Coronavirus: Biden compares US COVID-19 deaths to Canada, comments on vaccine touted by Trump

                             THE DIFFERENCE IS WE HAVE SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE

China accuses U.S. at U.N. of trying to take world back to 'jungle age'


By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - China accused the United States on Friday of “fabricating lies” and trying to take the world back to the “jungle age” after Washington blamed Beijing and U.N. agencies for “the murder of millions of baby girls.”

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on Friday said it regretted the accusations by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, which were made at a U.N. General Assembly meeting on Thursday on the anniversary of a landmark 1995 women’s conference.

UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem told reporters that any coercion of women was “against our practice and policy.”


“We accord the highest priority to voluntary sexual and reproductive health, rights, and procedures,” she said. “We have invited reviews of, in the case of UNFPA, our practice and procedures in the country of China, and for the past four years, the United States has not visited our programs.”

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration cut funding in 2017 for UNFPA, saying it “supports ... a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The United Nations said that was an inaccurate perception.

DeVos and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who issued a statement on Thursday, both accused China of subjecting Uighurs and other minorities to forced abortion, forced sterilization, and involuntary implantation of birth control devices.

A spokesperson for China’s U.N. mission in New York said in a statement that the remarks were “sheer fabrication.”

“Some U.S. politicians lie and cheat as a habit,” the spokesperson said. “They maliciously create political confrontation and undermine multilateral cooperation. The United States, going against the trend of the times, is becoming the biggest destroyer of the existing international order and trying all means to take the world back to the ‘jungle age.’”

Long-simmering tensions between the United States and China have hit the boiling point at the United Nations over the coronavirus pandemic, spotlighting Beijing’s bid for greater multilateral influence in a challenge to Washington’s traditional leadership.

The Great Rethink: It's time to reassess how our provinces manage natural resource wealth

A generation of decision-makers opted to maximize resource wealth in the present, rather than save it for future use

Author of the article:Geoffrey Morgan
Publishing date:Sep 11, 2020 •

The Hartwick Rule states that exhaustible natural resources such as oil should be replaced with a substitute asset when they are extracted or else a jurisdiction will erode its total net worth. PHOTO BY BEN NELMS/BLOOMBERG FILES

The policy consensus that has guided economic decision-making for decades is being challenged like never before. In a new series, the Financial Post explores the opportunities and unknown costs of the Great Rethink.

John Hartwick calls the economics rule that bears his name “boring,” even though it’s been embraced by governments in places such as Norway, Chile, Kuwait and Botswana.

“There are a bunch of mathematical equations that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. That’s why economists consider it exciting,” said the emeritus professor of economics at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.

The Hartwick Rule, published in 1977 in the American Economic Review with an assist from famed post-war economist Robert Solow, states that exhaustible natural resources such as oil should be replaced with a substitute asset when they are extracted or else a jurisdiction will erode its total net worth.

Norway has most famously followed the Hartwick Rule. As a result, it will confront whatever comes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic with a US$1-trillion sovereign wealth fund. But Gulf states such as Kuwait have hundreds of billions of dollars in reserves from oil wealth, effectively turning a physical asset into a financial asset.

Developing countries like Botswana and Chile, too, have established funds from diamond and copper mining. Even sub-national governments, including Alaska and New Mexico, have seen fit to turn the proceeds from resource extraction and the sale of state land into portfolios that offer the prospect of continuous returns.

But in Hartwick’s home country, the rule has largely been ignored. “People don’t invite me to the Rotary Club to talk about this stuff,” he said.

That could soon change. The coronavirus pandemic has blown holes in provincial budgets across the country, hitting provinces with large natural resource industries particularly hard. But Canada, blessed with both a sophisticated financial industry and vast supplies of natural resources, will have to finance the recovery phase of the COVID-19 crisis largely out of pocket, because a generation of decision-makers opted to maximize resource wealth in the present, rather than save it for future use.

A pedestrian crosses a street in Oslo, Norway. The country will confront whatever comes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic with a US$1-trillion sovereign wealth fund. PHOTO BY TOMM W. CHRISTIANSEN/BLOOMBERG FILES

There’s a palpable sense of regret as finance ministers overhaul their budgets and reckon with credit downgrades, so it may be time to invite Hartwick out to talk about this stuff since there are growing calls to rethink how natural resource revenues and wealth are managed.

Much of the debate about managing resource wealth in Canada has focused on Alberta’s failure to keep up with Norway’s savings rate, much to the ire of Albertans, who point out the province is a sub-national government, and one that makes major payments into the wider Confederation, while Norway is a sovereign and autonomous state.

Alberta’s Heritage Savings Trust Fund was established under former premier Peter Lougheed, who ran the province from 1971 to 1985, and it exists today with about $17.2 billion in assets. But successive governments since his reign have scaled back contributions and, since 2008, Alberta has only added enough each year to ensure the principal isn’t eroded by inflation and population growth.

Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews said that, for now, Premier Jason Kenney’s government will continue to use funds from natural resources to help correct a budget deficit that is projected to be $24.2 billion this year as a result of the pandemic, or 230 per cent higher than its initial budget deficit estimate of $7.4 billion.

However, in a notable turn for the United Conservative government, Toews suggested new revenues could be back in play after previously resisting the idea of new taxes.

“We will be rolling out, basically, a budget reset in 2021,” he said. “Once we have a definitive plan to balance the budget, and at the point we get there, that would be an appropriate time to be asking the question of whether we should be investing in the Heritage Fund or paying down debt.”

Toews also noted the province is reviewing its options for “additional fiscal capacity” and revenue sources to lessen its dependence on natural resource extraction.

“Down the road, we will need to be looking at our revenue structure and our tax structure and the Heritage Trust Fund and its relationship to non-renewable resource revenues,” he said.Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews. PHOTO BY COURTESY ALBERTA GOVERNMENT

Toews’ situation might be a cautionary tale for other provinces.

None were blessed with Alberta’s vast stores of both oil and natural gas, but several produce significant quantities of non-renewable natural resources of their own.

Currently, the only dedicated Canadian fund that’s sharply growing is Quebec’s Generations Fund, established to eliminate the province’s debt. The fund is projected to grow using revenues from hydroelectricity and mining to $11.7 billion by March 31, 2021, from $8.3 billion this year.

But British Columbia now produces a third of Canada’s total natural gas output, and that proportion is growing. Saskatchewan is home to uranium extraction, potash mining and oil and gas. And Ontario and the territories produce significant quantities of copper, zinc, gold, diamonds and other minerals.

“We are not any different than Alberta,” said University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business professor Werner Antweiler, who counts environmental economics and resource management among his research interests. “When you point at Alberta, there are four fingers pointing back at your own jurisdiction.”

Former B.C. premier Christy Clark established the Prosperity Fund in 2013 with $100 million and intended to create a $100-billion reserve from the returns on liquefied natural gas (LNG) development. The fund earned $8 million last year and has not been built up even though B.C. wells produce more than five billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.

When you point at Alberta, there are four fingers pointing back at your own jurisdiction
WERNER ANTWEILER

The temptation, always, with these funds is to use the money generated on political pet projects such as investing in the local economy, trying to spur economic diversification or building infrastructure.

B.C.’s government posted a $1.5-billion budget surplus in 2019, but Premier John Horgan chose to spend the excess funds on infrastructure rather than make a deposit into the Prosperity Fund. The province’s natural resource revenues almost perfectly matched that budget surplus: not including forestry royalties, the province pulled in $1.4 billion in natural resource revenues that year.

Antweiler said there’s a case to be made for using sovereign wealth funds to build infrastructure such as schools and universities in developing countries like Chile, but using those same funds in developed countries, where the need is arguably less, has had a checkered history of success.

“Governments aren’t always effective in placing the money in the right spots,” he said. “The future wealth is disappearing because of incompetent management.”

Oddly, Canada’s most disadvantaged communities follow the Hartwick Rule to the letter and, partly due to strict regulations, have turned physical assets into financial assets.


The future wealth is disappearing because of incompetent management
WERNER ANTWEILER

Laurence Booth, a professor of finance at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, said the Indian Act requires that one asset be replaced with another, so bands have been forced to save their resource wealth and, in a frustrating exercise for many bands, ask the federal government before they’re allowed to spend.

Jim Boucher, the former long-time chief of the Fort McKay First Nation in northern Alberta, said his community has been saving natural resource revenues as required in a trust, which has helped diversify the community’s revenues and now generates $5 million per year.

“Our philosophy was that we never had a deficit because we couldn’t rely on anybody to bail us out,” he said

Jim Boucher, chief of the Fort McKay First Nation in northern Alberta, in 2014. PHOTO BY VINCENT MCDERMOTT/FORT MCMURRAY TODAY/POSTMEDIA NETWORK FILES

Asked whether it’s frustrating that the provincial governments haven’t followed the same strict rules, Boucher said Canadian provincial governments have a history of running deficits.

“We didn’t want to be like the province,” he said.

Political calculus has been a driving factor in many resource-wealth decisions in Canada over the years, and that has led to some questionable decisions.
\
Jack Mintz, the University of Calgary economist who in 2007 chaired a savings panel for former Alberta premier Ed Stelmach on the Heritage Fund that suggested enlarging the fund to $100 billion by 2030, said the provincial government at the time was concerned that building up a huge fund would cause future federal governments to withhold funding for Alberta projects.

“Alberta was always shy about building up too large of a Heritage Fund because they were worried that it might become a target for the federal government,” said Mintz, adding that the experiences of several U.S. states suggest that Alberta’s worry about federal pillaging was unfounded.

