This article was written by Taylor C. Noakes and was published in the Toronto Star on May 8, 2023.

Rarely is the full picture of our incompetence concerning the climate emergency so perfectly captured in a single image.

A promotional blitz by the Pathways Alliance — which includes wrapping streetcars in advertisements boasting the slogan “our net zero plan is in motion” — is worse than false advertising, but deliberately misleading greenwashing.

Among other problems is the insinuation that Pathways has any kind of relationship with the TTC. They don’t, according to spokesperson Stuart Green, who was quick to point out the transit agency can’t refuse ads unless they violate certain standards.

One wonders if “buses suck, buy a truck” ads are next.

Pathways Alliance is a consortium of Canadian oil producers preaching “industry knows best” when it comes to decarbonization and combating climate change. Their goal is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, chiefly through the extensive use of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology.

No part of the plan involves powering mass transit systems.

Pathways is a classic example of greenwashing: advertising or marketing spin intended to convince the public, often deceptively, that an organization’s policies or products are environmentally friendly.

Advertising in mass transit systems they have nothing to do with isn’t new for Pathways. What’s far more insidious is that they’ve been manipulating search results, and, in consequence, distorting public information. According to a recent investigation by DeSmog, Pathways Alliance has been paying Google to link their website to hundreds of climate-related search terms.

The alliance’s primary aim is not to support already-green mass transit in Toronto or any other city, but to secure public support for what it terms “government co-investment” and “supportive fiscal/ regulatory systems.” Given ever increasing investor flight from the fossil fuel sector, the industry is growing increasingly dependent on already exorbitant government subsidies to stay in business. Expensive and wasteful carbon capture projects are the “Rube Goldberg device” Big Oil believes will allow for increased oilsands production while simultaneously achieving net zero goals.

And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Carbon capture, which Pathways claims is “safe, proven and reliable” is in fact none of those things. According to Mark Z. Jacobson, the eminent Stanford University researcher, “carbon capture is a useless technology (that) requires both energy and equipment and doesn’t reduce any air pollution, fossil fuel extraction or related infrastructure.”

“Because it requires energy to run, it increases all three of those and hardly reduces carbon dioxide.”

Jacobson explains that, even if powered with renewable energy, CCUS removes less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than simply using renewable energy sources as direct replacements for fossil fuels. In addition to exacerbating the climate emergency, CCUS is neither proven nor reliable, particularly in Canada, where there are only a few commercial carbon capture plants. One of these, Shell’s Quest plant in Alberta, emits more carbon than it captures.

While Pathways talks about CCUS as key to decarbonization and achieving net-zero goals, environmentalists, industry watchdogs, and other experts have long countered it’s all just a smokescreen.

And an expensive one at that: the oil and gas lobby in Canada has managed to bamboozle politicians and bilk taxpayers out of billions of dollars for inefficient, unnecessary, and essentially hypothetical CCUS technology that only serves to provide the fossil fuel sector a social license to continue driving the planet towards apocalypse.

The principle impediment to successful decarbonization is the continued manipulation of public opinion and the political class by the fossil fuel sector, which has had the effect of diverting scarce public resources away from developing tried, tested, and true renewable energy sources — like wind and solar — as well as the electrification of transit and transport.

We should expect nothing less from an avaricious industry that fiddles while the world burns.

As Ontario commits to new reactors, critics say cost and safety concerns outweigh benefits

This article was written by Marco Chown Oved and was published in the Toronto Star on May 8, 2023.

After a pause of more than 30 years, Ontario is poised to start building nuclear reactors again in an effort to provide the carbon-free electricity needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Both Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have lauded nuclear power as a climate change solution, one that will help reduce emissions, attract green businesses and provide abundant electricity to enable society to stop burning fossil fuels.

But as more than $1 billion in public money is being committed to a new generation of reactors, critics are calling for a pause and a rethink, saying nuclear power’s cost overruns, construction delays and safety concerns outweigh its benefits as a provider of clean electricity — especially when renewables such as wind and solar are cheaper, quicker to build and have no long-term radioactive legacy.

The last nuclear plant Ontario built was so expensive that it caused the bankruptcy of Ontario Hydro, said Mark Winfield, a professor of environmental and urban change at York University.

“People don’t remember that,” he said. “Now, we’re sleepwalking back down a nuclear path and nobody’s asking the big questions about the costs, viability, risks and alternatives.”

Winfield, who is also co-chair of the Sustainable Energy Initiative at York, said the climate crisis has opened up a window of opportunity for nuclear power, aided by the public’s short memory.

“The nuclear industry is engaged in a full-court press, trying to take advantage of the decarbonization push to rehabilitate its reputation,” he said, an assertion supported by records in the lobbyist registry in Ontario.

Building nuclear to reduce emissions is a false solution, he said, because it will burden future generations with waste that will remain radioactive for thousands of years.

“It’s climate change for nuclear waste. Are we trading one giant intergenerational problem for another?”

Proponents of nuclear include some climate-conscious groups that say reactors are the only way to build carbon-free electricity fast enough to decarbonize society by 2050 — the timeline set by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Nuclear energy also uses fewer resources and has a smaller footprint than any other type of electricity generation, they say.

Winfield and other critics point to nuclear power’s record of taking longer to build and costing more than anticipated — often by large margins — as the reason why the spread of the technology stalled decades ago.

