From the start, the Paris Conference aimed to take the year 1990 as a reference for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction. 1990 seemed like a critical point for many international observers, since it was a pivotal year for the world economy: it marked the increasing trend in factory delocalization toward countries like China, India or Mexico. By using year 1990, future international accords like the 2015 Paris Agreement, would mainly serve the interest of western countries, by transfering the bulk of GHG responsibility to the countries responsible for industrial production after 1990. Based on this, year 1990 should be the one in which western countries reach their maximum GHG emissions. After 1990, we should therefore see an increase in GHG emissions in Mexico, while Canada and the United States should see a diminution.
However, the 1990 expected peak in GHG emissions did not happen until 2005-2008 for the United States and Canada. For Canada, the reason is simple: Alberta, British Columbia and Nova Scotia started programs to convert coal power plants to natural gas power plants. For the same amount of electricity produced, natural gas results in only half the amount of GHG, if we don’t take in account the extraction process1, explaining the GHG diminution after 2008. Some efforts were made by Canada and the United States, but they did occur at the same time that the coal prices increased, meaning the switch from coal to gas was probably more an economic measure, than motivated by ecological principles.
Therefore, between 1990 and 2013, GHG emissions actually increased, by 1.3% in the United States2, by 20.5% in Canada3 and by 40% in Mexico4. The American decision to get out of the Paris Agreement can seem contradictory, but one need to see the systemic reasons behind these changes. In these three countries the main contribution to GHG production increase come from electricity consumption. Between 1990 and 2015, energy consumption increased by 15% in the United States, by 20% in Canada, and by 66% in Mexico. However, the data give more details on how industrial delocalization and individual consumption can explain changes in electrical consumption.
In Mexico, governmental statistics on energy consumption show the link between North American consumption and Mexican industries. The growth of energy consumption in Mexico comes essentially from the industrial and transport sectors, which increased respectively by 52% and 98% between 1990 and 2019. To give a base of comparison, between 1990 and 2016, Mexican residential energy consumption only increased by 17%. It is therefore clear that industrial transfer to Mexico resulted in a net increase in GHG emissions.
As we can see, ratifications of international agreements are no guarantee that actual efforts will be made, that the objectives set will be reached. These agreements are implemented in practice on a voluntary basis and are non-binding. For most countries, these treaties are mainly there for appearances, to look like a team player at the international level, to look like they are collaborating to the cause. These nice speeches are only there to hide the fact that they are still developing polluting industries, like the Trudeau government, who bought a 4 billion dollars pipeline which could increase tar sand production by 590,000 barrels of oil per day.
Between 1990 and today, economic growth never ceased, and therefore GHG production kept increasing. Whether the factories are in Canada or Mexico changes nothing: as long as industrial production increases, GHG emissions will increase. No sensible solution came from the States, except to transfer our pollution to Southern countries and to build more power plants using fossil fuels. We must fight polluting industries and other development projects in order to find collective solutions to the neverending consumption affecting our lives.
Notes:
- Natural gas can be, among other ways, obtained through fracking, a process which is much more polluting (and risky) than coal mining.
- https://bit.ly/3azBPlx
- https://bit.ly/2RJvqvo; documents are quoted only once, most of the numbers presented here come from the account of each country.
- https://bit.ly/2RH4Zqd