“C” is for climate platform: Grading the major national parties’ climate plans

NOTE: A revised version of this post will be published on the Center for International Policy Studies blog next week (August 8, 2021).

The summer of 2021 may mark a potential turning point in Canada’s collective climate consciousness: In June, an unprecedented “heat dome” in Western Canada saw temperatures soar to record heights. The whole world watched as the town of Lytton, BC, hit 49.6°C, completely shattering the country’s previous heat records. Then came the wildfires – hundreds of them – followed by relentless crop-killing drought throughout much of the prairies, and hazy smoke-filled skies across the rest of the country for weeks. The highly anticipated release of the IPCC’s Sixth Climate Assessment in August seemed to solidify for many Canadians just how destabilizing climate change will be in their own lifetimes.

It is perhaps unsurprising that climate change now ranks as the number one concern of Canadian voters. Now that the Trudeau Liberals have called a snap election, let us take a moment to evaluate the four major parties’ climate platforms. With the exception of the Green Party, which hasn’t yet released a full platform, the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP each have dedicated climate plan documents, available here, here, and here, respectively. For its part, Green Party leader Annamie Paul has suggested that the party’s stance on climate change is “virtually identical” to what it was during the 2019 election campaign (so I base my analysis on that document, which can be found here). For this analysis I developed a fairly rudimentary ‘rubric’ to grade each climate plan along four axes: ambition, feasibility, effectiveness, and accessibility. Here’s a breakdown for each category, with the final ‘grades’ posted below:

Ambition 

Here I sought to determine how ambitious each plan was relative to Canada’s current climate policy framework. Ramping up ambition is important domestically, as it signals to voters how urgent of an issue the government considers climate change to be, and hints at the scale of change required to address the problem. Canada’s current climate policy framework, as shaped by the Trudeau liberals over the last half decade, is more ambitious than the prior Harper government’s climate policy, thanks to a wide range of programs and policies that have been introduced (in particular, the Pan Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, which includes carbon pricing as a core element of the plan; and the Net Zero Accountability Act, which requires the government to set legally-binding five-year GHG reduction targets through to reaching Net Zero in 2050). 

I graded each party on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 marks a major scaling back of ambition; 5 marks the same level of ambition as the government’s current policy; and 10 marks a major ramping up of ambition. The Liberals scored a 7/10, in part because they have expressed a clear desire to take their climate mitigation strategy to the next level, including ramping up Canada’s GHG reduction target, earlier this year, to 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2030. The Conservatives have stated a desire to scale back to the Harper era target (30% below 2005 levels by 2030). That’s a major problem, as it would mark a violation of the Paris Agreement rules. For this reason, they scored a low 4/10. If the Liberals mark a scaling-up of ambition, then the NDP’s plan does so even further, with a stated reduction of 50% below 2005 levels by 2030 (earning them a score of 8/10). The Greens, who in 2019 called for a 60% reduction below 2005 levels by 2030 as well as a complete re-orientation of the economy around climate change mitigation, earned an impressive 9/10 for ambition. 

Feasibility

Of course, it’s one thing to have ambition, quite another thing to have a viable plan to get us there. Unsurprisingly, those parties with the most ambition generally have plans that seem harder to swallow given Canada’s contemporary political reality. Here I asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, how feasible each plan was in terms of being “palatable” and “adoptable” given Canada’s contemporary social, political and economic contexts, with 1 representing a plan that will face major obstacles; 5 representing a ‘typical’ level of political support and opposition seen in Canadian policy implementation; and 10 marking a plan that will easily garner enough support to come to fruition.

For context, it’s important to remember how wedded parts of the country are, politically and economically, to oil and gas production. Let us also not forget the torrent of opposition that often comes alongside new oil and gas infrastructure (in particular, pipeline projects). Canada, in short, is a divided nation on the question of whether fossil fuels have any role to play in the future. The country also has a complex federal structure where various areas of overlapping jurisdiction between provinces and the national government compete, making climate policy a slow and hiccup-ridden process. On one hand, the Liberals have a high level of political support for their climate objectives, even from voters in other parties, leading to a fairly high score on feasibility. However, because of the tensions simmering beneath the surface of its carbon pricing plan, the Liberals’ platform scored a 7/10. There are plenty of actors, in short, that will seek – and have the means – to throw wrenches in Trudeau’s plans. The Conservative plan scored a titch higher (at 8/10). The reality is that because most Canadians want to see climate action, it is unlikely that there would be much opposition to any climate-based policies that the Conservatives seek to put in place, with perhaps the exception of the increasingly vocal youth climate movement, which is unlikely to take kindly to a roll-back in ambition. The NDP plan would likely garner support from many corners of the Canadian populace, but its proposed deep emissions cuts are likely to push up against social and cultural norms in various parts of the country (they got 6/10); the Greens would push even more buttons (the policy changes required for a 60% reduction of 2005 emissions over the next 9 years would be very difficult to bring about politically, so their score was 4/10). 

Effectiveness

In terms of effectiveness, I sought to measure how successful the plan would be in meeting global climate change mitigation goals if the plan were fully instituted. I asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, how effective each plan would be in terms of putting Canada on a path towards supporting the Paris temperature targets of limiting global warming to between 1.5° and 2.0° C (with 1 representing a plan that does not come close to supporting Canada’s required contributions; 5 marking a plan that approaches the 2.0° C threshold; and 10 denoting a plan that would firmly put Canada in the group of countries helping the world get to within the 1.5° to 2.0° C temperature target). 