For example, New Mexico paid little mind to Washington when it set up its Land Grant Permanent Fund and Severance Tax Permanent Fund, which combined will pay out US$1.1 billion this year to finance new schools and hospitals.

New Mexico used its wealth fund to pay out US$1.1 billion this year to finance new schools and hospitals. PHOTO BY RICK WILKING/REUTERS FILES

As good as that sounds, in almost all cases, sovereign funds become the centre of heated debates about their effectiveness or the way they are managed.

“We have plenty of examples of sovereign wealth funds around the world, but we have few examples of success,” said Veljko Fotak, associate professor of finance at the University of Buffalo and an expert on sovereign wealth funds.

Fotak said funds have been established in some countries to save wealth for future generations, others for local economic development or diversification, and others to invest in infrastructure or to stabilize commodity price fluctuations. In each case, he said, it’s not always clear how effective the funds have been in fulfilling their mandates.

Even on the basis of returns, he said most sovereign wealth funds are selective and biased in what they disclose.

The father of the Hartwick Rule has watched these debates about saving non-renewable natural resource revenues play out in Canada and beyond with some detachment.


We have plenty of examples of sovereign wealth funds around the world, but we have few examples of success
VELJKO FOTAK

“I’m kind of an armchair fiddler, so I don’t get emotionally involved in these things,” Hartwick said.

Still, he has a theory now for why certain countries have been better at building up sovereign wealth funds with natural resource revenues than others.

Norway has such a small population relative to the size of its resource that “they’ve got the best of both worlds,” Hartwick said. “They’ve been able to assuage the current population by giving them baubles in the private sector and that’s kind of an unusual case.”

That, he said, seems to be the key to a national or sub-national government’s success in following his rule: Can you save and spend at the same time?

Financial Post

• Email: gmorgan@nationalpost.com | Twitter: geoffreymorgan

BEYOND PETROLEUM
Oil giant says the era of demand growth is over in profound break from orthodoxy

U.K. giant BP is describing a different future, where oil's supremacy is challenged, and ultimately fades

Bloomberg News Publishing date:Sep 13, 2020 •

U.K. giant BP is describing a different future, where oil's supremacy is challenged, and ultimately fades. PHOTO BY TANGANYIKA OIL COMPANY

BP Plc said the relentless growth of oil demand is over, becoming the first supermajor to call the end of an era many thought would last another decade or more.

Oil consumption may never return to levels seen before the coronavirus crisis took hold, BP said in a report on Monday. Even its most bullish scenario sees demand no better than “broadly flat” for the next two decades as the energy transition shifts the world away from fossil fuels.


BP is making a profound break from orthodoxy. From the bosses of corporate energy giants to ministers from OPEC states, senior figures from the industry have insisted that oil consumption will see decades of growth. Time and again, they have described it as the only commodity that can satisfy the demands of an increasing global population and expanding middle class.

BP's energy outlook shows consumption slumping 50% by 2050 in one scenario, and by almost 80% in another

The U.K. giant is describing a different future, where oil’s supremacy is challenged, and ultimately fades. That explains why BP has taken the boldest steps so far among peers to align its business with the goals of the Paris climate accord. Just six months after taking the top job, chief executive Bernard Looney said in August he’d shrink oil and gas output by 40 per cent over the next decade and spend as much as US$5 billion a year building one of the world’s largest renewable-power businesses.

That’s because he suspects oil use may already have peaked as a result of the pandemic, stricter government policies and changes in consumer behavior. BP’s energy outlook shows consumption slumping 50 per cent by 2050 in one scenario, and by almost 80 per cent in another. In a “business-as-usual” situation, demand would recover but then flatline near 100 million barrels a day for the next 20 years.

BP isn’t the only big oil company adapting its business to the energy transition. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SE and others in Europe have announced similar pivots toward cleaner operations as customers, governments and investors increasingly call for change.
Three Possible Futures

BP’s report comes ahead of three days of online briefings starting Monday on its clean-energy and climate strategy. The study considers three scenarios, which aren’t predictions but nevertheless cover a wide range of possible outcomes over the next 30 years and form the basis of the new strategy Looney announced in August.

The “Rapid” approach sees new policy measures leading to a significant increase in carbon prices. The “Net Zero” course reinforces Rapid with big shifts in societal behavior, while the “Business-as-usual” projection assumes that government policies, technology and social preferences continue to evolve as they have in the recent past.

In the first two scenarios, oil demand falls as a result of the coronavirus, the report shows. “It subsequently recovers but never back to pre-COVID levels,” according to Spencer Dale, BP’s chief economist. “It brings forward the point at which oil demand peaks to 2019.”

That contrasts with what many others are forecasting. Russell Hardy, chief executive officer of trading giant Vitol Group, said on Monday that oil demand is poised for 10 years of growth before a steady decline. He predicts consumption will return to pre-virus levels by the end of next year.

BP’s outlook last year contained a scenario called “More energy,” which had oil demand growing steadily to about 130 million barrels a day in 2040. There’s no such scenario this time.

