The following essay was originally published as part of Policy magazine’s Road to 2025 series.

“Every election is a climate election.”

Far from being just a slogan, this refrain reflects the reality that society’s reckoning with climate change is destined to span not just successive election cycles, but multiple decades. Still, political and policy leadership will continue to dictate the level of effort (or lack thereof) made to pivot away from burning fossil fuels, aggressively reduce carbon pollution, and avert the worst possible outcomes of climate change.

But what if we consider climate change as not just another election issue, but as one that cuts across all other issues? What if, as futurist Alex Steffen does, we acknowledged that “Climate change is not an issue but an era”?

To compartmentalize climate change as an environmental issue misrepresents the scope and scale of how it is already impacting — and will increasingly impact — most facets of our human existence. Indeed, in some cases, the very solutions that will help us combat climate change can also serve to address or alleviate other issues.

But beyond the next election outcome’s implications for these efforts, there’s also a question about the role that climate change might have in shaping the outcome itself. Currently, pundit prognostication suggests that climate change, as an issue, won’t have much bearing on the next federal election. Recent public opinion research backstops this view.

Polling by Abacus Data exploring the top three most important issues facing Canada today found the rising cost of living as the most cited, identified by 72% of respondents. Housing affordability and accessibility (50%), healthcare (45%) and the economy (35%) followed. Tied for fifth were climate change and the economy, and immigration, identified by 23% of respondents.

Figure 1: Abacus Data poll findings – What are the 3 most important issues facing Canada today?

Carbon tax, cost of living and the transition to clean energy

Let’s start with the rising cost of living, given how dominant it is as an issue of public concern.

While opponents of the carbon tax have made great hay out of blaming it for increasing the price of everything, analysis by University of Calgary economists Trevor Tombe and Jennifer Winter lays this claim to rest. “While concern around affordability is clearly warranted,” they write, “climate policies are not a significant driver of the rising cost of living. Nor will removing policies such as carbon pricing materially improve the situation.” Highlighting the impact on grocery prices in BC, as an example, Tombe and Winter find that “the latest estimates from Statistics Canada suggest carbon taxes increased the average cost of food by about 0.33% relative to what it would be in the absence of carbon taxes. That’s the entire effect.” That’s 33 cents on a $100 grocery bill. Not nothing, but not the smoking gun carbon tax detractors would have people believe.

If governments are going to tackle affordability, they need to focus on the things that are actually making life less affordable. Exploring the drivers of post-pandemic inflation in Canada through its peak in 2022, Dr. Tombe and another University of Calgary colleague, Yu Chen, found (Figure 2) that when Canadian inflation peaked at 8.1% in June 2022, higher energy prices were responsible for nearly one-third of inflation, at 2.6% points (with 1.9% points from gasoline alone). Those energy costs, of course, were shaped by global prices for oil and natural gas, both of which were rising thanks to a robust post-pandemic economic recovery and lagging oil production in key OPEC countries before being turbocharged by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Figure 2: Key Drivers of Consumer Price Inflation in Canada, Jan 2017 to Nov 2022

They also looked beyond the direct effect of energy prices to estimate spillover effects, noting that “Energy, after all, is an important input in the production of many goods and services throughout the economy. Products that are transportation intensive or that require heating or cooling — food, for example, satisfies both these conditions — may be particularly sensitive to energy price increases.” Here again, the findings are significant: items sensitive to oil prices accounted for nearly 60% of Canada’s non-energy inflation in July 2022, and over 85% of the increase since February 2020 (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Contribution of Items Sensitive to Oil Prices to Non-Energy CPI Inflation

In sum: “High energy prices, and the resulting production-cost increases for many other goods and services throughout the economy, may largely explain Canada’s accelerating inflation.”

This shines a spotlight on a key benefit of the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy —escaping the volatility and price spikes that bedevil global oil and natural gas prices. As researchers from the Roosevelt Institute have noted, based on their research, it’s clear that transitioning from fossil fuels towards renewables can help stabilize energy prices for two reasons: “First, renewable energy will bring the majority of energy consumption into the electricity sector, a highly regulated sector that has historically produced stable energy prices. Second, renewables prices are inherently stable compared with fossil fuels.”

While critical mineral inputs and supply chain snags can affect the capital cost of wind turbines or solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, the reality is once these technologies are installed the cost is fixed. Unlike a coal or gas plant, their fuel — the wind and sun — is free. And the more we plug into a clean power grid — to fuel electric vehicles and meet heating and cooling needs with heat pumps — the more we can reduce reliance on oil and gas and minimize exposure to their price fluctuations. As an Oxford study concluded, “Compared to continuing with a fossil fuel-based system, a rapid green energy transition will likely result in overall net savings of many trillions of dollars — even without accounting for climate damages or co-benefits of climate policy.”

Climate considerations in housing affordability and health care

What about housing affordability and climate change? While the linkages to climate change may not seem quite as clearcut, there are numerous intersections and how policymakers tackle this issue has the potential to increase, lock-in, or reduce carbon pollution and homeowner costs.

A lack of affordable housing in cities encourages urban sprawl, forcing households into the suburbs and exurbs, which are typically underserved by public transit, meaning more driving (and the resulting fuel bills and emissions). Meanwhile, more frequent and intense extreme weather events — made more likely by climate change — can further fuel the need to build (or rebuild) housing, driving up costs, while also making house insurance more limited and more expensive.

As the Affordability Action Council has noted, “Every residential building that is built between now and 2050 without the net-zero target in mind will create a liability down the line that someone will have to pay for. While retrofits generate multiple benefits, it is much cheaper to build new housing that meets a net-zero standard than it is to retrofit buildings.” Which is why they recommend a multi-faceted approach to new housing that focuses on affordability as well as convenience, resilience and energy efficiency, with energy costs and net-zero climate goals in mind.

While some politicians may position climate action and housing affordability as a trade-off, polling by Abacus Data found that 62% of Canadians believe that it is important to address the housing affordability issue without compromising Canada’s climate goals. Similarly, 78% believe it’s important to build housing in ways that minimize pollution contributing to climate change, and 84% believe it’s important to develop new housing in a manner that is resilient to climate change impacts. The linkages between climate change and housing affordability are clear, as are Canadians’ expectations.

Health, health care and climate change similarly overlap. A recent Health Canada report explored — in great detail —  the myriad health impacts of climate change resulting from rising temperatures and extreme heat, wildfires, and the expansion of zoonotic diseases into Canada, while also highlighting how these are not just future concerns, but impacts already being experienced today. As a resident of BC, I am still struck by the impacts of the climate change-fuelled heat dome and catastrophic flooding in the province in 2021, in which 600 people lost their lives and many more suffered.

The Canadian Climate Institute has similarly documented how the health impacts of climate change will have a knock-on cost to Canada’s health care system in the billions of dollars, while also reducing economic activity by tens of billions of dollars over the coming decades. 

Clearly, measures that make our communities more resilient to a changing climate —whether that be to extreme weather, fire or floods — and that reduce air pollution will help address the health impacts on Canadians and costs to our already-struggling health care system.

