This article was written by David Stanway and was published by Reuters on July 3, 2023.

This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on July 5, 2023.

After a few detours, Ottawa’s carbon tax has finally arrived in Nova Scotia, with pump prices in the province surging on July 1. Gasoline taxes rose an eyepopping 16 cents a litre on Canada Day, representing five years’ worth of carbon-tax increases (plus the bonus of added HST).

But how could this happen, one might wonder, when Canada has supposedly had a national price on carbon since April, 2019?

Indeed, that principle is at the heart of the federal Liberals’ climate-change strategy – a continually escalating price for carbon set nationwide. But the existence of the carbon tax east of Ontario has been a polite fiction since 2019. Exemptions, offsetting tax cuts and, in Nova Scotia’s case, a toothless system for trading carbon credits have meant that Atlantic Canadians have not seen taxes on fossil fuels climb as have their fellow citizens from Ontario to Alberta. Quebec’s slightly more robust carbon-credit trading system has increased the cost of fuel in that province, but only by about two-thirds of the cost of the carbon tax under federal rules.

Until last weekend’s bump, gasoline taxes in Newfoundland were actually 2 cents lower than in 2018, the year before carbon pricing came into effect. The province – while Ottawa studiously averted its gaze – cut its own excise taxes to more than offset the added cost of the carbon tax. Home heating oil was simply exempted. The story was much the same in the rest of the Atlantic provinces.

Only now is carbon pricing truly coming into force in Atlantic Canada, starting with the July 1 imposition of a federal carbon tax in place of weaker provincial versions in Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Why the delay? The most palatable explanation is that the Liberals wanted to have as many provinces as possible supporting their signature environmental policy, even at the expense of the policy having little discernable effect. A less generous observer might point to the remarkable overlap of a) provinces that cut a sweetheart deal on carbon pricing with b) provinces that were gracious enough to elect an abundant number of Liberal MPs.

Whatever the original motivation, Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, building on the work of his predecessor Jonathan Wilkinson, has started to end those lopsided arrangements. That’s a long overdue step. If carbon pricing is necessary, then it’s necessary in the entire country.

However, Mr. Guilbeault’s work is not done. For a start, there are the deep reductions to provincial fuel excise taxes that remain in place. Essentially, the provinces are transferring cash to Ottawa by reducing their revenue at the pump as Ottawa increases its carbon tax. Ottawa, rightly, told Saskatchewan that it would not allow the province to neuter the carbon tax in that province by reducing excise taxes. That same principle should be applied within Atlantic Canada.

Then there is the question of carbon pricing in Quebec. The province does not levy a formal carbon tax at the pumps. Instead, it is a part of an emissions-credit trading system with California and Washington state.

In theory, the cost of credits should be in line with the price that Ottawa has placed on a tonne of carbon. In reality, the cost of carbon in Quebec is far lower than under the federal backstop. In the most recent auction, in May, the settlement price for a tonne of carbon credits was just $40.81 – not even two-thirds of the $65 a tonne price under Ottawa’s system.

That discrepancy may not be quite as big as it seems, in part because Quebec uses revenue from the carbon-trading system to fund emissions-reducing projects. To the degree that such projects succeed they reduce the demand for credits within the province and put downward pressure on prices.

More concretely, Quebec households do not receive quarterly payments, as is the case under the federal system. So, Quebec drivers and homeowners face higher net costs than their equivalents in most of the rest of Canada. In addition, total fuel taxes in Quebec are higher than in Ontario through to Alberta, for now.

Still, there’s no doubt that the cost of carbon in Quebec is lower than under the federal system. There is no surer way to undermine support for carbon pricing than to apply it selectively; that’s both unfair and unwise. Mr. Guilbeault seems to have acknowledged this fact by ending Atlantic Canada’s exemptions. His next stop should be Quebec.

This article was written by Lydia Depillis and was published in the Globe & Mail on July 4, 2023.

Economic losses here are emblematic of the pressure caused by extreme weather around the world

Canada’s wildfires have burned eight million hectares, blanketed Canadian and U.S. cities with smoke and raised health concerns on both sides of the border, with no end in sight. The toll on the Canadian economy is only beginning to sink in.

The fires have upended oil and gas operations, reduced available timber harvests, dampened the tourism industry and imposed uncounted costs on the national health system.

Those losses are emblematic of the pressure being felt more widely as countries around the world experience disaster after disaster caused by extreme weather, and they will only increase as the climate warms.

