Dragon's Den: Climate Optimism

The time has come.

Time for me to come out of the closet. To come clean. Time to tell the world!

I’m a climate optimist.

Yup, the secret’s out.

What I mean by this is that I’m a “glass half full” kind of environmentalist. Yes, the problems that the planet faces are daunting. Yes, the implications of global warming are scary as hell. But I’m firmly convinced that we frail and frequently irrational humans have what it takes to save our collective bacon. I’m optimistic that we are going to solve the climate problem, and it isn’t going to be as wrenching as some seem to think.

Sure, you’re saying. Smith is feeling rosy because he’s upped his daily dosage of Vitamin D. Though that may be true, my current chuffed mood is mostly due to three events this past week which, though unrelated, foreshadow betters days to come.

1. The UK election results: The new Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government in the UK has promised a very ambitious green energy and green jobs agenda. Small aside: if ambitious green-ness is de rigueur for UK Tories, why aren’t Canadian Tories getting with the programme? But more on this in a future blog.) Most interesting is the fact that the environmental platforms of all parties in the UK election were amazingly similar, and amazingly green.

Simply put, concern for the environment in Europe, including in the UK, has now officially transcended political ideologies. Like the current 100% coast to coast to coast Canadian excitement regarding the Habs’ Stanley Cup playoff chances, there is unanimity on the issue.

2. Meanwhile, back on this side of the pond, an historic climate change bill was finally introduced in the US Senate yesterday. Though many naysayers are already writing its obituary, I would humbly point out that the leading edge of the still-gushing BP oil spill haven’t even begun to hit the US coast yet. When that happens CNN will ensure that the images of oiled wildlife and destroyed fishing and tourism livelihoods are broadcast 24/7. This spill is going to get much worse before it gets better. And the best way to stop future catastrophic oil spills is to build more reliable renewable energy sources fast. You read it here on the Dragon’s Den first: this US climate bill is gonna pass.

3. The last thing making me cheery this week is much closer to home, though no less significant. Every time I go to my Facebook page now, multiple ads pop up urging me to install solar panels on my home, ‘cause the new Ontario Green Energy Act makes it financially worthwhile for people to do so. Thousands of people all across the province are now lining up to become solar (and wind and biogas and geothermal) entrepreneurs.

The common theme in all of this? The green new world has arrived. The changes we need to accomplish to both put our economy on a more sustainable footing, and to reduce planet-damaging pollution, are happening. The wind is at our back (pun fully intended!).

Today's Shooter in Foot - CME

The interesting and disturbing phenomenon of people voting against their own interests - particularly in the U.S. - has been fairly well explored, but aren't Canadian business people supposed to be rational actors when it comes to their economic interests?

Not entirely, it turns out. The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) have joined tar sands interests in a big lobby push on Parliament Hill this week, pushing the one sided argument that tar sands means all economic upside. But, in doing so, is CME actually acting against the interests of its own members? Well, could be, if "manufacturing" and "exporting" are what it's all supposed to be about.

As we've explored before, because of expanded tar sands production, Canada is succumbing to "Dutch Disease," a term coined in the 1970's to describe the hollowing out of the Netherlands' manufacturing base when a major natural gas find pushed up the currency rate and priced its products out of international markets. The Canadian dollar now tracks closely with the price of oil, and with increasing scarcity, will go ever higher over time, thereby making the products of Canadian manufacturers more expensive vis-a-vis their international competitors.

One study found that 42 per cent of recent Canadian manufacturing job loss was due to our petro-dollar. The Government of Ontario estimates that a sustained 5 cent change in the dollar affects about $6 billion in Ontario's GDP. The Government of Quebec recently flagged the petro-dollar issue in its budget.

So, the question is whether CME lobbies on behalf of all of its members, or only those involved in the tar sands. If we are to have healthy manufacturing and exporting in Canada, we need to cure our Dutch Disease.

Matt Price
Policy Director
Environmental Defence

Bad Math

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today pleaded with Canada to both put climate change on the G8/G20 agenda and to live up to its greenhouse gas targets.

But, if the Canadian government does what it says it will do and follows lockstep with U.S. climate legislation, the chances of meeting even its weak national target are slim.

The reason is that, as expected, the draft Senate climate and energy Bill out today waits until 2016 before adding industry into its carbon cap, tackling electricity first. Yesterday, we pointed out the difference in the two countries, with electricity emissions being proportionally more than double the share of emissions in the U.S., while our main problem in Canada is exploding tar sands emissions.

Here is some bad math to illustrate the problem with Canada mimicking this approach - the math is bad both because it is very crude on our part, but also because it adds up to big problems for our kids.

Where could Canada end up, emissions-wise by 2016?

