The Narwhal’s explainer on the tumultuous and surprising downfall of British Columbia’s carbon tax has been recognized with an award from the Canadian Association of Journalists.

B.C. politics and environment reporter Shannon Waters’ story, What on earth just happened with B.C.’s carbon tax?, received the award for daily excellence at a ceremony on Saturday in Calgary. The awards gala concluded the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Journalists.

Waters’ winning story chronicled the rise and fall of the controversial consumer price on carbon in B.C., when Premier David Eby — a formerly staunch supporter of the so-called carbon tax — suddenly announced at a news conference last September that he would eliminate it. His flip-flop became the biggest political story of the moment, at a time when “axe the tax” was the slogan dominating both provincial and federal discussions of carbon pricing. The piece was edited by Sarah Cox.

“We are lucky at The Narwhal to regularly get to work on award-quality journalism. This is only possible because of the support of our readers and members,” Lindsay Sample, who leads the B.C. bureau says. “I’m proud of Shannon and everyone who was recognized.” 

At the ceremony, Waters shared her delight at being included among the category’s finalists, which included CBC’s The National, the Halifax Examiner, the Hamilton Spectator and Radio-Canada Info. 

“I think a lot of people were very surprised, maybe particularly in B.C., with what happened with the carbon tax,” said Waters, who had expected “a completely different story” to come out of the news conference she attended in September, when Eby made his sudden announcement.

To her fellow political reporters in the room at the gala, Waters expressed her appreciation and said, “I think what we do is very important — even if sometimes, the people who are the subjects of our stories would much rather we didn’t do it at all.” 

The Narwhal was recognized as a finalist in three other categories. Former Ontario reporter Emma McIntosh was nominated in the freedom of information category for her investigation into how an oil spill in northwest Toronto made its way to Lake Ontario. 

In the photojournalism category, Narwhal contributor Gavin John was recognized for a portfolio of his work. His assignments for The Narwhal included documenting the work of the Blackfeet guardians to revitalize buffalo on their territory, and an assignment in Kneehill County, Alta., to document the local resistance to renewable energy projects.

A collaboration between The Narwhal and The Local was also a finalist in the community news category. Reporter Wency Leung examined the green reputation of an Ontario-based waste management company, which masked a troubled history of environmental impacts and regulatory issues.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative Premier Brian Pallister initially seemed very serious about confronting greenhouse gas emissions — a position that came as a surprise to many given the history of Canada’s conservative politicians sidestepping the tricky issue of climate change.

The party’s election platform pledged to “work with the federal government and other jurisdictions as we develop a made-in-Manitoba climate action plan.”

After winning a massive majority in April 2016, it hired Canadian climate policy legend and campaign manager David McLaughlin as senior adviser on the file.

An online survey was extended for an additional two weeks in March to allow for more public input.

These were all impressive things from a government led by Pallister, who had previously served as an MP in Stephen Harper’s notoriously anti-climate policy government.

But nearly 16 months later, the plan has never materialized.

The government effectively stopped talking about it. In fact, the latest action by the PCs has been to publicly announce that it’s seeking legal guidance on the constitutionality of a federally imposed carbon price, a move right out of recently resigned Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall’s playbook.

What on earth is going on?

Only Four Per Cent of Manitoba’s GDP Exposed by Carbon Pricing

Manitoba is in a near-ideal state to introduce climate policy that fulfills the federal requirement of carbon pricing.

The province has only a few “large emitters,” with a mere five sites that expel more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.

A 2015 report by the Ottawa-based Ecofiscal Commission concluded that only four per cent of Manitoba’s GDP would be disadvantaged with carbon pricing. Meanwhile, a massive 18 per cent of both Alberta and Saskatchewan’s economies are deemed “emissions-intensive and trade-exposed.”

Furthermore, the federally mandated carbon pricing framework likely won’t require agriculture to be included, which is the second biggest contributor to greenhouse gases in Manitoba.

Where On Earth Is Manitoba’s #ClimatePlan? @Brian_Pallister https://t.co/UiZVZ3YmEz @IISD @CCPAMB @mbenergyjustice #cdnpoli #manitoba

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 15, 2017

Agriculture Likely Excluded From Manitoba Plan

The federal government’s technical paper didn’t address nitrous oxides and methane, meaning the biggest sources of pollution from agriculture are not going to be included in Manitoba’s plan.

