The Leap Manifesto... (and a minor quibble)

Last week a number of prominent Canadian individuals and civil society organizations released "The Leap Manifesto" - an important document challenging Canadians and in particular the government to acknowledge, confront and tackle the severe problems of poverty, inequality and environmental degradation (in particular climate change).

Like many Canadians I agreed with the premises and objectives of the Manifesto, not to mention the urgency with which these problems need to be addressed, as implied in the name of the concept. Some 21,555 people had signed the Manifesto within a week of it's publication - I being one of them.

However, like any Manifesto, where it succeeds in conceptual ideas it falls short on detail. And one detail in particular merits a little bit further elaboration in my view. At one point the manifesto claims the following:

"High-speed rail powered by just renewables and affordable public transit can unite every community in this country – in place of more cars, pipelines and exploding trains that endanger and divide us."

Really... there are just far too many sentiments crammed into this sentence and the effect is that it comes off as unrealistic and unclear. The vision painted is of some super futuristic society where carbon-neutral high-speed trains link all the metropolises and towns of Canada. But clearly that can't be what is actually intended, as that would be an environmental catastrophe in a country as vast as Canada. I've written about this elsewhere, but the energy required to build and power new high-speed train lines is vast, and even wasteful when we consider existing resources such as the publicly-owned rail services operated by VIA Rail, bus/coach transport, and yes - even congested highway infrastructure. In a neoliberal country like Canada high-speed trains are a business mechanism for creating growth - the idea is to get more people travelling, not to reduce the overall volume of travel. So we need to be careful when we paint a picture of new energy-intensive infrastructures being built all over this vast country.

What I think the Manifesto intends in that statement is the following, and it would do well to take the time to spell out the details: 1) we need to provide more environmentally-sound methods of transport between and within cities; 2) we need to promote and support public forms of transportation and make transport more accessible to all Canadians; 3) we need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, particularly in the transport sector; and 4) we need to reduce our dependence on rail freight and pipelines for shipping crude oil, because this has led to increasing frequency and lethality of accidents (with dire consequences for public safety and environmental health).

I'll readily admit this is just a quibble, and it arises specifically because I've spent half a decade studying Canada's high-speed rail prospects during my doctoral studies. Nevertheless, words matter, and if the Leap Manifesto is to be taken seriously it needs to be sure that its idealistic optimism is backed by practical concepts and facts.

GHGs and GDP: The Correlation in Canada

Every year Environment Canada produces a National Inventory Report of Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks in Canada. The idea is to help identify areas for improvement, but the report has also turned into a fantastic data set. Each year the report features numerous charts showing annual emissions trends, such as the following:

Source: Environment Canada, National Inventory Report 1990-2011

The question of the correlation between GHG emissions and GDP always comes up, but you will never see a chart featuring both data sets. Instead, the report (particularly in recent years) has emphasized "emissions intensity" - a measurement of GHG emissions per unit of GDP. So, inevitably there will be a chart that looks like this:

Source: Environment Canada, National Inventory Report 1990-2011

Both of these charts tell a particular story, but they also omit important details, so I have taken the liberty of producing my own 'mash-up' versions to highlight some of the missing details.

First up, I have added into the Canadian Emission chart the original reduction target under the Kyoto protocol. Figure S-1 above suggests that GHG emissions peaked in 2007, which so far is true, and by including the 2020 Copenhagen goal on the right side, the chart conveys a message that the government is on track to meet its goals. But as the following mash-up reminds us, our federal government failed miserably in reaching the Kyoto target of a 6% reduction of 1990 levels by 2012. This is the level of reduction necessary for Canada to help maintain global GHG levels below a threshold of runaway warming, whereas the Copenhagen protocol will allow for several hundred Megatonnes of additional GHGs to be released. The Kyoto target would have brought national emissions down to much-needed pre-1990 levels, whereas the Copenhagen target will only bring national emissions down to mid-1990 levels (over 50 MT of GHGs more each year). This is a significant failure. Whereas the federal government had signed into law an attempt to reduce emissions to 555 MT by 2012, the target was overshot by nearly 25%.
This chart tells a very different story, and here's an analogy to highlight the point: An obese person comes to appreciate in 1997 that they turned a negative corner back in 1990, and thereby makes a plan to return to a healthier body mass by reducing their weight back to what it was before it became dangerously high (that's Kyoto in a nutshell). Then in the early 2000s it is clear to the obese person that they are not effectively on track to meet the healthy target, yet instead of trying to make a concerted effort to meet the target, they just adopt a new one... In 2009 they thus decide that bring their weight back to what it was in the mid 1990s in time for 2020! Meanwhile, they will still be obese, and will have been unhealthy for a span of 30 years, and have created a precedent of failing to achieve a weight reduction objective at the same time (that's Copenhagen in a nutshell)!