“Demand for oil falls over the next 30 years,” BP said in the report. “The scale and pace of this decline is driven by the increasing efficiency and electrification of road transportation.”
COVID Impact

The pandemic shattered oil consumption this year as countries locked down to prevent infections from spreading. While demand has since improved, and crude prices with it, the public health crisis is still raging in many parts of the world and the outlook remains uncertain in the absence of a vaccine.

The impact, including lasting behavioral changes like increased working from home, will affect economic activity and prosperity in the developing world, and ultimately demand for liquid fuels, according to BP. That means it won’t be able to offset already falling consumption in developed countries.

Demand for liquid fuels is seen falling to less than 55 million barrels a day by 2050 in BP’s Rapid scenario, and to around 30 million a day in Net Zero. The drop is mostly in developed economies and in China. In India, other parts of Asia and Africa, demand remains broadly flat in the first scenario but slips below 2018 levels from the mid-2030s in the second.

Other points in the energy outlook:

The Rapid scenario has carbon emissions from energy use falling by around 70 per cent by 2050, while they drop by more than 95 per cent in Net Zero. Business-as-usual sees them peaking in the mid-2020s.

Demand for all primary energy — the raw materials from which energy is derived — increases by about 10 per cent in Rapid and Net Zero in the period, and by around 25 per cent in the third scenario.

In Rapid, non-fossil fuels account for the majority of global energy from the early 2040s.
Growth in China’s energy demand slows sharply relative to past trends, reaching a peak in the early 2030s in all three scenarios.

Renewable energy — excluding hydro — increases more than tenfold in both Rapid and Net Zero, with its share in primary energy rising from 5 per cent in 2018 to more than 40 per cent by 2050 in Rapid and almost 60 per cent in Net Zero.

Natural gas consumption is seen broadly unchanged to 2050 in Rapid and around 35 per cent higher in business-as-usual. Demand falls by about 40 per cent by 2050 in Net Zero.

'Beyond Petroleum' No More? BP Goes Back to Basics

www.cnbc.com › ...

Apr 22, 2013 - After a very public campaign to promote renewable energy, BP is inaugurating Earth Day as a markedly less "green" company — highlighting ...

Is BP Finally Moving Beyond Petroleum? | OilPrice.com

oilprice.com › Latest Energy News

Jun 22, 2020 - Shortly before “Beyond Petroleum” was launched, BP made some instructive acquisitions. For $26.5bn, it acquired the oil-drillers ARCO. This was ...

Opinion: Is BP's Beyond Petroleum campaign back? Don't ...

www.theglobeandmail.com › business › commentary › article-is-bps-beyo...

Jun 16, 2020 - As if to prove the point, BP, the former British Petroleum that is Europe's second-biggest oil company, on Monday unveiled oil and natural gas ...

After Abandoned 'Beyond Petroleum' Re-brand, BP's New ...

www.forbes.com › sites › scottcarpenter › 2020/08/04 › bps-new-renewabl...

Aug 4, 2020 - “We need to go beyond petroleum.” Just shy of 20 years ago, the oil giant BP infamously re-branded itself from “British Petroleum” to “beyond ...

Is it Beyond Petroleum for real this time? - Business Green

www.businessgreen.com › blog-post › is-it-beyond-petroleum-for-real-this...

Feb 1, 2019 - BP's shock decision to publish a Paris Agreement consistent strategy is a huge win for investors, but who decides how to define 'consistent'?

Beyond Petroleum? | WWF

wwf.panda.org › our_work › our_focus › climate_and_energy_practice

Beyond Petroleum? Posted on 18 February 2020. It is a measure of how far the climate debate has come that BP, one of the world's largest producers of fossil ...

Beyond Petroleum Part Deux: “BP sees 'peak oil' in 2020s ...

wattsupwiththat.com › 2020/09/16

15 hours ago - In fairness to the folks at Beyond Petroleum, several times they state that these scenarios aren't forecasts… Spencer Dale said: “The role of the ...

BP's "Beyond Petroleum" Campaign Losing its Sheen

Submitted by Anne Landman on May 3, 2010 - 2:31pm

Back in July, 2000, British Petroleum launched a high-profile, $200 million public relations ad campaign designed by Ogilvy & Mather to position the company as environmentally-friendly. The company introduced a new slogan, "Beyond Petroleum," and changed its 70 year-old, sheild-style logo to a new, cheerful green and yellow sunburst. To many, the "Beyond Petroleum" campaign has always been ludicrous. After all, not only did it pitch BP's smallest energy sector while ignoring its major one, but BP's investment in extractive oil operations dwarfed its investment in renewable energy. BP spent a mere $45 million in 1999 to buy a solar energy company called Solarex -- a microscopic acquisition compared to the $26.5 billion it invested to buy ARCO to expand its oil drilling portfolio. BP is also the company behind the environmentally controversial (and some would say disastrous) oil sands project in Alberta, Canada. Now, in the wake of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP's greenwashing campaign looks even less slick. The company's hypocrisy and greenwashing have risen to the surface, and are spreading uncontrollably.

