This is a guest post by Sarah Petrevan, senior policy adviser at Clean Energy Canada, a program of Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue.

The big energy story this week in Canada is pipelines. Yet again. 

Why? There’s controversy, for starters, but it’s also the fact that energy exports — especially oil — make up a big chunk of Canada’s exports, and we’re an export-driven economy.

Fair enough. But it’s time we started focusing more attention on our opportunity to export energy technologies and services, not just raw energy. As UN Environment Programme chief Achim Steiner said recently on CBC’s Power and Politics, "Whether you build the next pipeline or not… the economy of Canada will not be centred around a fossil-fuel based extractive economy."

That’s in no small part why Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is in India this week.

There are always domestic politics tied to these trade missions, but there is both need and value for Canadian leaders — from government and clean energy companies — to travel abroad, seeking out new business opportunities. If Canada is going to play in the increasingly competitive global clean energy marketplace, we need to sell our industry and the climate solutions they offer.

Let’s unpack this.

Not two months ago, the world raised the bar on climate action by signing an agreement to replace fossil fuels and build a clean global economy. An unlikely leader at the forefront of that charge is India, with a commitment to install 175 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2022. A top-three player according to Ernst & Young’s Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index, it’s not surprising that clean energy businesses are flocking to India, including those based in Canada.

Why? The size of the prize.  

The reality is, for Canadian companies, prospects at home are looking lean, especially in the near term. While we’ve seen sizable renewable electricity targets from both Alberta and Saskatchewan, policy details have yet to be unveiled and even then it will take time for projects to ramp up.

And while Ontario has held the top spot in renewable electricity for the last few years, topping out at $12.7 billion in investment by the end of 2014, there are many unanswered questions as to what’s next for clean energy as the province considers its supply strategy.  

For companies looking to grow, there is little choice but to look beyond our borders.

Enter India — with the right mix of commitment, investment and policy — the next clean energy frontier.  

With a formal target of 100 gigawatts of solar capacity (and 60 gigawatts of wind) by 2022, India is a giant market for clean energy companies. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data, the dollars are matching those commitments. In 2015, India saw $10.9 billion of clean energy investment, a 22 per cent increase over 2014, with nearly half ($5.2 billion) in solar. This is not to say that the clean energy revolution in India is easy; finding land and the state of power transmission infrastructure have posed challenges for the country. But with policy approaches ever evolving to meet the country’s power needs, there’s no sign India is slowing down on its commitment any time soon.

In fact, many Canadian companies have already seized business opportunities in India. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Canada last April, solar power deals — one with AMP Solar Group and the other with Canadian Solar, a big player on the Indian market — comprised more than $1 billion, or 63 per cent of the value of the total agreements signed.

Another success story for Canadian solar in India is Sarus Solar, a joint venture comprising of three Canadian firms that is planning a series of 500 megawatt solar parks, the first of which will be built in Maharashtra. According to Sarus Solar’s head of operations India, Arun Agarwal, "The Canadian firm saw huge potential in the solar sector in India, especially after the government announced its target.”

Finally let's point to Canada’s SkyPower Global who, last summer, made the lowest bid of INR 5.17 per kilowatt hour (equivalent to USD$0.081) as part of the 2 gigawatt solar tender in the Indian state of Telangana. Subsequent actions have secured even lower bids, yet Canadian companies are clearly in the game in India.

Exporting clean energy solutions reaps benefits for Canadians and Canadian companies.

While the ongoing pipeline controversies make headlines, an important Canadian success story is being written outside our borders. And it’s a story worth telling here at home.

Image: Canadian Solar installation in India.

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“I do not want to be the grand chief who consented to a pipeline that’s going to destroy 30 per cent of the fresh water in Ontario, in Treaty 3 territory,” Treaty 3 Grand Chief Warren White said in a speech outlining his objections to TransCanada’s proposed Energy East oil pipeline last week.

“I did not come here for consultation. I came here to let everyone know what Energy East is all about…In unity in Treaty 3 we will be the ones to stop this. Our communities, our youth, our leadership are being called on by other nations,” White, while presenting at a public meeting hosted by the Ontario Energy Board in Kenora, Ontario, stated.