My mash-up of Figure S-1 above

Second, there are problems with Figure S-2 above: The overall message is, again, that Canada is achieving great success when it comes to reducing emissions, because the amount of emissions per unit of economic activity is declining. However, this does not mean that the correlation between GHGs and GDP is getting weaker. As the following chart shows, when you plot the two indicators together it is evident that there is still a close relationship between economic growth and GHG emissions. The most notable link can be seen in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The economy took a nose dive, and so did emissions (as fossil fuels became less affordable); Then as the economy started to recover, emissions began to rise again. This is because consumption in this country is still very closely associated with increased usage of fossil fuels:

With data from Statistics Canada, Table 380-0064 & Environment Canada's National Inventory Report 1990-2011

Ideologically the current government has much to gain from portraying a weakening link between economic growth and GHG emissions, because it espouses a perspective of ecological modernization in which economic growth can be made 'green'. The problem is that a macro-view of the global economy actually suggests a much closer correlation than we see at the domestic level. One of the main reasons Environment Canada lists for why 'GHG Intensity' is falling involves...

Structural changes involving a shift from an industrial-oriented economy to a more service-based economy. Between 2000 and 2008, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the service industries rose by 32%, while heavy industries and manufacturing together grew by only 3%. Service industries are less emission intensive than goods producing industries, so this ongoing change has lowered Canadian GHG emissions (Environment Canada, National Inventory Report, 2013).

Of course, as our rising expenditure-based GDP figures suggest, we are still buying plenty of goods - the only difference is that they are increasingly being manufactured abroad. So those manufacturing and industrial emissions haven't disappeared, they've just moved elsewhere! This gives us a false sense of accomplishment which only reinforces the incorrect notion that we can consume more and reduce emissions at the same time. It just doesn't work out at a macro-level, at least not until we have systems of production which are not founded upon fossil fuels.

Yes, it is true that there have been major efficiency gains which have helped drive down emissions - including in the electric power generation sector and through emissions reductions programs (retrofits, etc.) - but my worry is that further reductions from efficiency gains will not be significant. There is only so much to be gained from producing and consuming more efficiently. If there were endless efficiencies to be gained, then one would expect a clearer curve in Figure S-1; the GHG levels should have peaked and consistently declined since then. But they haven't. Instead, emissions have begun to grow again, and it's no surprise when you consider the areas where Canada's economic activity has spiked - in particular the energy and transportation sectors.

The problem with the current approach taken in the National Inventory Report is that it conveys a sense of steady accomplishment and suggests that Canada is 'on track' to reduce emissions, and further that this can all take place while its citizens continue to consume at increasingly higher levels each year. A critical appraisal of the same data, however, suggests an entirely different reality. Ultimately, we need to consume less and change the things we produce (and how we produce them) dramatically if we are going to do our part to help keep the worsts of climatic change at bay.

