Greenhouse Gas Emissions - September 3, 2025

Last week I published an article about wildfires and them being caused by climate change.  In that article I implored readers to take climate change seriously, and spread the word to anyone who would listen. I highlighted that climate change is causing problems for all of us, only one of which is wildfires.  In writing that article I started thinking about greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Why? Because GHG are a primary cause of global warming, which in turn causes climate change. Many of you are likely thinking, “I know this already, it’s been well reported on for years. What’s new in these statements?”. I feel like many are denying or underestimating the impact that these wildfires/global warming/climate change are having on our society and our planet.  My goal here is to share some facts, dispel some notions, and raise some urgency about global warming and climate change. This article is a natural extension of what I wrote about last week, and further examines this issue at its root cause. 

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are gases that trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, intensifying the greenhouse effect and leading to global warming. It is primarily human activities that cause these emissions, including the burning of fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation. Agriculture, industrial processes, and land-use changes like deforestation also contribute to the creation of GHG.  In last week’s article I stated the obvious that the increased occurrences of wildfires is due to climate change. That leads to the question of what causes climate change, and specifically what is climate change.  

Let’s align first on what is climate change.  Most people think of global warming, or the earth’s temperature rising, as defining “climate change”. Climate change is not only hotter summers, but longer summers, shifting in the summer season, and shorter swing seasons such as Spring and Fall.  In Eastern Ontario it seems the Spring and Fall season have shrunk to just a few weeks instead of being an equal quarter of the year.  I’m not a meteorologist or a climate scientist, but as someone who enjoys the change of seasons I'm disappointed because it feels to me like we don’t have much of a Spring or Fall anymore.  It feels like we almost go from Winter to Summer. And, even though I was born and raised in Ottawa, with lots of experience with harsh winters, having those swing seasons shrink, is a real shame. I want more of a buffer from Winter. So, connecting these dots, GNG causes global warming, which in turn changes our seasonal weather, which is resulting in climate change.  

 Global warming increases evaporation of moisture, making our forests and grasslands more dry and susceptible to fires.  And, this warming leads to more intense, though less frequent, precipitation, and it contributes to natural factors like high-pressure systems that block rain clouds and the geographical effect of rain shadows behind mountain ranges. Deforestation can also reduce rainfall, especially in tropical regions.  Climate change is about less rainfall, but also about more periods of drought, more rapid melting of snow cover, and warmer temperatures in the North. 

On the flip side, when it does rain we see intense rainfall. More intense rainfall leads to the flooding we are seeing in areas that don’t normally deal with flooding.  As a result, they are ill-equipped to deal with that intense amount of rainfall. In July 2025 in Kerr County in Texas, floods devastated the area, killing 135 people due to a combination of factors, including rainfall from Tropical Storm Barry, the formation of intense thunderstorms over the same areas for extended periods. The unique geography in the area also contributed to the disaster, with thin topsoil and limestone bedrock. The bone-dry ground was unable to absorb the vast amount of rain, leading to runoff and flash flooding. 

While the data shows that we are not experiencing more tropical storms, hurricanes and tsunamis, that same data shows that the storms that do hit are more powerful, reach higher wind speeds, produce heavier rainfall, and intensify more quickly, leading to greater potential for damage and destruction. As a result, even though some areas are equipped and experienced in handling tropical storms, these storms are more difficult to handle. 

What are Greenhouse Gases (GHG)? 

The key greenhouse gases and their sources are as follows:  

Carbon Dioxide (CO2):

• The main contributor to climate change, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels. Land-use changes, such as deforestation, also release CO2. 

  
  

• Methane (CH4):

  Generated by  agricultural activities, especially cattle farming, waste management, fossil fuel production, and biomass burning. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 in the short term. 

  
  

• Nitrous Oxide (N2O):

  Primarily from agricultural activities, especially fertilizer use, as well as chemical production and fossil fuel combustion. 

  
  

• Fluorinated Gases (F-gases):

  Includes hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6). These are emitted from industrial processes, refrigeration, and certain consumer products. 