Almost all of Manitoba’s electricity is generated by the low-carbon and high-impact network of hydroelectric dams in the province’s north.

That leaves transportation and stationary combustion — such as residential and commercial building heat — affected by the carbon tax.

However, there are solutions for both of them via electrification and energy efficiency measures, which would be further incentivized by a price on carbon.

Disproportionate impacts on low-income residents could be easily addressed via a rebate program similar to Alberta’s.

Yet Manitoba is left without a plan, or any indication of when one will be released and implemented.

‘Sustainable Development’ Minister Suggests Plan Is Being Worked On

There are no easy explanations for what’s going on behind the scenes. The government itself has been mum beyond regurgitated talking points from their campaign platform.

For instance, Minister of Sustainable Development Cathy Cox has continually cited the ongoing creation of a “made-in-Manitoba climate plan with carbon pricing,” reflecting almost precise language contained in the mandate letter that she received from Pallister in May 2016.

She has also suggested that “the federal government should recognize the significant investments Manitoba has already made in renewable energy resources,” despite the fact that both B.C. and Quebec have large hydro resources while also implementing carbon pricing.

One potential reason for the delay is disagreements within the party itself about climate policy.

“It’s unclear whether or not there’s internal agreement within the government about how to proceed or whether to proceed,” Nathan Laser, campaigns coordinator for the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition, told DeSmog Canada.

Similarly, Molly McCracken of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Manitoba said in an interview that “there are various schools of thought in the PC caucus.”

That may indeed be the source of delay.

But Pallister has also taken seemingly decisive action on a number of controversial issues, most notably healthcare: in recent months, the government has administered cuts to Winnipeg’s health authority that have in turn resulted in the closures of multiple emergency rooms and clinics.

There’s also a chance that Pallister is banking on the fact that a climate plan will be federally imposed on the province if not implemented provincially, meaning the Premier won’t have to unnecessarily spend political capital.

“The federal government has essentially provided an out to any provincial government that doesn’t want to act in saying that if you don’t act, we will,” Laser said.

It might be a clever political move, although it could result in the loss of $66 million in federal funding via the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund. And in the wake of Premier Wall’s resignation, it would make Pallister the most explicitly anti-climate policy leader in the country.

Carbon Pricing Coalition Created by Eleven Organizations

That’s why, on the morning of August 3, representatives from almost a dozen local organizations gathered on the steps of the Manitoba Legislature to officially launch the Manitoba Carbon Pricing Coalition.

They included Canadians for Clean Prosperity, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Climate Change Connection, Prairie Climate Centre, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Manitoba, Green Action Centre and Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition.

McCracken said it’s quite rare for many of the organizations to take a public stand of this nature but “their participation just shows the urgency of this issue and how we need to move on it.”

The coalition partners hold a wide array of opinions on specific policy issues, but agreed on six principles about carbon pricing in Manitoba: that it’s a key part of climate action, it must increase over time in a predictable and schedule way, and that it must be applied across jurisdictions to ensure fairness.

“Ultimately, our organizations have varying opinions on how a carbon tax should be structured and what the revenue could be invested towards,” Laser explained.

“But what we agreed to do is come together on the side of a) climate change is real and b) carbon pricing is a reasonable and effective tool in the toolbox in tackling climate change.”

“It’s not the only thing but it’s a real tool that could give us some revenue to tackle climate change and make investments,” Laser said.

This launch occurred exactly three weeks after another campaign by “Manitobans Against Carbon Taxes Coalition,” consisting of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Canadian Taxpayers Federation and Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.

A poll from Angus Reid published in early July also suggested that 60 per cent of Manitobans oppose federally mandated carbon pricing.

Advocates Maintain Optimism for Climate Plan

That clearly leaves plenty of work for advocates of climate action.

Despite the government’s lack of visible progress on the file, local environmentalists and educators are indicating optimism that the Progressive Conservatives will make the most of the opportunity to re-position the province’s economy.