What long seemed a faraway concern has snapped into sharp relief in recent years, as billowing smoke has suffused vast areas of North America, floods have washed away neighbourhoods, and heat waves have strained power grids. That incurs billions of dollars in costs, and also has longer-reverberating consequences, such as insurers withdrawing from markets prone to hurricanes and fires.

In some early studies of the economic impact of rising temperatures, Canada appeared to be better positioned than countries closer to the equator; warming could allow for longer farming seasons and make more places attractive to live in as winters grow less harsh. But it is becoming clear that increasing volatility – ice storms followed by fires followed by intense rains and now hurricanes on the Atlantic Coast, uncommon so far north – wipes out any potential gains.

“It’s come on faster than we thought, even informed people,” said Dave Sawyer, principal economist at the Canadian Climate Institute. “You couldn’t model this out if you tried. We’ve always been concerned about this escalation of damages, but seeing it happen is so stark.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Sawyer and his colleagues did try to model it out. In a report last year, they calculated that climate-related costs would mount to $25-billion in 2025, cutting economic growth in half. By mid-century, they forecast a loss of 500,000 jobs, mostly from excessive heat that lowers labour productivity and causes premature death. Then there are the increased costs to households, and higher taxes required to support government spending to repair the damage – especially in the North, where thawing permafrost is cracking roads and buildings.

It is too early to know the cost for the current fires, and several months of fire season remain. But the consulting firm Oxford Economics has forecast that it could knock between 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points off Canada’s economic growth in the third quarter – a big hit, especially since hiring in the country has already slowed and households have more debt and less savings than their neighbours to the south.

“We already think we’re teetering into a downturn, and this would just make things worse,” said Tony Stillo, director of economics for Canada at Oxford. “If we were to see these fires really disrupt transportation corridors, disrupting power supply to large population centres, then you’re talking about even worse consequences.”

Estimates of the overall economic drag are built on damage to particular industries, which vary with each disaster.

The recent fires have left some lumber mills idle, for example, as workers have been evacuated. It’s not clear how widespread the damage will be to forest stocks, but provincial governments tend to reduce the amount of timber they allow to be harvested after large blazes, according to Derek Nighbor, chief executive officer of the Forest Products Association of Canada. Infestations of pine beetles, which have flared up as milder winter temperatures fail to kill off the pests, have curtailed logging in British Columbia.

Although lumber prices have been depressed in recent months as higher interest rates have weighed on home construction, Canada is confronting a housing shortage as it works to bring in millions of new immigrants. Reduced availability of wood will make its housing problem more difficult to solve. “It’s safe to say there’s going to be a supply crunch in Canada as we work through this,” Mr. Nighbor said.

The tourism industry is also being hit, as the fires erupted just as operators were going into the crucial summer season – sometimes far from the fires. Business plunged in the peninsula town of Tofino, B.C., a popular destination for whale watching off Vancouver Island, when its only highway access was cut off by a fire two hours away. The road has since reopened, but only one lane at a time, and drivers need to wait up to an hour to get through.

Sabrina Donovan is the general manager of the Pacific Sands Beach Resort and the chair of Tofino’s local tourism promotion organization. She said that her hotel’s occupancy sank to about 20 per cent from 85 per cent in the course of June, and that few bookings were coming through for the rest of the year. Employers commonly house their staff during the summer, but after weeks without customers, many workers left for jobs elsewhere, making it difficult to maintain full service in the coming months.

“This most recent fire has been pretty devastating for the majority of the community,” Ms. Donovan said, noting that the coast had never in her career had to deal with wildfires. “This is something we now have to be thinking about in the future.”

Regardless of the severity of any particular episode, the costs mount as disasters get closer to critical infrastructure and population centres. That is why the two most expensive years in recent history were 2013, when major flooding hit Calgary, and 2016, when the fire in Fort McMurray, Alta., wiped out 2,400 homes and businesses and hamstrung oil and gas production, the area’s main economic driver.

This year, most of the burning has been in rural areas. While some oil drilling has been disrupted, the damage over all to the oil industry has been minor. The greater long-term threat to the industry is falling demand for fossil fuels, which could displace 312,000 to 450,000 workers in the next three decades, according to an analysis by TD Bank.

But there is still a long, hot summer ahead. And the insurance industry is on alert, having watched the increasing damage in recent years with alarm. Before 2009, insured losses in Canada averaged around $450-million a year, and now they routinely exceed $2-billion. Large reinsurers pulled back from the Canadian market after several crippling payouts, increasing prices for homeowners and businesses. That is not even counting the lifeinsurance costs likely to be incurred by excessive heat and smoke-related respiratory ailments.

Craig Stewart, vice-president of federal affairs for the Insurance Bureau of Canada, said climate issues had become a primary concern for the organization over the past decade.