More than 600 nuclear plants have been built for civilian electricity generation worldwide since the first one opened in Russia in 1954, the majority by the end of the ’80s. According to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, the number of nuclear reactors in operation globally peaked in 2002. There are currently 411 reactors in operation, fewer than there were in 1989.

Nuclear power was never meant to be commercially viable, said Benjamin Sovacool, a professor of earth and environment at Boston University. It was developed in the United States as a way to convince the public that the power of the atom — which had demonstrated its catastrophic destructive potential during the Second World War — could be used for good, he said.

“There was this euphoria around what nuclear power could do,” he said. The only problem? “It was never cost effective.”

Sovacool published an academic paper that analyzed the construction timelines and budgets of more than 400 large-scale electricity projects around the world over the past 80 years. He found, on average, nuclear plants cost more than double their original budgets and took 64 per cent longer to build than projected. Wind and solar, by contrast, had average cost overruns of 7.7 per cent and 1.3 per cent, respectively.

“That’s why the market has not really embraced nuclear power at all. It just can’t compete with modern renewables,” said Sovacool. “Nuclear is stagnating and declining.”

Last month, Germany shut down its last nuclear reactor, fulfilling a promise made after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan, in 2011, and despite an energy crisis that sent electricity prices soaring after the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year.

In the United States — which has 93 nuclear reactors, the most in any country in the world — more than one-third are unprofitable or scheduled to close, according to a 2018 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Meanwhile, only two new reactors have been brought online in the U.S. since the turn of the century, both of which took more than twice as long and cost more than twice as much as originally projected, according to Edwin Lyman, the report’s author and the organization’s director of nuclear power safety.

In Europe, only a handful of reactors have been built in the past 20 years, most recently in Finland, where a long-delayed plant at Olkiluoto opened in April, 18 years after breaking ground, and 13 years late. Construction ended up costing an estimated 11 billion euros, more than triple the original three-billion-euro estimate, according to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report.

One of the only places where enthusiasm exists for new nuclear is China.

Over the past two decades, China has commissioned 50 new reactors, more than half of all new reactors built. In the rest of the world, twice as many reactors have been decommissioned (105) as were built (48). But even China’s passion for nuclear is eclipsed by its penchant for building solar.

Since 2001, China has added 47.5 GW of nuclear power generation to its grid, according to the World Nuclear Industry Report. But in the last decade — half that time — it has also built 13 times more wind and solar (630 GW), according to the International Energy Agency.

Unlike renewables, whose prices have dropped, the cost to build nuclear power plants has risen over time, said M.V. Ramana, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs.

This is because every new nuclear accident demonstrates the need for additional security measures, he said. After the meltdowns at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, safety systems were added to all future plants to prevent similar accidents from occurring.

The cost increases associated with these undercut the case that nuclear power is reliable and inexpensive, Ramana said, prompting the nuclear industry to lowball cost estimates and provide unrealistic construction schedules.

“If politicians and the public were given accurate estimates, they’d say: ‘No thank you,’ ” he said. “There is an incentive to lie about this. If you look into the history, you should be very skeptical about promises.”

Canada was an early proponent of nuclear power, with the first experimental nuclear reactor outside the U.S. operating at Chalk River in the 1940s. Canada then developed its own civilian power technology — called CANDU — with prototypes built at Douglas Point, Ont., and Gentilly, Que., in the 1960s. The first large-scale reactor was built in Pickering in 1971, followed by Bruce in 1977, Point Lepreau, N.B., in 1983 and Darlington in 1990.

In Ontario, all three plants — Pickering, Bruce and Darlington — took longer and cost more to build than expected. Darlington, the last one to be completed, ended up costing $14.4 billion — triple the original budget.

Built to meet projections of soaring demand for electricity that didn’t materialize after the recession of the early ’90s, Darlington nuclear power plant bankrupted Ontario Hydro and led to the once-profitable public utility being broken into three.

The promised electricity price reductions also failed to materialize.

Now, three decades later, Ontario gets 53 per cent of its electricity from nuclear, but faces growing demand for noncarbon emitting electricity as industry returns to the province and cars and home heating electrify.

So Queen’s Park is turning to nuclear again.

Midway through $26 billion in refurbishments to extend the production lives of Darlington and Bruce, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) asked the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to prolong its operating licence for Pickering, Canada’s oldest operating reactor.

But that won’t be enough. The Independent Electricity System Operator said new nuclear reactors will be needed to get the province’s electricity supply to net-zero emissions. So, OPG has started the licensing process to build a first-of-its-kind small modular reactor (SMR).

“To electrify life in one generation, Ontario needs a diverse mix of energy sources, including nuclear. There is no credible path to net zero without nuclear,” said OPG spokesperson Neal Kelly. “Construction will be complete on the first SMR at Darlington in 2028; it will produce power for Ontario’s grid by the end of this decade.”

The cost of building the SMR — and any overruns — will be recovered through increases to electricity rates.

“OPG has been a world leader in the nuclear space for decades, and have a demonstrated track record of success on nuclear projects,” Ontario Energy Ministry spokesperson Michael Dodsworth told the Star.

SMRs are supposed to solve the cost overruns and construction delays that plagued larger nuclear projects. They are to be assembled mostly in a factory, where costs can be better controlled, and their smaller size means they will be quicker to construct.

