Grand River Transit

[dtkvictim]

The tricky part is setting what the initial budgets are. In the end, though, we care about total emissions, but thinking about per capita numbers is one measure of fairness that people can point at. It's absolutely unfair that Canada should get to have a higher per-capita CO2 budget than India, but the way forward is not clear.

Is it unfair? Wouldn't it be unfair for a country that manages a sustainable population to be forced to lower per capita emissions every time other countries let their population growth explode?

Population growth in Canada is 60% migration and 40% births. So for that 60% we are mostly importing people from countries with lower CO2 emissions and converting them to have Canadian-level CO2 emissions. The 40% probably is less than replacement. To a first approximation, fewer people will also mean less CO2, but also worse for the economy as it is currently configured.

The fertility rate in Canada is far below replacement level, so unless I am misunderstanding something, our growth is entirely immigration. We even have the option to enter population decline if we desired. Of course I understand we have a ponzi scheme economy that would collapse without population growth though.

For the record, I'm not advocating for a specific position here... I'm just here to ask questions.