  
  

We humans have been creating GHG for decades through these activities: 

• Construction of infrastructure: buildings, bridges, roads, and the creation of the concrete, steel and asphalt that goes into this infrastructure. This activity produces  31% of all GHG

• Our supply and consumption of electricity - powering our phones, tablets, computers - 27% of all GHG

• Producing our food supply - growing crops; raising cattle, chicken, pigs for consumption   - 19% of all GHG

• Getting around / transportation (planes, trucks, cargo ships) - 16% of all GHG

• Staying warm or cool (heating, cooling) - 7% of all GHG

How many things on this list can we do without?  The answer is - it’s not realistic to cease any of these activities.  So what do we do? We pursue and utilize other sources of electrical energy that do not require us to burn fossil fuels. 

Clean Energy Alternatives to Fossil-Fuel Based Power

Much of the dialogue about what we can do as a society to curtail our GHG emissions is centered around relying less on energy produced from fossil fuels, and deploying more alternate sources of energy, such as nuclear power, solar and wind energy.  Unfortunately none of these alternatives is an easy drop-in replacement for fossil fuel generated energy.  

Nuclear Energy - even though it’s proven to be the safest and most efficient form of energy, accidents in the past at nuclear plants in Three-Mile Island, Pennsylvania, and in Chernobyl, Russia, and the devastating effects of those accidents, have created a worry and stigma around the term “nuclear”. The thought of “nuclear” creates fear and uncertainty in people’s minds.  

Also, traditional nuclear technology used to create a one giga-watt nuclear reactor, such as the Canadian Candu reactor, take several billion dollars to develop and typically take a decade to build.   It is not the most cost effective and timely approach to developing an alternative source of energy.  Having said that, there is a lot of innovation occurring in nuclear technology with several companies in Canada and the United States developing smaller and less expensive nuclear reactor technology. SMRs, or small modular reactors offer between 50 and 300 mega-watts or power and can power medium sized cities, or large industrial complexes. Micro modular reactors, MMRs, offer up to one mega-watt of power, and can power towns of up to 1,000 homes..  MMRs in particular, are well suited for remote northern communities that are off the primary electrical grids and typically rely on shipped-in diesel fuel to power their communities.  This diesel-based power solution is also used by northern military bases.  Using nuclear-based MMR energy solutions for these two applications alone would help reduce our GHG footprint.  Society needs to embrace nuclear energy as a viable alternative to fossil fuel energy. 

Solar  Energy Solutions - Solar panels only generate electricity when the sun is shining. Cloudy days, fog, rain, and nighttime significantly reduce or eliminate power production, making it an inconsistent energy source unless combined with expensive energy storage solutions. Commercial solar farms and residential solar systems need a large amount of real estate to generate meaningful amounts of electricity, which can conflict with land use, agriculture, and wildlife habitats. While solar energy is a clean, renewable resource, the manufacturing of the solar panels and batteries involves potentially harmful materials. The disposal of these components at the end of their lifespan also presents an environmental concern. Current solar panel technology also has limitations in converting sunlight to usable energy, with efficiency rates of around 20%. So while solar energy solutions are being widely deployed, this technology by itself is not the answer.  Solar energy is a good compliment to nuclear power, or a good way to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, in certain situations. 

Wind Energy Solutions - Wind is a non-constant resource, so power generation coming from it fluctuates, and can't be controlled on demand. This variability requires backup power sources, often fossil-fuel based, to ensure a stable supply of power. Integrating energy storage solutions adds to the overall expense of a wind-based energy solution. Wind projects require significant initial investment for turbines and supporting infrastructure, including expensive raw materials like steel and copper. Connecting remote wind farm sites to the demand centers presents a significant supply chain and infrastructure challenge. In addition to this the rotating turbine blades can kill birds and bats, a pet peeve of President Donald Trump. Construction of wind farms can disrupt local ecosystems and require clearing land, which affects wildlife habitats. The distinctive noise from rotating blades can disturb local communities and wildlife. Wind turbines need significant real estate, and ideal wind sites are often in rural areas, which can create land-use conflicts. Wind energy may reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, but as is the case with solar energy, wind energy by itself is not the answer to replacing fossil fuels. 

