Hear about the history of Canada’s efforts to address this crucial global problem of climate change and explore the challenges ahead. Canada is struggling to balance an economy highly dependent on natural resources with the increasingly urgent need to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
2. Who am I?
Rosalind Warner, PhD
College Professor of Political Science
Okanagan College
Email: rowarner@okanagan.bc.ca
Twitter: @rwarner23
Blog: http://rozwarner.wordpress.com/
3. Overview
The Big Picture: Good News Bad News
Past Policies
What is the current policy?
Where does Canada fit in the World?
What is to be Done?
5. Good News…
China is advancing on its 2030 goals, showing
more than 40 percent progress toward its
emissions intensity, forest stock volume, and
clean energy goals, despite being only a
quarter of the way through the implementation
period.
10. Bad News… Ed Hawkins
Climate scientist in
the National Centre
for Atmospheric
Science (NCAS) at
the University of
Reading. IPCC AR5
Contributing Author.
@ed_hawkins
Sea ice
tipping point
18. Provincial progress…
2008 BC Carbon Tax $30/tonne
Ontario & Quebec began an emission trading scheme with
California
Alberta passed a carbon tax and set a cap on carbon
pollution from oil sands
21. Canada is back…Trudeau’s policies
As a candidate, Justin
Trudeau promised to end subsidies for
fossil fuel companies and invest in clean
energy technology.
As Prime Minister, he attended the Paris
climate negotiations and, more recently, he
proposed a federal minimum carbon
price as part of a national climate change
plan.
22. Trudeau’s plan
November 2015 – unmuzzled
scientists, announced plans to
develop a national framework on
carbon
Expands environmental reviews
for pipelines
February 2016- announces
national carbon pricing baseline
$75m for cities and $50m for
green buildings
23. Paris commitments insufficient: 3 degrees warming
Provinces and federal gov’t begin a process – Vancouver
Declaration March 2016
Federal gov’t target: Carbon pricing of $50/tonne by 2022
Zero to Hero? Follow-up to Paris
Agreement
24. …Which is like me saying, ‘I need to build up my strength
to go on a diet by eating a lot of ice cream.’ These things
are not consistent and there’s no way to make them
consistent.”
Professor Kathryn Harrison…
25. Speaking of targets…Let’s talk about
targets…
• Harper gov’t weakened ghg emissions targets set from
Kyoto in 1997, which were 6% below 1990 levels
• 2006: reset the baseline year from 1990 to 2005
• Copenhagen 2009: Set target to reduce 20% below 2005
levels by 2020
• 2012: further reduced target to 17% below 2005 levels
by 2030
26. Let’s talk about targets…
Climate pollution. Success =
12.6 tonnes per Canadian
30% below 2005 levels
(Canada’s Paris agreement
targets)
29. In the 1990 base year,
developed nations
including the United
States accounted for two-
thirds of global emissions.
Now, their contribution has
dropped below 50%.
Global targets…
30. Canada and the Carbon Bubble
ExxonMobil recently announced that it no
longer considers 20%, or 4.5bn barrels, of
its proved oil reserves to be extractable.
The write-down could be the largest single
company revision in the history of the
industry.
31. G20 is approaching a carbon pricing
scheme…
13% of total greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions in
the G20 are covered by
some kind of carbon
pricing scheme.
Mexico has implemented
a carbon tax and Russia is
seriously considering an
emissions trading system
38. 2014: The International Monetary Fund estimates that
energy subsidies in Canada top an incredible $34 billion
each year
End Fossil Fuel Subsidies
39. 73% could not name one BC climate
policy Conclusion:
Public knowledge
not needed
BUT…
When asked their
opinion, more
favoured regulation
to a carbon tax
46. Bibliography
Carrington, D. (2014). IPCC: rapid carbon emission cuts vital to stop severe impact of climate change | Environment |
The Guardian. Retrieved March 19, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/02/rapid-carbon-
emission-cuts-severe-impact-climate-change-ipcc-report
Deaton, J., & Lee, M. (March 9 2016). “A Brief History Of Canada’s Stunning About-Face on Climate Change.”
https://thinkprogress.org/a-brief-history-of-canadas-stunning-about-face-on-climate-change-4e7bd921077f#.qgp6weout
Gaffney, O., & Steffen, W. (2017). The Anthropocene equation. The Anthropocene Review, 205301961668802.