The SMR proposed for Darlington will have a 300 MW capacity. By contrast, each of the four existing reactors at Darlington have a capacity of nearly 900 MW.

But the very logic of going small undercuts the economies of scale that large nuclear reactors relied on, said Lyman. While they may cost a lot, full-scale reactors produce incredible amounts of electricity. Lyman doubts the smaller reactors will end up being much cheaper, but they’ll definitely produce less electricity — and he has concerns they could be less safe.

“In the drive to show these things are going to be cheaper, they’re cutting too many corners,” he said. “There may be a way to make it safe enough, but that’s not the way we’re going.”

The hypothetical consequences of a nuclear accident would be far worse in Ontario, where Darlington and Pickering are located very close to millions of homes, than most other nuclear plants around the world, said Theresa McClenaghan, a lawyer with the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

“We have been numbed to the danger,” she said. “The emergency planning zone extends well into Toronto.”

But some climate change advocates say nuclear is the best option for cutting our emissions quickly and that Canada can avoid some of the problems encountered elsewhere.

Chris Keefer, president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, a grassroots non-profit, said net zero targets have provided the urgency needed to get Canada to return to the golden era of its nuclear program, when 22 reactors were commissioned in 22 years between the early ’70s and the early ’90s.

“Nuclear is the only way to keep gas off the grid,” he said. “We built nuclear very quickly in the past and we can do so again.”

Keefer pointed to the ongoing refurbishments of Darlington and Bruce, saying they’ve kept a highly trained workforce on the job, while also supporting a local nuclear supply chain across the province — both things that were lost during the long building drought in the U.S. and Europe.

“I’m optimistic about nuclear,” he said. “It’s not easy. But new reactors can keep us carbon-free far into the future.”

‘‘ The market has not really embraced nuclear power at all. It just can’t compete with modern renewables. Nuclear is stagnating and declining.

BENJAMIN SOVACOOL A PROFESSOR OF EARTH AND ENVIRONMENT AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY

CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

These Letters to the Editor were published in the Globe & Mail on May 3, 2023.

Fuel for debate

Re “The uncomfortable truth about Canada’s climate commitments: they won’t be met” (April 26): Canada can do a lot to help the world. If only it could export more natural gas and oil.

Canada has done the utmost to block the export of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, China and India have increased coal use because of the global lack of natural gas and oil.

Australia maximizes its export of fossil fuels to China and Japan. Japan calls Canada an energy hog and a hoarder – this is the way many in the world view this country.

People seem to think Canada can save the world by not exporting energy. It is unfortunate that this country plays such a small role in the global energy trade. If some people get their way, it will be even smaller.

Meanwhile, global greenhouse-gas emissions will continue to rise exponentially, despite closing Canadian fossil-fuel businesses to global export. So myopic.

Bryce Code Calgary

I don’t give in to the perspective that we’re not going to make it. I am a Canadian and I’m not depressed; I’m driven to take action.

I lobby our elected representatives. I work to better inform and motivate the public about our climate crisis.

I advocate for immediate action to stop burning fossil fuels, subsidizing the industry, leniently enforcing regulations, exploring new developments such as Bay du Nord and building infrastructure such as the Trans Mountain pipeline. I promote initiatives such as electrifying “everything, everywhere, all at once,” to quote United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Let’s do everything we can to persuade our governments and communities to undertake urgent action. We only have these next few years to get Canada on track to meet its targets.

We should do this before it’s too late.

Ray Nakano Toronto

IF WE HAVE ANY CHANCE OF AVOIDING THE WORST EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE, WE NEED TO TAKE DRASTIC MEASURES TO EMBRACE CLEAN ENERGY NOW. BUT RATHER THAN SEEING IT AS A BURDEN, CONSIDER IT A MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY

This article was written by Jeffrey Jones and was published in the Report on Business by the Globe & Mail on April 29, 2023.

Canada has made lots of promising-sounding climate commitments since signing onto the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, then fallen short. We’re getting very close to a tipping point, but there are still plenty of ways to catch up—and lots of opportunities, too. /By Jeffrey Jones

PLUS We asked 13 experts, entrepreneurs and activists how we can hit our net zero targets before it’s too late

It’s getting increasingly difficult to keep track of the catastrophic weather events that have hit Canada over the past couple of years. In 2021, there was the heat dome in British Columbia, which killed well over 600 people and sparked a wildfire that destroyed the town of Lytton; the so-called atmospheric river that unleashed mass flooding in the province’s interior; and a freak hailstorm in Calgary. Last May, a wall of heavy rain and high winds—an event known as a derecho— ravaged large swaths of Ontario and Quebec, generating four tornados and killing at least 11 people. Four months later, Hurricane Fiona slammed into Atlantic Canada, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers and leaving more than 30 dead. Countrywide, total insured weatherrelated losses for both years totalled more than $5 billion.

And that’s just in Canada. In 2022, damage from extreme weather events cost the United States US$165 billion—and that doesn’t take into account the human toll. By 2100, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates damage related to climate warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels—the goal we’re all supposedly aiming for—will hit US$54 trillion. If we reach 2°C in warming, the cost rises to US$69 trillion. Again, that doesn’t account for the inevitable loss of human and animal life due to intense storms, fires, flooding and famine.