“The mere fact they did a press release on the same day that we did where they indicated they were seeking legal opinion says this is still on their mind,” Curt Hull, project manager at Winnipeg’s Climate Change Connection, told DeSmog Canada.

“We gave them a heads up that we were forming and they chose to time the release of their announcement of the seeking legal opinion on the same day. That’s fine: it means it’s still in their consciousness and they’re working towards it.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

On Saturday night, Andrew Scheer was elected as the next leader of the federal Conservatives.

At 38 years old, Scheer was the youngest of the 13 candidates in the race (he’d previously served as the youngest Speaker of the House of Commons in the country’s history, as well as a short-lived Opposition House Leader).

Despite his age, Scheer sported some of the most traditionally conservative policies of the bunch, including on the environmental and climate change front.

Here’s a quick rundown on some of the things that Scheer plans to do if his Conservative Party wins the 2019 election, as well as some other key facts to know.

Scheer Wants To Repeal Carbon Pricing

There’s a good reason that Clean Prosperity gave Scheer a ‘D’ in its pre-election “environmental policy report card.”

The main reason for this is his commitment to repeal mandatory carbon pricing, which will hit $50/tonne in 2022 under the federal Liberal plan.

Scheer’s website — which has since been taken down, but can be accessed via the WayBack Machine — argued that carbon pricing “raises the cost of everything and puts jobs at risk while doing little for the environment.”

This contrasts the positions of conservative economists and politicians such as Gregory Mankiw and Preston Manning, as well as a recent analysis of the B.C. carbon tax that indicated the policy had reduced emissions by between five and 15 per cent since implementation in 2008.

Instead of carbon pricing, Scheer pledges to “support a sector by sector approach to reduce greenhouse gases in cooperation with industry and the United States.” It’s rather unclear what that means.

Scheer’s Ties to Ultra-Right Conservatives

Scheer’s campaign team includes some famous faces from the Stephen Harper era.

That includes campaign manager Hamish Marshall — who created and hosted websites for Ezra Levant’s Ethical Oil website, which his wife served as head of — and digital director Stephen Taylor, former director of the National Citizens Coalition (a job Stephen Harper also once held).

As noted by Sean Craig of Global News, Scheer also has associations with The Rebel, a far-right media outlet headed up by Levant, which Marshall serves as a director of.

Scheer has granted The Rebel three one-on-one interviews since late 2016.

Scheer also holds strong anti-abortion views.

Campaign Life Coalition released a statement congratulating Scheer on the win, noting that it demonstrates the “strength of the social conservative movement and importance of pro-life and pro-family voters.” He scored the second-highest ranking from the group after Brad Trost and Pierre Lemieux, both “unapologetic pro-life/pro-family candidates.”

Scheer has promised not to reopen the abortion issue. While he didn’t vote on the 2012 motion to do exactly that, he’s received support from former MPs who did, including Jason Kenney and LaVar Payne.

The Campaign Life Coalition also celebrated Scheer’s commitments to cut federal funding to post-secondary institutions that “do not respect freedom of speech” and “supporting the rights of parents as first educators of their children,” including tax credits for home schooling and independent schools.

As former Sun News pundit Michael Coren noted in a column for NOW: “This is all pretty harsh stuff, to the right of Harper and arguably even Preston Manning and Stockwell Day.”

Scheer has also voted against recent pieces of legislation to enshrine trans rights in the Canadian Human Rights Act and protect Muslim people from Islamophobia.

Despite his age, new Conservative leader Andrew Scheer sported the most conservative policies of the bunch https://t.co/iOyyqevvwQ #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/nlH5Y0h61G

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) May 30, 2017

Scheer Is Very, Very, Very Pro-Oil Industry

As Prime Minister, Scheer pledges that he would approve TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline, which would carry 1.1 million barrels of oil from Alberta to Quebec and New Brunswick.

That’s unqualified support — support he’s pledged regardless of any issues that could be uncovered via environmental assessments or consultations with Indigenous nations.

That same approach is featured in his promise to “prioritize federal infrastructure projects that enhance access to natural resource reserves.”

He’s also pledged to eliminate corporate welfare, including bailouts and subsidies. The obvious example is Bombardier, which has received billions in public dollars in recent decades.