“Back in 2015, we sent our CEO across the country to talk about the need to prepare for a different climate future,” Mr. Stewart said. “At the time, we had the Calgary floods two years before in the rear-view mirror. We thought, ‘Oh, we’ll get another event in two to three years.’ We never could’ve imagined that we’re now seeing two or three catastrophic events in the country per year.”

That’s why the industry pushed hard for the Canadian government to come up with a comprehensive adaptation strategy, which was released in late June. It recommends measures such as investing in urban forests to reduce the health effects of heat waves and developing better flood maps that help people avoid building in vulnerable areas. Fire and forestry experts have called for the forest service, decimated by years of austerity, to be restored, and prescribed burns be scaled up – all of which costs a lot of money.

Mike Savage, the mayor of Halifax, doesn’t have to be convinced that the spending is necessary. His city was the largest to sustain fire losses this spring, with 151 homes burned. That calamity came on the heels of Hurricane Fiona last year, which submerged much of the coastline. Mr. Savage worries about the fate of the isthmus that connects Nova Scotia to New Brunswick, and the power systems that now peak in the hot summer instead of the frigid winter.

“I certainly believe that when you invest in mitigation there’s a dramatic positive impact from those investments,” Mr. Savage said. “It’s going to be a challenging time. To think we got through this fire and say, ‘ Okay, that’s good, we’re done,’ that would be a little bit naive.”

This article was written by David Stanway and was published by Reuters News on July 3, 2023.

Global heating is a burning human rights issue, as extreme weather and climate disasters threaten humanity’s universal right to food, UN rights chief Volker Türk said on Monday.

This article was written and published by United Nations News on July 3, 2023.

This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on July 3, 2023.

Guess who said this: “I am now probably the first and early adopter of thinking that we can hit a net-zero target, and we can get there faster than anyone, anywhere else.” Sounds great. It points the way to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, and climbing to that mountaintop before the midcentury deadline of 2050. The speaker, however, might be a surprise. It was Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, last summer at a United Conservative Party leadership debate, putting herself at the fore of climate thinking within her party. It is the same Ms. Smith who a decade ago said climate “science isn’t settled” and, now that she endorses net zero, a premier whose climate policies focus on fossil fuels.

This is what’s happened in the few short years that “net zero by 2050” hit the mainstream, after the International Energy Agency in 2021 detailed how the world can reach the goal. For some, it’s morphing from a truly ambitious target to a much vaguer slogan – one so diffuse that political and business leaders can at once claim devotion to net zero and at the same time advocate for more fossil fuels.

There’s a big difference between saying the words and doing something about it. Think of the Kyoto Protocol in the 1990s and its failed 2012 targets. While 2050 isn’t far away, it’s far enough that current leaders can comfortably be in favour while knowing they will be long gone when the date arrives.

Some large emitters are taking action. In 2021, soon after the IEA net zero roadmap, a coalition of oil sands companies promised to reach net zero. They pledged to cut 22 megatonnes of emissions by 2030 – oil sands were at 85 MT in 2021 – and last year said they would spend $24-billion to do it. The bulk of the money, including billions in public subsidies, is planned for carbon capture.

The 2030 goal is essential. It’s the key interim milestone, and the basis of the 2015 Paris Agreement, a landmark global treaty. No one can credibly say net zero 2050 without a concrete 2030 goal. That’s another problem in Alberta. The province in April put out a climate plan. Its “aspiration” is net zero 2050 but there was no 2030 target.

A promise of net zero cannot be used as a sort of get-outof-jail-free card, with a feigned fealty to climate action but, in reality, a plan to put off the work. Net zero 2050 can’t happen if, like a student cramming for an exam, investments aren’t made until the 2040s. There’s a danger the seemingly distant 2050 becomes yet another delay tactic, not unlike the baseless claim a decade ago that the solidity of climate science was somehow up for debate.

Lack of robust action is a problem across Canada. Saskatchewan, like Alberta, insists it is impossible to get to 100 per cent clean power by 2035. But fully clean power by 2035 is a necessary step to reach economywide net zero by 2050.

In Ontario, the province has increased investments in natural gas, which is questionable, and is starting work on new nuclear power, which makes sense. But the Progressive Conservative government seems to ignore the vast potential of wind power. In the Canada Energy Regulator’s recent forecast of net zero, it sees Ontario doubling its nuclear output but wind would become the province’s No. 1 source of electrical power. The CER highlighted wind power’s low costs to build and operate.