Yet Canada—and, it must be said, the vast majority of developed nations—have spent much of the past three decades spinning their wheels in the global race to slash carbon emissions. According to Canada’s Sustainable Finance Action Council, or SFAC—a group of finance professionals appointed by Ottawa— we need to spend $115 billion more a year than we are today to have any hope of hitting net zero by 2050.

And even that goal now seems naive.

In March, the IPCC released its most recent assessment of the climate crisis and what must be done to slow the impact. The report is scathing. The world, it says, is on track to blow past the 1.5°C goal sometime in the mid-2030s, which means the next decade is critical. “We are at the tip of a tipping point,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the IPCC when it released the report. But he also said it’s not too late to act, and he urged developed countries like Canada to move faster, aiming to hit net zero by 2040, not 2050.

We all know what the fixes are: shift away from fossil fuels, invest heavily in renewable energy, electrify the economy, construct buildings using the most efficient technology, and protect and build back ecosystems. But the job is made harder when long-term solutions are undercut by short-term crises. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showed how reliant the world still is on fossil fuels. Europeans struggled to heat their homes and run their factories when President Vladimir Putin shut off the gas to the continent. The rest of us suffered through energy price spikes.

Even so, climate change remains a problem to be solved collectively. The fight will be costly and force changes to lifestyles and livelihoods, not least in an economy like Canada’s, which is highly reliant on natural resource extraction and exports of highcarbon commodities, including oil and gas. Those industries have provided decades of prosperity, and that makes a shift away from them hard for some of us to contemplate.

Legions of engineers and entrepreneurs, however, see it as the largest economic opportunity since the computing revolution. Canadians are working to position the country as a leader in carbon capture, utilization and storage; critical-mineral extraction for electrification; renewable energy and power storage; alternative fuels; and all the software and artificial intelligence needed to run those systems.

Along with investors both inside and outside Canada, they’re looking to fill that $115-billion gap in annual spending needed for us to achieve our stated climate ambitions. SFAC, the group of finance professionals who calculated the shortfall, has authored the country’s green taxonomy—a catalogue of green investments and technologies that fit within the energy transition category. It’s meant to be a made-in-Canada approach for giving investors comfort that any money they direct at solving climate-related problems will be spent effectively, and not squandered on greenwashing schemes or projects that will lock them into years of carbon emissions.

If the blueprint works, it would go a long way toward making up for Canada’s long and sorry record dealing with the carbon conundrum.

Ah, the memories. In 1992, then prime minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives set a goal to stabilize CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by 2000. They rose. Jean Chrétien’s Liberals signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and Parliament ratified it five years later, showing how serious the country was this time about helping solve a growing problem. Under Kyoto, Ottawa committed to cutting emissions by 6% from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. There was back-patting galore.

What the program lacked was any real action plan. Over that period, the Alberta oil sands underwent an unprecedented development boom, and Canadian emissions increased by 30%. Before the deadline arrived, then prime minister Stephen Harper pulled us out of the agreement in 2011. The Harper government had set a new bar: Under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, the country pledged to reduce emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020. But that, too, soon proved overly ambitious.

Again, it was reset time. Call it “Canada Gets Serious About Climate Change 4.0.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau signed onto the Paris Agreement in 2015, along with 194 other countries. That accord commits us to hitting the net zero finish line in 2050. For good measure, Trudeau set an interim target to reduce emissions by 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030.

But Canada is off to a late, and slow, start. From 2015, the year the Trudeau Liberals took office, emissions were down 4% in 2021, according to the EU Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research. But they rose 2.7% from 2020 as the economy began to recover from the pandemic.

A 2021 report by federal environment commissioner Jerry DeMarco lamented Canada’s poor record on emissions reduction, noting it was the worst in the Group of Seven. That club, of course, includes the U.S., and former President Donald Trump bid adieu to the Paris Agreement. Under current commander-in-chief Joe Biden, America is not only back in the fight, but Biden has kicked it up several notches with his Inflation Reduction Act. That legislation is Washington’s largest-ever climate change–fighting campaign, committing US$369 billion over 10 years to renewable energy, electric vehicles, carbon capture and other green tech. Canadian cleantech executives also see it as a clear competitive threat.

It doesn’t spell hopelessness for Canada, though. Critics who deride any action on climate often quote our smallish 1.5% contribution to global emissions. They say it’s really up to major economies like China and the U.S. to make major reductions. But that argument is defeatist. After all, on a per-capita basis, we’re the highest emitters in the world, according to the federal government. Herein lies another big opportunity: Technology invented here to improve that record can be exported, giving Canada an outsized impact on reducing emissions worldwide.

SFAC’s taxonomy is among the developments that bode well for Canada’s efforts to retool for net zero. So is carbon pricing. Although late to the game, Canada’s system aims to send the pricing signals necessary for companies and investors to direct capital to emissions-cutting projects. Under the schedule, the price is slated to rise to $170 per tonne by 2030 from $65 today. (Alberta was actually a leader on pricing, establishing a carbon tax on large emitters a decade and a half ago.)

Would-be investors want assurances that future governments won’t enact policies that threaten carbon price certainty for their projects, especially carbon capture initiatives, a technology seen by some as a bridge to a low-carbon economy. In the 2023 federal budget, the government announced such guarantees.