Canada’s current planned policies put the country on track for what Climate Tracker calls an “insufficient” contribution to climate mitigation, meaning that if all other countries had the same level of ambition as Canada, the world would likely see up to 3°C of warming by 2100. Given the Liberal plan to improve emissions reduction targets and its overall comprehensiveness, I’m tempted to offer a score of 6/10. However, the plan’s relatively high reliance on carbon sequestration technology, its unwillingness to embrace the idea of full decarbonization (using instead the oil and gas sector’s subversive language on “Net Zero”), and its central focus on the ever-elusive idea of “green growth”, bring the score down to a 4/10. The truth is it’s going to be incredibly difficult to make Canada’s economy compliant with Paris’ global temperature goals without drastic changes to our economic and regulatory structure, because we’re starting from such a high baseline and have so little time to get to zero. For all their good intentions, the Liberal climate policy is too conservative in its attempts to achieve emissions reductions without changing the nation’s political economy too significantly. The Conservative plan is even worse as far as effectiveness goes. Yes, it offers up a range of tools mirroring some of the Liberal policies, including carbon pricing for individuals and corporate polluters, EV sales mandates, and billions in clean energy investments, but these place much of the GHG mitigation burden on greener market activity, which just isn’t going to cut it (they get a 2/10). The NDP scores a 6/10 for effectiveness (it’s got great broader plans, but it’s also a little light on details, so it’s hard to measure how effective these would be). The Greens score 7/10 (they offer a comprehensive set of policies, though it is a bit surprising to see them turn their back entirely on nuclear energy, which already accounts for 15% of Canada’s electricity generation and arguably should play some role if the foremost concern is climate change mitigation). While these latter two plans are indeed ambitious, they sadly only narrowly put Canada on track to support a global warming limit of below 2°C.

Accessibility

Even though a plan may garner sufficient political support, a plan’s overall quality can be weakened if it is seen to be “out of touch”. Here I’m looking at things like how each plan tackles the problem of incorporating various subtypes of Canada’s diverse population into the plan of action. To what extent do oil and gas workers, Indigenous communities, Canada’s rural population and urbanites, youth and elders, etc. see themselves represented in the plan? Is the platform presented as a “top-down” plan that citizens will be coerced to follow, or is it a fully-inclusive plan that Canadians from coast to coast to coast will willingly participate in? On a scale of 1 to 10, I sought to measure each plan’s “accessibility” in this regard. Part of the score was also reserved for the actual nature of the platform as a communication tool – since that is the first entry point for most climate voters seeking to determine whether the party has something to offer.

As far as grades go, the Liberals took a hit for having a plan that comes across as a tad out of touch with everyday Canadians (scoring a 5/10). Yes, different stakeholder groups are mentioned in the plan, but the plan is communicated more as “we’ve got a plan for you” than “we’re counting on your unique contribution”. The Conservative platform is notable for seeking to reach out to a number of different groups in Canada without alienating them, from oil sands workers to Indigenous peoples, to farmers and everyday Canadian families. Ironically though, the growing pool of climate-concerned voters may not be intimately enthused by the watered-down role expected of them (so the Conservatives scored a 6/10). The NDP score was hurt in part by just being a bit wordy – the plan comes across as overly academic, although they get points from strong worker incorporation through a focus on green jobs (score 5/10). The Green Party incurred a score reduction due to its likely interpretation as excluding workers in heavy-emitting sectors; many “comfortable” Canadian families will feel like the plan is an attack on their way of life (it also took an added hit for not having released a climate platform specifically for this election; final score 4/10).

Overall Results

In the end, we get a sense of the “shape” of each party’s plan by plotting the scores on a radar graph (see Figure 1). As expected, parties with lower ambition scores tend to have higher feasibility scores, and parties that have comprehensive effective plans are likely to be seen as less ‘accessible’ to everyday Canadians. That’s just how democracy rolls. 

Figure 1: Assessment of the Four Major National Parties’ Climate Platforms, Canadian Federal Election 2021

Finally, we can also tally up the cumulative scores to see which party receives the highest grade overall (Figure 2). Here, the NDP pulled ahead ever so slightly, with 25 points (out of a possible 40). They were followed by the Greens in second place (24/40); Liberals in third (at 23/40); and the Conservatives trailing behind at 20/40). Climate voters should consider this analysis critically, this is, after all, just one person’s subjective analysis. The bad news is that, in grading terms, no party scored higher than a “C”! While it’s certainly no easy task to come up with a viable climate plan that will please everyone, our country’s historically lax efforts on climate change mitigation make this evermore important for Election 44.

Figure 2: Cumulative Scores (out of 40), Party Climate Platforms, Election 44 (2021)

Ten years on from Fukushima: Are we asking the right questions about nuclear energy?

 NOTE: This is a repost of a blog I wrote for the Centre for International Policy Studies. See the original here (it comes along with a video version!): https://www.cips-cepi.ca/2021/03/15/ten-years-on-from-fukushima-are-we-asking-the-right-questions-about-nuclear-energy/

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami originating near Tōhoku, Japan, caused inordinate damage to communities across Japan’s Eastern coastline. It also triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daīchi Nuclear Power Plant.

Today – a decade later – the post-disaster clean-up and rebuilding process outside of Fukushima Prefecture is mostly complete, meeting the Japan Reconstruction Agency’s 10-year timeline for earthquake and tsunami restoration. However, the post-meltdown recovery in Fukushima itself is slated to take much longer. A large swath of land surrounding the power plant was contaminated with radiation, and some 70,000 workers continue with daily decontamination efforts. 

The recovery workload within the contaminated areas is beyond comprehension: paved surfaces need to be pressure-washed, roofs wiped down, topsoil cleared, and even leaves cleared from the forest floor! Over 320,000 truckloads of contaminated topsoil have been removed from the exclusion zone thus far. Much of it is destined for an interim storage facility in the region, but where it will go after that is a matter of political debate. As contaminated soil awaits the trip to the facility, much of it sits in orderly stacks of large plastic bags located throughout the countryside. 

The villages and towns in the exclusion zone serve as an eerie reminder that a different kind of disaster happened there. Even areas that have been deemed safe for the return of human inhabitants are only lightly populated. The result is a smattering of ghost towns with abandoned and overgrown buildings adjacent to semi-vacant safe zones, where a much smaller (and older) population now resides. It seems many families with young children are not keen to return to the area. 

The economic costs of the disaster are also hard to comprehend. The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown together caused $211 billion USD in direct losses. Further, over the last decade, the government has budgeted 31.3 trillion yen (US$288 billion) for the rebuilding effort.