In Nova Scotia, there is stress over the pending carbon tax, which people in the province mostly avoided in recent years and as of this summer will have to pay – and receive quarterly payments from Ottawa. On power at least, the province has ambitions. Nova Scotia, still reliant on coal, wants to hit 80 per cent clean power by 2030.

The broad nature of net zero by 2050 invites distractions from the core mission of reducing use of fossil fuels. LNG – natural gas for export – is top of that list, proposed by groups such as the Public Policy Forum and advocated by Alberta. The idea feels alluring: Canada exports LNG to Asia, where it is burned, instead of dirtier coal. What’s never mentioned is whether LNG displaces renewables and the potential cost to Canada for other countries to hand over credit.

Net zero 2050 cannot become an empty slogan. It needs to be a rallying cry for action. And while some of Ms. Smith’s proposals are off target, there’s one thing she’s exactly right on – Canadian innovation. “We can get there faster than anyone,” she said last summer. That’s what net zero really means – a finish line to cross as soon as possible.

This article was written by Mike Brigham, the president of the renewable energy co-op, Solarshare, and was published in the Toronto Star on July 1, 2023.

I’m deeply supportive of environmental protection, but I also come at energy issues with the pragmatic attitude of a business person.

I’m currently president of a renewable energy co-operative and for many years ran a successful company.

As a member of the corporate sector, I can say without hesitation that the business case for renewable electricity — including solar and wind power — has never been stronger.

For a start, renewables are extremely cost-competitive.

The global financial services firm Lazard estimates that onshore wind power now costs about five cents and utility-scale solar about six cents per kilowatt hour. By contrast, new nuclear is about 18 cents per kilowatt hour — three times more expensive than power from the sun!

Renewables are being embraced by some of the world’s most successful economies.

Nine European nations — including Germany, Denmark and Norway — recently agreed to vastly increase the capacity of North Sea wind farms. The Guardian reported that “the nine countries aim to boost their combined North Sea offshore wind capacity to 120GW by 2030 and 300GW by 2050.”

This is a massive amount of wind power. By way of comparison, installed generation capacity from all sources in Ontario is about 38 GW.

These leading economies are certainly concerned about the climate emergency but they’re also ramping up renewables because it’s good for the bottom line.

It’s not just that the cost of wind and solar is dropping dramatically; it’s also that widespread adoption of renewables frees us from the vicissitudes of dependence on gas.

As a recent report from the International Energy Agency makes clear, questions about gas’ reliability abound: “Global gas supply is set to remain tight in 2023, and the global balance is subject to an unusually wide range of uncertainties. The risks include adverse weather factors, such as a dry summer or colder-than-usual end of the year, lower availability of LNG, and the possibility of a further decline in Russian pipeline gas deliveries to Europe. These factors could easily renew market tensions and price volatility.”

Importantly, the IEA recommends that countries cut their gas usage: “There is a continued need to reduce gas demand in a structural manner through improved energy efficiency measures, accelerated deployment of renewables and heat pumps, as well as behavioural changes.”

Unfortunately, the Ontario government seems not to have read this report. Ontario is planning to vastly expand its current gas-fired power plants and is set to build new ones. (Greenhouse gas emissions from existing gas plants alone will increase by over 300 per cent by 2030.)

This makes no sense. Why would we hitch our grid to a climate-destructive fuel that traps us in an endless cycle of price volatility determined by factors outside our control?

If Queen’s Park won’t accept common sense, we need to look to Ottawa. The federal government will soon be releasing its Clean Electricity Regulations (CER) with the goal of a net-zero grid by 2035.

These regulations have the potential to reduce GHG emissions significantly, but some experts are concerned the regulations will include a loophole that allows Ontario to run gas plants into the 2040s. That would be a disaster.

The business community should speak with one voice and urge the federal government to enact a CER that’s watertight and removes all fossil fuels from the grid over the next decade.

Such a policy would protect us from the costs, risk and volatility of international gas markets.

It would also allow us to procure more hydro, wind and solar power — much of it made right here in Ontario — which would lower energy prices and make our province a more attractive place to do business.

This article was written by Clarrie Feinstein and was published in the Toronto Star on June 28, 2023.

Canada’s oil and gas sector faces significant headwinds with global demand in fossil fuels projected to drop significantly as world leaders set their sights on a carbon neutral economy by 2050, according to a new report.

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) report, released Tuesday, emphasized that workers and communities reliant on the oil and gas sector are at risk of losing jobs and economic prosperity as Canada continues to overinvest in fossil fuel production, which “may be of little value in the future.”