It’s the economy, stupid

Last, but certainly not least, is the economy. While there is still considerable attention paid to the potential economic implications for Canada’s oil and gas sector from aggressive climate action, global markets are quickly re-orienting towards the economic opportunities of the energy transition. What if that’s the lens through which federal parties’ economic platforms are considered in the next election?

According to BloombergNEF, 2023 saw record-breaking investment in the energy transition (Figure 4). Nearly US$1.8 trillion of capital flowed into the global clean energy transition, up 17% relative to 2022 and more than three times more than in 2019. In Canada, the installed capacity of wind, solar and energy storage grew by 11.2% in 2023, reaching a new total of 21.9 GW, according to data compiled by the Canadian Renewable Energy Association. Perhaps ironically, 92% of that growth occurred in Alberta, as the provincial government’s moratorium on renewable energy approvals didn’t impact already-approved projects from coming online.

Figure 4: Global investment in energy transition, by sector

Note: Start years differ by sector but all sectors are present from 2020 onwards. Most notably, nuclear figures start in 2015 and power grids in 2020. CCS refers to carbon capture and storage.

But the energy transition sector that has featured most significantly in Canada is electrified transport and the battery supply chain. Over the past couple of years hardly a month has gone by without a significant investment in Canada’s battery and electric vehicle manufacturing and supply chain — including Volkswagen, Stellantis, Ford, General Motors, Umicore, LG Energy Solutions, Posco Future M Co Ltd and more. It’s notable that almost all of these investment decisions referenced Canada’s clean electricity supply as a key factor in their decision to invest here.

An analysis by the Future of Canada’s Automotive Labourforce (FOCAL) initiative found that in a scenario with widespread consumer acceptance of EVs and continued efforts to secure additional EV production mandates, Canada’s automotive manufacturing industry would see a significant increase in its assembly capacity to over 1.7 million vehicles by 2040. With growth in the battery supply chain — and critical mineral production and processing to supply it — the analysis found that that more jobs would be created in assembly, battery production, and mining than would be lost in internal combustion engine and powertrain production, with a net economic gain over $50 billion and close to 100,000 jobs created.

The success to date in attracting investments is the result of federal, provincial and municipal collaboration. Together, their efforts have led to Canada leapfrogging China to secure the top spot in BloombergNEF’s global lithium-ion battery supply chain ranking, which looks at each country’s potential to build a secure, reliable and sustainable supply chain for lithium-ion batteries . According to BloombergNEF, Canada’s consistent manufacturing and production advances, strong ESG credentials, policy commitment at both the provincial and federal level and integration with the US automotive sector (which is benefiting from the US Inflation Reduction Act), have helped us become a leader in forming the battery supply chains of the future (Figure 5).

Figure 5: BloombergNEF’s global lithium-ion battery supply chain ranking

This success didn’t happen by accident, nor is future success assured. Durable government policy (and not just dollars) is critical, a message that leaders of all political parties, federal and provincial, need to consider. As BloombergNEF noted, “The rankings reflect only developments in 2023, and that actions by other countries in this competitive market – or future inaction on the part of Canada – could result in upsets in the years ahead. Across all the metrics, it’s a race where in a year where you decided to do nothing, other people bypass you.””

As I’ve previously said, “The risk to Canada, then, is that we continue to pay short shrift to the opportunities at hand—in critical minerals, batteries and other technologies, and clean and renewable electricity — in favour of trying to prop up the viability of our oil and gas sector. That we focus on the sunset, rather than the sunrise.”

The stakes in the next federal

Canadians deserve political discourse grounded in the reality that it is neither too late or too futile to act, but that we are not progressing quickly enough. While it’s easy to be cynical about efforts to date, especially as the direct impacts of climate change arrive at our doorstep with greater frequency and ferocity, analysis of the federal government’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan by the independent Canadian Climate Institute (Figure 6) concluded that current and proposed policies can deliver 85 to 90 per cent of Canada’s 2030 target.

Figure 6: Canadian Climate Institute modeling of Canada’s emissions pathway

In fact, the whole world has made significant strides forward. As David Wallace-Wells has documented, “Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years.”

This isn’t to suggest we are making progress quickly enough, or even that the success of current policies and approaches is guaranteed. If we are to lock-in progress to date and build on it, it’s clear that we will need ongoing and enhanced policy leadership. With the 2020s unfolding as the “decisive decade” for climate action the bottom line is quite simple:

Policy matters. Politics matters. And every election matters.

In Canada, the 2015, 2019 and 2021 federal elections were all — in hindsight if not evidently at the time — climate elections. In both the 2019 and 2021 elections, climate change was the top election issue, according to polling by Angus Reid.

Floods, wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather events to come may yet bump climate change, as an issue, up voters’ priority list. But as documented above, efforts to avoid the worst outcomes of a changing climate aren’t just about the environment. The impacts of climate change cut across top of mind issues from affordability, to housing and healthcare, as do the solutions.

While some politicians might prefer a “carbon tax election,” for obvious reasons, such a narrow consideration of climate change would do a disservice to Canadians. Whether affordability, housing or health care are their ballot box concern, the spectre of a changing climate — and how we confront the challenges and seize the opportunities of that change  — needs to be discussed and debated. 

It’s time for federal politicians — of all political stripes — to approach climate change for what it is: not an issue, but an era.

Contributing Writer Dan Woynillowicz is the Principal of Polaris Strategy + Insight, a public policy consulting firm focused on climate change and the energy transition.

The following is testimony I delivered to the federal Standing Committee on Natural Resources on October 18. The committee is currently undertaking a study of Canada’s Clean Energy Plans in the Context of North American Energy Transformation.

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My comments today centre on the need to ensure that policymaking is grounded in credible analysis, and an understanding that successfully navigating this transition requires that we keep our eyes on the road ahead, not fixed on the rear-view mirror.

Some argue the transition to clean energy will be slow. They would prefer policymakers focus on enabling increased production and use of Canada’s oil and gas resources, citing ever-growing global demand. But increasingly, energy analysts are forecasting a future, based on current market trends, that paints a very different picture with sweeping implications for Canada.

I’d like to draw your attention to a forecast released last week by DNV, global experts in assurance and risk management. As they put it, “Unlike most energy forecasters, DNV does not develop scenarios…our analysis produces a single ‘best-estimate’ forecast of the energy future.” 

In this ‘best-estimate’ forecast they foresee that coal, oil, and gas will each begin an inescapable decline before the end of this decade. Particularly material for Canada are the implications for oil and gas. Oil demand tips from growth to decline in 2027 as electrification of road transport accelerates. Global demand for gas also peaks in 2027, plateaus for a decade and then declines.

But it is their forecast for North American oil and gas production that is particularly noteworthy, and in stark contrast to what you might hear about on the news or as members of this committee. North American oil is foreseen plateauing at around 17 million barrels per day until 2024, then declining to 7 million barrels per day in 2050. North American gas production peaks in the 2020s and declines to 2030 and beyond. Liquefaction capacity to produce LNG in North America is forecast to peak in 2030 and plateau. These declines are faster and steeper in net zero scenarios—in which the world succeeds in limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius—whether produced by DNV, the International Energy Agency, or even Shell and BP.