However Scheer has not promised to end the annual awarding of $3.3 billion in subsidies and tax breaks to oil and gas companies in Canada.

In another twist, Scheer pledged to “show Canadians where their oil comes from,” including requiring gas stations to display at the pump when oil comes from “foreign countries.”

According to Scheer, “this would allow Canadian consumers to make the choice to purchase Canadian-sourced, ethically produced oil.”

Sound familiar?

Scheer Has Strong Caucus Support

Unlike other high-profile leadership candidates like Kellie Leitch and Michael Chong, Scheer concluded the race with significant caucus support.

A month before the vote, Scheer sported formal endorsements from 24 current MPs and eight senators, as well as dozens of provincial MLAs and former MPs. Only Erin O’Toole, who placed third in the race, boasted more in total.

This matters a great deal when it comes to successfully leading the party. After all, we’ve seen plenty of examples of what happens when a party dislikes its leader, often resulting in fierce infighting and the creation of huge opportunities for other parties to fill the gap. If Scheer can build on his current caucus support, he could present a strong challenge to Trudeau in 2019.

Funding Massive Projects While Somehow Eliminating the Deficit

A major Conservative attack point against the Liberals is that they’re increasing the country’s deficit beyond what they promised during the election.

It’s a fact. The Liberals promised three years of “modest short-term deficits” of less than $10 billion for the first three years, and a balanced budget in the fiscal year of 2019-2020. But as of the last federal budget, it’s predicted that Canada will hit a deficit of $23.4 billion in 2019-2, dropping to $18.8 billion in 2021-22.

While the verdict is still very much out on whether that even matters given record-low interest rates and a huge infrastructure deficit, it seems a reasonable thing to point out that the Liberals are planning to break another major promise.

So what’s Scheer’s solution? Well, to balance the budget in two years. Unless he plans to raise income taxes or reverse his former leader’s controversial decision to cut the GST from seven to five per cent (which cost the country around $14 billion per year), the only option would be to cut close to $20 billion in annual government spending.

Yet Scheer has consistently pointed to the exporting of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology as as a means to reduce global emissions, a process which costs billions in public funding.

Also left unacknowledged is the fact that Canada’s only operational “clean coal” plant, SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Unit #3, relies on a patented Shell scrubbing system — a privately owned technology that can’t be sold off by the government.

In other words, Scheer’s plan to publicly fund the design and retailing of CCS technology would require billions in public funding, rather than making private large polluters pay via carbon pricing.

That sure sounds like picking winners and losers.

He’ll Need To Build Broad Support To Have A Shot

A pre-convention poll conducted by Nanos Research on behalf of the Globe & Mail found that only 4.1 per cent of the general voting population thought that Scheer would make the best prime minister out of all the candidates.

That’s right, 4.1 per cent.

That’s compared to Maxime Bernier, who received 17.4 per cent, and Michael Chong, who received 10 per cent. A massive 33 per cent of people polled answered “not sure.” When asked if they were more likely to vote for the Conservatives if led by Scheer, only 16.6 per cent responded “somewhat likely” or “likely.” That’s almost half as much as Bernier received.

Of course, there’s plenty of time left until 2019, meaning plenty of opportunities for the Liberals to break more major promises or the NDP to pose a challenge from the left. Nothing is set in stone.

But such numbers suggest that Scheer’s got a lot of work ahead of him to convince ordinary Canadians to vote for him.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The election of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named south of the border is leaving many Canadians with a case of the climate doldrums as 2016 winds to a close — but here’s the thing: 2016 was actually the most promising year Canada has had on climate action in more than a decade.

To be sure, us Canucks have had some not-awesome news on the climate and energy front lately, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approval of the enormously polluting Pacific Northwest LNG terminal near Prince Rupert, B.C., Enbridge’s Line 3 from Alberta to Wisconsin and the hotly contested Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain oil pipeline to Vancouver.

Many had higher hopes of climate leadership from Trudeau and they’re not wrong to be disappointed. However, as this year comes to a close, it’s also worth looking back on some of the significant steps forward that were made in 2016 — victories that in many cases were unimaginable even two years ago.