Another step in the right direction is the move to regulatory requirements for companies to disclose their emissions, now being designed by such bodies as the International Sustainability Standards Board, which will inform Canadian policies, and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. With the latter, Canada’s banks and insurers will have to start disclosing all three scopes of emissions starting in 2024, and provide details of how they’re accounting for climate risk. (Scope 1 emissions are those from their own operations, Scope 2 are from the energy they purchase, and Scope 3 are from companies and projects they finance, and from end use of the goods produced.)

What the rules don’t require are specific targets for phasing out investments and lending to high-carbon sectors, and that’s to the chagrin of environmental activists. They say financial institutions can’t be serious about the energy transition while still financing the fossil fuel sector to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. The Big Five Canadian banks are among the top 20 financiers to the global oil and gas industry, according to the Rainforest Action Network. The banks contend they serve a better purpose by keeping energy companies as clients and helping them in their decarbonization efforts. The jury is out on that contention.

Perhaps the biggest dislocation caused by any shift to net zero will be in the labour force, and that’s something all governments have to grapple with. According to the Canadian Climate Institute, as many as 800,000 jobs in sectors such as oil and gas, mining, heavy industry and auto manufacturing will be vulnerable to disruption if Canada can’t attract the capital needed to transform its industries. Those sectors account for almost 70% of exports, and generate more than $300 billion in export revenue and investment annually.

The institute conducted that research before Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Canadian cleantech execs and investors worry the range of incentives in that legislation could divert capital to the U.S. Canada must pick its strengths and develop policies to show how we’ll thrive as energy and industrial systems evolve.

The Trudeau Liberals’ March budget took a shot at battling the competitive threat, with $20.9 billion in tax credits aimed at clean electricity, hydrogen and cleantech manufacturing. It also expanded eligibility for tax credits for cleantech adoption and carbon capture.

Ottawa isn’t short on advice on what to do. It has formed many panels of experts—including executives, academics and environmentalists—to provide recommendations on industrial strategy, cleantech competitiveness and net zero policy. The trick now is putting the advice into action, while keeping the peace with the provinces and high-emitting sectors that are demanding taxpayers foot much of the bill for carbon capture and other technologies. The Pathways Alliance, the coalition of major oil sands producers that has pledged to get to net zero with their Scope 1 and 2 emissions, is among the most vocal calling for public funding, saying it will support a workforce needed to mobilize to build

a massive carbon network. The industry says Canada’s barrels should be the last ones on the market in a decarbonizing world, but its critics argue that’s a refusal to envision a wind-down of the fossil fuel era.

Meanwhile, despite frequent demands from investors and regulators to improve disclosure, Canadian companies have the worst record on disclosing targets among G7 countries when it comes to emissions reductions (according to CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project). Those countries collectively are on a path for a global temperature rise of 2.7°C, based on targets disclosed by their companies. Taken alone, Canada’s corporations are on a trajectory to a rise of 3.1°C, CDP said.

Still, there’s reason for optimism. It’s clear Canada has done more to wrench the economy to at least point itself in the direction of net zero than it did in past failed attempts. Alberta, for instance, is undergoing a multibillion-dollar boom in wind and solar power development, funded almost entirely by corporate and private investors. Mining and manufacturing companies are laying the groundwork for a Canadian EV supply chain, including battery components and auto parts. But there are still numerous tough choices to make on how to get to net zero without sending the economy into a tailspin, and not wasting time and money on ineffective projects and policies, or leaving Indigenous communities out of the equation.

The risk with the energy transition is that it gets bogged down by the belief it can be all things to all people. Activists see the shift as a necessity that must be accomplished in under a decade. Pro-oil types would prefer the shift be open-ended, with a way to maintain production of fossil fuels.

What’s needed now is a combination of expertise, political will and buy-in from players in the game—scientists, companies, various levels of government and the public. Each now has a different idea of how to get to net zero, so there’s plenty of debate to come. But it took Canada 31 years to get to a starting point. Now it has even less time to reach the destination.

Ford’s energy initiatives could shut Ontario’s businesses out of billions in federal incentives

This article was written by Marco Chown Oved and was published in the Toronto Star on April 23, 2023.

It’s the $25-billion question.

The federal budget released last month included a clean-electricity tax credit worth an estimated $25.7 billion. But it’s only available in provinces that commit to a net-zero electricity grid by 2035 — something Ontario has not done.

Instead, Premier Doug Ford is about to sign contracts for new power plants fuelled by natural gas — a particularly potent greenhouse gas — that will be in operation until 2040.

Does this mean Ontario’s businesses will miss out on the generous subsidies and electricity users will end up paying more for power?

Neither the province nor the federal government will answer the question directly. They only say negotiations are ongoing and that they hope to reach a deal before next year, when the credits come into effect.

Experts, however, warn that the gas plants are incompatible with a net-zero grid, and will end up costing Ontarians.

“If they go ahead with the gas plants, they’re either going to have to break those contracts, which means that Ontario electricity customers are going to be paying gas plants to sit idle, or the province is going to have to forego this clean energy tax incentive,” said Keith Brooks, programs director at Environmental Defence.

“Either way, it’s going to be a multibillion-dollar scandal to add to the tally of this government’s already expensive ideological battle against climate policy.”

Decarbonizing electricity is the foundation of Canada’s effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions. As we transition away from fossil fuels, Canadians will have to electrify virtually everything from transportation to heating to manufacturing and mining, the federal budget said.