A passage of dialogue from Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel, The Sun Also Rises seems particularly relevant to this future:

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, and then suddenly.”

The flip side of this is the extent to which deployment of clean energy is and will continue to accelerate. The key technologies for achieving net zero— solar, wind, batteries, heat pumps and green hydrogen—are not and will not grow on a linear basis, but are following an S-shaped, exponential curve driven by self-reinforcing feedback loops that accelerate their cost reductions and scaling.

The risk to Canada, then, is that we continue to pay short shrift to the opportunities at hand—in critical minerals, batteries and other technologies, and clean and renewable electricity—in favour of trying to prop up the viability of our oil and gas sector. That we focus on the sunset, rather than the sunrise.

There is a very real opportunity cost when it comes to the efforts of policymakers and the spending of public dollars, neither of which are limitless. To achieve net-zero we need to target public policy and spending to help shift capital from fossil fuel to clean energy investment at a ratio of $4 invested in clean energy for every $1 invested in fossil fuels in this decade.

The key takeaways for the committee to consider are:

First, that we need to prepare for a net-zero future in which the oil and gas sector will not be growing and proactively manage the implications—to communities, workers, and government revenue—while ensuring the sector responsibly reduces its emissions and manages its environmental liabilities.

Second, that we need to prepare and position for a future that includes abundant opportunities to produce, refine, use and ultimately recycle our critical minerals in clean energy technologies, to harness our clean and renewable energy resources to power this growth, and to leverage our skilled workforce, innovators and entrepreneurs.

And third, that we don’t attempt or aspire to simply mirror the IRA and our American neighbours, but surgically select those sectors and opportunities in which Canada can compete and win throughout the energy transition.

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The summer of 2023 is, according to scientists, what climate change looks like. Heatwaves that test the limits of human survival. Wildfires and floods whose damage isn’t just measured in dollars, but lives and livelihoods lost. Droughts that jeopardize food production. These climate change-fuelled extreme weather events weren’t isolated to a few countries or continents this year but were ubiquitous. Whether at home or on holiday, more and more of us were directly experiencing the consequences of climate change.

We have entered a new era in which the impacts of climate change aren’t some distant threat, but a lived experience—an experience that will catastrophically intensify absent greater effort to cut carbon pollution and pivot away from fossil fuels. And so, in our current era, every election is a climate election.

What’s at stake in the U.S election?

It’s far from hyperbole to say that President Joe Biden’s efforts to scale up the United States’ fight against climate change have been a game changer. And whether to build on these efforts or tear them down is very clearly on the ballot.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in the summer of 2022 without a single Republican vote, is expected to deliver at least US$369 billion in support for climate and clean energy solutions over the next decade. Goldman Sachs believes that figure will be much higher, as much as US$1.2 trillion.

Just one year in, the results of the IRA are impressive. According to data compiledby the American Clean Power Association, by August 2023 federal support from the IRA had spurred the announcement of US$271 billion of private investment in domestic clean energy projects and manufacturing facilities—more than the combined clean energy investments of the previous eight years. Together, these investments are projected to deliver 185 gigawatts (GW) of of new utility-scale clean energy capacity (to put this in context, Canada’s entire electricity capacity is 154GW), US$4.5 billion in consumer savings, 29,780 new manufacturing jobs, and more than US$22 billion in manufacturing investment in 83 new or expanded utility-scale clean energy manufacturing facilities. A similar acceleration and scaling up of investment in electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, battery production, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) is also occurring. As Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton professor who has been leading analysis of the IRA, says, “It seems like every week there’s a new factory facility somewhere.”

While the domestic impacts of the IRA are impressive enough on their own, they’ve gone well beyond American borders. For example, the European Union — seeing the IRA for what it is, not just environmental policy but strategic industrial policy —responded with its Green Deal Industrial Plan, aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of its net-zero industry and accelerating its transition to net zero. Here in Canada, the federal government responded with $80 billion worth of new measures to spur low-carbon innovation and deployment, aiming to build on its climate policy framework with targeted support for clean electricity, clean-tech manufacturing (especially in battery production and its supply chain), hydrogen and CCS. Other nations — including China, Japan and South Korea — are making similar moves.

As the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, put it: “I want to make it clear: the Inflation Reduction Act is the single most important climate action since the Paris Agreement in 2015.” But will the US stay in the race to net zero or pull up lame? That depends on 2024.

Shaping the climate ballot question

For President Biden and the Democrats, the IRA isn’t just about fighting climate change. It’s about reviving the Rust Belt, bringing manufacturing jobs back to American soil and spurring new innovation and industries that will not only deploy clean technologies at home, but which can be sold to the world. In Biden’s own words, “When I hear ‘climate’, I think jobs. Good-paying, high-quality jobs that will help speed our transition to a green economy of the future and unleash sustainable growth.”

It just so happens that most of the IRA-induced investment — and the jobs that come with it — will occur in red states (Figure 1). According to Bloomberg, the White House estimates that red states will attract US$337 billion in investments for large solar, wind and storage projects through 2030, compared toUS$183 billion into blue states. But this isn’t vote-buying by a Democratic President, it’s a function of where the nation’s best wind and solar resources are. Some analystssuggest, optimistically, that we’ve seen Republicans soften their opposition to climate change and  that, over time, we could see a fading of their default support for fossil fuels and default opposition to renewables as a result of the IRA.

Clearly, the Democrats want “climate jobs” not “climate change” to be a ballot question.

Figure 1: More IRA Money Is Set to Flow to Red States (Bloomberg)

While it’s possible voters in these red states might come around in their support for the IRA — driven by the economic benefits more so than the climate benefits — it’s clear that the Republican establishment has no such inclination.

Leading Republican presidential primary contender and former President Donald Trump has said he would end “Green New Deal atrocities” on his first day. Similarly, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has said he wants to “rip up Joe Biden’s Green New Deal.” On Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers have been using every opportunity to try to kneecap or rescind the clean energy components of the IRA.

Conservative think tanks — led by the Heritage Foundation — have laid out a planto dismantle President Biden’s climate efforts as part of Project 2025, a “battle plan” for the first 180 days of a Republican administration that would see the IRA repealed alongside the shredding of “regulations to curb greenhouse gas pollution from cars, oil and gas wells and power plants, dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels.” The plan has been delivered to every Republican presidential hopeful.

The Republicans want fighting “green woke-ism” — and the “woke agenda” more broadly — to be the ballot question.

Campaign crystal ball

In June, a poll of Americans found that 24 percent had been personally impacted by an extreme weather event in the past 12 months. By August, 62 percent thought that climate change was currently having some or a great deal of impact on their local community.

It seems likely that between now and election day, Americans will continue to experience the impacts of climate change and, increasingly, see the benefits of clean energy investments spurred on by the Biden administration. But what issue will emerge as the ballot question and whether any of this will matter come election day is hardly worth speculating over (Events, dear boy, events!).

But it is worth considering the implications of a Biden versus Republican (whether Trump or DeSantis) presidency in 2025.