http://doi.org/10.1177/2053019616688022
Green, F., & Stern, N. (2016). China’s changing economy: implications for its carbon dioxide emissions. Climate Policy,
1–15. http://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2016.1156515
http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/03/china-making-progress-climate-goals-faster-expected
Climate Change: Climate Resource Center - Graphic: The relentless rise of carbon dioxide. (March 16 2017).
https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/
Cust, J., Manley, D., & Cecchinato, G. (2017). “Unburnable Wealth of Nations”March 2017. Finance and Development,
54(1). http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2017/03/cust.htm
Hamilton, C. (March 25 2015). “Geoengineering Is Not a Solution to Climate Change - Our World.”
https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/geoengineering-is-not-a-solution-to-climate-change
Knopf, B. (Feb 23 2017). “A Willing Coalition” The Mark News. http://www.themarknews.com/2017/02/23/a-willing-
coalition/
Lee, M. (March 4 2016). “From Paris to Vancouver: What happened at the First Ministers meeting on climate” Behind
the Numbers. http://behindthenumbers.ca/2016/03/04/from-paris-to-vancouver-what-happened-at-the-first-ministers-
meeting-on-climate/
47. Bibliography
MSLJ, & Team, D. (nov 17 2016). “Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016” The Economist.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/11/global-warming
“When the glaciers go: Hydroelectric vulnerability and climate change” The Climate Examiner by PICS - The
Climate Examiner. (2016). http://theclimateexaminer.ca/2016/04/21/when-the-glaciers-go-hydroelectric-
vulnerability-and-climate-change/
Prystupa,Mychaylo “Canada's Oil and Gas Push 'Wishful Thinking' against Climate Realities: Harvard Prof
Naomi Oreskes says our fossil fuel strategy 'doesn't add up.‘” The Tyee (April 6 2016)
https://thetyee.ca/News/2016/04/06/Canada-Oil-Gas-Push-Wishful-Thinking/?utm_source=mdotsite
Roston, Eric and Blackie Migliozzi (June 24 2015) “What’s Really Warming the World? Climate deniers blame
natural factors; NASA data proves otherwise.” https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-
world/
“Public relatively uninformed about climate policies—and maybe that’s okay: SFU study” Vancouver
Observer. (Sept 24 2014). Retrieved March 19, 2017, from http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/public-
relatively-uninformed-about-climate-policies-and-maybe-s-okay-sfu-study
Tertzakian, P. (Jan 14 2015). “Market death” a first step on the path to a truce in the oil price war The Globe
and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/market-
death-a-first-step-on-the-path-to-an-oil-price-war-truce/article22437159/
Turner, A. J., Jacob, D. J., Benmergui, J., Wofsy, S. C., Maasakkers, J. D., Butz, A., … Biraud, S. C. (2016).
“A large increase in U.S. methane emissions over the past decade inferred from satellite data and surface
observations.” Geophysical Research Letters, 43(5), 2218–2224. http://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL067987
Hinweis der Redaktion
Hear about the history of Canada’s efforts to address this crucial global problem of climate change and explore the challenges ahead. Canada is struggling to balance an economy highly dependent on natural resources with the increasingly urgent need to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Rosal
http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/03/china-making-progress-climate-goals-faster-expected
The country is also advancing on its 2030 goals, showing more than 40 percent progress toward its emissions intensity, forest stock volume, and clean energy goals, despite being only a quarter of the way through the implementation period.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) – the nascent technology which aims to bury CO2 underground – is deemed extremely important by the IPPC. It estimates that the cost of the big emissions cuts required would more than double without CCS. Pachauri said: “With CCS it is entirely possible for fossil fuels to continue to be used on a large scale.” https://getpocket.com/a/read/754846435
But what’s so remarkable about t
Systems with amplifying feedbacks tend to have tipping points beyond which change is irreversible.
his year is that the ongoing drop in Arctic sea ice has been matched by an unexpectedly sharp drop in Antarctic sea ice.