Beyond Disastrous

The oily environmental disaster in the Gulf has drawn closer scrutiny of BP's record, and it reveals that the company is no stranger to major accidents. Pro-Publica reports that BP has been at the center of some of the worst oil and gas-related disasters in the U.S.

In 2005, a major explosion destroyed a gasoline-filled tower at BP's Texas City, Texas refinery, killing 15 people and injuring 170 more. Investigation revealed that BP had ignored its own protocols for operating the tower, and a warning system had been disabled. BP pleaded guilty to federal felony charges and shelled out more than $50 million in fines.

About a year after the Texas City accident, around 4,800 barrels of oil leaked into the snow around a pipeline in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay. BP had been warned by one of its own quality assurance specialists that they could expect a potential catastrophe from the corroded pipeline, but the company ignored the reports until it was too late.

In May, 2008, BP was one of eight big oil companies to settle a lawsuit brought by more than a hundred public water providers, who charged that the companies' activities led to widespread contamination of public groundwater sources with methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, a gasoline additive. The companies jointly paid $423 million in cash, and agreed to pay 70 percent of future cleanup costs over the next 30 years. The suit claimed the oil companies used MTBE even though they were aware of the environmental and health risks the chemical posed.

The U.S. Department of Justice has also charged BP with manipulating the market price of propane. BP agreed to pay over $300 million in fines in the case.

Spill, Baby Spill

Despite, or maybe because of, its history of fatal accidents, environmental disasters, fines and public deceit, BP is still trying to greenwash its image. Its Web pages are filled with bogus statements, like "We try to work in ways that will benefit the communities and habitats where we do business -- and earn the world's respect."

While more people are starting to see through this campaign of denial, BP still has a few cheerleaders, like failed vice presidential candidate-turned-Fox News commentator Sarah Palin, who on April 30 posted a buck-up piece in support of more domestic -- and even offshore -- drilling on her Facebook page.

If they haven't already, BP's disingenuous words of support for developing low-carbon, renewable energy sources will increasingly fall on deaf ears as the country' attention remains riveted instead on the desecration of one of the nation's most beautiful and valuable natural resources: the beleaguered Gulf coast.

https://www.prwatch.org/news/2010/05/9038/bps-beyond-petroleum-campaign-losing-its-sheen

Trans Mountain races to the finish line as two other pipeline projects near completion

Trans Mountain CEO says pipeline will be full of oil when construction wraps in 2022, despite drop in global oil demand

Author of the article:Geoffrey Morgan
Publishing date:Sep 15, 2020 •

The 590,000-barrel-per-day Trans Mountain Expansion project that will be 30 per cent complete by the end of this year. PHOTO BY POSTMEDIA NETWORK


CALGARY — Despite the drop in global oil demand and declines in upstream energy investment, the head of the company developing the Trans Mountain expansion expects the pipeline to be full of oil when construction wraps up in 2022. But he acknowledged the pipeline may find itself competing for shipper attention from two other pipeline projects that are also under way.

“We remain bullish on the future. We think demand will stay there. The expansion was not predicated on significant new oilsands investment,” Trans Mountain Corp. president and CEO Ian Anderson said in an interview Tuesday, marking the one-year mark of construction re-starting on the $12.6-billion expansion.




Anderson said the existing Trans Mountain pipeline, which runs from Alberta to Burnaby, B.C., has been running full because there’s demand in the Pacific Basin for heavy oil and which would support the 590,000-barrel-per-day Trans Mountain Expansion project that will be 30 per cent complete by the end of this year.


We remain bullish on the future. We think demand will stay there
IAN ANDERSON, TRANS MOUNTAIN PRESIDENT AND CEO

“During this COVID period, we’ve been full every day. We’ve been apportioned every day. That speaks to the optionality of the markets that we serve,” Anderson said of the existing 300,000-bpd pipeline, adding that none of the oil producers that have committed to ship crude on the line for the next 20 years have attempted to back out.

“They remain just as bullish as they ever were. Their commitments are not in question,” Anderson said.

Currently, 5,000 people are working on the large-diameter pipeline project in Alberta and British Columbia, with work ramping up in the metro Vancouver area and other parts of B.C. next year.

At the same time, rival Enbridge Inc. is trying to complete its Line 3 replacement pipeline this year and TC Energy Corp. is building the Keystone XL pipeline project to the U.S. Gulf Coast, which is expected to be complete in 2023.

How quickly oil producers fill the Trans Mountain Expansion, which is underpinned by long-term take-or-pay contracts on 80 per cent of the line’s volume, will depend on whether the other pipeline projects are built in the same time frame, Anderson said.