A second term for President Biden would see the US stay the course, and almost certainly introduce additional measures and efforts to ramp up climate action, cut pollution, and position the United States to compete in a net zero future. In contrast, a Republican presidency would almost certainly spell the end of any federal climate efforts.

But as witnessed under President Trump, promising to “make coal great again” and doing so are very different things. Thanks to state-led efforts and falling wind and solar power costs, renewable energy investments in the US continued throughout his presidency. Meanwhile, seven major U.S. coal companies claimed bankruptcy and 50 coal-fired power plants closed. The market forces blowing in this direction have only strengthened. Analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance say that the clean energy transition is now hard-wired into the US economy. While progress would almost certainly slow, it cannot be reversed.

As for what this means for Canada, it depends very much on the priorities of the prime minister of the day: seize every opportunity to do more, or less, in the race to net zero? In that sense, Canada’s next election will be just as consequential as the US election, because now, every election is a climate election.

This essay was originally published in Policy magazine.

This opinion editorial was co-authored with Bruce Lourie (Ivey Foundation) and Moe Kabbara (The Transition Accelerator) and was published in the Toronto Star.

Premier Doug Ford knows a good deal for Ontarians when he sees one, as he did with the federal daycare and health-care deals. With the recently unveiled federal budget, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has put another good deal on the table for provinces and territories that make credible commitments to achieving net zero.

Ford should take advantage of the whopping $50 billion of federal support for clean electricity over the next decade by doubling down on Ontario’s clean energy advantage. Ontario’s recently launched Clean Energy Credit Registry and Future Clean Electricity Fund, as well as the work of the Electrification and Energy Transition Panel are significant steps toward demonstrating the province’s net zero commitment.

Now with the potential to tap into federal funds, Ford can go even further and faster in accelerating the build out of an affordable, resilient, and clean electricity system that powers Ontario’s future economy.

The need to go further and faster has never been more important. In 2022, Ontario’s grid was 90 per cent non-polluting — which is a good news story until you realize that the year prior it was 94 per cent. Near-term electricity supply constraints have pushed the province to procure 1,500 megawatts of new emitting gas-fired power plants. Now that there is new federal support, investments should be made to reverse these recent trends in order to maintain Ontario’s clean energy advantage.

Fortunately, Ford understands the value of Ontario’s clean energy advantage with his recent budget noting that “clean energy has become an economic imperative as companies around the world want to invest in jurisdictions with affordable, reliable and clean energy.” And this advantage is already paying dividends for Ontario.

Take, for example, the hard-won victory of getting Volkswagen to build a “gigafactory” for battery cell manufacturing in St. Thomas. Volkswagen, it should be observed, has a corporate commitment to 100 per cent renewable electricity for all its North American plants by 2030.

And this type of corporate commitment isn’t unique to Volkswagen. Other companies that have recently announced investments in Ontario have similar goals and have taken note of Ontario’s clean energy advantage:

• Stellantis/LG, in announcing its $5 billion battery manufacturing Windsor plant, praised Canada’s “leadership in the generation of electricity from renewable sources.”

• Umicore’s plans for a manufacturing facility for cathode active battery materials was even more effusive, noting Ontario “offers critical advantages such as access to a highly skilled workforce, key infrastructure and renewable energy, which the new plant will be running on 100 per cent from start of production.”

• Magna, which recently unveiled plans to invest $471 million into six facilities in Ontario — including $265 million toward a new battery enclosure facility in Brampton — is committed to net zero operations by 2030 and wants to transition all operations to renewable power.

The Ontario government has responded to these investments with the Clean Energy Credit Registry to enable companies to fulfil their climate commitments by purchasing 100 per cent clean electricity. Proceeds from the program will fund new clean energy investments.

Yet this program must go even further by ensuring the purchased credits come from new clean electricity generation, rather than recycled credits from existing generation. Such an improvement would increase the confidence of companies, which are facing ever-greater shareholder scrutiny around whether their deeds match their words and demonstrate to the federal government that Ontario has a robust commitment to a net zero grid.

Now with the federal government’s new clean energy support, there is no reason for Ontario not to pursue the investments needed to fully decarbonize the grid and to attract more companies to the province.

By demonstrating the province’s commitment to clean energy, Ontario can leverage federal funds to help continue attracting companies committed to net zero, ensuring a competitive economy and good jobs for Ontarians.

This essay was originally published in the May-June edition of Policy Magazine.

It’s been more than a year since Russia invaded Ukraine, precipitating a range of regional and global crises, not the least of which is “the first truly global energy crisis.” It has disrupted both energy supply and demand, resulting in energy price spikes, while damaging and shifting longstanding trading relationships.

As a result, we are confronted by new questions about the prospects for a global shift from fossil fuels to clean energy to combat the climate crisis: will a renewed focus on energy security slow or accelerate the energy transition? And what will this mean for global efforts to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions?

To answer these questions and understand the implications, we must do our best to cut through the “fog of war” that has descended on the energy transition. As Carl von Clausewitz, a 19th-century Prussian general, said: “War is the realm of uncertainty; three-quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth.”

To say the state-of-play on the energy transition has been dynamic is an understatement, but it is possible to cut through the fog and see where things stand, where we’re headed, and what it might mean for Canada.

According to an analysis by BloombergNEF, last year marked the first time that as much money was invested in replacing fossil fuels as in producing more coal, oil and gas, with each garnering around US$1 trillion (Figure 1). On the clean energy side of the ledger, this was a 31 percent increase over investment in 2021. The biggest recipients of this capital were solar and wind (US$495 billion, up 17 percent) followed close behind by electric vehicles (EVs) (US$466 billion, up 54 percent). As for where this capital was deployed, nearly half (US$546 billion) was in China. If European countries are considered together, they tallied US$180 billion, and the US was home to US$141 billion.

Figure 1: Global investment (US$) in energy transition by sector, BloombergNEF

The energy transition investment total increases if you add investments in expanding and strengthening power grids (US$274 billion), clean energy supply chains and manufacturing (US$79 billion), and the $119 billion raised by clean-tech companies in equity financing. All included, investments driving the energy transition topped US$1.6 trillion last year.

Globally, wind and solar accounted for a record 12 percent of global electricity in 2022, and power sector emissions may have peaked, according to the think tank Ember. Drilling down into some specific examples, by the end of 2022 India was home to 199 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar capacity (for context, Canada’s entire electricity system is about 150 GW), and they have announced plans for tendering 50 GW of renewable energy capacity per year for the next five years (i.e. adding up to 250 GW). Japan and South Korea both re-visited their energy plans in light of evolving energy markets and their own net-zero commitments and now aim to reduce reliance on both coal and LNG while boosting nuclear and renewable energy capacity. Electric vehicle adoption is taking off too, fueled by more selection (in 2022 more than 300 models were on offer), and by the end of 2022 a cumulative total of 27 million EVs were on the road, displacing more than 1.6 million barrels per day of oil in 2022, according to BloombergNEF.