1. Dawning of New Age in Alberta

Where better to start than Alberta? In 2016, that province, home to the oilsands and heaps of coal-fired power, legislated a price on carbon and passed a law that requires at least 30 per cent renewable electricity by 2030.

Getting off coal is a clear win in Alberta, where air quality is consistently worse than Toronto due to emissions from coal-fired power plants. Those emissions annually result in an estimated 107 premature deaths, 80 hospital visits and almost 5,000 asthma-related sick days in Alberta, costing the province around $300 million a year.

Better yet, Alberta has loosened the regulations around citizens being able to generate their own electricity — a move that ought to speak to the free-wheeling spirit of Albertans.

2. Ratified Paris Agreement

With negative or even downright scary climate news dominating the headlines it’s easy to forget that a historic climate treaty was just ratified by nearly every country on the planet.

The Paris Agreement, a global pact to keep temperature increases as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible, has been ratified by more than 114 nations in 2016 representing more than 80 per cent of global emissions.

Now major polluting countries like China (responsible for a whopping 20 per cent of global emissions), Brazil, India and the U.S. are having some of the most productive and concrete conversations about climate action ever in the history of the planet.

And while president-elect you-know-who previously promised to pull out of the Paris Agreement there are early signs he may back down from that position. But even if he doesn’t, and the U.S. goes hog wild with its emissions, there are a lot of reasons why that doesn’t mean game over for the planet.

3. Arctic Drilling Ban

Perhaps one of the most unexpected announcements coming out of the last days of the Obama administration, the recent ban on Arctic and Atlantic drilling is huge, celebration-worthy news.

The ban in U.S. owned waters is permanent, meaning these areas will be indefinitely protected from future oil and gas development. Canada also banned offshore Arctic activity, subject to periodic reviews.

Climate change is being experience more severely in the Arctic, where food and life systems rely heavily on ice. So protecting sensitive polar regions from both climate change and further fossil fuel extraction is critically important.

4. Tanker Ban and End of Northern Gateway Pipeline

At long last, a crude oil tanker ban will be implemented on the north coast of B.C., according to an announcement by Trudeau in late November.

“The Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline and the Douglas Channel is no place for oil tanker traffic,” Trudeau said in making the announcement.

At the same time, Trudeau officially rejected Enbridge’s Northern Gateway proposal that would have brought more than 200 oil tankers a year into B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest.

The announcement marks a monumental victory in a fight that’s gone on for more than a decade.

5. Canada's National Climate Plan

Despite much posturing from Canada’s premiers, a national framework on fighting climate change was reached. It’s not perfect, but it does take us a long way toward meeting our 2030 climate target. From stronger building codes to electric vehicles to a price on carbon, there’s a lot to be hopeful about in the document.

For the first time ever, Canada’s premiers and prime minister are committed to working together to reducing our carbon emissions — seems worth raising a toast to, doesn’t it?

Bonus Good News: Federal Review of Environmental Assessment

Sure the federal government has broken some of its promises this year, but one of the promises it has kept is to review the way we assess major energy projects. The federal government has initated reviews of the environmental assessment process, the Fisheries Act and the National Energy  Board. All of these reviews hold the potential to create positive long-term change in terms of how Canada considers energy projects — and could help get us out of the myopic gridlock we often find ourselves in. Huzzah!

Image: Rally against the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline in Vancouver, March 2014. Photo: Zack Embree

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is a guest post by David Suzuki

The principle that polluters should pay for the waste they create has led many experts to urge governments to put a price on carbon emissions. One method is the sometimes controversial cap-and-trade. Quebec, California and the European Union have already adopted cap-and-trade, and Ontario will join Quebec and California’s system in January 2017. But is it a good way to address climate change?

The program sets an overall limit — a cap — on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions a province can emit. It then tells polluters, such as heavy industry and electricity generators, how many tonnes of carbon each can release. For every tonne, polluters need a permit or “allowance.” So, if a company’s annual limit is 25,000 tonnes, it would require 25,000 allowances. If a company exceeds its limit, it can purchase additional allowances from another firm that, because of its greater efficiency, has more allowances than it needs. This is the “trade” part of the equation.