TransCanada “low balled” and “tried to pull a fast one” on Treaty 3 chiefs, according to White. The pipeline company agreed to participate in a consultation process based on Treaty 3 Resource Law or Manito Aki Inakonigaawin in Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), but failed to actually engaged in the process. TransCanada was a no-show for a meeting with Treaty 3 chiefs on December 21st last year.

“I am very upset right now and you put that in your report that Energy East, TransCanada whatever you wanna call it, are there for the dollar signs, and nothing about the land, nothing about how we survive,” White said.

"I do not want to be the grand chief that’s remembered as, 'all he wanted was the money.' I do not want to be the grand chief known as the destroyer of the lands, waters, sacred sites, rivers, trees, animals, birds…We are going to get another Grassy Narrows situation, an oil spill will happen no matter how safe you guys say it is.”

If approved, the 1.1 million barrel a day pipeline stretching from Alberta to New Brunswick would operate on Treaty 3 territory. The Treaty 3 First Nation represents over twenty-five Anishinaabe First Nations whose traditional territory covers an area of northwestern Ontario larger than Newfoundland.

White’s speech was part of the ongoing public consultations Ontario’s energy regulator – Ontario Energy Board – is conducting with communities and First Nations along Energy East’s proposed route in northern and eastern Ontario. The board will be in Ottawa Thursday.

The provincial government claimed it will partly base its position on Energy East in light of the board’s findings. Ontario plans on arguing its case for or against Energy East at the National Energy Board (NEB) hearings on the pipeline project expected to take place later this year.

Ontario has identified seven conditions for its approval of the pipeline. Included is the condition that “proponents and governments” fulfill their constitutional duty to consult with the province’s First Nations on the project.

“When you send me correspondence and I never participated that does not constitute consultation. We keep hearing [from] government about meaningful consultation, the duty to consult. I never consented to be part of this [regulatory] process,” White told the Ontario Energy Board.

The federal government has the constitutional duty to consult with First Nations, Metis and Inuit on projects that may infringe upon their aboriginal and treaty rights according to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Haida First Nation vs British Columbia in 2004. There is no indication yet that the federal government plans to fulfill this legal duty in the case of Energy East.

White expressed his lack of faith that the Ontario Energy Board and National Energy Board processes are interested in protecting Treaty 3 rights:

“No matter what we say as intervenor or [in] protest to the Ontario Energy Board and National Energy Board we know you are still going to move forward [with the pipeline], but without our consent,” White said.

Ontario, although calling itself a “climate leader,” has come under fire recently from pipeline critics for weakening its stance on Energy East. Premier Kathleen Wynne announced last December the province would not take into account the potential upstream greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of Energy East when deciding whether to support the project.

The Ontario Energy Board has also been criticized for its claims Energy East, North America’s largest proposed pipeline project, will likely have a “relatively modest” impact on GHG emissions in Canada.

Image Credit: Ontario.ca

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Ontario will not look at greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands industry in deciding whether to support TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline project. The province will only consider emissions in Ontario from the proposed pipeline according to an announcement by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne on Wednesday.

“Ontario’s review of the Energy East pipeline will not have credibility unless emissions in Alberta are taken into account,” Adam Scott, climate and energy program manager with Environmental Defence Canada, told DeSmog Canada.

Wynne’s announcement in Toronto comes during a visit from Alberta Premier Jim Prentice to discuss Quebec and Ontario’s seven conditions for the 1.1 million barrel-per-day proposed pipeline. Ontario and Quebec have stated in their conditions “the contribution of greenhouse gas emissions” from Energy East must be taken into account.

But on Wednesday Wynne echoed the comments of Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard on Tuesday, when he clarified the greenhouse gas emissions the province will consider are those produced by the pipeline within the province, not those created from extraction the oilsands or those produced by the end use of the oilsands bitumen.

“Climate leadership means admitting that we can’t continue with business as usual," Scott said. "Massive fossil fuel infrastructure like Energy East will allow the oil industry to increase its climate pollution, undermining important efforts in Ontario and Quebec to cut back."

This redefinition of which greenhous gas emissions will be examined by the two central Canadian provinces may undermine the public consultations on Energy East underway in Ontario and Quebec. In both provinces, independent provincial agencies have been tasked with hearing public concerns about the 4,600-kilometre pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick.

