Almost every sector of the economy would benefit from oil sand development. But through all the positive economic growth Canada would receive, it is necessary to look at the impact on the environment it will have.

The refined oil will be transported through pipelines. Any released bitumen through a spill, leak, or rupture can contaminate the surrounding land or water. Tailing ponds to store the liquid to retrieve the oil can be shown to leak chemicals into the surrounding water supply like the Athabasca River and the Mackenzie River. Additionally, the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conducted in the area shows that the overall quantity of chemicals (PAH) is lower than that which naturally occurs in recovering petrol. A change in formula can have health risks to the surrounding population.

These chemicals can cause upper respiratory issues on site. Moreover, the chemicals that are released through a spill, leak, or rupture, that do not work directly on-site will soon have more complicated issues like headache, nausea, skin rashes, and respiratory symptoms which coincide with exposure to crude oil.

Working on the oil sands can have an increased health risk, and during the current COVID-19 pandemic it will make it much worse. According to unnamed contractors, workers did not have inadequate distancing, testing, or sanitization Those that currently work at CNRL Horizon in the Alberta Oil sands have stated, “We don’t feel safe here, but we keep working because everybody wants to work,” one contractor at Horizon said.

It is difficult for these workers to bring complaints about these safety issues to those higher on the corporate ladder,  due to fear of losing their job. The liability does not fall on the oil sand operators anymore regarding the environment or the health and safety of the workers.

“We’re all feeling like, head down, blinders on. Don’t even look around you and just try to get through your shift without getting sick.”

It is frivolous to think that mining for crude oil will disappear in the next 10 years. But companies should have federal and provincial policies in place to protect the health of their workers – and the general public – from irreversible harm. “Personally, with experience in seeing all sides of corporate and environmental relationships, I know products must exist for now. But it is difficult for me to understand why an unexplored market could be so scary to a company when investments are made all the time for new products. 

Do you think you could help me understand?

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What changed 

Everything about our world has changed since the 1970s. First off, the world’s population has basically doubled from 3.7 billion in 1970 to well over 7 billion today. More people are consuming resources, but more resources are also being consumed per person. On average, wealthier, developed countries in the Global North are each burning more fossil fuels than we were in 1970, eating more meat, and traveling more than ever before. All that consumption adds up to a 90% increase in CO2 emissions since 1970, which after being trapped in the atmosphere, has contributed to ocean waters warming 0.6 °C and sea levels rising more than 5-6 inches. And if that’s not enough, average global temperatures have risen more quickly since the late 1970s (0.29 to 0.46°F per decade since 1979).

What now 

“Earth Day today is about more than just saving our planet – it’s about saving humanity.”

Throughout the decades, Earth Day has been about saving species, ecosystems, and natural habitats from threats like air and water pollution. While these aspects are still focused on, Earth Day today is about more than just saving our planet – it’s about saving humanity. This generation of climate activists has grown up thinking of themselves as truly global citizens. We are more aware of the immediate threat that is facing us, and we’ve made it clear that there is no planet B. The first Earth Day may have started as protest, but it sparked a global movement that is now the vehicle for taking urgent and immediate climate action. 

Earth Day 1970 March // Source: Earth Institute, Columbia University 

With the COVID-19 pandemic causing public health lockdowns around the world, Earth Day 2020 went entirely digital for the first time in its history. Billions of people took part, allowing technology to connect us from all corners of the planet. While the coronavirus forced us to keep our distance, it couldn’t quiet our voices. Over the 24 hours, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day filled the digital landscape with global conversations, calls to action, performances, video teach-ins and webinars, workshops and more. This year, Earth Day remains largely digital. No matter where you are, you can still make a difference. 

Earth Day 2020 Flyer // Source: EarthShare

April 22nd, 2021

The theme of 2021’s Earth Day Canada celebration is Take Care of the Planet. Earth Day Canada is looking to raise awareness among Canadians about the urgency of taking action for the environment and to encourage us to continue taking concrete actions to take care of the planet on a daily basis.