During his tenure, Harper made no attempts to regulate carbon pollution through cap-and-trade or a carbon tax. He muzzled scientists, cut research funding, targeted environmental groups, and secretly committed government money to advocating for the export of tar sands oil. To environmentalists, Harper was a villain. Climate Action Network Europe ranked Canada among Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in its 2015 Climate Change Performance Index, a rating of countries’ climate policies. On the international stage, Harper didn’t fare much better. In 2011, Canada became the first signatory of the Kyoto Protocol to formally withdraw from the agreement, pulling out after it became clear it would not meet its carbon-cutting targets. In the lead-up to the Paris Climate Agreement, Canada pledged to limit carbon pollution, but it committed to emissions reductions that were markedly less ambitious than those of the United States or the European Union.
Canada pays $14b in penalties for its withdrawal
2012-commits $8m in financing to investigate environmental groups political activities, allocated $30m to advocate for the tar sands
https://thinkprogress.org/a-brief-history-of-canadas-stunning-about-face-on-climate-change-4e7bd921077f#.pv33on2su
In Canada (58th) nothing has changed and nothing is going forward at state level. Canada is about to miss its 2020 emissions reduction target by about 20% and the only effective policies in place are provincial initiatives.
https://germanwatch.org/en/download/10407.pdf
Where Canada has made progress on climate change, it has largely happened at the provincial level. In 2008, British Columbia instated a carbon tax. Last year, Ontario and Quebec began emissions trading with California. And, more recently, historically conservative Alberta passed a carbon tax and set a cap on carbon pollution from oil sands.
As a candidate, Justin Trudeau promised to end subsidies for fossil fuel companies and invest in clean energy technology. As Prime Minister, he attended the Paris climate negotiations and, more recently, he proposed a federal minimum carbon price as part of a national climate change plan.
https://thinkprogress.org/a-brief-history-of-canadas-stunning-about-face-on-climate-change-4e7bd921077f#.7mkxmze3e
Sustainable Prosperity has released a report that shows since the carbon tax shift was introduced in 2008, B.C.'s consumption of fossil fuels has been reduced nearly 19 per cent per capita compared to the rest of Canada, while the province's gross domestic product has kept pace with the country's.
As a candidate, Justin Trudeau promised to end subsidies for fossil fuel companies and invest in clean energy technology. As Prime Minister, he attended the Paris climate negotiations and, more recently, he proposed a federal minimum carbon price as part of a national climate change plan.
November 2015 – unmuzzled scientists, announced plans to develop a national framework on carbon
Announcement at December Paris climate summit where a major new agreement forged at the international level.
Expands environmental reviews for pipelines
February 2016- announces national carbon pricing baseline
$75m for cities and $50m for green buildings
No new targets. One of the key outcomes of the Paris Agreement is that countries have pledged emissions reduction targets that are not sufficient to meet the ambition of the agreement. That is, they put us on a path to a catastrophic 3 degree warmer world, not the longstanding 2 degree maximum, much less the stronger Paris goal of 1.5 degrees. Yet, Canada’s official GHG target is still the same as it was under PM Harper, a 30% reduction by 2030 below 2005 levels.
See you in six months. The first ministers did not come up with any early actions to announce, which is surprising given the low-hanging fruit after a decade of neglect under PM Harper. The Declaration creates four working groups to noodle over details, with ministers to make a decision in October. They are: clean technology, innovation and jobs; carbon pricing mechanisms; specific mitigation opportunities; and adaptation and climate resilience.
Keep an eye on the federal budget. The final communique highlights federal investments in green infrastructure, public transit and energy-efficient social infrastructure (building retrofits, perhaps?), which is consistent with promises made in the Liberal election platform. Heading to budget day the big question will be how large are those investments, and what they look like.
Would you like pipelines with that? The day before the first ministers meeting, the PM used his speech at the Globe conference to tell us we can have it all, “windmills and pipelines.” But if we take the Paris Agreement and its 1.5 degrees target seriously, the science tells us we need to keep most of the world’s fossil fuel reserves underground. In Canada, as a high cost producer, that could represent 90% of our proven reserves. This “all of the above” strategy also bumps up against the PM’s commitment to recognize indigenous rights and title, yet the communique only commits to “engage” First Nations.
No agreement on carbon pricing. Carbon pricing is viewed as central to any serious mitigation plan, both in terms of making it more expensive to pollute over time, but also as a revenue source to pay for all of this green infrastructure we’ve been promised, and that we will need to break our carbon habit. In spite of carbon pricing efforts in all the major provinces, the protests of Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall appear to have won the day. A working group specifically to discuss pan-Canadian carbon pricing “adapted to each province’s and territory’s specific circumstances” will have its work cut out for it.