If the electricity isn’t carbon-free, it will undermine efforts to decarbonize almost everything else.

The Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit will provide a 15 per cent refundable tax credit to private electricity developers, public utilities and Crown corporations such as Ontario Power Generation on the capital costs of building new, and refurbishing existing, non-emitting generators and batteries.

There is no cap on how much money is available for these projects, but Ottawa estimates they will cost $6.3 billion over the next four years, and an additional $19.4 billion for the following seven years until 2035.

Evan Pivnick, clean energy program manager at Clean Energy Canada, said the tax credit represents the ambition necessary to accelerate the clean energy transition. In particular, he pointed to the fact that it will be available to utilities, which haven’t traditionally been able to access tax credits.

“It’s huge for the federal government to say: ‘We’re going to cover 15 per cent of the capital cost of building these facilities,’ ” Pivnick said.

If the tax credit is the carrot used to entice provinces to clean up their electricity, the federal government also has a stick.

The Clean Electricity Regulations (CER) will require every province to have a net zero grid by 2035. Currently in draft form, they state carbon-emitting generation can only be used during “emergency” situations or to “back up” renewable energy.

Natural gas plants provided more than 10 per cent of all electricity generated in Ontario last year.

“If Ontario’s gas plants are allowed to operate under the federal Clean Electricity Regulations, then the regulations clearly aren’t strong enough to deliver on the Prime Minister’s commitment to a netzero electricity sector by 2035,” Brooks said.

Bryan Purcell, vice-president of policy and programs at The Atmospheric Fund, which finances clean energy initiatives, said over the course of consultations, the federal government has been loosening the restrictions on gas plants in a way that risks undermining the push to net zero.

“There are several exceptions proposed for the (CER) that could allow the continued operation of natural gas plants for a significant period after 2035,” he said. “We’re encouraging the federal government to move forward with an ambitious, clean electricity regulation that really minimizes these exceptions.”

Asked for comment, Ontario Ministry of Energy spokesperson Michael Dodsworth said the province believes the gas plants will be permitted beyond 2035.

Despite having one of the cleanest grids in the country, Ontario’s electricity is getting progressively dirtier, moving away from net zero instead of toward it.

In 2017, 96 per cent of the province’s electricity came from carbonfree sources, chiefly nuclear and hydro. Last year, 89.6 per cent of the grid was non-emitting.

Carbon emissions from the grid are rising because shortly after getting elected, Ford cancelled more than 700 renewable energy projects. With the Pickering nuclear plant slated to shut down and demand for electricity on the rise, the province is in the process of signing contracts for 1,500 megawatts of new gas generation.

The plants will operate until 2040 — five years after the 2035 net zero deadline — in apparent contradiction of a commitment to a net zero grid.

Last fall, the Star revealed that the province had written clauses into the gas plant contracts that would guarantee payment even if they had to shut down due to net zero rules.

Since winning office, Ford has started to change his tune on renewable technology. While he campaigned on getting rid of electric vehicle subsidies, he later announced billions of dollars in incentives to bring EV battery and assembly plants to Ontario — and the automakers said they were attracted to the province in part by the clean electricity available.

But Ford’s softening on clean tech has not changed his attitude toward renewable electricity. Under the previous Liberal governments, Ontario commissioned more than 30,000 solar and wind generation projects. But that stream of new renewables came to a halt under Ford and virtually no new renewables have been built in the last five years.

“The premier has come around on electric vehicles. He has got behind clean steel. There’s no reason not to support clean energy because it is the lowest cost of new electricity generation,” said Brooks.

New report calls for end to province’s moratorium on offshore turbine projects

This article was written by Marco Chown Oved and was published in the Toronto Star on April 18, 2023.

Ontario needs more electricity — and lots of it.

As demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps ramp up, projections show the province will need to more than double its generation capacity by 2050.

While Queen’s Park has committed to building new natural gas plants and one the the world’s first small nuclear reactors, energy sector experts say there’s a better way.

Offshore wind farms in the Great Lakes could provide enough carbon-free energy to meet all of Ontario’s growing demand at nearly half the cost of new nuclear reactors, according to a new report published by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

But there’s a problem: Ontario declared a moratorium on offshore wind projects in 2011.

“It was in response to political pressure that they put the moratorium on wind power in the Great Lakes,” said Jack Gibbons, chair of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance and a former Toronto Hydro commissioner.

The situation has changed, he said. “The cost of wind power has fallen dramatically due to improvements in technology,” said Gibbons. “We need to develop a lot more clean energy and Great Lakes wind power is the best way to decarbonize our economy and to lower our electricity rates.”

The report lays out the case for ending the moratorium on offshore wind in Ontario, saying the renewable technology is uniquely placed to meet surging energy demand and can be built quickly and cheaply.

Wind turbines in particular have dropped so precipitously in price that they are currently cheaper than new natural gas plants.

Last year, the Ohio Supreme Court approved the Great Lakes’ first offshore wind project, located near Cleveland in Lake Erie. It will be part of more than 11,000 megawatts of offshore wind power coming online in the next three years, according to the American Clean Energy Association.

While Nova Scotia has set a target of building 5,000 megawatts of offshore wind generation by 2030 — and the G7 pledged to build 150,000 megawatts of offshore wind by the same date — there are no offshore turbines currently in operation anywhere in Canada.

