenous people and other poor people who are forced to hitchhike on roads where murder is a daily risk.
We could make EVs cheaper by accepting more vehicles from China, and reducing our tariffs. We could make solar energy cheaper and more available by removing the enormous tariffs we place on cheap and efficient solar panels from China. The 100-percent tariffs on Chinese solar panels make electricity more expensive for Canadians, with no domestic manufacturing of solar panels to explain our high tariffs.
As Greens, we promote “buy everything” from Canada, so the long-term economic strategy must be to increase our own manufacturing of solar panels and EVs, but the clock is running down. Canada is further behind than most. We have everything we need to be a renewable energy powerhouse, starting with seizing the momentum induced by United States President Donald Trump to break down interprovincial barriers. For now, that means keeping all options in mind, and not focusing on EV goals that may inadvertently get in the way of the big picture.
The atmosphere is full, and now overflowing, with dangerous levels of greenhouse gases, so we are running out of time to avoid those worst-case scenarios. We must combine our newly energized national pride in reforming our economy to be more self-reliant and self-sufficient with massively increasing our climate ambition.
Elizabeth May, O.C., is Member of Parliament for Saanich–Gulf Islands, B.C., and co-leader of the Green Party of Canada.
The Hill Times