Although an individual company can exceed its greenhouse gas limit by purchasing credits, the province as a whole can’t. The overall limit is reduced every year, so if the law is followed, cap-and-trade guarantees annual emissions reductions. The declining cap is the system’s great strength and the way it protects the environment.

How effective is it? Although the answer isn’t straightforward, there’s evidence cap-and-trade played a key role in reducing acid rain in the United States. The 1990 Clean Air Act allowed power plants to buy and sell the right to emit sulphur dioxide. Since then, U.S. sulphur dioxide concentrations have gone down by more than 75 per cent. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times, “Acid rain did not disappear as a problem, but it was significantly mitigated.”

Despite this and other successes, some experts are skeptical, arguing that cap-and-trade amounts to little more than a cash grab by government, a tax in everything but name. Others say it’s a mistake to expect climate change can be addressed through markets, when the problem actually requires changing our entire approach to economics, with a commitment to a steady-state economy and an end to the commodification of nature.

Some experts have also noted that the emissions reductions it brings are often modest. A 2015 paper in Canadian Public Policy claimed Quebec’s system “is still too weak to meaningfully address the environmental imperatives as outlined in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2014 Fifth Assessment Synthesis Report, in which fully eliminating carbon emissions is the benchmark for long-term policy goals.” From 2013 to 2014, California’s allowance cap went from 162.8 to 159.7 megatonnes, a drop of less than two per cent.

Ontario’s proposed legislation indicates its program will have some great strengths and a number of shortcomings. It will likely have wide coverage, applying limits on most of the province’s emissions, including those from transportation fuels. (California's system did not initially include these fuels.)

Ontario is expected to reduce emissions by over four per cent a year — about twice the initial rate of California — and generate $1.9 billion annually from the plan. That money will be invested in “green” projects throughout the province with the goal of reducing carbon emissions even further.

Ontario’s proposal to give away many allowances to big emitters is less encouraging. The government says it will eventually phase out this free disbursement, but in the meantime millions of dollars in government revenue that could be used to support renewable energy and public transit will be lost.

To keep the bulk of fossil fuels in the ground — as scientific evidence says we must — we need a variety of strategies. Cap-and-trade helps reduce emissions and generates billions of dollars for other strategies to address climate change. It also embodies the polluter pays principle. But it’s not enough on its own.

The David Suzuki Foundation and others have long argued that provinces and the federal government should put a price on carbon, through carbon taxes, cap-and-trade or a combination of both. The urgent need to address global warming means provinces that have adopted cap-and-trade need to strengthen it by ensuring emissions drop faster and polluters pay a price that truly reflects the damage caused by carbon pollution.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Climate Change and Transportation Policy Analyst Gideon Forman.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed Wednesday the federal government will meet with Indigenous leaders and premiers in Vancouver in early March in the hopes of laying out the framework for a national climate strategy.   “I look forward to working with the premiers on combatting climate change and moving toward a greener, more sustainable Canadian economy better positioned to compete globally in the areas of clean knowledge and technologies,” Trudeau said in a media release.

The Prime Minister announced he will meet with Indigenous leaders on March 2 to inform a national climate framework discussion with the premiers in a First Ministers' Meeting scheduled to take place March 3. First Ministers' Meetings did not occur under former prime minister Stephen Harper.

According to Clare Demerse, Ottawa-based energy policy adviser with Clean Energy Canada, the meeting provides an unprecedented opportunity to discuss Canada's renewable energy transition.   “The right people will be in the room to move forward on a national approach [to climate change]," Demerse told DeSmog Canada. "Whether it’s electrical production, or natural resources extraction, provinces make big decisions on energy in Canada."

Meeting to Capitalize on Low-Carbon Economy

According to the Prime Minister's press release, the Vancouver meetings "will focus on effective ways to adapt to climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and capitalize on the opportunities presented by a low-carbon economy to create good-paying and long-term jobs." 