Opposition to offshore wind has focused on perceived harms to aquatic ecosystems and migratory birds. The report, however, cites a Ministry of Natural Resources study that found offshore wind farms, if done properly, could have “minimal impacts.”

While the turbines are responsible for approximately one million migratory bird deaths per year in the U.S, this number is dwarfed by those caused by household cats, which kill more than 2.4 billion birds annually, the report said.

Meanwhile, recent whale deaths off the U.S. eastern seaboard, initially suspected to be caused by turbines, were in fact found to have been caused by collisions with ships and entanglements in fishing nets.

“There is no scientific basis for the ongoing moratorium on offshore wind projects in Ontario,” said Bryan Purcell, vice-president of policy and programs at The Atmospheric Fund, in an email.

Any concerns regarding potential impacts on wildlife can be managed through site-specific environmental assessments, he added.

Ontario Energy Ministry spokesperson Michael Dodsworth said the province has no plans to revisit the moratorium.

Evan Pivnick, clean energy program manager at Clean Energy Canada, touted the economic benefits of offshore wind projects.

“Offshore wind is a very significant resource that could be tapped to offer clean electricity to power Ontario homes and businesses,” he said.

“Abundant, cheap and clean electricity is one of Ontario’s most important competitive advantages. Let’s set aside the climate necessity of deploying clean energy and look at this purely from an economic perspective. This is going to be central to Ontario remaining competitive with other regions of Canada and the U.S. when it comes to attracting investment.”

Ontario’s clean electricity has been cited as a factor in attracting large investments in electric vehicle and battery manufacturing over the last few years.

Cleaning up Canada’s electricity grid will be the “backbone” of the federal government’s efforts to transition to a low-carbon economy, officials said at last month’s federal budget announcement.

Click here to take action: Now is the time for offshore wind power

This article was written by John Woodside and Natasha Bulowski, and was published in Canada’s National Observer on April 17, 2023.

International Energy Agency boss Fatih Birol tells DW that existing oil fields, gas wells and coal mines are “more than enough” if the world is serious about its climate goals.

This article was written by Ajit Niranjan and was published by DW News on April 11, 2023.

This article was written by Wendy Stueck and Emma Graney, and was published in the Globe & Mail on April 15, 2023.

With greenhouse gas output 53 megatonnes below 2019 levels, Environment Minister says country is making strides on climate goals

Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2021, but the increase was smaller than expected and overall numbers suggest Canada is making progress toward its climate goals, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says.

The 2023 National Inventory Report of greenhouse gas emissions, released Friday, showed Canada’s emissions in 2021 were 670 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, up by 12 MT, or 1.8 per cent, from 2020 emissions of 659 MT, the report said.

But emissions were 53 MT below 2019’s pre-COVID-19 levels, indicating government policies have started to correct what has been a steadily upward trajectory, Mr. Guilbeault said.

“Environment and Climate Change Canada predicted there would be an increase in emissions in 2021 due to 2020’s sudden COVID-19 economic slowdown that caused emissions to drop sharply,” Mr. Guilbeault said Friday in a statement.

“But emissions have stayed significantly below pre-pandemic levels. In fact, Canada’s 2021 emissions profile was 53 megatonnes smaller than it was in 2019, before the pandemic, and 62 megatonnes below 2005 levels. This means we are almost a quarter of the way to our 2030 emissions reduction goal.”

Canada files a National Inventory Report each year as part of reporting requirements under international climate treaties. The federal government’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan, released last year, calls for emissions to be reduced by 40 to 45 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

The fact that emissions in 2021 remained below 2019 levels means government policies such as the phase-out of coal power are beginning to work, said Jan Gorski, director of the oil and gas program with the Pembina Institute, a think tank.

“What this shows is that the main driver of reduction is policy, and so we need more of it. Where we have it, we’re seeing reductions. Where we don’t have it, we’re not seeing reductions,” he said in an interview.

Specific to oil and gas production, Mr. Gorski said the role policies have played in reducing emissions in other sectors underscores the need for an emissions cap and other guidelines for the fossil fuel industry.

“If we have the right policy in place, we can meet climate goals,” he said. “Without it, I think it’ll be tough.”

Environmental group Nature Canada said the report fails to transparently report emissions from the logging sector and instead wraps them into a broader category. The result is that the overall effect of industrial logging in Canada is portrayed as carbon neutral – a result that Nature Canada calls “implausible.”

Canada’s oil and gas sector is the largest contributor to the country’s emissions, representing 28 per cent of the overall volume in 2021.

Emissions from the sector increased by 4 per cent (about four MT) between 2020 and 2021, according to the report.

Mr. Guilbeault said the numbers represented a “noteworthy achievement,” given that oil and gas production has increased.

Production of crude bitumen and synthetic crude oil from oil sands operations has increased by 215 per cent since 2005. Emissions from oil and gas extraction continue to rise, from 63 MT in 2005 to 103 MT in 2021.

The sector has also seen emissions in Alberta far outstrip those in the rest of the country.

Alberta and Ontario have historically been the provinces with the largest GHG footprints, but emissions patterns have diverged since 2005.

