How Big Oil is exploiting the just transition fight

Members of Parliament are back in Ottawa this week and the future of the Just Transition Act hangs in the balance.

The fossil fuel industry and their allies are pulling out all the stops to kill this key missing piece of Canada’s climate strategy, which Trudeau first promised in 2019. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is demanding that Trudeau drop the term “Just Transition” altogether. She even called on the Prime Minister to expand fracked gas exports and conventional oil and gas jobs as a condition of her support for the plan.

Meanwhile oil and gas companies are using the fight to obscure their responsibility for the climate crisis and pose as part of the solution. Alex Pourbaix, the CEO of tar sands giant Cenovus made headlines for saying he welcomes the energy transition and expects a boom in carbon capture jobs (not to mention billions in subsidies). The only problem: carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) is a risky, false climate solution that makes no sense, especially now that solar is officially the cheapest form of energy in history, already half the cost of gas or coal power and still improving. Big Oil billionaires are only pushing their carbon capture pipe dream to delay the energy transition and protect their profits.

Despite claiming to support climate progress, behind the scenes, Big Oil is doing everything in their power to slow climate action, push disinformation about clean energy, and rake in billions more in public subsidies for climate false solutions like CCUS.

The truth is the vast majority of Canadians want our federal government to go further and faster in the race to tackle the climate crisis, including majority support for a Just Transition. But the forces of climate delay want to make these popular ideas politically toxic.

We can’t let them keep muddying the waters. That’s why 350 Canada is building a people-powered campaign to win bold Just Transition legislation that actually meets the scale of the crisis we are facing. In just the past month, we’ve mobilized thousands of Canadians to spread the Just Transition vision in their communities and put pressure on MPs to reject the fossil fuel lobby’s demands.

It’s up to all of us to make sure our elected officials ignore the lies of Big Oil and listen to the people. We need people like you to help us build a climate movement powerful enough to cut through even the slickest fossil fuel PR campaigns.