• Our current (weak) target is to cut our emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020. Canada's emissions in 2005 were 731 million tonnes, and 17% below that is 607 million tonnes. Our latest emissions numbers in 2008 were 734 million tonnes, so by 2020 we have a 127 million tonne cut to make.
• In following the U.S. on tackling electricity first, the Canadian government is vastly helped by the fact that the Ontario government has already pledged to shut down it's coal fired power plants by 2014, which account for about 23 million tonnes of emissions.
• Ottawa estimates that by following the U.S. vehicle efficiency regulations, it will cut 28 million tonnes of emissions by 2016 - although it's unclear whether this figure is an absolute reduction or a reduction from "business as usual." Let's be charitable for purposes of illustration here and call it an absolute reduction.
  
• But, Ottawa also estimates that tar sands emissions will grow by about 70 million tonnes by 2020, so if we say that 2016 is about half way there, we could be adding about 35 million tonnes by that point.

So, adding up the crude numbers by 2016, we get:

• - 23 (Ontario coal shut down, assuming replaced with zero emission options)
• - 28 (vehicle efficiency, being charitable)
• + 35 (tar sands growth)
• - 16 (Net)
• 111 (Distance from the 127 million tonne cut needed by 2020 - about 87% away)

This math assumes nothing else will happen, policy-wise, which we hope is untrue. Provincial policies are rolling out, albeit slowly, and Environment Minister Jim Prentice seems to be cooking up something behind closed doors with the utility industry.

Yet, the math illustrates just how big a gap such policies would have to fill, if by 2016 if Canada follows the U.S. in allowing industrial emissions a pass until then. It's doubtful the math would work.

We have a circumstance with the tar sands that the U.S. doesn't have, and if we wait to tackle those emissions, there's no way we'll hit Ottawa's weak target and keep pace with the Americans.

Matt Price
Policy Director
Environmental Defence

Eagle vs. Beaver pollution

If you ever needed evidence that our government in Ottawa is simply stalling on climate change when it says "we will wait and copy the U.S.," just watch the release of the U.S. Senate draft energy and climate legislation tomorrow.

The painfulness of the U.S. legislative process is notorious, and full credit should be given to the Canadian government for finding a climate dodge that the Canadian media has largely bought by saying it must do nothing on climate since we'll have to harmonize with the U.S. later.

The spill in the Gulf will play short term havoc with the draft Senate Bill, since it had been written with a mind to get moderate Republicans (if that isn't an oxymoron) onside by also promoting offshore drilling. Now, Democrats whose constituents are horrified by the BP spill are likely to harden their stance against offshore drilling, thereby taking away votes that the Bill cannot afford to lose.

This chaos in the Senate is exactly the kind of thing the Canadian government has been counting on - and in addition it can't seem to help itself by taking advantage of the spill to talk up the tar sands.

Yet, while the offshore provisions may change, the draft Senate Bill may still set the tone for other aspects of climate and energy policy in the U.S., aspects that our federal government keeps pledging to copy.

One aspect in particular bears some exploration, since it gets at a big difference between how the U.S. and Canada pollute differently with regards to global warming, and means that if we simply copy U.S. efforts, there's no way we will even meet the weak national emissions reduction target that Ottawa is now promoting.

The draft Senate Bill takes the approach of clamping down on the U.S. electricity sector sooner and harder than on other U.S. industry. Without commenting on the merit of this approach, if Canada were to follow this lead, we'd be doing less than the U.S. since our electricity sector accounts for less than half of what the U.S. electricity sector does on a proportional basis.

See the following pie charts for the difference between the countries (all numbers sourced from EPA and Environment Canada):









Also, consider these trends:

· In 1990, the electricity sector accounted for 30% of US emissions and by 2008 it had grown to 35% of US emissions.

· In 1990, industry accounted for 25% of US emissions, and by 2008 it had shrunk to 19% of US emissions.

· In 1990, the electricity sector accounted for 16% of Canadian emissions, and by 2008 it had shrunk to 15%.

· In 1990, industry accounted for 26% of Canadian emissions, and by 2008 it had grown to 28%. The mining, oil and gas industries in particular grew from 17% of total emissions in 1990 to 21% by 2008.


The fact of the matter is that the U.S. simply doesn't have a sector like the tar sands that is poised for explosive pollution growth over the coming years. This alone warrants an approach tailored to the Canadian context if we are to have any chance of meeting emissions reductions targets.

Matt Price
Policy Director
Environmental Defence

Dragon's Den: The True Impact of the Oil Spill

Another in a continuing series of blogs for CBC's Dragon's Den:

The environmental event of the week, the year, and potentially the decade, is the ongoing BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. If you haven’t properly absorbed the scale of this thing, check out this, and this and this. The “world’s whitest beaches turn black” is a particularly poignant headline.

