Climate Change and Immigration

Vincent J. Curtis

24 June 2019

A few years ago, Dr. Ross McKitrick, Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph, published a work which has interesting implications both on measures to reduce CO2 output and, indirectly, on immigration.

Dr. McKitrick said that the world output of CO2 is 1.15 tons per person per year, and that this figure has been nearly constant since 1970, over forty years ago.  Based on the standard deviation, and taking a five-sigma wide confidence range, Dr. McKitrick concluded that between now and the year 2050 the world output of CO2 emissions will range between 1.0 and 1.3 tons per capita per year.

The implication for Canada is that output depends upon population more than anything else.  Taxes on carbon, cap-and-trade, or any other form of CO2 control will have negligible impact on total national CO2, but population will have significant impact.  More people, more CO2.  Hence, between now and 2050, controlling Canada’s population will be the most effective means of controlling Canada's CO2 emissions.

It is therefore contrary to the goal of controlling Canadian CO2 emissions to have large scale immigration - particularly from countries that lie between 30 degrees North and South latitudes.  This has nothing to do with race, but on the fact that people in tropical latitudes put out less CO2 than those in high latitudes.  And more people living in cold Canada are going to increase Canada’s contribution to world CO2 emissions.  The overall situation is worse if we take in immigrants from the tropical climes.

Canada can’t reduce its CO2 emissions and have high immigration.  Let's see how that plays among progressvies in the next Federal election.
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