One estimate of the total cost of the disaster throughout the expected 40-year recovery period is $1 trillion USD, with 80% related to the meltdown. Pandemic aside, life in many parts of Japan has returned to “normal.” But parts of Fukushima may not see a return to “normal” for many generations.

What are the short- and long-term risks to society posed by the construction, operation, (re)fuelling, refurbishment, and eventual decommissioning of nuclear power plants? What are the short- and long-term benefits to society derived from this relatively low-carbon source of steady ‘baseload’ power? Do the social, ecological and economic benefits outweigh the risks or vice versa? These are the fundamental questions we need to be asking about civilian nuclear energy projects everywhere. Yet my research finds that these questions receive inadequate public attention – at least not by the nuclear industry or civilian nuclear societies promoting nuclear energy as a low carbon energy source.

My research into nuclear energy was prompted by the emergence of the “Climate First” movement – a major shift within environmentalist circles regarding its stance on nuclear energy. For decades nuclear energy was one of the foremost targets of the environmental movement; to be an environmentalist in the 20^th Century was to be anti-nuclear. But with the environmental movement’s shifting attention to climate change near the turn of the Century, some environmentalists had a change of heart.

To their credit, many individuals within the Climate First fold have engaged in a comprehensive discussion about the risk-benefit trade-offs of nuclear energy. In my recent article, I reviewed a dozen pro-nuclear books written by individual nuclear proponents and scored them according to their willingness to disclose risks; all of them scored a ‘5’ – the highest level of risk disclosure. All the authors admitted that there are risks associated with nuclear energy, but claimed these are manageable, and more importantly, the hazards are relatively minor compared to the perils of runaway climate change. They thus argued that we need to massively scale-up nuclear energy now in order to save humanity from the far greater scourge of anthropogenic climate change. 

Some Climate First proponents even came to this conclusion after the Fukushima disaster. For them, the calculus has largely come down to the comparatively low death toll of the meltdown compared to the natural disasters which caused it. The numbers are still a bit murky – but whereas there were nearly 16,000 deaths as a result of the tsunami, there were reportedly zero deaths caused by radiation poisoning during the meltdown (that officially changed in 2018 when the government linked the lung cancer death of a Fukushima worker to the meltdown, though even that single death’s connection to the meltdown is disputed by some). Meanwhile, the stress of evacuating the area during the meltdown is associated with the deaths of between 573 and 2,304 people.

Comparative assessments of the relatively low death toll from radiation associated with nuclear accidents are just one (crude) method of debating whether nuclear power qualifies as a “safe” and “clean” source of energy. There is a wide range of other social, ecological and economic risks associated with the technology, including uranium mining, transporting nuclear fuel and waste, the construction and operation of power plants, and the long-term storage of nuclear waste. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the nuclear industry and governmental agencies are reluctant to participate in nuanced discussions about these risks. When I reviewed the official statements and public materials disseminated by the industry-led Nuclear 4 Climate (N4C) initiative, I found it consistently avoided activating “risk frames” (scoring between 1.1 and 2.2 on the 5-point risk disclosure scale, meaning that they barely mentioned risks at all).

From a strategic communications point of view, it makes perfect sense to avoid highlighting risk in public discourse, particularly if the goal is to draw positive conceptual associations between “nuclear energy” and “clean energy.” Recent research into the way societies interpret nuclear risk suggests that for most people, most of the time, their perspectives will be shaped by passive, affective thought processes – quick, subconscious thoughts influenced by imagery, phrasing, and emotional and ideological connections.

In order to change an individual’s perspective about nuclear energy, one would need to tap into their rational thought process, but that’s difficult to do without time to think. So, if you’re setting up a display booth at a UN Climate Conference trying to promote nuclear as a low carbon energy source to passersby, the last thing you want to do is show imagery of the Fukushima meltdown and try to make a nuanced argument about how relatively low was the death toll (the mere mention of ‘Fukushima’ would have already turned off the audience)!

Herein lies an ethical dilemma for Climate First proponents: They urgently want to promote a major scale-up of nuclear energy, seeing it as a key tool to fight climate change. And yet, by talking about nuclear in an open way – debating the risks and benefits across society, the economy and the environment – they could slow down the pace of development, even turn people away from the very technology they seek to promote! 

Yet in reflecting on the Fukushima disaster ten years on, we should nevertheless welcome such thorough and honest conversations about nuclear energy – and be open to the possibility that our preconceptions about the technology may not be informed by the latest science. We should look closely at the legacy of Fukushima – not to try to justify pre-existing positions for or against nuclear energy – but rather as an important visual question for polities seeking to benefit from the steady low-carbon power it provides: Are we willing to accept the risk that a similar fate may befall us all?

The Pandemic, the Economy, and Climate Change: Three Takeaways So Far

Early in the pandemic there was a lot of confusion about the impact of COVID-19 on climate change. Here's a link to my blog post about this for CIPS, and here's the VIDEO version that blog coordinator Philip Leech-Ngo put together:

Canada’s oil and gas sector and climate mitigation – Part 1: The problem

The following is from a two-part guest blog I wrote for the McLeod Group. See the original here.

The 2019 federal election revealed an underlying contradiction between Canada’s climate change mitigation policy and its energy development strategy. On one hand, voters rewarded the Trudeau government’s efforts to take bold action on climate change. On the other hand, the Prairie provinces demonstrated deep discontent with what they saw as a federal government bent on stifling the energy sector.

Despite trying to find a balance between economic and environmental interests, the Trudeau government’s balancing efforts during its first term – particularly its decision to purchase the Trans Mountain Pipeline and put a price on carbon – only aggravated both sides. Environmentalists believed that the pipeline concession was a death blow to a viable climate plan, while proponents of the oil and gas sector argued that the “carbon tax” would increase the cost of everything and fail to reduce emissions.