With this progress, even if incremental, the delayers, who say climate solutions are too expensive, and doomers, who say it’s too late, can safely be discounted. As the International Energy Agency has found, while carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions grew by 0.9 percent in 2022, the rise in emissions was well below global GDP growth of 3.2 percent and would have been three times higher had it not been for strong growth in clean energy.

It seems quite evident that the war in Ukraine, like the COVID-19 pandemic, won’t derail the energy transition. To the contrary, European leaders have found a solution to their energy trilemma — achieving energy sustainability, affordability, and security — and it isn’t LNG, it’s a decarbonized energy system.

As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put it, “The quicker we switch to renewables and hydrogen, combined with more energy efficiency, the quicker we will be truly independent and master our energy system.” Within weeks of the Russian invasion, the EU unveiled the REPower EU Plan, which took the previous target of a 25 percent cut in natural gas use by 2030, relative to 2020, and more than doubled it to 56 percent. And the plan is working. Take heat pumps, for example, which replace gas boilers. In 2022, Europe led the world with 41 percent growth in heat pump sales (compared to global growth of 11 percent), with nearly three million sold. It seems Putin has done the near-impossible: make heat pumps sexy.

It seems quite evident that the war in Ukraine, like the COVID-19 pandemic, won’t derail the energy transition. To the contrary, European leaders have found a solution to their energy trilemma — achieving energy sustainability, affordability and security — and it isn’t LNG, it’s a decarbonized energy system.

Closer to home, the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the United States—perhaps better thought of as the Industrial Revolution Act — will not only transform the American energy system, it will cause ripple effects around the world. With an estimated public investment of US$400 billion — in the form of tax incentives, loans, and grants — the IRA is expected to drive more than $1 trillion in private investment into the production and deployment of clean energy solutions, including (but not exhaustively) renewable energy, batteries, EVs, more efficient consumer appliances, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage.

The head of investment at Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate solutions investment fund, said the IRA would lead to the creation of 1,000 new companies; 100,000 jobs were created in the six months since its passage on the way towards an estimated 9 million jobs. Hardly a week goes by without an investment announcement with links back to the IRA. Clichés like “game-changer” and “tipping point” are not overstatements. As Melissa Lott, director of research at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, summed it up: “It is truly massive. It’s industrial policy. It’s the kitchen sink. It’s a strong, direct and clear signal about what the US is prioritising.”

Here in Canada, the course the federal government (but not all provincial governments) is charting is clear, as evidenced by its clean energy-oriented spring budget — effectively designed to compete with the IRA in a significant but targeted way — and ongoing efforts to secure new net zero-aligned industrial investments. Canada can and must compete and collaborate with our allies, most notably the Europeans and Americans. There is good reason to be bullish, and to double down: we have a head-start with our relatively clean electricity system and numerous renewable energy and technology options for its necessary expansion; we have the critical minerals needed for the energy transition and rank second in battery supply chain competitiveness, and we are home to entrepreneurial innovators, including the dozen companies that made the 2023 Global Cleantech 100 list.

Looking to the future, it’s clear that countries are poised to continue making progress in their efforts to pivot to clean energy and reduce GHG emissions, with implications for coal, oil and gas. As Fatih Birol, head of the IEA, wrote, “Russia’s efforts to gain political and economic advantage by pushing energy prices higher have spurred a major response by governments — not just in the EU but in many countries around the world — to speed up the deployment of cleaner and more secure alternatives.” As a result, projections in the IEA’s flagship annual World Energy Outlook released in late 2022 are already out of date. Where it foresaw, for the first time, a peak in fossil fuel demand before the end of the 2020s, the agency’s newest data indicates that peak is moving even closer.

In the face of this optimism, it must be acknowledged that not every country or company is headed in the right direction, nor is the flight path to net zero emissions by mid-century likely to be a smooth one. While clean energy investment now matches fossil fuel investment, BloombergNEF finds that the investment ratio needs to be 4:1 (Figure 2) to ensure an orderly transition, in which growing clean energy supply offsets the required decline in fossil fuel supply. The Royal Bank of Canada, whose CEO advocates for an “orderly transition” is only achieving a ratio of 0.4:1.

Figure 2: Range of decadal energy supply investment ratio, 2001-2050, BloombergNEF

There are and will be challenges (see: critical mineral supply), setbacks (see: high natural gas prices perpetuating reliance on coal-fired power in Pakistan), and deviations from the transition (see: BP, Shell and Exxon backing off their climate targets). Such is the turbulence of transitioning to new supply chains, the power of path dependency, and the constraints on incumbents.

But the momentum towards net zero is building — 128 countries representing 88 percent of emissions, 92 percent of GDP and 85 percent of the world’s population have made net zero commitments — and the technology and investment trendlines are clear: the energy transition is accelerating. As the IEA’s Birol notes, “With this in mind, the push by some companies and governments to build new large-scale fossil fuel projects is not only a bet against the world reaching its climate goals — it is also a risky proposition for investors who want reasonable returns on their capital.”

The challenge for Canadian policymakers, business, and finance leaders — for our climate performance and economic competitiveness — is to decide where to place our bets, which will determine where we find ourselves when the fog of war on energy transition finally lifts.

The recent visit to Canada by the Japanese Prime Minister sparked the latest round of debate about the prospects for increasing Canadian LNG production and export.

According to LNG champions, “Canada definitely has a business case for LNG.” The basic premise is that increasing LNG exports from Canada can help wean Japan off Russian gas and cut greenhouse (GHG) emissions by replacing coal. A win for the energy security of an ally, and a win for the climate.

The story goes on to say that Japan might even consider using Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to transfer credits for their GHG emission reductions to Canada, which could count towards achieving Canada’s 2030 target and offset the additional GHG emissions from producing and liquefying more gas. Win-win-win!

It sure sounds like a great story, but does it live up to the hype?

For policymakers, there are two, interrelated considerations at the intersection of the business case and the public interest.

The first is whether direct (e.g. tax breaks, grants) or indirect (e.g. helping foot the bill for new electricity transmission to electrify operations) public subsidies are warranted. The sweet spot is when the economic benefits are significant and fairly certain, and providing subsidies tips the scales on the business case for investment.

The second relates to climate change and the growing momentum towards clean (i.e. zero carbon) energy. What are the domestic GHG emission implications? What about global GHG emissions? And how do these considerations impact competitiveness and the risk of stranded assets?

Let’s take a closer look at where things are tracking in Japan, and how this ought to inform the debate about LNG exports from Canada.

According to the IEA’s 2022 World Energy Outlook, in a business-as-usual scenario (which they call Stated Policies, or STEPS), Japan’s demand for natural gas is projected to decrease by 39 million cubic metres (bcm)—or 38%— by 2030, relative to 2021, as the 2021 Strategic Energy Plan is implemented. This plan was formulated along two key themes: (1) achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and the greenhouse gas emission reduction target, and (2) ensuring stable energy supply and reducing its costs while taking action against climate change. (IEA, 2022)

If Japan follows through on announced policies (the IEA’s Announced Policies Scenario, or APS)—which include the Green Transformation (GX) plan, which the Japanese Cabinet has subsequently approved—the drop in gas demand to 2030 is even more pronounced, falling by 57 bcm, or 58%. And it doesn’t stop there. By 2050 gas demand is projected to be just 17 bcm, an 83% drop from 2021.  It’s also critical to note that as demand gas drops, so too does demand for coal—falling by 40 (STEPS) to 46 million (APS) tonnes per year by 2030.