Overall, this shows a key failure in the federal government’s strategy of coordinating provincial carbon pricing efforts, rather than embarking on its own national carbon pricing strategy. Carbon pricing is not as hard as some are making it out to be: we’ve had fuel taxes for decades, we just don’t call them carbon taxes. Even in BC, each of federal and provincial fuel taxes are larger than the famed carbon tax.
In post-meeting remarks, BC Premier Christy Clark made a bid for “revenue neutrality” of a carbon tax, based on the BC model. Yet, the idea that carbon pricing can only be achieved if accompanied by tax cuts is silly, and does not square with public opinion. Nor is it consistent with existing federal practice, which is to use fuel tax revenues to pay for infrastructure, much of it delegated to municipalities through the Build Canada Fund.
Agreement targets and that Canada is still committed to a carbon price increasing to $50 by 2022, Having evidence-based policymaking will be particularly important. When British Columbia introduced a $30 carbon price, many claimed the B.C. economy would be decimated.
“Mr. Trudeau has said we need to build pipelines in order to afford to get ourselves to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Which is like me saying, ‘I need to build up my strength to go on a diet by eating a lot of ice cream.’ These things are not consistent and there’s no way to make them consistent.”
My first graphic shows the average climate pollution per Canadian. Each tonne is represented by a numbered black box.
Today we average 20.7 tCO2.
To meet our climate commitment, we need to get down to 12.6 tCO2 by 2030.
That is eight tonnes less per person in fifteen years. For comparison, we cut 2.8 tonnes per person over the previous fifteen years. So clearly we will have to work a lot harder this round.
As the Globe and Mail pointed out in their
Population in 2030 projected to be around 41.5 million in StatCan middle growth case
Canada’s 2030 climate target is 30% below 2005 levels which our NIR says is 749 MtCO2: 749 * 70% = 524 MtCO2
Canada’s per-capita 2030 climate target: 524 MtCO2 / 41.5m = 12.6 tCO2 per capita
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/03/02/analysis/visualizing-canadas-2030-climate-target-show-me-money
Worldwide emissions have surged by 50% since 1990, driven by economic growth in China and other parts of Asia, South America and Africa (see ‘Before and after’). In the 1990 base year, developed nations including the United States accounted for two-thirds of global emissions. Now, their contribution has dropped below 50%.
Even majors such as ExxonMobil are not immune – the company recently announced that it no longer considers 20%, or 4.5bn barrels, of its proved oil reserves to be extractable. This reduction applies mostly to the company’s oil sands deposits in Canada, which are expensive to extract and use, and therefore particularly sensitive to dips in oil prices. The write-down could be the largest single company revision in the history of the industry.
http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/02/fossil-fuels-whats-risk
To realize this goal, an estimated one-third of all oil reserves, half of all gas reserves and over 80 percent of current coal reserves need to remain unused through 2050. If fossil fuel companies are required to leave a significant bulk of their reserves untapped, their valuations could decline steeply – that is, unless these companies preemptively adjust their businesses strategies to avoid these risks, for example by diversifying holdings to include more low or zero carbon energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal.
For one thing, she said, building giant new bitumen or natural gas pipelines today will commit Canada to fossil fuels for 50, 70, or even 100 years into the future -- a problem she called "infrastructure lock-in" -- when the world has only about 30 years to decarbonize 80 per cent of the global economy if we wish to avoid two degrees of planetary warming and "trillions of dollars" in economic damages.
Thirteen per cent of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the G20 are covered by some kind of carbon pricing scheme. China will introduce the world’s largest emissions trading scheme during 2017 and pilot projects in several Chinese provinces are already operational. Including China, 23 per cent of total GHG emissions will soon be subject to carbon-pricing schemes. In addition, Mexico has implemented a carbon tax and Russia is seriously considering an emissions trading system, proving that these initiatives are not restricted to the G7 countries and China.
http://www.themarknews.com/2017/02/23/a-willing-coalition/
Marck Carney, Governor of the Bank of England and Canadian, is at the forefront, chair of the G20 Financial Stability Board, has indicated that fossil fuel assets and high-carbon infrastructure will be devalued if we take the Paris Agreement seriously.