“We’d really like to see the conversation in Vancouver be about what we're going to build, not just about what we’re going to cut,” Demerse said. “How many electric cars will we see on the road? How are we going to make buildings more energy efficient? How much solar, wind and water power needs to be produced in 2020 or 2030?”   “This is not to say reduction targets shouldn’t be discussed. But the discussion needs to be more focused on the ‘how’ instead of just the number."   Canada was one of the only countries among the world’s top ten greenhouse gas gas emitters not to provide a national clean energy plan to the United Nations in the lead up to the Paris climate talks last December. Other heavy emitters like the United States, European Union, China and even Mexico submitted plans with clean energy targets along with their GHG reduction targets.    The $125 billion the Liberal Party promised during the federal election to invest in infrastructure could go a long way encouraging provinces and territories to adopt strong climate policies.    “The low-carbon infrastructure dollars could be used to reward a province or territory for raising its carbon price, or for adopting stronger climate policies,” Demerse said.   Green infrastructure and public transit were two priorities in the Liberals infrastructure spending pledge. The Liberals also committed to increasing Canada’s Low Carbon Economic Trust to $2 billion.

Feds Could Set a National Minimum Carbon Price

Carbon pricing could also play an important role during the first ministers meeting.   “The First Ministers will consider all policy measures at their disposal to make sure Canada can take advantage of the significant appetite for expertise in the clean growth economy,” the PMO announcement states.   Currently, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec all have some sort of carbon pricing system: either cap and trade or carbon tax. Last December, Manitoba announced it would join Ontario and Quebec’s cap and trade market, which is linked with California’s.   Unlike his predecessor, Trudeau is a supporter of making polluters pay for their greenhouse gas emissions. He is also an advocate of the provinces and territories choosing the system that suits them best.   The problem now lies with the different prices on emissions in different provinces. B.C.’s carbon tax is $30 per tonne of carbon, but Quebec’s carbon price, which is meant to fluctuate, is about half that.    “Eventually Canada will want one coherent national carbon pricing market. The bigger the market, the more diverse the opportunities to reduce emissions,” Demerse said.   “But we aren’t quite there yet, and certain provinces have done a lot of leg work to create their own carbon pricing systems. So, to create consistency between the different system and jurisdictions, the federal government should set a national minimum price on carbon."

Image Credit: PMO Photo Gallery

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Nicholas Stern, one of the world’s most influential economists, has come out with a new report showing that the future costs of climate change have been incredibly underestimated.

The report, Endogenous growth, convexity of damages and climate risk, indicates it is even more important than previously thought that politicians quickly and aggressively stop unchecked climate change caused by man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

Stern, a professor at the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics, and his co-author Simon Dietz found that the current economic models used to calculate the cost of climate change are vastly inadequate and need to be updated so that proper decisions can be made about risks associated with global warming.

They said that even the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has cited the existing economic models and, as a result, has arrived at severely limited assumptions about the costs of global warming.

“It is extremely important to understand the severe limitations of standard economic models, such as those cited in the IPCC report, which have made assumptions that simply do not reflect current knowledge about climate change and its potential impacts on the economy,” Stern, a former chief economist with the World Bank, said in a media release.

“I hope our paper will prompt other economists to strive for much better models which will help policy-makers and the public to recognize the immensity [of] the potential risks of unmanaged climate change. Models that assume that catastrophic damages are not possible fail to take account of the magnitude of the issues and the implications of the science.”

The media release said Monday that Stern and Dietz modified some key features of the ‘dynamic integrated climate-economy,’ or DICE, model, which was initially devised by William Nordhaus in the 1990s, to take into account the latest findings and some of the uncertainties about the major risks of climate change that are usually omitted.

The new model allows a wider range of values to be considered for climate sensitivity, which is the long-term change in global average temperature that would result from a doubling of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the release says. 

The new model also includes a broader range of potential climate impacts, because the standard model tends to underestimate the potential economic damage that could be created by climate change, it added.

Dietz said the old economic model has been useful for economists who estimate the potential impacts of climate change but that the new model shows that some major improvements are needed before it can reflect the extent of the risks indicated by the science.

“Our aim was to show how a new version of the model could produce a range of results that are much more representative of the science and economics of climate change, taking into account the uncertainties,” Dietz said.

“The new version of this standard economic model, for instance, suggests that the risks from climate change are bigger than portrayed by previous economic models and therefore strengthens the case for strong cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases.”

Stern and Dietz said their research suggests a global carbon price should range from US $32 to $103/tCO2 by 2015 and rise to between $82 and $260/tCO2 by 2035.