Electric Vehicles

Another area with considerable momentum in the discussion about reducing our dependency on fossil-fuels, and thus reducing GHG, is the movement toward electric vehicles.   Like him or not, Elon Musk deserves credit for creating a new product category.  Musk spearheaded the adoption of electric vehicles and made it a rallying point in our efforts to reduce GHG. In the process, Musk created a world-recognized brand in Tesla. Despite his questionable views and actions, and his lack of focus, Musk deserves credit for creating a product category and a global brand. And, if you take his intentions as being genuine, then his efforts were trying to address our global warming and climate change issues. 

Automobiles is an industry that first emerged in the late 19th century, when Karl Benz created the first gasoline-powered vehicle in 1886. According to recent data from Q1 2025, there are now approximately 6.2 million electric vehicles on the road in the United States out of a total of just under 300 million vehicles.  Globally there are approximately 1.6 billion vehicles registered in total, with 58 million of those being electric vehicles.  Based on this data, electric vehicles currently make up only 2% of the vehicles on the road in the United States, and make up less than 4% of vehicles globally.   These gasoline-powered vehicles create the vast majority of the GHG created in the United States, in the Transportation category. 

Society is not adopting electric vehicles fast enough to make a dent in the amount of GHG being created by this category.  Why is that? Electric vehicles are still more expensive than gasoline-powered cars, and now with the current US administration having recently rescinded the tax credit associated with electric vehicle purchases, the price discrepancy has only increased. Also, while electric vehicle charging stations are appearing everywhere, in the United States there is still only one charging station for every 2.4 gasoline stations. And, these charging stations are not evenly distributed through the United States; their distribution is skewed to the coastal states.  

Similar statistics for Canada were not available at the time of writing this article, but what is encouraging is that in Canada in 2024, 15% of new vehicle registrations were in fact electric vehicles.  

Another strike against electric vehicles is that most electric vehicles have large lithium-ion batteries, which have an intense manufacturing process. The mining of lithium, cobalt and nickel requires a huge amount of water and can produce toxic waste. Fossil fuels are used in the manufacturing process to heat the raw minerals to very high temperatures. In other words, producing batteries for electric vehicles in itself creates a meaningful amount of GHG. 

Here is the point that really dampens the enthusiasm around electric vehicles; revisiting the statistics cited above, all forms of transportation: planes, trains, automobiles, transport trucks, cargo ships, etc. only account for 16% of all GHG produced. The current push with electric vehicles only addresses automobiles and transport trucks. And, electric transport trucks aren’t yet widely deployed.  Of this 16% of global GHG produced in this category, 57%, or 9% overall, comes from passenger vehicles.  So all this momentum around electric vehicles is addressing only 9% of our global GHG problem.  

Thus, despite the efforts of Mr. Musk and other manufacturers of electric vehicles, there are many, myself included, who doubt whether electric vehicles will help our efforts to curtail GHG in a meaningful way, any time soon. 

What’s the answer?

Society is never going to quit fossil fuels entirely; meaning society is not going to quit its addiction to devices and electricity consumption through consumer goods anytime soon.  And, society is not going to give up its love for a good steak or hamburger anytime soon, either. So, asking us to consume less energy is not going to happen.  What we can do is more rapidly decarbonize our electrical grid. 

Decarbonization of the electrical grid is the process of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation by lessening our dependency on fossil fuels, and adopting more renewable energy sources like nuclear, wind and solar. This needs to be coupled with other solutions like battery storage, improved energy efficiency, and grid modernization. While challenges exist, such as siting and permitting new lines, the long-term benefits include reduced emissions, economic growth, and improved public health. 

Several studies show that, if we start now,, the decarbonization of the electrical grid could lead to approximately 50% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, within a period of ten years. (US Department of Energy, US Department of Nature, McKinsey).  This transformation is crucial for addressing climate change and can be achieved through strong regulations, incentives, significant investment in transmission infrastructure, and policies that support clean energy.  For the sake of our planet and the future generations that will inhabit it, we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and minimize the ongoing changes to our climate.