As we have witnessed in the EU’s response to the energy crisis resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, energy security and climate security are no longer at odds. As the IEA put it, “this is a crisis where energy transitions are the solution, rather than the problem.” (IEA, 2022)

This is similarly evident in Japan’s plans for “working to reduce its energy security risks while pushing forward with its climate agenda through measures to decrease exposure to imported fossil fuels, increase its share of nuclear and renewables, and improve energy efficiency.” (IEA, 2022)

But if both gas and coal demand is falling, then the specific question at hand doesn’t have a climate dimension, it’s really just about replacing Russian gas with Canadian gas. And so we must ask ourselves: if the role of Canadian gas is simply to replace Russian gas, how will it fare as Japanese gas demand falls?

Japan really doesn’t import much Russian gas, so it won’t be long before there are more non-Russian suppliers than there is demand. Will Canadian gas still be able to compete with other suppliers in this scenario, or will Canadian LNG terminals end up as stranded assets?

Source: IEA

According to a recent analysis exploring the relative cost of Canadian versus American LNG, competing on cost will be challenging:

Source: IEEFA

This raises questions about whether there’s enough certainty of success to justify public subsidies. It took several billion in subsidies to secure a final investment decision for Phase 1 of the LNG Canada project, but that was when the outlook for gas was much rosier than it is today. Back then the IEA was still touting the “golden age of gas.” Now, the IEA has declared “The golden age of gas is approaching the end.” (IEA, 2022)

How fast is it approaching that end? For LNG capacity, it appears we’re already there. According to the IEA, if governments follow through on policies they’ve announced (APS)—as Japan is doing—then existing and under-construction LNG facilities will already produce surplus LNG. The first phase of LNG Canada squeaks in, but anything beyond that is highly uncertain, with success premised upon governments backtracking on policy commitments.

Source: IEA

On this basis, the case for public subsidies to tip the scales on the business case and secure new investment is a weak one, fraught with risk to taxpayers.

Turning to the question of climate benefits, as noted above it’s clear that Japan’s interest in Canadian gas isn’t related to emission reductions, but enhancing energy security by replacing Russian gas.

As a result, the prospect of generating legitimate credits under Article 6 seems far-fetched. If both coal and gas demand is falling as nuclear and renewable power increase, how could it be demonstrated that Canadian gas was displacing coal that would otherwise have been burned, rather than replaced with nuclear or renewable power?

Meanwhile, GHG emissions in Canada will increase, either taking us further from achieving our climate targets or requiring other sectors—and citizens—to do more of the heavy lifting.

So things don’t look great, whether considering competitiveness or climate impacts. What business case there is for additional LNG investment in Canada is fraught with uncertainty and risk. If shareholders want to assume that risk, they are free to do so.

But policymakers ought to think twice about public subsidies that put taxpayer money at risk, money that might better support other opportunities that are lower risk and better align with the transition to net zero. As for our climate targets, it’s clear that there is no quid pro quo or net climate benefit resulting from LNG exports. Consequently, governments are well-advised to hold firm on ensuring that any additional LNG development fits within those targets, and the cost of doing so is borne by the industry (not taxpayers or other sectors).

Rachel Samson from the Institute for Research on Public Policy summed things up well, “With many risks facing an LNG project, private investors will focus on the lowest-cost projects with the greatest chance of realizing a return. If government subsidies are added to the mix, projects that are less likely to be competitive – and thus less resilient to shifting market demand – could move forward. If those projects don’t make it, taxpayers are not only short the money invested but they also miss out on the benefits that could have been realized from investing the funds elsewhere.”

Dig down and what seems like a great opportunity may not live up to the hype. All that glitters isn’t gold.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the magnitude of the challenge we face in scaling up clean electricity generation and transmission to achieve net zero. Generation gets a lot of attention but without transmission to get clean electrons to all the things we need to electrify, we’re stuck.

So it was great to see Bill Gates put a spotlight on transmission, and distill the opportunity/challenge to its essence: “If you care about climate change, you should care about transmission.”

BC offers an interesting case study.

Giga Metals is a Vancouver-based mining company focused on metals critical to the batteries needed for electric vehicles and energy storage. The company is advancing the Turnagain Nickel-Cobalt Project, which is located 65 km east of Dease Lake, and has the potential to produce 33,000 tonnes of battery grade nickel annually over 35 years. The project caught the eye of Mitsubishi, which took a stake in the project last summer.

The aim for the project is for it to be a world-class leader in low-carbon nickel production via a number of strategies, not the least of which is using clean electricity to power shovels, drills and (when possible) the mine fleet. (As an off-topic but interesting aside, it also includes a novel opportunity for CO₂ sequestration through mineral carbonation, working with UBC’s Greg Dipple, who has created Arca, a company that proposes to use waste from critical metal mines to capture and store CO₂ permanently by speeding up the natural process of carbon mineralization).

If the mining operation is going to be largely electrified, it needs access to BC Hydro’s clean power, which requires an approximately 160 kilometer extension of the existing 287 kV Northwest Transmission Line to the project site. The alternative? An LNG-fuelled power plant that would be more expensive and polluting.

Source

Simple, right? Wrong.

Last week the challenge of aligning new transmission with industrial demand was thrust into the spotlight when LNG Canada declared that it will have to burn gas to power its Phase 2 compressors (if in fact, it proceeds) because it won’t have access to sufficient power to electrify. While subsequent coverage leads me to believe this claim may just be a thinly veiled ploy to get taxpayers and/or ratepayers to shoulder the cost of transmission (rather than actually being about timing), it did precipitate a clear acknowledgment from BC Hydro that it faces a “chicken and egg” dilemma: “There is a potentially big demand for clean power from industry. Industries can’t commit to electrification without adequate transmission, and BC Hydro can’t commit to building new transmission without big industrial customers making final investment decisions.”

When the alternative to plugging into clean power is burning fossil fuels, this has material implications for both achieving BC’s legislated climate targets and competing for investment dollars that increasingly consider the carbon intensity of potential investments.

Timeliness is critical. So is certainty. And so while BC Hydro is, to their credit, trying a new approach to overcome the “chicken and egg” challenge, they’re going to need some help.

That’s where BC’s new Minister of Energy, Mines & Low Carbon Innovation, Josie Osborne, comes in. She has some key deliverables in her mandate letter that could prove critical. Amongst other things, she has been asked to:

• Develop and implement a climate-aligned energy framework for B.C. with an overall goal of maximizing our province’s production of clean energy to use at home and for export.
• Improve timing and transparency of permitting processes to support sustainable economic development while maintaining high levels of environmental protection, aligned with cross-government work on permitting led by the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship.