Canada thus faces an extremely difficult challenge ahead in reconciling these competing interests. It wants to do well by the world in terms of contributing to climate change mitigation. And yet it also wants to accrue some economic benefit from being in the fortunate position of sitting atop the world’s third-largest oil reserves (169 billion barrels, 10% of the world’s oil).

The Canadian government also wants to achieve reconciliation with First Nations communities. While some of these communities see commercial opportunities in oil and gas development, others vehemently oppose the sector. Moreover, it wants to unify a country which is deeply divided along provincial lines, with Québec and B.C. effectively blocking Alberta oil from reaching the East and West coasts, respectively.

So, what is to be done? I do not claim to have all the answers. But if the Trudeau government sticks with the same approach as before, it is destined to fail.

The previous approach was kneecapped by its unnuanced interpretation of the relationship between the economy and the environment. The Trudeau government’s mantra became “the environment and the economy go hand in hand!”. This adage was rammed down Canadians’ throats at every turn.

The problem is that this is not always true. What’s good for the economy is not always good for the environment, and vice versa. While it is possible to lessen the environmental footprint of growth (in fact, for every dollar of GDP growth today, Canada only emits 65% as much CO2 as it did in 1990), there are nevertheless limits to this trend. In some spaces this type of win-win relationship between economy and environment is simply unattainable.

Attempts to reconcile climate action and growth is a lost cause in the oil and gas sector in particular. Even if it were possible to achieve carbon-neutral production (a nearly impossible target in the case of Alberta bitumen), there is the additional challenge of decarbonizing the transport of oil and gas to market.

Pipelines currently emit the equivalent of 7.1 million tons of CO2 in Canada, more than all emissions from domestic aviation. We would also have to neutralize leaks, known as fugitive emissions, which amount to astonishing 54 million tons of CO2, or 7.5% of Canada’s total emissions. In addition, we would then need to decarbonize oil and gas consumption within the end-use sectors such as transport and heating, which account for 28% and 11% of Canada’s emissions, respectively. Oil and gas extraction alone accounts for nearly 15% of Canada’s total, and these emissions are expected to increase in the coming years. In short, any form of support for oil and gas – be it regulatory approval of a pipeline, or a fossil fuel subsidy – poses a direct challenge to climate action.

By the same token, most aggressive climate mitigation policies – such as putting a price on carbon or investing in renewable energy – pose a threat to the viability of the oil and gas sector. In this particular instance, what’s good for the economy is not good for the environment.

However, that is not to say that there’s no possible win-win scenario, even in the Prairies. In fact, numerous opportunities await, with four obvious areas of opportunity: a) renewable energy; b) regenerative agriculture; c) oil well reclamation; and d) alternative fuels.

The renewable energy opportunities in Alberta and Saskatchewan are exceptional. The potential for wind power, solar energy, and geothermal are orders of magnitude greater than presently installed capacity of those energy technologies. They could be expanded with the aim of generating tens of thousands of green jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity over the next decade.

The Prairie provinces are also agricultural powerhouses. While agriculture presently emits about 8.4% of Canada’s greenhouse gases, the switch to regenerative practices like no-till crop production or grassland conservation grazing have potential to sequester enormous amounts of CO2. That would offset some of those emissions, all while producing high-value food commodities and generating other ecosystem benefits, relating to biodiversity, soil quality and watershed management.

After decades of oil and gas development, Western Canada has a significant problem on its hands, with 139,000 inactive or abandoned oil wells requiring clean-up. Alberta’s share of the clean-up will cost $260 billion. As Regan Boychuk and Avi Lewis recently pointed out, this could be interpreted as a $260 billion opportunity. One of the obvious benefits is that the same jobs which were created by the drilling industry could be sustained by substantial investments in the reclamation industry. Since reclamation involves restoring topsoil and re-establishing vegetation, these projects would also support additional carbon sequestration.

Finally, alternative fuels offer tremendous promise in the Western provinces as well, particularly since they are linked to existing sectors such as agriculture, forestry and fossil fuels. There are a number of different kinds of low-carbon alternative fuels.

Biofuels are in theory carbon-neutral because they are made using crop by-products or other materials, such as forestry residues and waste from the agri-food sector. They thus return CO2 to the atmosphere in a cyclical manner when burned – as opposed to burning fossil fuels, which just pumps additional CO2 in the atmosphere.

Hydrogen is another proposed alternative fuel for the transport sector. There is presently a carbon-neutral trucking pilot project in Alberta underway. It is fuelled entirely by hydrogen, which only emits water when burned.

The most common source of hydrogen is fossil fuel (of which there is no shortage in Western Canada!). One recent scientific effort has found a way to extract hydrogen from oil deposits underground, leaving the carbon dioxide underground as well. This is also useful for a third kind of alternative fuel known as electrofuels. They combine hydrogen with carbon dioxide sucked out of the air to produce synthetic hydrocarbons that mimic fossil fuels, but are carbon-neutral.

In many ways, these four opportunities are already being explored. The renewable energy sector is red hot in the Prairies. The expansion of no-till agriculture across the Prairie provinces, which started decades ago, has increased yields, reduced fertilizer and fuel costs and continues to support the drawdown of CO2. This year, there were more decommissioned wells than drilled wells in Alberta. One report on bioenergy found that between 2007 and 2014, bioenergy projects in Alberta produced a savings equivalent to 11 million tons of CO2 and gave rise to a $2 billion dollar industry supporting thousands of jobs.

But there’s a catch. These climate mitigation and economic development opportunities will only be truly maximized if they receive the requisite levels of support from the rest of Canada.

The federal government in particular has an essential role to play. Instead of extending olive branches in the form of pipelines, the feds should get out of the oil business and focus their efforts on achieving a genuine, just transition led by the innovative people of the Prairies. Instead of merely paying lip service to incentives for clean energy through tax breaks, Canada ought to fork over major investment dollars – in research, development and, in particular, support for new infrastructures required for this transition. Instead of centring its economic development strategy on getting Alberta oil to tidewater, the Trudeau government ought to recognize the vulnerabilities lurking behind high-cost synthetic bitumen in a very volatile world market. Finally, the government should support indigenous leadership in climate change mitigation, particularly by fully implementing the 94 calls to action laid out by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The post-2014 downturn in Alberta has exacerbated sentiments of Western alienation. The resurgence of secure, well-paying jobs in the region could help reduce these tensions. The Trudeau government must recognize the opportunity before it. It needs to tackle economic development, national unity and climate change all at once. There’s not enough time left to keep making the same mistakes as before.