The Media Campaign 

This year’s campaign plays on the irony that animals have to clean up their polluted environments themselves. That may sound funny, but looking at these animals should spark a thought in each and every one of us. They shouldn’t be dealing with this, we should. There are many simple things you can do every day to take care of the planet. It can be as small as picking up one piece of trash every day or as large as participating or organizing a beach cleanup (health measures permitted). 

The Earth Day Canada 2021 campaign invites Canadians to share the actions they are completing to take care of the planet through video testimonials on social networks. You can post to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and more, using the hashtags #TakeCareOfThePlanet #EarthDay2021. 

Since Earth Day 2021 will be virtual for most parts of the world, Earth Day Canada has developed an amazing list of suggestions for what you can do at home and in your community. At home, there are ideas on food, energy, waste, sustainable mobility, and nature. In your community, there are ideas for whether you are acting on behalf of a school, municipality, organization or just yourself. Earth Day Canada has an online calendar where you can register your activities and find out about virtual or local events. 

For the second year in a row, Earth Day Canada is calling on municipalities to play a role in the ecological transition. Cities and towns across Canada are mobilizing to take action towards creating healthier environments, using April 22nd in particular to make a positive impact. These municipalities are also contributing to the ecological transition by organizing and supporting actions in celebration of Earth Day in an effort to encourage everyone in their communities to join the movement. 

Download Earth Day Canada’s 2021 Media Campaign and get started, because the world won’t wait for you – it can’t. 

Source: Earth Day Canada

This article is part of a 3-part editorial series, in collaboration with Earth Day Canada, titled ‘The Past, Present, and Future of Earth Day’. Check out the full series here!

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Spring of 1970 – A shift in attitudes, values, and beliefs of 20 million Americans embodied through a movement of consciousness about our planet. 

Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, U.S., created Earth Day as a way to give environmental issues a voice and put them on the national agenda. In December 1970, Congress authorized the creation of a new federal agency to tackle environmental issues – the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Since then, efforts to tackle environmental degradation and climate change have been adopted worldwide from introducing policy and legislation, to funding clean technologies and renewable energy, to manufacturing biodegradable materials. Here, we look at the honouring of this day through the decades. 

News headline from the first Earth Day, 1970 // Source: ETEE

In the decades leading up to the first ever Earth Day, industrialization took over North America and other parts of the world. Manufacturing (1900s), mining (1930s), transportation (1950s) and retailing (1970s), along with rapid urbanization and consumer culture, all played a part in developing our world as we know it today. North America was consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of the consequences from either the law or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Mainstream North America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment seriously threatens human health.

1980 – In the U.S., this year saw significant environmental legislative achievements. Just 10 years after the first Earth Day, government protections over the environment drastically increased. By 1980, the following U.S. government acts were passed: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. 

On September 11th, Paul Tinari, a graduate student from Queen’s University, launched the first Canadian Earth Day. Flora MacDonald, then MP for Kingston, Ontario and the islands, officially opened Earth Day Week, encouraging MPs across the country to declare a cross-Canada annual Earth Day. 

Through the 70s and 80s, Earth Day in North America focused heavily on pollution. By Earth Day 1990, organizers and environmental agencies shifted their focus to climate change. 

1990 – Earth Day goes global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. 

The activities of the 20th anniversary of Earth Day in 1990 presented a huge boost to recycling efforts and paved the way for the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. The ‘Rio Declarations’ laid out 15 principles recognizing the impact of human activities on sustainability and committing to sustainability goals. In 1997, the United Nations Kyoto Protocol was signed setting commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide as well as establish the connection between human activities and climate change.

In Canada, this was the start of Earth Day Canada (Jour de la Terre Canada), combining efforts from both France and Canada, and the internationalization of Earth Day. Since 1995, Quebec has celebrated Earth Day through raising awareness on environmental issues. 

Earth Day Canada Logo // Source: EarthDay.ca

2000 – Earth Day goes digital. Through the power of connectivity, hundreds of millions of people in 184 countries celebrate the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, with a focus on clean energy. 

By leveraging the power of the Digital Revolution, Earth Day in the new millennium meant that environmental activities and initiatives spread faster to many parts of the world. Suddenly, awareness became the greatest tool in the fight against climate change. 

