He framed the moment within the world’s third great energy transition, stressing that while renewables are essential, global energy demand will still grow 2%+ annually for decades, especially from 4 billion new consumers in the Global South. In this context, Canadian LNG stands out as one of the cleanest sources available and a critical bridge fuel to displace coal in China and India. Barton, who explicitly stated “I’m a believer in climate change,” and positioned LNG not as a competitor to the energy transition but as an enabler of it.
A recurring theme for Barton is the matter of urgency: “Time costs money. If it’s a year late, that can destroy the economics in a project.” Lengthy permitting (sometimes 16 years) has made Canada unattractive despite its resources and rule-of-law advantages. Barton underscored the necessity for Canada to create the conditions that attract investment, pointing out that that even the world’s most powerful economy — the United States — remains the largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI), proving that no country can fund massive energy infrastructure alone. Canada, he argued, is now seeing renewed investor interest as capital diversifies away from U.S. political risk, but only speed and reliability will capture it.
Energy security, he concluded, is inseparable from national security: “If you don’t have an economy, if you don’t have energy…” Canada is an energy superpower that has so far failed to go global. The window is narrow.
Dominic Barton’s Three Priorities for Canada
- Build faster: Dramatically shorten permitting and construction timelines while maintaining environmental and Indigenous standards.
- Attract foreign direct investment: Welcome the billions of dollars required by making Canada the fastest, most predictable place to deploy capital.
- Deepen strategic relationships with customer nations, especially in Asia (Japan, South Korea, China, Southeast Asia, Singapore, India) and Europe, to secure long-term markets for Canadian energy.
Transcript:
Shannon: Welcome back, Dominic. Great to see you. For those who don’t know who you are — even though maybe they should — can you just introduce yourself?
Dominic: Sure. My name’s Dominic Barton, and I’m the chairman of Rio Tinto and involved in a number of other things, but that’s my main focus.
Shannon: We’re very glad to have you. I wanted to start off with your reflections on the very exciting new reality in Canada: that we are finally exporting LNG internationally with LNG Canada. What are your thoughts on this?
Dominic: I’m first of all just very excited. That’s a big milestone. We are able to diversify our LNG exports. It’s needed — we need diversification. It’s wonderful. It’s a big, big signal.
Shannon: And when you’re out in the world, is there still a need for Canadian LNG? Why has this been important?
Dominic: I think internationally, first of all, we’re in this third energy transition in humanity. We went from wood to coal, coal to oil; we’re now in a third transition, which is to renewables. But while we’re doing the transition, we still need more energy. Energy demand is growing at least 2% a year, if not higher, and we’ll continue to do that for the next 30 years. So we have this huge demand, especially from the global South — 4 billion new consumers coming into the system.
LNG is a very clean energy, and Canada has some of the actual cleanest LNG that’s there. We have some of the largest reserves in the world — I think we’re 12th largest — but we also have top-notch liquefaction capability. The world needs it, we have it. We’ve been primarily selling it south (to the U.S.), which then gets re-shipped to other parts of the world. But we need to be out in the world — not just in the United States (an important market), but in Asia and in Europe. So this is a big milestone. And we need to be moving quickly because this isn’t a forever opportunity. There’s a window.
Shannon: Are you encouraged by the new tone you’re hearing in the Canadian conversation? And what more do you want to see for us to actually capture this window?
Dominic: Yeah, I’m very excited about what I’m hearing. I think there’s a real commitment to ensuring that we are a major global player on the LNG side. The Major Projects Office, for example, is a superb idea because we’ve got to be able to build the infrastructure to make it happen.
I’m also encouraged by the desire for more foreign direct investment to come in and supply it. If you think about LNG Canada in Kitimat — that’s a partnership from the Asian side — or Woodfibre LNG, that’s a family out of Singapore putting in billions of dollars. It’s a lot of capital and we need that foreign direct investment. There’s a lot of appetite actually for investing in Canadian infrastructure.
So on all fronts I feel there’s real support, there’s commitment, there’s a way to try and de-bottleneck what’s happening. It’s an open conversation. I’m a believer in climate change — we need renewables — but we have to do the transition, and Canada has an important place to play in that.
Shannon: So when you travel internationally, do you hear from Asian countries or potential customers why it’s important for them to have gas in order to integrate renewables?
Dominic: Absolutely. As part of this challenge of the huge increase in demand for energy, we’re still using a lot of coal in the world, especially in China and India — the largest-population countries with a growing consumer class that needs energy. It’s coal. So there’s a real desire: “We need the LNG. It’ll help us do that transition.”
Those countries want diversification — they don’t want to get it from just one place. So there’s a lot of appetite for our gas. The question they have is: “Are you guys serious about this? Will you build things? Will you actually deliver it?”
We have to ensure we build the infrastructure, attract the capital, and support the capital — not incentives, just “we deeply appreciate it; how do we make it easier for you to invest?”
One of the biggest drivers — and I say this as chair of a large mining company — is time costs money. If it’s a year late, that can destroy the economics of a project. These projects can take 16 years to build right now — it’s just not acceptable. We have to figure out a way to do it properly environmentally, properly with social licence and First Nations, but if it gets too long, it just doesn’t make sense; it won’t happen.
The other new factor, given our relationship with the United States and trade, is this also diversifies our economy. So it’s important on many dimensions. But speed matters — we’ve got to move quickly.
Shannon: I want to talk a little bit more about attracting investment, because Canada has actually been falling behind significantly over the last decade. People might wonder: why is foreign investment so important for Canada? Why can’t we just use our own money?
Dominic: Foreign direct investment is an essential lever in driving growth in an economy — it’s just a fact. We need it. If you don’t believe that, look at the United States: they are the single largest FDI importer of any country in the world. The most powerful, leading economy needs foreign direct investment.
But we need to look at how people are viewing the world. Some are actually diversifying away from the U.S. — we are a natural place to do that. We’ve got a lot of tailwinds: huge infrastructure need, safe, reliable, secure country with a great foundation. We’re on the North American continent.
Twenty-five years ago there used to be Canadian equity desks in major Asian sovereign wealth funds — that’s disappeared; we became irrelevant. But there’s now interest again. So let’s leverage that. What investors are going to be looking at — led by timing — is: “How long does it take for you guys to build? Can you build things?”
Shannon: One of the things I hear when I travel is about energy security and its connection to broader security and geopolitics. What do you hear about this, and how does Canadian energy and Canadian LNG play into that?
Dominic: I think energy security and security writ large are intimately tied together. If you don’t have an economy, if you don’t have energy, it’s fundamental for everyone. That’s why China worries about diversification. We all want that. It’s fundamental to your economy moving, and we’re an energy powerhouse — we just haven’t gone global with it in the way we could.
Shannon: If you had to give advice to the government — or to Canadians who all have to work together on this — what are your top three things you want to see Canada do next?
Dominic: Priority one: build faster. Priority two: attract the foreign direct investment (that’s related to the first point — we will attract it if we can actually do it quickly, and we need to support people bringing billions of dollars of their capital). And third: let’s really build our relationships with these customer countries — obviously Europe, but especially in Asia: Japan, South Korea, China, Southeast Asia, Singapore, India. Let’s think strategically about those linkages. This is a real asset we have.
Shannon: All right, well those are excellent things. Thank you so much for the conversation. Let’s hope we all take your advice.
Dominic: We’ll work on it. Thank you. Thanks for all you do.