Naome Oreskeshttps://thetyee.ca/News/2016/04/06/Canada-Oil-Gas-Push-Wishful-Thinking/?utm_source=mdotsite
For one thing, she said, building giant new bitumen or natural gas pipelines today will commit Canada to fossil fuels for 50, 70, or even 100 years into the future -- a problem she called "infrastructure lock-in" -- when the world has only about 30 years to decarbonize 80 per cent of the global economy if we wish to avoid two degrees of planetary warming and "trillions of dollars" in economic damages.
Of 928 peer-reviewed studies she examined, not one disagreed with the consensus that mankind is heating the planet with the release of greenhouse gases. Other investigators confirmed her finding, producing the now familiar statistic that 98 per cent of climate scientists accept the fact of anthropogenic global warming.
The Interior and Rocky mountain glaciers meanwhile will essentially have disappeared, losing 90 percent of their ice area and volume.
The researchers hinted at how glacier melt might affect hydro power in the province, reminding readers that the Columbia River, which flows from its headwaters in the interior of BC out to the Washington and Oregon coast, delivers the largest hydroelectric production of any river in North America. In 1964, Canada and the US signed a treaty sharing the hydroelectric spoils of the Columbia between them, a treaty that is up for renegotiation in 2024.
First the good news from their modelling. On the supply side, the likely increase in streamflow from melting glaciers is significant, delivering an increase in the province’s potential annual hydropower of 11 percent. Meanwhile on the demand side, the reductions in heating as a result of warmer temperatures drown out the modest increases in cooling in the summer, delivering a reduction in average and peak demand of two percent. Together, this translates to an increase of roughly 11 terawatt hours of available energy by 2050. That is, climate change will give BC much more energy supply that we can tap into.
“The Mica and Peace dams, the main sources of our hydropower in BC, don’t depend upon glacier run-off, but from snowmelt and rainfall.”
In the days before the first ministers meeting, Mark Jacobson’s team from Stanford University showed what clean energy in Canada might look like: 58% wind, 22% solar, 16% hydro, 2% wave and 2% geothermal. CCPA has done a lot of research on these issues, and I offered up a 12 point plan for getting serious about climate action. There are lots of great case studies in Canada t
http://behindthenumbers.ca/2016/03/04/from-paris-to-vancouver-what-happened-at-the-first-ministers-meeting-on-climate/
o draw on, and we should go and steal the best ideas from around the world.
http://behindthenumbers.ca/2015/11/23/so-you-want-to-get-serious-about-climate-change/
If half of carbon tax revenues were used for climate action, this would raise $10 billion in year one in support of commitments to ambitious new transit, social and green infrastructure. This is also your economic stimulus and jobs plan.
http://behindthenumbers.ca/2015/11/23/so-you-want-to-get-serious-about-climate-change/
The International Monetary Fund estimates that energy subsidies in Canada top an incredible $34 billion each year in direct support to producers and uncollected tax on externalized costs.
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/05/15/Canadas-34-Billion-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies/
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/public-relatively-uninformed-about-climate-policies-and-maybe-s-okay-sfu-study
In fact, the study by Ekaterina Rhodes, Jonn Axsen, and Mark Jaccard in SFU’s School of Resource and Environmental Management finds that increased awareness of climate science and climate policy does not necessarily lead to higher support among Canadian citizens.
Most respondents (73 per cent) could not name one B.C. policy. Of th
The next research step was to educate survey respondents about the slate of policies that have been implemented in B.C. Follow-up questions revealed that the majority of respondents preferred regulations (such as B.C.’s clean electricity policy) to pro-market policies (such as B.C.’s carbon tax).e quarter that could name one, the majority identified the carbon tax.
e study also hints that other strategies may be helpful in inspiring citizens’ interest in and support of climate policy-making. These include cultivating public trust in government, industry and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and creating arms-length regulatory agencies that have a sustainability policy mandate, as exists in California for example with the California Air Resources Board.
Canada's Oil and Gas Push 'Wishful Thinking' against Climate Realities: Harvard Prof
Naomi Oreskes says our fossil fuel strategy 'doesn't add up.'
Canada's Oil and Gas Push 'Wishful Thinking' against Climate Realities: Harvard Prof
Naomi Oreskes says our fossil fuel strategy 'doesn't add up.'