• Work with BC Hydro to implement its Electrification Plan and to ensure the province is well positioned to electrify B.C.’s economy and industry, including options for Indigenous ownership and/or equity interest in BC Hydro infrastructure and Indigenous partnership in clean energy projects.
• Work with the BC Utilities Commission to identify an appropriate role for the Commission in supporting B.C.’s clean energy transition, in alignment with our province’s climate goals to achieve net zero by 2050 and affordability objectives.
• Support B.C.’s mining sector by launching the Mining Innovation Hub and expedite a provincial critical minerals strategy that positions British Columbia to take advantage of the emerging clean global economy.

If Minister Osborne can make progress on these tasks, while ensuring they remain aligned with the DRIPA and its associated Action Plan, BC will be in a unique and remarkably competitive position to align its economy and energy system with net zero.

It’s not a small “to-do” list but it is a “must do” list: unless and until we figure out how to navigate these challenges our electrification ambitions risk being lost in transmission.

Blueprints for a Better World

This book review was originally published in Alberta Views.

“I’m a climate optimist. There’s nothing starry-eyed or Pollyanna-like about it. It’s not a slogan or a marketing pitch.” This opening passage from Calgary author Chris Turner’s most recent book, How to Be a Climate Optimist: Blueprints for a Better World, might strike many as surprising. After all, the news is full of stories about climate-fuelled extreme weather wreaking havoc on lives and livelihoods.

The news media reality, however, is that “if it bleeds, it leads,” and the news is more likely to cover the controversy and conflict of the energy transition than the good-news stories that are cause for optimism. But they’re out there, and in this book, Turner does a brilliant job of capturing and conveying them, drawing upon his two decades on the “climate solutions beat.”

From the backstory of Germany’s Energiewende, that country’s transition to a low carbon, reliable and affordable energy supply which unleashed the potential of solar power, to the “energy transition Disneyland” of Bornholm, a Danish island that has served as a living laboratory exploring what a better, cleaner energy system looks like, to the quiet but rapid rise of China to become the world’s largest manufacturer and installer of wind turbines and solar panels, Turner captures the confluence of technological, economic and political forces that have made the clean energy transition an inevitability. The question, clearly, is not whether the transition will happen, but how quickly.

Of course, how quickly the energy transition unfolds isn’t just a function of technology or economics; it requires political will. Or as Turner puts it, “only political will?” In sections aptly titled “Political Will is Not the Easy Part,” “Climate Politics 101 (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Politics and Then Hate Politics and Then Realize I Needed Politics No Matter How I Felt about it),” and “The Highly Qualified, Necessarily Compromised Thrill of Climate Victory,” Turner draws upon both observations and experience over the past two decades, from Germany’s Bundestag to UN climate conferences, and from the grassroots of Calgary municipal politics to the pragmatic climate politics of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It is a refreshingly honest accounting of the realpolitik of climate progress.

Turning from politics to policy, Turner lays out how, by harnessing solutions from energy efficiency codes to electrifying—that is, substituting clean electricity for fossil fuels—just about everything, the next decade holds the promise of being “not a flight from danger, but a march, even a race, toward a better world.” Embedded in this, as it is throughout the book, is a central thesis drawn from Denmark’s achievements (from Copenhagen’s embrace of cycling to that country’s leadership in offshore wind power): “the best solutions arise not by stopping what you don’t want but by seeking what you do want. Not by reducing emissions or eliminating fossil fuels but by building a new kind of grid, developing better kinds of transport, assembling a much better way of living.”

Like Turner, I’ve spent the past two decades engaging at the intersection of climate change and energy transition, and like him I’m a self-described climate optimist who shares his conclusion: “The energy transition will make its greatest strides yet, and it will make the world better in all the ways I’ve observed and in many I can’t even imagine yet.” But we are in the minority—a 2021 poll found two-thirds of Canadians are pessimistic about climate change. If you’re in this camp or know somebody who is, read or gift this book—readers will be hard-pressed to come away from it without a feeling of climate optimism.

This essay was originally published in Policy Magazine.

Heat domes. Atmospheric rivers. In 2021, my vocabulary expanded in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Living in British Columbia, I witnessed the cascading impacts to services and supply chains that accompanied the heatwaves, wildfires and flooding, and felt the sense of helplessness shared by most British Columbians as the toll in lives and livelihoods ticked upwards with each disaster.

While some commentators characterize these catastrophic weather events as our “new normal,” climate scientists remind us that this would imply a new and static stability that simply doesn’t exist. If anything, the “new normal” is that there is no normal anymore. The amount of carbon pollution we have and continue to pump into the atmosphere is changing our climate and the weather systems it fuels. 

This isn’t to suggest that efforts to cut carbon pollution and take climate action are futile. To the contrary, it simply reinforces the imperative to strengthen and accelerate efforts. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted in his speech at the COP26 climate change negotiations in Glasgow, “The science is clear: we must do more, and faster.”

To Canada’s and the Prime Minister’s credit, these words aren’t simply good intentions, but are backed up by a track record of effort, accompanied by clear and specific commitments to do more. To some, this might seem a controversial statement. You don’t have to look far to find criticism of the Canadian government’s climate efforts – that it has been too slow, too weak, and simply hasn’t reduced national carbon pollution (at least not yet). As leaders of the NDP and Green Party trumpeted in last fall’s election, the Trudeau Liberals were more about pretty words than real action.

But as Charles Dickens wrote in Great Expectations, “Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.” In this spirit, a brief recap is in order:

Following their 2015 election win, the Liberals brought Canada into the Paris Agreement and drew provinces together behind the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. They introduced a national price on carbon pollution, defended it up to the Supreme Court of Canada, and have committed to a schedule of increases out to 2030. They have secured a phase-out of coal-fired power at home and championed the Powering Past Coal Alliance internationally, advanced a Clean Fuel Standard to clean up fuel for gas vehicles, and made major strides to enable more Canadians to ditch their gas vehicles, buy electric replacements and keep them charged.

Their 2019 election platform promised even more, and they delivered. The Healthy Environment, Healthy Economy climate plan released in late 2020, and supported by new investments in the 2021 budget, put Canada on track to achieve a 36 percent reduction below 2005 levels by 2030 (beating the original Paris target of 30 percent). They could have coasted but understood more action is both needed and expected of Canada. So, in keeping with the Paris Agreement requirement to review and increase ambition on a five-year cycle, they filed a new target of a 40 to 45 percent pollution reduction by 2030. 

Yet despite all this effort, carbon pollution isn’t yet falling in Canada. What gives?

Regrettably, what the federal government does (or doesn’t do) is not the sole determinant of emissions in our federation. It’s a shared responsibility with provinces, and during the Liberals’ tenure, the provinces that contribute the most pollution — Alberta and Ontario — both saw changes in government that led to a rollback of provincial climate efforts and a deliberate effort to stymie federal efforts. 

But equally significant is the reality that policies, programs, and regulations take time to design and, when implemented, don’t create change overnight — there is an unavoidable lag. But consult experts, and they’ll tell you that the policies now being advanced will begin to reduce pollution in short order, and those reductions will grow and accelerate as they take hold.