How to deal with news stories claiming the end of civilization is nigh...

I've had yet another conversation with a student feeling worried, anxious and confused about yet another report pointing out the dire threat of climate change. This headline (or variants of it) has been making the rounds today: "Climate change could end human civilization by 2050: report https://trib.al/bZ5o70d". 

What are we to make of this information, and such extraordinary headlines - which suggest that we could literally be dead in 30 years!? Here's my attempt an an answer for students:

1) Before reading the rest of this... if you are feeling anxious just take a moment to look around your current context and breathe, and take a moment to appreciate what a wonderful world this is and what a wonderful life you have. If you're reading this then the walls are NOT coming down around you at the present moment. You're not facing an imminent threat (as in, your life is not in danger at this moment). You have access to all your needs for survival (food, shelter, water, companionship, etc.), and likely many amenities too. Quite frankly, by virtue of just being able to read this it is likely the case that your life is - relatively speaking - pretty darn fantastic. So just take a moment to appreciate that before trying to process this type of news...

2)  The situation is indeed urgent, but the future is not already determined. Try not to get your focus diverted by sensationalist headlines... the actual report itself isn't actually saying much new when you boil it down: It's saying IF we don't tackle climate change the consequences will be extremely dire. But we actually have already known that for a while, right? The important thing to note is that this is not inevitable. We CAN avoid that fate, but we have to change our BEHAVIOUR. One way to think of reports like these is that they are like 'interventions' for a friend who's an addict. It's not that they WILL die from their addiction, but rather that if the situation doesn't change things could get very, very bad. So... change!

3) Sometimes it feels like changing our personal behaviour is the only thing we can do, and there are lots of good reasons to change our personal behaviour and consumption. But ultimately the most effective changes are at the COLLECTIVE SCALE. In other words, instead of JUST cutting down on, say, single-use plastics, join a campaign or sign a petition or write a political letter about it. Ultimately we need the COLLECTIVE to change behaviour, not just individuals, and the best way to bring those changes about are through political change or regulation or laws or policies or programs, etc., that target entire communities of people. And if you feel the governments of the day aren't addressing the situation adequately, join a political movement to express your concern along with others.

4) Try not to DWELL on the shitty stories. Instead try to focus on good news stories. There are amazing things happening - even in terms of climate mitigation. For instance, another story came our today which was eclipsed by that report: Finland - a developed Northern country - has announced a plan to be carbon-neutral by 2035. That's remarkable, and it serves an example we can point to. The Clean Energy Canada weekly newsletter is full of stories like this. Subscribe so it ends up in your inbox each week.

5) Channel your concern into action of some sort. This is kind of a repeat of point 3 above.. but it's so important. It will also help you feel better and give meaning. ACT, with others, in a POSITIVE way. There's a bazillion things you can do. From attending/organizing a rally to planning trees to writing a song, or calling your MP to express your frustration, whatever... just try to CHANNEL your concern into action (and again, not JUST more sustainable consumption).

6) Don't let yourself slip into despair. In fact, remind yourself that as one of the world's privileged individuals you have a RESPONSIBILITY to NOT become a climate defeatist. And for those times when you're having trouble, talk. Talk to your friends, your family, your colleagues, your professors, your psychologist, whoever! Just don't sink into a world of despair, and especially not on your own. Talk it out... and seek professional help if you're having trouble with this (there's nothing wrong with getting medical support for this).

Flying under the climate radar!

Here is a post originally written for A/J magazine (here), but revised and posted on the CIPS blog more recently (here):

Monday, 13 July 2018 was a day for the record books. On that day the Swedish company FlightRadar24 tracked 205,468 flights occurring around the world, making it aviation’s busiest day in history. It would be a herculean task to determine the total carbon footprint of all those flights put together, but a basic back-of-envelope calculation yields some jaw-dropping figures. Consider that even a one-way short-haul flight in Canada (such as the average 1-hour trip between Ottawa and Toronto) generates about 4718 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO₂) — about as much as a typical passenger vehicle does in a whole year.[1]

If the Ottawa to Toronto route is representative of the global average in terms of distance travelled, aircraft type, and occupancy, then the aviation sector would have consumed the equivalent of over 2.2 million barrels of oil on that single day! By way of comparison, that’s enough energy to power nearly 105,000 North American homes for a whole year! It is so much CO₂ that it would require 1.1 million acres of forest a full year to remove it all from the atmosphere.[2] That’s one big day of air travel!

Of course, it’s quite possible that many of the flights tracked were not as damaging, since the tracking software sometimes includes non-commercial small aircraft. But even if we cut that estimate in half, the energy used would still be equivalent to the amount of oil coming out of North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields every day. The point is that any way you look at it, the aviation industry is an unmitigated climate change nightmare. Studies show that global flight emissions alone account for about 2% of all anthropogenic emissions globally.[3] Yet that’s just direct aircraft emissions of CO₂. Planes also emit nitrous oxides, water vapour, sulfates, and soot — which also impact the climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that in 1992, aviation was responsible for 3.5% of all “anthropogenic radiative forcing” (in other words, 3.5% of human-caused climate change), which was expected to climb to 5% by 2050. But that figure doesn’t even account for the sector’s broader supply chain, which would have to factor in all the energy that goes into building, maintaining, and energizing airports and runways; producing, refining, storing, and transporting jet fuel; and of course, feeding all those hundreds of thousands of daily travellers.