2010 – This was a challenging time for the environmental community as they faced climate deniers, well-funded oil enthusiasts with a not-so-environmentally-friendly agenda, a disinterested public, and neutral politicians. The Earth Day Network repositioned Earth Day as a day for environmental activism as the right time. On Earth Day 2010, over 250,000 people participated in a rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of millions of people observed Earth Day around the globe. Climate activism gained serious momentum. 

In 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement was drafted, going beyond the Kyoto Protocol, by setting a goal of achieving global net-zero emissions by 2050. In Canada, the French and Quebec teams joined forces to take the Earth Day movement to a new level for the French-speaking world. 

In 2018, Greta Thunberg acted as a voice for youth, by starting a protest in front of the Swedish parliament building, vowing to continue until the Swedish government met the carbon emissions target agreed by world leaders in Paris, in 2015. Students around the world quickly began following her lead, staging large protests and demanding change.

Greta Thunberg’s Climate Strike // Source: DW

In 2019, Earth Day Canada formed an alliance with EcoKids to enable environmental initiatives to be carried out across all provinces and territories. That year, I remember attending a climate rally in Ottawa and feeling empowered by the movement as a young adult living in the world today. 

2020 – Last year marked the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The social and cultural movements that we saw in the 1970s rose back up again as we were hit with one of the largest crises of our time: COVID-19. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic transcended almost everything in 2020 (the good and the bad), including the environment, from cancelled summits on climate and biodiversity, to a temporary dip in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, to greater awareness of the link between human health and climate change. As climate rallies and events were cancelled, Earth Day quickly pivoted from mobilizing millions on the ground to raising hundreds of millions of voices digitally. Fittingly, in Canada, the Earth Day theme was climate action with the main message being: “keeping our distance at home, but taking action for the planet together”. Now, we’re in the slow and gradual transition to a green recovery. 

Present day – The fight for our planet continues with increasing urgency. A\J has partnered with Earth Day Canada to shine a light on Earth Day celebrations through the years and explore the evolution of this day through this editorial series. This Earth Day will be spent at home, and Earth Day Canada has put together some practical, creative, and smart ideas for #EarthDayAtHome. The Earth Day Canada 2021 theme is Take Care of the Planet. The official campaign features “animals that have to clean up their polluted environments themselves”. The goal is to raise awareness about the urgency we are facing, and to encourage Canadians to #TakeCareOfThePlanet every day because it’s our responsibility to do so. 

Earth Day Canada’s #TakeCareOfThePlanet 2021 Campaign // Source: EarthDay.ca

Stay tuned for next week’s article for more about what Earth Day means for us this year, and how we can and should be celebrating the planet in the present day.

This article is part of a 3-part editorial series, in collaboration with Earth Day Canada, titled ‘The Past, Present, and Future of Earth Day’. Check out the full series here!

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The United Nations SDGs // Source: UN

The SDGs, adopted in 2015, outline seventeen interconnected goals that acknowledge that efforts to end poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health, education, reduce inequality and tackle the challenges of climate change. Assessment of the first five years of SDGs implementation suggest that the world is off track to realize the set objectives by the 2030 target. Meanwhile, extreme weather events, wildfires and related environmental challenges, particularly, over the past few decades necessitate accelerated action if a planetary catastrophe is to be avoided. Given these ongoing and persistent challenges, the UN in September 2019 called on all sectors of society (global, national, local and individuals) to mobilize for a ‘Decade of Action’ on the SDGs. This call emphasizes the need for cross-sectoral coordination and collaboration in the implementation of the SDGs with a call for faster and more ambitious responses to stimulate environmental, social and economic transformation. Maintaining focus on the SDGs implies a holistic approach to development that focuses not only on the wellbeing of humans but also safeguards the planet upon which human lives depend. Actions to accelerate progress on the SDGs are even more urgent now because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which threatens to derail SDGs implementation.

Non-state actors, specifically community-based organizations promoting conservation, are relevant stakeholders with activities that contribute to the objectives of the SDGs. Organizations promoting sustainable development present an opportunity to pursue a path of green recovery from the negative impacts on the economy and the planet.