“We’re confident those barrels will move once we come into service. It will depend somewhat on the status of other pipes and when they come into market,” he said.

This week, the International Energy Agency and British oil major BP Plc released bearish oil market outlooks. After posting its worst-ever quarterly results this summer, BP released an energy outlook Monday that, in the most bullish scenario, predicts oil demand peaking by 2030 at just over 100 million bpd — similar to where it was earlier this year before the pandemic crushed demand.

In a scenario where governments pursue net zero emissions policies, BP expects oil demand could plunge as low as 30 million bpd by 2050.

Currently, 5,000 people are working on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. 

PHOTO BY POSTMEDIA NETWORK

AND WHEN IT IS FINISHED THEY WILL BE UNEMPLOYED

Similarly, in a report released Tuesday, the IEA expects oil demand to decline from 101 million bpd last year to an average of 91.7 million bpd over the course of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic forced lockdowns in major economies this spring and continues to threaten to derail the recovery with a second wave.

“The economic slowdown will take months to reverse completely while certain sectors such as aviation are unlikely to return to their pre-pandemic levels of consumption even next year,” the report noted, adding that global oil demand next is projected to reach 97.1 million bpd.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said Tuesday there are projections of an oil price recovery in 2022 and, “there will be a huge demand for oil and gas well into the future.” As a result, there is a continued need for new pipelines exiting Alberta.
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY IN ALBERTA, REGARDLESS OF NAME RULED A ONE PARTY STATE FOR 44 YEARS, AND THE FEDERAL CONSERVATIVE PARTY RULED FOR A DECADE AND THEY COULD NOT GET PIPELINES BUILT.

His government took a stake in TC Energy’s 830,000-bpd Keystone XL pipeline project to the U.S. Gulf Coast earlier this year.

Kenney said the projections released this week show robust oil demand in the future and despite assumptions that “we can flick a switch and airplanes will operate on unicorn farts or something, but in the real world we’re going to be consuming hydrocarbon based energy for a long-time to come.”

There will be a huge demand for oil and gas well into the future
ALBERTA PREMIER JASON KENNEY

Both the IEA’s projection Tuesday and the revised demand outlook released by the OPEC Secretariat on Monday reflect new expectations of a meaningful market downturn this year, Enverus chief economist Judith Dwarkin said.

“The penny is dropping that the demand outlook is gloomy. We’re moving toward a world where demand will be lower for longer strictly related to COVID,” Dwarkin said, noting that the IEA and OPEC projections of demand from earlier this year were too optimistic.

“What COVID has done is basically knock back five years of oil demand growth from the market,” she said.

Dwarkin said she expects oil demand will recover but that could take as long as four years.

“Even if you’re in a 60 million-barrel-per-day market, you’re still going to need to be investing and finding oil. There will be demand for it. It’s just a question of who will be supplying it,” Dwarkin said.

Financial Post

• Email: gmorgan@nationalpost.com | Twitter: geoffreymorgan

Climate change largely missing from U.S. presidential campaigns as fires rage

Aamer Madhani, Kathleen Ronayne and Will Weissert
The Associated Press
 Friday, September 11, 2020 


In this Sept. 7, 2020, file photo a firetruck drives along state Highway 168 while battling the Creek Fire in the Shaver Lake community of Fresno County, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

WASHINGTON -- Historic fires are raging across the western United States ahead of what scientists say is the typical peak of wildfire season. Hurricane Laura devastated parts of the Gulf Coast last month, while swaths of Iowa are recovering from a derecho that brought hurricane force winds to the Midwest.

The streak of disasters has left millions of Americans reeling. But it's barely had an impact on the campaign for the White House, in part because of the vulnerabilities it highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.

The president is already facing multiple challenges, including the pandemic, joblessness and social unrest, and can ill afford another one. When he talks about California, where fires have killed at least a dozen people and threatened thousands of homes, it's mostly to blast the state's Democratic leaders.

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And for Biden, the spreading fires are a reminder to the party's progressive base that he doesn't embrace some of the most liberal elements of the Green New Deal, the grand plan for tackling climate change.

"The Biden campaign understands that a full embrace of an aggressive climate change agenda could create problems for them in Upper Midwest," said Dan Schnur, who served as an adviser to former California Gov. Pete Wilson and Arizona Sen. John McCain. "Trump has shown no desire to talk about California beyond using it as a liberal punching bag to make his case to his conservative base."

Still, climate activists say the moment underscores the need for Washington to support the Green New Deal, an ambitious -- and likely costly -- plan to wean the U.S. from fossil fuels and drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions.

"It's no surprise that Trump isn't talking about the fact that America is literally in flames on his watch -- but why isn't Biden?" said Rebecca Katz, a political strategist who has worked with Democratic congressional candidates supporting the measure. "For Democrats to not connect what's happening on the West Coast to Trump's failure on climate change is just political malpractice."