There are no good global estimates of emissions from the entire aviation supply chain out there. However, one study of the life-cycle emissions for the aviation sector in the US found that an equivalent of 30% of aircraft emissionsare generated through indirect categories such as jet fuel production, airport and runway construction, aircraft manufacturing, and so on. If the same is true in global terms, then the aviation sector is responsible for about 4.6% of anthropogenic radiative forcing.

According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), there were more than 4 billion air passengers last year. Of course, not everyone in the world flies. In fact, most of the world (80%) has never been on an airplane. And of the remaining 20%, some travel frequently and some travel about once a year. One educated guess is that 6% of the world’s population flies in a given year (as distinct passengers) — so, about 446 million people in 2016. The aviation sector thus has a population akin to that of Indonesia and Nigeria combined, being responsible for about 4.6% of anthropogenic warming.[4]

All of this raises an important question: Why is it that while the world’s biggest oil companies and, more recently, the world’s largest livestock producers, occasionally get lambasted in the media for their willful ignorance on climate change, the world’s biggest airlines do not? While it’s true that there is a growing popular understanding that flying is a “climate negative” behaviour, there is very little sense of how significant the sector is as a contributor to anthropogenic climate change.

More worryingly is how significant it will be according to projections of growing air travel. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), air travel is expected to double over the next two decades. So how is the aviation industry avoiding being held to account for climate change? 

First, the sector benefits from the publicity received by technological innovations and efficiency gains in aviation — this gives the perception that the corporations that build and operate aircraft, and the governments that regulate them, are taking the necessary steps to tackle the problem. While the idea of electric airplanes is pretty much a non-starter for commercial aviation, there are indeed some recent efficiency and technological gains made by aircraft manufacturers and airline companies. Notably, these include the growing use of biofuels, new lightweight materials being used on airplanes, and improvements in air traffic management (all of which help reduce emissions).

Combined with the rise of “offset” products, these innovations give the false impression that aviation emissions are under control. But nothing could be further from the truth. For instance, the sector’s target of 1.5% fuel efficiency improvements per year between 2009 and 2020 are clearly being overwhelmed by the annual growth in passenger demand, which has hovered at around 6% per year. Improvements in efficiency are certainly helpful, but they are simply not keeping up with the growing pace of emissions.

The second reason relates to problems with the IPCC reporting mechanisms for aviation emissions. Because of the international nature of aviation vis-a-vis the nation-based reporting to the IPCC, countries submit figures for domestic and international aviation separately. In part, this is borne of a methodological dispute over who ought to take the emissions burden in their national greenhouse gas (GHG) reports.

For instance, should emissions for an international flight be split 50/50 between the countries of departure and arrival? What if the majority of the flight occurs over one country, or if the majority of passengers are from another — should those countries report a higher share of the flight emissions? Or, should the emissions be attributed to the country where the airplane fuelled-up?

The problem with this dual-reporting mechanism is that emissions figures often end up being downplayed. For instance, a 2012 government reportentitled Canada’s Action Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Aviation claims that only around 5% of transport emissions (about 1% of national emissions) are due to aviation. But that figure only includes domesticaviation. A deeper dive into Canada’s National Inventory Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (hiding somewhere on page 88) shows that when international travel is included, aviation is actually responsible for 11% of transport sector emissions, or 2.7% of the country’s total emissions. In the end, the ability of aviation — like global shipping — to sneak out of national reporting has helped the sector fly under the radar at the national level, since domestically oriented policies try to identify and reduce GHG emissions from the most polluting sectors.

Finally, there’s CORSIA — the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation. This is the global aviation industry’s ambitious plan for addressing climate change. According to CORSIA, the aviation sector has less than a decade to cap and reduce its flight emissions to 2020 levels, and then by 2050 it aims to bring them down an additional 50% compared to 2005 levels. While that would indeed mark a substantial reduction, the likelihood of it being achieved is extremely low. So much of CORSIA relies on what it calls a “Global Market-Based Measure” (MBM) — essentially a global-scale carbon fee that most nations would have to agree to that would go towards offsetting the projected growth in international emissions relative to 2020.

Obviously, the plan to implement a global MBM is riddled with problems. Not only does it require the international community to co-operate on the implementation of new carbon pricing (a political policy wedge in countless industrialized nations today), but it also assumes problematically that carbon offsets work in the first place. As one expert explains, “offsetting is worse than doing nothing. It is without scientific legitimacy, is dangerously misleading, and almost certainly contributes to a net increase in the absolute rate of global emissions growth.”

Ultimately, like the publicity around new technologies in aviation efficiencies, CORSIA gives the impression that the problem is being addressed, when clearly it is getting worse. Even if the CORSIA plan reached its objectives of 50% of 2005 emissions by 2050, the sector would still be contributing about 857 Mt of CO₂ by mid-century (about as much as Germany emits today) — meaning that the aviation sector alone would be eating up 12% of the global carbon budget for 1.5⁰ C of warming.

In the end, we are left with the classic challenge of trying to balance the benefits of global aviation (and I’ll be the first to admit there are many) with the extreme scale of damage caused by the industry. It’s hard to imagine giving up flying in this fast-paced, integrated, modern world. Perhaps a good starting point is to consider the merits of tackling growth in aviation, which ultimately means coming up with concrete ways to fly less overall.

Until the aviation industry is held to account for its contribution to climate change, the band-aid solutions of trying to minimize the impact of this booming sector will continue to allow it to fly under the radar.

[1] According to ICAO, the average aircraft on that route burns 1866 kg (493 gallons) of aviation fuel during the trip. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), jet fuel emits 9.57 kg of CO₂ per gallon. So, the average Ottawa–Toronto flight emits 4718 kg of CO₂ (4.718 Metric Tons).

[2] These conversion factors all come from the EPA’s “Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator” — using a value of 969,398 Metric Tons (Mt) of CO₂(4.718 Mt x 205,468).

[3] According to the ICAO, the international component of the sector emitted 448 Mt CO₂ from direct fuel consumption in 2010. The ICAO also notes that international aviation accounts for 65% of global aviation fuel consumption, meaning that another 241 Mt CO₂ is emitted from domestic aviation. Together, 689 Mt CO₂ is equivalent to 1.4% of global anthropogenic emissions in 2010 according to the IPCC. According to IATA, air transport accounted for 2% of anthropogenic emissions in 2017 (about 859 Mt of CO₂).