Community-based organizations reflect a change in focus from these top-down approaches to the bottom-up, where local goals tend to focus on regaining autonomy and control over natural resources and improving social and economic wellbeing. Community-based programs are generally based on the premise that local people have greater interest in the sustainable use of natural resource than outside actors, and thus can be more cognizant of the intricacies of local ecological processes and practices. While it is important not to essentialize or homogenize ideas of ‘community’ and ‘conservation’ without regard for local contexts, finding innovative solutions to complex environmental and development issues often requires outside expertise and training in collaboration with local knowledge. In this way, community-based organizations can help to ensure a holistic and cautioned approach to development. This approach is unique in that it often considers differing worldviews that may reflect alternative definitions of conservation and development, local systems of land tenure, and the gendered divisions of labour in economic activities, to ensure that rural communities really do benefit from these initiatives. Community-based approaches highlight the importance of local context and agency, and that there is no one size fits all approach to achieving SDG objectives.

Bamboo provides a prime example of a resource that has been increasingly promoted as contributing to sustainable futures, as it is sought-after in diverse industries of the growing global “green economy” as an alternative to timber due to its fast-growing and structurally durable properties. Bamboo is considered a resource that—when grown and harvested following sustainable management practices—can achieve positive environmental, social, and economic outcomes. Ecosystem services provided by bamboo include carbon storage and sequestration, soil and water regulation, and biodiversity conservation.

Bamboo forest // Source: Unsplash

In many bamboo habitat countries, the resource plays an important role in cultural heritage and provides socio-economic benefits through supplementary income for the rural poor. Due to these components, bamboo is promoted to contribute to at least seven of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including: no poverty (SDG 1); affordable and clean energy (SDG 7); sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11); responsible consumption and production (SDG 12); climate action (SDG 13); life on land (SDG 15); and partnerships for the SDG goals (SDG 17).

Credit: Tamara L. Britton and Eunice A. Annan-Aggrey

Community-based bamboo development projects are taking place all over the world, ranging from bamboo charcoal projects as an economically viable alternative to wood charcoal in Madagascar; community-based bamboo nurseries in the Philippines; bamboo disaster relief building projects, construction and bamboo management training programs in Ecuador and Nicaragua; community-based bamboo processing factories in China; and community-based management of natural bamboo forests in Laos.

Due to small budgets, community-based projects like these often cannot compete with the wide scale promotion and ambitious claims made by larger-scale development initiatives. However, in practice, many community-based programs often have a greater long-term impact on community wellbeing and autonomy. Thus, there is a research gap to be addressed on the contribution of smaller-scale grassroots conservation movements and researchers from Global South countries regarding SDG objectives.  

Credit: Tamara L. Britton and Eunice A. Annan-Aggrey

In a post-pandemic world, if SDG targets are to be met amidst an increasingly uncertain economic future, it is crucial that conservation and development projects invest in building resilient communities through agroecological solutions and strengthening environmental stewardship to ensure that the rural poor are not completely dependent on external markets for their livelihoods.

The UN Decade of Action is a clarion call for an ‘all hands on deck’ approach to keep the wheels of development turning.

The SDGs include an ambitious target to combat climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities of the economic systems upon which development is hinged. Thus, the need for integrated development that encompasses socio-economic and environmental progress is relevant now more than ever. The UN Decade of Action is a clarion call for an ‘all hands on deck’ approach to keep the wheels of development turning. Community-based organizations are rising to the task. Indeed, integrated solutions and green alternatives chart a course that holds optimism for a greener, more inclusive future.

This article is part of our March 2021 Western Student Editorial Series – a series that showcases the works of students in the Collaborative Specialization in Environment and Sustainability program. Read more articles from this series here!

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In the movie adaptation of N. Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker, Burt Lancaster plays a flamboyant confidence man who promises to bring rain to drought- stricken Texas. How? By using sodium chloride to “barometricize the tropopause” and “magnetize occlusions in the sky.” Are today’s climate engineers the modern equivalent of steam-era rainmakers, mixing dubious science with questionable motives to sell a desperately needed quick fix? Or is their mission a timely and necessary exploration of what may soon be our only remaining option for keeping the planet habitable?