The Biden campaign's response to the fires is especially notable since his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, represents California in the Senate. She was campaigning in Miami on Thursday, but her spokesperson, Sabrina Singh, said Biden and Harris "have been closely monitoring the wildfires raging across the state and highlighting the urgent need to address the threat of climate change."

Biden tweeted that climate change "is already here -- and we're witnessing its devastating effects every single day."

"We have to get President Trump out of the White House and treat this crisis like the existential threat that it is," he said.

While Biden hasn't embraced the full Green New Deal, he has promised to make creating new green jobs and drastically reducing U.S. carbon emissions part of a larger recovery plan designed to revive the economy after the coronavirus abates. Biden's top advisers note that many of his proposals will move the country toward the Green New Deal, but some activists worry it is not ambitious enough.

"I'm looking outside my window right now. Literally the world looks like it's on fire. For young people across the board, but especially young Latinos, we also care very deeply about climate change, not just like immigration," said Christian Arana, policy director for the California-based Latino Community Foundation. "This is a perfect moment to get on TikTok or do an interview with Teen Vogue or whoever to talk about these issues."

Trump spoke with California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday "to express his condolences for the loss of life and reiterate the administration's full support to help those on the frontlines of the fires," according to White House spokesman Judd Deere.

But the president has a history of criticizing California's response to wildfires and threatening to withhold federal funding.

In 2019, months after the deadliest wildfire in California history tore through the town of Paradise in Northern California, Trump said the Federal Emergency Management Agency should stop giving the state money and blamed the fires on poor forest management. Fire scientists say climate change, not forest management, is a driving factor behind the state's fires becoming worse and more deadly.

Still, Trump has always approved California's request for major disaster declarations, as he did Aug. 22 as the state battled blazes across Northern California.

That approval came a day after he again blamed California for mismanagement and Newsom hit back in a video that aired during the Democratic National Convention in which he highlighted Trump's threats.

"Just today the president of the United States threatened the state of California, 40 million Americans who happen to live in the state of California, to defund our efforts on wildfire suppression because he said we hadn't raked enough leaves. You can't make that up," Newsom said.

Trump visited Iowa last month to meet with officials there about the derecho, and he surveyed damage on the Louisiana-Texas border following Hurricane Laura.

Trump visited California in November 2018 after Paradise was ravaged by the most deadly wildfire in state history. But he currently has no plans to visit areas on the West Coast impacted by the fires, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The official, who was not authorized to speak about the president's travel plans, said it would be unwise for Trump to visit while the fires are still active as it would divert key first responder resources away from the fire fight.

Scientific American magazine issues first presidential endorsement in 175-year history by backing Biden

Veronica Stracqualursi CNN Tuesday, September 15, 2020 


U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event on manufacturing and buying American-made products at UAW Region 1 headquarters in Warren, Mich., Sept. 9, 2020. (Patrick Semansky/AP/CNN)


The magazine Scientific American announced Tuesday that it was endorsing former U.S. vice president and Democratic candidate Joe Biden-- the publication's first endorsement in its 175-year history -- over U.S. President Donald Trump, who it criticized for dismissing science.

"The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people -- because he rejects evidence and science," the publication's editors wrote. "The most devastating example is his dishonest and inept response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which cost more than 190,000 Americans their lives by the middle of September."

"He has also attacked environmental protections, medical care, and the researchers and public science agencies that help this country prepare for its greatest challenges," wrote the editors of the science magazine which was founded 1845 and is one of the oldest continuously published magazines in the country.

Scientific American's editor in chief Laura Helmuth told CNN on Tuesday that the editorial board felt a responsibility to make an endorsement in this election and "use what reputation we have to help people understand that this is the most important election of our lifetimes."

Trump has frequently amplified false and misleading information throughout the coronavirus pandemic, while downplaying advice issued by his government's top medical experts on how to combat the virus' spread.

During a visit Monday to California as the state battles wildfires, Trump abruptly shut down an official who warned that climate change was fueling the flames and pleaded with the President to follow the science, by saying, "I don't think science knows, actually."

He told the official: "It'll start getting cooler. You just watch."

J. Marshall Shepherd, Director of Atmospheric Sciences at University of Georgia, told CNN, "people at all levels struggle with the difference between weather and climate. One of the most common science literacy mistakes is to assume a cold day or seasonal transition somehow describes climate. That's like saying a baseball player getting one hit is now leading the league in batting average."

Climate experts tell CNN due to human-caused climate change, temperature extremes are climbing higher and the vegetation is drier, which affects fire behavior.

In its endorsement of Biden, Scientific American argued that while the coronavirus pandemic would strain any nation, Trump's "rejection of evidence and public health measures have been catastrophic" in the United States.

It pointed to Trump's opposition to providing US$25 billion for increased testing and contact tracing, his decision to flout mask mandates while in public, and his downplaying of the virus despite acknowledging its dangers and deadliness in interviews with journalist Bob Woodward.