Energy Disorder

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Source: SmartPlanet.com, Intelligent Energy Blog

George W. Bush was not exactly right when he claimed that America was addicted to oil. America (and most of the industrial and industrializing world, for that matter) is addicted to consuming energy. Oil just happens to be a particularly powerful type of energy, readily available, and relatively cheap (at least for now); and thus it is the primary vessel through which this addiction is satiated. But theoretically, there is no reason why this addiction couldn’t be satiated by other forms of energy. And in fact a transition of this sort seems to be currently underway as the world undergoes an energy revolution in which oil is slowly being replaced by natural gas as the primary fuel. Unfortunately, natural gas, while slightly better than oil in terms of carbon footprint, presents other socio-ecological problems (most notably through its unconventional production in the form of fracking, which is becoming more common).

But it is a fallacy to claim that once we get off oil or even natural gas our socio-ecological woes will disappear. And that’s the problem with the oil addiction analogy. By claiming that industrial civilization is addicted to oil, we miss out on the root of the problem, the real addiction – energy consumption. Like any addiction, the overconsumption of energy is unsustainable. The particular class of energy which civilization uses most often today (fossil fuels – oil, natural gas, coal) makes this particularly evident, thanks to its dramatic impact on the environment (both in its production and its use).

Yet the overconsumption of an entirely different class of fuels (say, renewable energies – wind, solar, hydro) would also be unsustainable if used in the same quantities as presently experienced with fossil fuels. This may be less evident because this class of fuels has a far less potent and visible impact, but imagine all the damage that would accrue from exponential growth in hydroelectric dams, and mining (for the materials required in photovoltaics), and wind farms (these are completely manufactured landscapes). An addiction is an addiction. By nature it is unsustainable. Let a metaphor prove the point: Being addicted to health food, for example, is unhealthy – despite its obvious initial benefits.

When most people hear the ‘addiction’ analogy in reference to oil, they metaphorically think of an addiction to drugs. Really though, the drug analogy is not quite right, because energy is something we actually need to survive and thrive. A more appropriate analogy for addiction is food – which we also need to survive and thrive. People can be addicted to food, just as they can be addicted to energy. Some amount of food consumption is required (as with energy – heck, food is human energy), but the overconsumption of food is a serious problem. While fossil fuels are like junk food – clearly unsustainable when over-consumed; most classes of food are also unsustainable in the long run if over-consumed as well.

So just as an individual with an eating disorder must at some point face the difficult choice between drastic behavioural reform or a downward fatal spiral – so must our modern civilization. This does not mean going ‘cold turkey’, because, as the analogy reminds us, doing so simply is not possible, since we need energy to survive. What it does mean is taking a step in the right direction. When a food addict switches from a unhealthy foods to healthier foods – this is a step in the right direction, though ultimately more further action will be required. The line between ‘overconsumption’ and ‘consumption’ certainly is a blurry one. The danger in thinking about our use of oil as an ‘addiction’ is that it hides the real requirement we need as a species to use energy. It’s just unhealthy that we overuse energy, and especially because of the type of energy we tend to consume most often.

Fossil Fuels Doesn't Just Mean Oil

Andrew Weaver and Neil Stewart have recently looked at the warming potential of different types and deposits of fossil fuels around the world. Their findings, which are published in Nature, serve as a reminder that when it comes to climate change policy we need to cast our net wide across all the different types of fossil fuels used in the energy mix (be they natural gas, conventional petroleum, unconventional oil, coal, etc.). So much attention has been placed specifically on unconventional oil, in particular the Alberta bituminous sands (with good reason); yet there is a danger in focusing too specifically on one source of petroleum, or one type of fossil fuel. Worldwide coal deposits, note Weaver and Stewart, actually have a significantly higher warming potential than recoverable unconventional fuels. The common focus on peak oil can be problematic in this regard too, because alternative forms of fossil fuel can often be refined or synthetically processed as replacements, with negative consequences for climate change. The point is that we need to significantly decrease our use of all fossil fuels, not just those that suit a good environmental campaign. Weaver is quoted in a CBC article on the matter:

"This idea that we're going to somehow run out of coal and natural gas and fossil fuels is really misplaced. We'll run out of human ability to live on the planet long before we run out of them. I have always said that the tarsands are a symptom of a very big problem. The problem is dependence on fossil fuels."