Historically, weather-making and snake oil shared the same murky scientific bottle and were met with matching public derision. But as we move into the new millennium, prospects for reducing carbon emissions are dim. Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise even as Arctic ice melts more quickly than our best models predicted. With each failed effort, once-ridiculed fringe ideas – like fertilizing the ocean to create carbon-eating algae blooms, or spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect heat – gain new, mainstream attention.

Both Fixing the Sky and How to Cool the Planet explore the controversial idea of geoengineering. While one author is doggedly skeptical and the other cautiously optimistic, both conclude that geoengineering may be a necessary but potentially perilous undertaking.

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Dear 2014 Greta,

Nice to meet you, this is future 2020 Greta. You are about a year away from graduating high school, probably started looking at universities and colleges, what an exciting and pivotal time that was! Would you believe me if I told you 2020 Greta is writing this from her house, working from home for Alternatives Journal (a super cool magazine started by a bunch of hippies), and just wrapping up her master’s degree amid a global pandemic? Yeah, I still have a hard time believing it myself too. I also can’t believe is how electronic waste is still a problem, it’s been 6 years after Control-Act-Delete by Christian Beaudrie was published, outlining the growing problem of e-waste, and how it turned Africa into the dumping ground from our insatiable desire to keep up with the latest models of technology.

Source: Pintrest

Now I know you may be feeling a little guilty as you’re holding your latest iPhone, but just imagine how many more phones Greta went through in the past 6 years (I’d say about 3, maybe 4). Now this may not seem like much, but imagine this on a grand scale of a world filled with billions of people thinking the same. I’m not saying to retire the phone and start living life in the stone ages by writing feather and ink letters to friends, but I just hope that you take the time to slow down on upgrading models of your electronics, just wait till they actually break (a little secret from me to you, they’re all realistically the same thing!). If you do need to purchase new, either recycle your electronic waste at the right facility, or downcycle your electronics (maybe mom, or grandma needs some tech so skip buying new and give your older models to others).

Six years later, this is still a problem and will continue to be a problem due to the world being driven by consumerism. Many components of electronic waste can be successfully recycled, and there is no excuse why it should not be. Now, to reflect on some positive changes from this, many electronic retailers (Ex/ Apple) are offering incentives and money off new models by bringing in your old ones, this provides a value to recycling and has mutual benefits for both parties. I see it as a step in the right direction, we shall reflect another six years from now and see the situation about e-waste, hopefully there is a magic solution somewhere out there to eradicate e-waste, until then we can only wait and try to do better. 

P.S – Don’t worry too much, yes you will get into university, yes life has a peculiar way of working itself out, and please rip the band-aid and break up with him already. No, you will not get married to your high school sweetheart. OH, and you will be studying environment and climate change…so toughen up as it won’t be all sunshine and rainbows.

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On Wednesday, February 19th, 2020, Alternatives Media and Western University’s Centre for Environment and Sustainability will be hosting a FREE Virtual Reality exposition on key areas under the banner of environment and sustainability at the Project 220 event space in Carl Zehr Square, Kitchener City Hall. The event will be running from 12PM through the day until 4PM, and will be guided by faculty from Western University’s Centre for Environment and Sustainability (CES).

There are a variety of local and national facilities that play key roles in our society’s quest for a sustainable future including waste management facilities, recycling centers and even aquaculture farms.

At this event, we will use virtual reality headsets to undertake “virtual” field trips into the field to learn more about how these facilities operate and what role they play in reaching our sustainability goals.  Come join us on this virtual adventure in environment and sustainability!

Alternatives Media Inc. (AMI), the environmental media charity and publishers of Alternatives Journal (A\J) and ENVMedia.org, has taken up residence in the City of Kitchener’s Project 220 event space in the City Hall complex for the month of February. During the month, AMI will be delivering an interactive learning exhibit titled SIGNS OF THE TIME in collaboration with the City of Kitchener. You can learn more about the SIGNS OF THE TIME exhibit here.

