Some commentators want the federal Conservatives to take a leadership position on climate and by extension make Canada a world leader on the journey to the low-carbon uplands of the future. There are three reasons this would be a mistake. First, unlike other areas of policy — such as trade, defence or central banking — where diplomats aim for realistic solutions to identifiable problems, in the global climate policy world one’s bona fides are established, not by actions, but by willingness to recite an increasingly absurd catechism.
Take, for example, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres’ about the “global boiling crisis” and his call for a “death knell” for fossil fuels “before they destroy our planet.” In this hyperbolic world no credit is given for actually reducing emissions unless you first declare that is an existential crisis, that we are (again, to quote Guterres) at the “tip of a tipping point” of “climate breakdown” and that “humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction.” Any attempt to speak sensibly on the issue is condemned as denialism, whereas any amount of hypocrisy from jet-setting politicians, global bureaucrats and celebrities is readily forgiven so long as they parrot the deranged climate crisis creed.
The opposite is also true. Unwillingness to state absurdities means actual accomplishments count for nothing. Compare President Donald Trump, who pulled out of the Paris treaty and disparaged climate change a.