“We know a disruption is coming to the oil and gas industry and it’s important Canada prepares,” said Nichole Dusyk, senior policy adviser with IISD and report co-author. “It’s difficult for Canada to take a hard look at an industry that has been an economic driver, especially when there’s strong resistance from oil dependent provinces, but collectively we need to move beyond the politics of it and invest in policies that are better for Canadians.”

Canada isn’t a global oil supplier but plays a significant role in oil supply for the U.S.

In 2021, Canada exported 80 per cent of its domestic oil production and more than 94 per cent of those exports are shipped to the U.S, the report said.

That poses a problem, the report argues, as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will accelerate the shift to a clean energy economy, with profound effects on Canada’s oil and gas industry.

“We’re very dependent on the U.S. market, but the oilsands are a high cost production,” said Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. “Canada sits on a large amount of oil but oil extraction is expensive. We can’t compete with the lower prices from parts of South America and the Middle East.”

Also, only a handful of the provinces are reliant on oil production, such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador, he said. While oil production is three to six per cent of Canada’s GDP, he added, the entire economy isn’t dependent on oil.

Near-term decreased demand for oil will be driven primarily by the electrification of passenger vehicles, which currently account for 27 per cent of global demand, the report said.

Data suggests that falling demand for oil to heat buildings and generate electricity will lead to a peak in global oil demand by the end of this decade. Plastics will support oil demand short term, but it won’t be enough to stop the sharp decline in overall demand post-2030.

The outlook for gas is murky, the report said, as a rush of new liquified natural gas (LNG) developments is hitting the market to replace pipeline gas from Russia.

“The anticipated result is a glut of LNG, starting in 2025, that will drive down prices and make it difficult for Canadian exports to compete even if low prices keep demand high,” the report said.

In addition, the largest share of global gas demand — 39 per cent — goes to electricity generation, which will face increased competition from wind and solar energy, Dusyk said.

Going forward, federal government must prepare to phase down the oil and gas industry, Dusyk said.

“A big issue is the decarbonization of oil and gas because it receives large subsidies from the government,” she said. “That ends up unnaturally prolonging the life of the industry.”

Solar energy has been largely unexplored in Canada, but the cost of solar panels and other solar technologies have come down exponentially over the last decade, said Umberto Berardi, Canada Research chair in building science at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Another investment is in hydropower, which draws energy from falling or flowing water and converts it into energy, producing no air pollutants and minimal greenhouse gas emissions.

Quebec has invested significantly in it, Berardi said, but other regions such as Northern Ontario and Alberta haven’t and it’s a “missed opportunity.”

“Canada needs transition plans in place to move from oil and gas into renewable energy,” said CCPA’s Mertins-Kirkwood.

The strategy comes with a host of new targets, but no new money, to prepare Canada for the dangers and damages of a warming world.

This article was written by Alex Ballingall and was published in the Toronto Star on June 27, 2023.

KAMLOOPS, B.C.—With record wildfires raging across the country, the federal government is giving itself a host of new goals — but, for now, no new money — to prepare for the dangers and damages of the climate crisis. But questions remain about how the government, which has already been slow to deliver pledged spending on several climate-related programs, will fulfil its declared intentions to protect Canada from the harsh realities of a warming world.

Unveiled Tuesday in Vancouver, the government’s new National Adaptation Strategy includes targets like eliminating all deaths from extreme heat waves by 2040, and halting and reversing the destruction of Canadian nature within the next seven years.

It also says the federal government will craft new rules to insert climate considerations in codes for buildings and highways by 2026, include climate resilience factors in all new federal infrastructure programs by next year, draft hundreds of new high-risk flood maps by 2028, and aim to create 15 new urban national parks by 2030.

Speaking in a province that has been hammered by atmospheric rivers that have washed out highways, a deadly heat dome that killed more than 600 people and a wildfire that torched the Interior-B.C. town of Lytton two years ago, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said there is no doubt the impacts of climate change will continue for decades to come.

“We all recognize that Canada is not ready to face the impacts of climate change. And that strategy is our response to that,” Guilbeault said.

“We know we have a lot of work to do ahead of us to ensure that we are better prepared.”

Many details of how to accomplish the strategy’s goals will be determined in the coming months, as the federal government sits down with provinces and territories to tailor climate adaptation plans specific to each of their regions and needs.

A senior government official, who briefed journalists about the strategy on condition they are not named, said there is general “buy-in” from the provinces to craft those plans. “The fact that we all are witnessing what is happening in the country right now,” the official said, referring to this year’s huge wildfires, “I don’t think anyone is denying that we need to work together.”

Strength of commitment hinges on how terms are defined, advocates say

This article was written by Benjamin Shingler and was published by CBC News on June 26, 2023.