"At every stage, Trump has rejected the unmistakable lesson that controlling the disease, not downplaying it, is the path to economic reopening and recovery," the magazine's editors wrote, adding, "His lies encouraged people to engage in risky behavior, spreading the virus further, and have driven wedges between Americans who take the threat seriously and those who believe Trump's falsehoods."

The publication argued that Biden "comes prepared with plans to control COVID-19, improve health care, reduce carbon emissions and restore the role of legitimate science in policy making."

It lauded Biden's proposals to deal with the pandemic which includes plans to hire 100,000 people for a national contact tracing effort, and his environmental plans, including his proposed spending of $2 trillion over four years on clean energy projects.

"It's time to move Trump out and elect Biden, who has a record of following the data and being guided by science," the magazine's editors wrote.

The magazine had published an editorial during the 2016 campaign, warning that Trump "repeatedly and resoundingly demonstrated a disregard, if not outright contempt, for science."

Helmuth told CNN that in planning the magazine's 2020 election coverage, they decided to "be more explicit and that we say that Biden is the right candidate if you care about science, healthy environment."

Asked about criticism that the endorsement potentially further politicizes science, Helmuth said, "The choice was just so clear that we felt like we needed to use what reputation we have to help people understand that this is the most important election of our lifetime."

"We don't want to make our readers angry, but we also feel it's our mission to help people understand science," she said.

Helmuth pointed out that the editorial excluded the words "Republican" and "Democrat" in hopes that their readers will understand this election is different.

"Trump has been so dismal for the scientific enterprise that the things we all care about are just so directly under threat by his administration, and have been harmed by his administration, that we think it fits our mission to say clearly that people who are interested in and care about research, and knowledge, and expertise and making good decisions about policy. We hope that they understand that's a large part of our mission and Donald Trump is in direct conflict with our mission."

 OUR CANADA PENSION PLAN

SINGAPORE SUMMIT

Canada’s massive pension fund is reviewing its bond holdings in light of near zero interest rates, CEO says

PUBLISHED  WED, SEP 16 2020


Saheli Roy Choudhury@SAHELIRC




KEY POINTS

Low interest rates are proving to be a challenge for investors, even ones who have long-term, multi-generational views on investments such as Canada’s massive pension fund. 

CPPIB President and CEO Mark Machin said the fund is reviewing if holding large size of government bonds is the right thing to do when interest rates are near zero. 

CPPIB manages about 434.4 billion Canadian dollars as of June 30 and a bulk of its investments are in North America — a little over 34% of total assets are allocated in the United States — followed by Asia.


Mark Machin, president and chief executive officer of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB)
Cole Burston | Bloomberg | Getty Images


SINGAPORE — Central banks have slashed interest rates this year in an effort to revive economies ravaged by the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. But low interest rates are proving to be a challenge for investors, even ones who have long-term, multi-generational views on investments such as Canada’s massive pension fund.

While the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s (CPPIB) long-term game plan hasn’t changed much in light of the virus outbreak, the one thing that’s challenging the fund is the zero-bound, according to Mark Machin, president and CEO.


“The fact interest rates are now zero-bound – does that change the diversification benefit of bonds in the long term? I think we, like a lot of long-term asset owners, are looking at reviewing that,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Wednesday. Machin is an attendee of the Singapore Summit, which is being held virtually this year.

Zero-bound refers to an expansionary monetary policy tool used by central banks to lower short-term interest rates to zero to stimulate the economy by reducing the cost of borrowing. But for bond investors that would mean they may receive less than their initial investment at maturity despite paying a large premium as bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

For example, a week and a half after the U.S. Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate to near zero in March, yields on both the 1-month and 3-month Treasury bills dipped below zero.

“We have a lot of other fixed income alternative in our portfolio so we have things like infrastructure, power renewables, we have credit exposure, we have hedge fund exposure — we have a lot of other things in that space but that holding government bonds in large size is something that we will continue to examine, whether that’s the right thing to do at the zero-bound,” Machin added.

CPPIB manages about 434.4 billion Canadian dollars ($329.75 billion) as of June 30 and a bulk of its investments are in North America — around 34% of total assets are allocated in the United States — followed by Asia.


The fund is heavily invested in both the technology and health-care sectors and continues to invest, according to Machin. Companies in both industries have benefited from a change of consumption and corporate habits due to the pandemic.

“Digitization is a massive theme across the world, it is being talked about — it’s probably a five to 10 year acceleration across many sectors,” he said. He pointed out how online education has taken off in Asia due to more specialized companies dealing with the changing trends and predicted that adoption would pick up over time in Europe and the U.S.
Sustainable investing


CPPIB on its website says it factors in environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities into its investment analysis and actively engages with companies to promote “improved management of ESG.”

“We think no company can survive and thrive in the long term if they are not considering their impact on the environment, if they are not considering their impact on the communities they are in, if they are not considering the quality of the governance that they are running their companies with,” Machin said.