Fortunately, we don’t just have to go on faith and expert analysis. The passage of the Canadian Net zero Emissions Accountability Act will provide Canadians with more clarity than we’ve ever had about what efforts the government is making, and of the expected results from those efforts. While most public and media attention to this legislation focused on its targets, its real value is in the obligation it creates for the government to establish and publish detailed plans, and to prepare progress reports for milestone years, with the first report due by no later than the end of 2023.

The first of these plans was intended to be due by the end of 2021 but considering the timing of the federal election and COP26, the government exercised its right to a 90-day extension and so will deliver it by the end of March. The plan will not only incorporate all the policies and programs described above, it will also include the big promises made in the Liberals’ 2021 election platform: 

• Mandating the sale of zero-emission vehicles so that 100 percent of new light-duty vehicles (cars, pickups, etc.) sold in Canada are zero emission by 2035 and at least 50 percent by 2030;
• Developing emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles that are aligned with the most ambitious standards in North America, and requiring that 100 percent of selected categories of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles be zero emission by 2040;
• Capping emissions from the oil and gas sector at current levels and requiring that they decline at the pace and scale needed to get to net zero by 2050;
• Developing a plan to reduce methane emissions across the broader Canadian economy in support of the Global Methane Pledge and the goals in Canada’s climate plan, reducing oil and gas methane emissions by at least 75 percent below 2012 levels by 2030 through an approach that includes regulations, as well as regulating methane landfill emissions and reducing agricultural methane emissions; and
• Transitioning to a net zero emitting electricity grid by 2035.

While many of these commitments include targets that extend beyond 2030, the plan is required to include projections of the annual greenhouse gas emission reductions resulting from those combined measures and strategies—including projections for each economic sector. For the first time, there will be clear and quantitative transparency around the scale and timing of emission reductions, which Canadians can use to both hold the government accountable and to evaluate its progress. By the next election, whenever it may be, we should be able to see how big the gap is between ambition and action, words and results.

Finally, three decades after Canada ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) and two decades after Canada ratified its first emission reduction commitment in the Kyoto Protocol (2002), we are beginning to get the institutional and administrative pieces in place to track federal climate action efforts. And I say “beginning” because the job isn’t yet complete. As helpful as the Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act is in establishing plans and tracking performance against them, it doesn’t explicitly require or drive the changes in governance—both the form and function of government—needed to execute these plans.

But on this front, there are some signs of progress nonetheless, from the establishment of a Cabinet Committee on Economy, Inclusion and Climate to a focus on climate action in the mandate letters of all ministers, including specific deliverables for some. Similarly, climate change is increasingly being considered in everything from government procurement to policy development, and the Healthy Environment, Healthy Economy plan pledged to “Apply a climate lens to integrate climate considerations throughout government decision-making” by ensuring government decisions “consider climate ambitions in a rigorous, consistent and measurable manner…that ensures that government spending and decisions support Canada’s climate goals.” 

Following the 2021 election, the decision to shift the former environment minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, to the Natural Resources portfolio, and Steven Guilbeault to Environment was broadly perceived as a strong signal that the government intends to move quickly on its campaign promises. Notably, the creation of a parliamentary secretary role, held by Julie Dabrusin, to work with both the natural resources and environment ministers creates a connective tissue between these ministries that holds interesting potential for better political integration. 

Meanwhile, in the public service, the government has established a climate secretariat within the Privy Council Office (PCO), though its mandate and influence aren’t yet clear. Optimally, it should have a focus on policy integration and efficiency, with responsibility for navigating competing priorities, trade-offs, and synergies among federal departments, helping to develop climate plans and shepherding their implementation.

A recent report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, Greater than the sum of its parts: How a whole-of-government approach to climate change can improve Canada’s climate performance, quite rightly notes that achieving Canada’s climate targets “will require the active involvement of departments as disparate as Finance, Infrastructure, Transport, Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change, Agriculture and Agri-Food, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Employment and Social Development, and others, necessitating a coordinated approach to ensure coherent implementation of climate strategy.” Informed by detailed case studies of whole-of-government efforts in the UK, US and B.C., it offers important recommendations for implementing a cohesive and effective whole-of-government approach to climate change, which the Prime Minister’s Office and PCO would do well to follow:

1. The success of a whole-of-government climate initiative depends on sustained executive leadership directing departmental priorities and inter-departmental coordination.
2. An effective whole-of-government climate initiative requires adequate funding, a clear mandate, and capacity to enact change across departments.
3. An effective whole-of-government climate initiative requires effective and empowered personnel acting in whole-of-government structures.
4. The mandates of participating departments must align, or be brought into alignment, with the mandate of the whole-of-government climate initiative.
5. A whole-of-government climate initiative should report publicly on its progress and be as transparent as possible about its deliberations, findings, and research.

Over the course of its first six years in office, the Liberal party effectively advanced numerous policies and programs that promise to deliver emission reductions in the coming years. Equally important, they created a system of transparency and accountability we have never previously had at the federal level. Hopefully, by the time the next election rolls around, Canadians will be able to get a clear view of what has been promised, what has been delivered, and whether the two line up.

Much as we might hope that B.C’s climate annus horribilis was an exception, years without climate-fuelled disasters somewhere in Canada are more likely to be the exception. Nonetheless, a Leger poll from November 2021 found that 75 percent of Canadians believe we still have time to put measures in place to stop climate change. They, like me, appear to be what Christiana Figueres, the diplomat who brokered the Paris Agreement, calls “stubborn optimists.” 

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.” In the era of climate disruption, these words ring true, although in my view it’s less a measure of intelligence than emotional fortitude and resilience. 

What all of this means for the federal government is that expectations are high for it to deliver on its climate action ambitions and commitments, and it has the public support it requires to move forward assertively. But adding to the challenge is the obvious imperative to not only try to cut pollution to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, but to prepare for and manage the impacts that climate change is already imposing. Consequently, in parallel to advancing an ambitious policy package to cut pollution, it will need to deliver reactive emergency support in response to floods and fire, while simultaneously making investments in climate-proofing infrastructure and delivering programs that will make Canadians safer and more resilient in the face of a changing climate.

It’s no small task, but I remain stubbornly optimistic. 

Over the past two decades, I’ve had the opportunity to try my hand at a wide range of things, developing and honing a diverse set of skills.

Expertise in energy & climate change policy

I blend practical energy and climate policy knowledge with a principled, pragmatic approach to getting results. I have experience with diverse policy approaches for cutting pollution, driving innovation, and adopting behavioural and technology solutions.

Systems-thinking & problem-solving

I am quick to see the big picture and understand how its pieces connect and interact. Able to absorb a breadth and depth of qualitative and quantitative information, I explore relationships and connect the dots, finding creative solutions to challenging problems.

Strategic communications

I am a creative communicator, with the ability to craft accessible messages for specific audiences—from citizens to businesses to policymakers and politicians. In addition to strong writing skills, I’m an experienced public speaker and media spokesperson. 

Managing relationships & building support for durable solutions

With a diplomatic style, I bridge the interests of diverse constituencies, both between various stakeholders, as well as within institutions. Personable and engaging, I build strong, trust-based relationships.