This virtual reality event is open to people of all ages! Feel free to drop in between 12PM and 4PM as the event will be running in 30 minute groups starting from 12PM. To secure a spot that works best for your schedule, please email theo@alternativesmedia.org with your contact information and preferred timing.

Share and respond to the event on Facebook!

We hope you’ll make it out to the event!

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Almost all environmental concerns lead back to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. I mean, of course it all leads back to the climate crisis. Most people can agree that it is primarily caused by human activities such as resource extraction and use and agriculture. 

By 2017, Canada became the 10th largest CO₂ emitting country. The oil and gas sector and the transportation sector were the largest GHG emitting sectors in Canada. These two sectors combined account for almost 52% of Canada’s total emissions. Of that, the oil and gas sector accounts for 27% of total emissions and the transportation sector accounts for 24% of emissions. According to Natural Resources Canada, between 1990 and 2017, oil and gas sector emissions increased by 84% and transport emissions increased by 43%. 

This past semester, I took a course called Energy and Sustainability and part of our first assignment was to simulate and compare energy models, policies and statistics for three countries. Using this knowledge and experience, I decided to take a different approach in this article and propose suitable energy policies that could reduce GHG emissions from these two sectors, if applied. With current measures in place, it would fluctuate between 745 to 775 from now to the year 2050. 

Energy Policy Solutions, the energy simulator applied to this research, was developed by Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology and the Pembina Institute. According to Energy Innovation, it was developed to assist policy makers in identifying and implementing cost effective policies towards a low carbon future. As they say on their website, “Well-designed energy policies can reduce pollution, cut consumer costs and minimize dependence on foreign energy suppliers. Done wrong, they can do the reverse and increase pollution, lock in carbon intensive  technologies and waste money”.

In 2017, Canada’s total GHG emissions were 716 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCo₂eq).

One policy that could be applied to the transport sector is passenger transport and demand management (TDM). This policy is made up of a set of regulations that work towards reducing demand for passenger travel in private vehicles. Some of these policies include improving public transit systems, creating more walking and bike paths, zoning for high density transit, road and congested parking pricing and increased parking fees. These are already effective in municipalities across Canada and more should be encouraged. 

The city of Waterloo, for instance. In an attempt to meet a 2020 emissions reduction target, the city created a local car share system, a region-wide anti-idling bylaw, a regional electric vehicle charging network, an ION light rail transit service and much more. After applying this policy on a national level, CO₂ emissions in Canada for 2050 project to 739 mmtCO₂ from 752mmtCO₂ on the policy simulator.

Another policy that could be applied in the transport industry is an electric vehicle subsidy of passenger light duty vehicles (LDVs). According to Policy Solutions, this policy would make the government pay for a percentage of the purchase price of new electric passenger light duty vehicles. After applying a 50% electric vehicle subsidy, CO₂ emissions would be reduced from 752 mmt/yr to 728 mmt/yr.

For the oil and gas sector, one policy that could work is methane capture. This policy “reduces methane emissions for the industry sector by increasing the capture of methane currently being released into the atmosphere”. Methane is a type of GHG emitted during coal, natural gas and oil production, agriculture processed and the decay of organic waste.

If 97% of the methane capture potential is achieved, CO₂ emissions can fall from 752 mmt/yr to 682 mmt/yr. According to Policy Solutions, if 100% of the methane capture potential was achieved, process emissions in 2050 would be reduced by 81% in natural gas and petroleum, 8% for mining and 86% from the waste management sector.

Lastly, another possible policy for the oil and gas industry is cogeneration and waste heat recovery. As described by Energy Innovation, “this policy contributes to reducing fuel consumption in the industry sector by increasing the use of cogeneration, also known as, “combined heat and power” and “recovery of waste heat to perform useful work”. Simply put, it refers to a process where waste heat from coal fired power stations is used for space or water heating in our residential or commercial buildings. If this policy reaches its full potential, fuel use can be reduced by almost 8% across all industries in 2050. After applying this policy, CO₂ emissions will reduce from 752 mmt/yr to 734 mmt/yr by 2050. 