They also found that that living standards could begin to decline later this century unless the growth in annual emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels is checked. Their peer-reviewed paper is scheduled for publication in The Economic Journal.

Image Credit: Stern at the 2009 World Economic Forum via Flickr.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This article originally appeared in Maclean's magazine and is republished here with permission.

It was reported recently that Exxon-Mobil will begin disclosing the degree to which its assets are exposed to future greenhouse gas policies. This risk is at the heart of what has become known as the carbon bubble, a term advanced by UK group Carbon Tracker, which suggests that assets may be over-valued as a result of not accounting for potential future limits on fossil fuel extraction imposed to fight climate change.

The so-called carbon bubble should be a concern to investors in oil sands stocks, and you only need to consider two numbers to understand why: 80 and 320. First, the number 80: oil sands producers and the Alberta government are quick to tell you that up to 80 per cent of the life-cycle emissions from oil sands occur from refining and combustion, not from extraction and upgrading.

That’s comforting, until you consider that this means that most of the carbon policy exposure for these projects comes from emissions-control policies and innovations far beyond the jurisdictions and markets in which oil sands companies operate.

Second, the number 320: when it was leaked that the Alberta government was considering a 40-40 approach (a requirement to reduce emissions intensity by 40 per cent, with a penalty for exceeding this limit of $40/tonne), the oil industry responded that governments acting this aggressively would create significant competitiveness concerns. Shell’s CEO Lorraine Mitchelmore, long a champion for carbon pricing policy, was quoted as saying that, “Alberta needs to be sure that it keeps the industry competitive,” while former Suncor CEO Rick George stated that, “it’s a bad idea to make companies uncompetitive.” 

Here’s the kicker: if an average cost of carbon of $16/tonne on 20 per cent of your emissions raises competitive concerns, it seems that investors should worry a great deal about risks to future returns from oil sands assets. Such a policy boils down to 320 pennies per tonne of life-cycle carbon emissions, hardly aggressive given the magnitude of global emissions reductions which will be required to meet Prime Minister Harper’s commitment to policies which keep global climate change below 2 degrees Celsius.

Reports by Carbon Tracker and others were part of what led me and my colleague Branko Boskovic to ask whether stringent carbon policies, if applied to all emissions associated with oil sands, would render new oil sands investments uneconomic. We started out with a model of an oil sands mine, tabulated the life-cycle emissions (for a mine, production emissions are about 36kg per barrel of bitumen produced, while total, life-cycle emissions are about 535kg per barrel as estimated by Jacobs and others), and applied carbon taxes first to production emissions, and then to the full emissions impact of the oil produced.

Sensitivity of oil sands mine rates of return to upstream and downstream carbon prices.

In the figure above, you can see some of the preliminary results of our analysis. Our base case is a mine with financial attributes similar to Suncor’s recently-approved Fort Hills mine. This project has a rate of return of 12.5 per cent assuming WTI prices of $90, a Canadian dollar exchange rate of 94 US cents, and a $15 differential between light and heavy oil at Edmonton, with Alberta’s existing policy in place.

In the top row of the figure above, you see what happens to those returns on investment as carbon prices on production increase—not so scary, even as carbon prices climb to $100/tonne of CO2. However, it’s when the number 80 starts to play a role that you really see where the risk comes from. Reading down every column, you see what happens to project returns as a greater share of the downstream (combustion and refining) carbon liability is paid for by the producer, most likely indirectly through lower oil prices resulting from demand-side carbon policy.

Even a $50/tonne carbon price presents a serious risk to the economic viability of this investment if, as will have to be the case if global emissions are to be reduced, these policies are applied to combustion emissions and consumers aren’t willing to simply pay the tax. The more consumers react to increased prices with reduced demand, the more detrimental carbon policies become for oil sands investments.

So, if you want to know where the risks to oil sand projects lie, they aren’t from the policies which are being considered for production emissions in Canada. They come from two numbers—the 80 per cent of emissions that occur once the oil is burned, and the concerns that executives appear to have with carbon emissions costs of as little as 320 pennies per tonne.

Image Credit: Alex MacLean via @grossmanmedia, used with permisson

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.