[4] In reality, those two countries combined only produce about 2.3% of global emissions.

The GM Oshawa Closure and Canada's Transition to a Zero-Emissions Vehicle Fleet

This post was originally published in Policy Options/ Options Politiques, on December 3rd, 2018.

The recent closure of the GM Oshawa plant has both nothing and everything to do with climate change. Nothing, in the sense that any claim that GM was motivated by altruistic desires to curtail emissions by focusing on electric vehicles is largely hogwash: The plant closure was fundamentally a financial decision made by a mega-corporation stuck making a bid to survive in a very quickly evolving global automobile market. Everything, because at a macro-scale we can in part attribute the closure to climate change, as climate change had a fundamental role in prompting that transformation of the global automobile market.

There are many questions coming out of this unfortunate event. But a couple of the important ones are, Where does this leave Canada in terms of its preparedness to participate in the 21st century automobile sector, which is largely centred on electric and autonomous vehicles? And, what role (if any) should governments, at all levels, play to improve Canada’s industrial positioning in that sector?


Canada has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and the international community has committed to keeping the world to 1.5°C of warming from preindustrial levels. The transport sector is responsible for a considerable part of both domestic emissions (about 28 percent of the total and growing) and global emissions (about 14 percent of the total), so the transition to a zero-emissions vehicle fleet could be a significant part of the broader climate change mitigation efforts.

There are a few considerations to keep in mind, as Canada navigates through this multifaceted transition. First, there is an important distinction between policies oriented toward shifting production and those focused on consumption. Governments have a role to play in both, but they would require very different types of actions.

On the consumption side, there are the incentives and regulations shaping consumer behaviour. The “carrots” include policies like the handsome rebates offered by some provincial governments toward the purchase of electric vehicles; the “sticks” include putting a price on carbon (making fuel-powered cars more expensive vis-à-vis electric alternatives), and jurisdictional “bans” on internal combustion engines, as we’ve seen in Paris, Madrid and Mexico City. Of course, these bans are rather intangible in terms of actual changes to law or policy, but they are nevertheless important in that they signal to consumers, commercial enterprises and vehicle manufacturers that this change is coming down the pipe, so they should start preparing for it now.

On the production side, we have to keep in mind that the 20th-century auto-sector model (in which a handful of global automakers commanded the market and much of the supply chain associated with it) is pretty much dead now. The new landscape includes a range of new players, with Tesla, BYD, Wheego, Coda, Bison, and even Apple, Google, Uber, Lyft and Zipcar vying for various aspects of the market. These companies are tackling specific challenges like automation sensors, artificial intelligence, larger batteries, onboard telecommunications, GPS, and cybersecurity integration, in the inclusion of automobiles within the sharing economy. A recent analysis by Frost and Sullivan found 1,700 start-ups around the world vying for various shares of these new auto market subsectors.

The GM closure is a wake-up call that the old model of relying on a few large players to benevolently pursue corporate social responsibility goals and drive consumer demand for more efficient vehicles is unlikely to work.

This in itself is an indication that the 21st-century auto sector is much more complex – we’re not just talking about competition between different brands of the same product (variations on the internal combustion engine). We are now talking about competition between different visions of human transportation: ride sharing vs. car-sharing vs. personal car ownership vs. new modes of public transit vs. telecommuting vs. human-driven vehicles vs. autonomous vehicles vs. plug-in hybrid vehicles vs. fully electric vehicles, and so on. The point is, policies centred on propping up the 20th-century model (such as the 2009 auto bailout) are bound to fail in this brave new world.

The good news is that if we think about the new automobile sector as one piece in a much broader multidimensional shift to a clean energy economy, things start to look a little more promising for Canada.

This clean energy shift includes the expansion and greening of the electricity sector; the development of smart grids and third-generation charging infrastructure; major improvements in autonomous vehicle technology; and the rolling out of new emissions-free equipment in the manufacturing and extractives sectors, among other changes. This is where Canada holds promise and opportunity. Whether it’s the mining of copper (electric vehicles use about four times as much copper as internal combustion engine vehicles) and other metals and minerals required for renewable energy and lithium batteries as well as for other hi-tech products, or research and innovation in new efficient or smart technologies, there are numerous opportunities for Canadian firms to participate in various aspects of the clean energy economy.

Governments at all levels do therefore have a role to play, which is to foster the clean energy transition that the players in this new auto sector will depend on to succeed. In this regard, the federal government and some provincial governments deserve at least some credit for large-scale investments they have made in programs like the Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network, the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (which included the development of a Zero-Emissions Vehicles Strategy), the tax incentives for firms using clean energy and manufacturing equipment, and other measures. Many of the incentives in the Pan-Canadian Framework support the demand side of the equation, with heaps of funding for green infrastructure (including public transport projects across the country).

If Canada is going to decarbonize its economy at some point this century, then it will need to achieve a zero-emissions vehicle fleet at some point this century as well. The GM closure is a long overdue wake-up call that the old model of relying on a few large corporate players to benevolently pursue their corporate social responsibility goals and drive consumer demand for more efficient vehicles is unlikely to work, as either an economic or an environmental strategy. Governments at all levels have an important role to play in signalling future objectives for our society, incentivizing positive action on behalf of consumers and producers, and fostering an environment conducive to high-calibre research and world-class innovation; investing in green infrastructures that support the transition; adequately and fairly pricing carbon; and regulating the “bad apples.” It is indeed a sad time for Oshawa, but hope is not entirely lost; policy-makers just need to think forward as they address this challenge, rather than replicating past mistakes.

Let's Talk about the Jumbo Plane in the Room...

Here's my latest post for Policy Options. View the original here.

The policy dilemma of aviation emissions

GHG emissions from air travel are rising and will hamper the world’s efforts to curb climate change. The policy options are limited.