Only four policies have been selected for two of the GHG emitting sectors in Canada. What impact do they all have together? After applying these policies, passenger transport demand management, methane capture, light passenger electric vehicle subsidy and cogeneration and waste heat recovery, CO₂ emissions in Canada will reduce from 752 mmt/yr to 635 mmt/yr.

This research only answers the questions on “What effective measures can we take?” and not the “How do we do it?” part. Seeing how much impact four policies have means that the results would be outstanding if not only were more policies were applied but other CO₂ emitting sectors were analysed too.

***

The simulator is available to the public, so you can also try out how policies on different sectors can affect emissions in Canada, Alberta,  Mexico, Poland, Indonesia, India, China and the USA via this link: https://policysolutions.pembina.org

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The Green New Deal (GND) has gotten a lot of attention since legislation was proposed in the U.S. Congress in February. The term derives from Roosevelt’s New Deal policies during the Great Depression. The Green New Deal, however, addresses today’s two most urgent problems simultaneously: climate change and rising inequality. This approach may lessen the current appeal of climate denying populism for some. Canadian jurisdictions should consider a similar approach.

The inequality gap between the rich and everyone else has increased continuously since the late 1970s. Since 1978, controlling for inflation, most wages in America have only increased by 6% while executive’s incomes have gone up 937%. The upper 1% now make twice what the bottom half of the population do. Canada is slightly less unequal, but our CEOs earn 300 times the minimum wage — not enough, of course, to keep some of them from objecting to a $15 minimum hourly wage.

 The polar opposite of simultaneous progress are the policies of Trump and Ford who do all they can to increase fossil fuel consumption and the wealth gap.”

Climate change has been underway for at least 40 years. Yet global carbon emissions are still rising despite the efforts of some nations. In Europe and elsewhere, a few have achieved year over year reductions, but Canada and most others have not. The world as a whole has not even started on reducing emissions.

The GND urges rapid progress on both problems, an ambition that is wonderfully out of step with North American politics-as-usual. The norm on this continent as a whole is decades of delay (though B.C. and California have stepped up as did Ontario until recently). The polar opposite of simultaneous progress are the policies of Trump and Ford who do all they can to increase fossil fuel consumption and the wealth gap.

GND policies are labelled as radical merely because they assume that governments should, and can successfully, address both. Addressing the two jointly may actually be easier than taking them on separately. As Van Jones argued a decade ago, more good jobs are created addressing climate than are produced in continuing with a carbon intensive economy. Both America and Canada would gain more jobs building a post-carbon economy than would be lost in completely phasing out all fossil fuels. As a bonus, the jobs would be distributed geographically much more widely than fossil energy jobs. Renewable energy is also owned more broadly – often by homeowners, farmers, communities, utilities, non-energy businesses, coops and landowners.

America’s GND proposal includes an equality-building job guarantee, increased energy efficiency, regenerative soil management, energy storage research, and comprehensive retraining opportunities for those in vulnerable jobs. It even advocates a guaranteed annual income in response to the looming age of artificial intelligence and self-driving vehicles. Indeed, GND House of Representatives legislative sponsor Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said ‘no one should have to fear automation, but all should instead welcome it’.

A key political strength of the GND is that it explicitly opposes blaming job losses on scapegoats (immigrants or other nations). It understands that there is more than enough worthwhile work to do on better health care and education, healthier food, improved infrastructure, new technologies and, above all, on transforming our energy systems. Underfunding these needs are, in effect, needed jobs that never happen.

We will also need to deal with carbon removal from the atmosphere and protecting biodiversity and habitat. Crucially, everything mentioned above is only affordable before we are overwhelmed by the high cost of serious climate impacts.

Finally, the most important political argument for a Green New Deal is this: it can be adopted at any level of governance – globally, nationally, provincially, municipally or regionally. This is crucial because the progress we need only rarely has all governments on side simultaneously and continuously. To succeed globally many cities and nations must relentlessly demonstrate that positive change is possible.

Those who would deny the possibility of reversing inequality and the need to stop climate change must be proven wrong continuously. With most of the world moving forward on both fronts we can decisively reject political claims of harm to the economy or the non-importance of climate change. 

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