Those in Alberta have increased by 8.6 per cent (or 20 MT) since then, primarily as a result of the expansion of oil and gas operations. In contrast, the report says, Ontario’s emissions have decreased by 53 MT (26 per cent) since 2005, mostly owing to the closing of the province’s last coalfired electricity generation plants in 2014.

Companies that comprise about 95 per cent of oil sands production have vowed to get to net zero emissions by 2050. They are looking at an array of methods to reduce the sector’s significant environmental footprint, including pilot projects that use injections of solvents to reduce the amount of steam needed to extract oil, and studies on the viability of small modular nuclear reactors and geothermal energy. The heart of the plan is a massive carbon capture and storage network.

Emissions from the downstream petroleum refining sector remained unchanged at 13 MT in 2021, down from 20 MT in 2005.

Methane emissions have dropped by 21 per cent, or 15 MT, since 2005, though the report says there was no significant change between 2020 and 2021.

Fugitive emissions from oil and natural gas systems contributed 37 MT to Canada’s total in 2021, though the level of pollution escaping from coal mining and oil and natural gas production has decreased by 15 MT, or 21 per cent, since 2005. From 2019 to 2020, methane emissions from the upstream oil and gas industry decreased by 9 MT (14 per cent).

Ottawa said that is owing to various factors, including federal and provincial methane regulations, effects of the pandemic, and the closing of less productive oil and gas wells.

The transport sector is the country’s second-largest source of emissions, at 22 per cent. Transport emissions increased by 9 MT, or 5 per cent, between 2020 and 2021, the report said.

The National Inventory Report comes out in April each year and has a reporting lag; this year’s report, for example, covers emissions for 2021.

In a report released in January, the Net Zero Advisory Body – an independent advisory group set up to monitor Canada’s progress toward net-zero goals – said Canada should close the data lag and launch quarterly reporting, similar to the approach taken by the European Union.

Bank beats out JPMorgan Chase in U.S. to lead the world despite zero-emission commitment

This article was written by Kevin Orland and was published in the Toronto Star on April 14, 2023.

Royal Bank of Canada topped JPMorgan Chase & Co. last year to become the world’s largest backer of fossil-fuel companies, providing more fodder to critics who say the lender isn’t living up to its climate commitments.

Royal Bank provided $42.1 billion (U.S.) of funding to the industry, up 4.2 per cent from a year earlier, surpassing the $39.2 billion provided by JPMorgan, according to the Rainforest Action Network’s 14thannual “Banking on Climate Chaos” report. The figures include lending as well as debt and equity underwriting.

While Canada’s largest lender by assets has committed to zeroing out the emissions associated with its financing activities, environmentalists have increasingly targeted its involvement with fossilfuel companies. The Torontobased lender has especially come under fire for working with Canada’s oilsands firms, which produce one of the world’s most carbon-intensive grades of crude.

“RBC is really a critical financier for tarsands, which is problematic both from an environmental and a human rights perspective,” April

Merleaux, research manager for Rainforest Action Network, said in an interview.

JPMorgan had led the rankings since 2019, but its financing to the industry fell 42 per cent last year. Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. posted similarly large declines. Many U.S. oil producers used last year’s record profits to pay down debt, while others turned to private markets for financing. Investmentbanking activity also slumped due to broader market turmoil.

“We provide financing across the energy sector: supporting energy security, helping clients accelerate their low-carbon transition and increasing clean energy financing with a target of $1 trillion for green initiatives by 2030,” said Charlotte Powell, a spokesperson for New York-based JPMorgan, in an emailed statement.

Wells Fargo, Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup round out the top five, with U.S. banks accounting for a combined 28 per cent of all fossil-fuel financing last year, according to RAN’s report. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. led in Asia, while BNP Paribas SA was tops in Europe.

RBC said the report’s authors don’t validate their findings with the bank, so it can’t confirm their conclusions. The bank also said the report doesn’t measure its progress in meeting climate goals and that it’s confident with its strategy.

“We are actively working with our clients, governments and many stakeholders toward a net zero economy,” spokesperson Andrew Block said in an emailed statement. “This includes financing for renewable-energy projects and providing capital to clients in higher-emitting sectors to support their transition journeys as there aren’t enough renewables available today to power our world.”

Royal Bank set a goal last year of lowering the intensity of emissions that its oil and gas clients generate from operations — known as Scope 1 and 2 — by 35 per cent by 2030, relative to 2019 levels. It’s also planning to reduce the intensity of emissions from the burning of the fuels those companies sell — Scope 3 emissions — by 11 per cent to 27 per cent in that time frame.

Using emissions intensity — instead of absolute emissions — allows Royal Bank to increase lending to high-emitting sectors and lets its clients emit more carbon through rising production as long as their operations are growing more efficient.

Strong interim targets for absolute emissions are important because the scientific consensus is that global carbon dioxide emissions need to fall by about 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5 C, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Those intensity targets really seem like they’re creating a kind of loophole,” Merleaux said. “We need to see the scope three absolute emissions reductions and we need to see them on a really ambitious timeline.”

Royal Bank is among the 49 of 60 banks ranked in the report that have made net zero commitments. Still, the lenders funneled a combined $150 billion last year to the 100 largest fossil-fuel companies.

Marchers protest during the Royal Bank of Canada’s annual general meeting at the Delta Bessborough hotel in Saskatoon, Sask., on April 5. Royal Bank provided $42.1 billion (U.S.) of funding to the fossil-fuel industry last year.