What is clear is that this is a mammoth environmental and, likely, economic disaster.

What is less clear is how this oil spill will impact the complicated US debate regarding global warming.

For months now, the US Senate has been awaiting the unveiling of a historic new global warming law. Recent reports indicate it may be finally introduced next week.

In the fractious Senate, where even the Democrats are riven by regional differences, passing this bill at the best of times would be difficult. But in the midst of the slow-motion disaster unfolding around the BP spill, all of a sudden the terrain looks even more volatile than usual.

Does the oil spill make the passage of the Senate bill less likely by shattering the fragile coalition necessary to move it forward?

Or does the spill so thoroughly highlight the desperate need to move towards a post-oil economy that it makes adoption more likely?

Only time will tell.

But it may well be that the more lasting impact of the oil spill is measured in votes won or lost on the floor of the US Senate as opposed to dead turtles and grimy seabirds.

Clean energy jobs success stories

The Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference wrapped up today in Washington.

Senator John Kerry kicked off the day by declaring "I don't want America to be Number Two (in clean energy). I want America to be Number One". We can't drill and burn our way out of the climate crisis, he said, so we need a clean energy revolution that reduces oil, creates jobs and protects the environment.

Senator Kerry's rallying cry was not empty political rhetoric. The rest of the day was filled with stories of how the U.S. is retooling its economy now to transition to clean energy.

For example, we heard from Chandra Brown, the president of United Streetcar in Oregon. Chandra was working for Oregon Iron Works (United Streetcar's parent company) in 2005 when she was shocked to learn that the U.S. was not manufacturing a single streetcar. She and others set out to change that, and last July, the first American-made streetcar in 58 years rolled out the door. The workers who had built it were so proud they all signed their names to it.

Portland, Oregon is now upgrading its streetcar system, supplied by United Streetcar. And, business owners along the streetcar routes are seeing economic gains from the increased public transit and are helping to fund it.

We also heard about the small town of Newton, Iowa. A long-time manufacturing centre for Maytag, the town was devastated when 1,800 people lost their job when the facility closed in 2006. Now, two wind manufacturers have moved into town, creating roughly 700 jobs. Iowa's renewable fuel standard is credited with helping to make that happen.

And, we heard about Trenton, Nova Scotia. In 2007, the TrentonWorks steel facility was closed, putting 330 people out of work. In March of this year, the province announced a joint venture with Daiwoo, a South Korean firm, to build wind turbine towers and blades on the site of the closed steel mill. It will employ 400 people when completed, putting steelworkers back on the job.

The Trenton example shows that Canada can create good, clean energy jobs, and provinces like Nova Scotia and Ontario are leading the way in the absence of federal leadership.

However, without federal leadership to spur the transition to a clean energy economy and ensure we harness new jobs in the fast growing sector, Canada will continue to fall behind. If the U.S. is gunning to be Number One in the clean energy race, I'd say our federal government is aiming for a solid last place finish.

Gillian McEachern
Program Manager, Climate and Energy
Environmental Defence

Green is Gold: US Clean Energy Agenda

I'm writing from the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference in Washington, D.C. The conference centre is packed with labour representatives, people working in green jobs, politicians, business leaders, environmental activists, municipal and state civil servants and more. And they're all here to share stories and strategies for creating new, good jobs retooling to a clean energy economy.

Some highlights from today include:

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi kicked off the conference this morning, highlighting the importance the Obama administration is placing on clean energy and climate. "Green is gold," she said, and that she thinks clean energy and climate legislation can soon land on the President's desk. This is encouraging coming from the same woman who wrestled health care through the House.
• The Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, talked about building America's Solar City.
• A presentation showing the possibility for the U.S. to dramatically reduce the amount of oil used in transportation, and that twice as many jobs were created per dollar spent on public transit compared to highway construction through the stimulus spending. The majority of tar sands oil feed the U.S. thirst for oil for transportation.

I presented on a panel on U.S. and Canadian climate and energy policy this afternoon and highlighted our new report on Canada's 66,000 lost clean energy jobs. The audience, mainly Americans, followed up with several questions about the tar sands. A few years ago, most Americans knew little or nothing about the tar sands. That's changing now as concerns mount over the environmental impacts of tar sands pipelines and refineries coursing through the U.S.

The devastating oil spill unfolding now in the Gulf has been a big topic of discussion at the conference. It adds a renewed urgency to the transition from polluting fossil fuels to clean energy as the risks and consequences of increasingly dangerous and dirty sources of oil - tar sands, oil shale, offshore - are being felt.

Gillian McEachern
Program Manager, Climate and Energy
Environmental Defence