The news these days is rife with stories about the impending electric vehicle (EV) revolution, and for the most part, it’s a good-news story: EVs are expected to take over the global automobile market in the next few decades, thereby helping to reduce the transport sector’s carbon footprint.

Meanwhile, we hear almost nothing in the media about the rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from air travel, which seem poised to negate some of the gains made from EVs. Unfortunately, unlike the shift towards electrification of automobiles and the growth of renewables, there are no good policy options on the table for adequately reducing emissions from aviation.

It is shaping up to be quite a dilemma: By all measures, modern humans are addicted to air travel, and yet despite considerable efforts by the airline industry to make airplanes more efficient, there is no practical way to produce zero-emission aircraft. Sadly, the only genuine way to reduce our collective carbon footprint from long-distance transport – given available technologies – is to significantly cut down on passenger and cargo flights.

And that’s where things get very uncomfortable. Clearly, major society-wide reductions in air transport would spell disaster for a range of economic sectors, not least aviation, but tourism and the petroleum sector too. It would also dramatically alter the social relations to which we’ve become accustomed in a globalized world. Cut out air travel or continue contributing to the ongoing climate emergency faced by our home planet — this is the inconvenient juncture at which we have arrived.

In some ways we’re lucky these are not the same stark choices we face for local transportation. Switching out an old gas-guzzling car for an EV (or even better, a bicycle or transit pass) may dramatically improve one’s local carbon footprint, but no parallel solution presently exists for fast long-distance travel, even domestically. For instance, VIA Rail’s transcontinental train journey from Toronto to Vancouver takes four days and (despite conventional wisdom) is substantially more taxing on the environment than flying, thanks to the low occupancy ratios and VIA’s old diesel-powered locomotives.

Transportation accounts for 14 percent of global emissions, but in industrialized countries like Canada and the United States the sector is responsible for about a quarter of anthropogenic emissions. In Canada, transportation emissions have grown by 42 percent since 1990, driven mostly by growth in road transportation. In fact, emissions from domestic aviation have only grown marginally since 1990, thanks largely to improvements in fuel efficiency counterbalancing growth in air travel. However, Canadian-based GHG emissions for international aviation (which are not included in the domestic figures above) have actually grown by 85 percent since 1990.

Again, this emissions growth is despite major improvements in the fuel-efficiency of aircraft in recent years. Indeed, many airlines have been successful in reducing carrying weights (through innovations in lightweight equipment and those expensive baggage restrictions we all know so well) — all of which helps cut down on fuel use. They have also been fairly successful in incorporating biofuels into the fuel mix (which can theoretically reduce the carbon footprint of a flight). Canada’s leading airlines are betting big on second-generation biofuels (which use forestry residue and agricultural by-products as feedstock rather than diverting food crops) to help reduce emissions. Unfortunately, the development of second-generation biofuels has largely stalledthanks to the low price of oil, and biofuels are not expected to make up more than a fraction of the fuel mix used in aviation in the coming decade. Meanwhile, the first-generation biofuels currently in use raise a host of other social and environmental concerns.

In short, improvements in fuel efficiency will take us only so far. The jumbo plane in the room is, literally, the jumbo plane! The number of air travellers globally has more than doubled in the last two decades, and forecasts expect demand for air travel to double again in the next two decades. The same story is true of world air cargo – with base-scenario forecasts expecting global air cargo traffic to more than double over the next two decades as well.
Efficient planes or not, this growth trend is clearly working against the already troubled efforts to avoid catastrophic global warming. Airline emissions today account for 2.5 percent of annual anthropogenic GHG emissions worldwide (that’s more than all GHG emissions emitted by Brazil — the world’s seventh-largest carbon-emitting state). Even in a scenario with moderate technological improvements and modest regulatory changes, emissions from aviation are expected to grow by upwards of 76 percent over the next two decades, simply because of the increase in demand.

While it is in the interest of airlines to improve fuel efficiency (since fuel accounts for up to a third of operational costs), it is clearly not in the industry’s interest to curtail growing demand. This is why the industry’s proposed solution to the problem, backed by global institutions, is a new program called the Carbon Offset and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation(CORSIA). The plan largely relies on offsets – investments in various emissions reduction projects elsewhere to cancel out the emissions from aviation. Yet while CORSIA might sound ambitious on paper — calling for the industry to cap its GHG emissions to 2020 levels by 2027 — it is bound to fail as a carbon mitigation strategy. Offsets, much like biofuels, face substantial limitations and conceptual flaws. As Kevin Anderson, former director of the Tyndall Centre (the UK’s leading academic climate change research organization), has written in Nature: “Offsetting is worse than doing nothing. It is without scientific legitimacy, is dangerously misleading and almost certainly contributes to a net increase in the absolute rate of global emissions growth.”

Not only are global regulatory “solutions” like CORSIA a non-starter, but new technologies are also impractical or unlikely to work at the level of the jumbo plane. Prototypes for everything from hydrogen fuel-cell-powered airplanes, to atomic airplanes, to solar-panelled airplanes, to hybrid-electric airplanes whose batteries can be recharged while in flight, all presently exist. But the chances that any one of these technological solutions will be applied to large commercial aircraft in the next decade are slim to none — because the technologies are only possible on small aircraft, or are too dangerous, or would take multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investments in a cutthroat industry that typically spends many years developing new aircraft only if a return on investment is expected.

In the end, the only practical way to reduce our society’s emissions from long-distance air transport (while admittedly giving rise to social costs elsewhere) is to restrict the growth in demand for air transport. It’s going to take some political guts to try to shape or nudge the demand for passenger and cargo air transport, and there are a number of mechanisms through which that could be done, ranging from the unpopular levying of flight taxes, to the political suicide of imposing hard-cap restrictions on flight growth. Needless to say, neither of these policy options is likely to be attempted. Either way, the jumbo plane needs to be let out of the room: Relying on technological innovation, other market forces, and a global system of carbon offsets will not solve the serious problem of growing GHG emissions from aviation.