Ontarians and Quebecers have been invited to submit comments about greenhouse gases from Energy East and the pipeline's impacts on climate change (among other issues) to the provincial agencies. But it is difficult to see what weight these concerns will carry now that the provincial governments have decided to take a limited view of the project’s overall greenhouse gas emissions.

“Wynne’s refusal to consider how the pipeline will spur more climate pollution in the tar sands is more than disappointing, it is wrong,” Andrea Harden-Donahue, energy and climate justice campaigner with the Council of Canadians, said.

Image Credit: Kathleen Wynne via Twitter

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Alberta Premier Jim Prentice begins an Energy East lobby tour today in Quebec City to try to woo the premiers of Quebec and Ontario into supporting TransCanada's 1.1 million barrel-per-day oil pipeline proposal.

“It is a sign the project is in danger,” Patrick Bonin, a Greenpeace Canada climate and energy campaigner based in Montreal, told DeSmog Canada. “Over 70 per cent of Quebecers don’t want Energy East to be built.”

Ontario and Quebec announced last month that Energy East would have to meet seven conditions to gain the provinces' approval of the 4,600-kilometer pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick. Included in these conditions is a demand for a full environmental assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the pipeline.

An analysis conducted earlier this year by the Pembina Institute, an energy think tank, found the greenhouse gas emissions from extracting the oilsands bitumen to fill the Energy East pipeline would erase all reductions in greenhouse gas emissions achieved by Ontario’s phase out of coal-fired power plants. The analysis did not include emissions from combustion, which would make Energy East’s carbon footprint even higher.

“If Ontario and Quebec are concerned about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change then the Energy East tar sands pipeline project is dead already,” Adam Scott, climate and energy program manager with Environmental Defence, told DeSmog Canada.

Prentice meets with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard Tuesday and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne in Toronto on Wednesday.

Ontario and Quebec's conditions exceed B.C.’s heavy oil conditions

This is not the first time an Alberta premier has travelled to another province on behalf of a pipeline project. British Columbia Premier Christy Clark famously inflamed relations with Alberta with her five conditions for the Northern Gateway pipeline, which resulted in some icy meetings with then Alberta premier Alison Redford.

Clark's demand to receive a greater share of the fiscal benefits from Northern Gateway was a contentious issue between the two western provinces, but she did not go as far as Wynne and Couillard in insisting the pipeline's greenhouse gas emissions be properly assessed.

The National Energy Board's reviews of pipeline projects aren't taking climate change into account, which has left a leadership vacuum that the provinces are stepping in to fill. New pipelines facilitate expansion of oilsands production, leading to higher greenhouse gas emissions.

The seven conditions on the Government of Ontario's website.

Bad news for Energy East continues

Prentice’s visit comes during a turbulent public relations spell for Energy East.

Documents leaked to Greenpeace last month revealed TransCanada had hired global PR firm Edelman to work on an aggressive strategy of undermining Energy East opponents through tactics that included creating phony grassroots groups to give the impression of genuine support of the pipeline. The revelations caused TransCanada and Edelman to publicly part ways.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, former Maple Spring student activist and author, announced on Radio-Canada just days after the leak that he was donating his $25,000 Governor General’s Literary Award to an anti-pipeline coalition and encouraged the public to do match it. Donations have reached $400,000 now. 

Yesterday the Committee on the Status of Wildlife in Canada announced the belugas whales of the St. Lawrence Estuary — where TransCanada has plans for an Energy East marine oil tanker terminal — are at greater risk of extinction than a decade ago, forcing TransCanada to halt work on the terminal.   

“It’s good news and bad news,” Bonin says. “TransCanada’s marine terminal at Cacouna probably won’t be built now, but it is sad to find out the beluga population is not recovering."

Image Credit: Jim Prentice via Twitter, WWF Canada

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Canada’s premiers have agreed to expand the nation’s developing energy strategy to address climate change and green energy while acknowledging the Alberta oilsands are still an important part of Canada’s economic future.

Endorsing the proposed Canadian Energy Strategy when they met last week at an annual conference on Prince Edward Island, the premiers said in an accompanying document that the plan “will express a renewed vision that describes the kind of energy future that provinces and territories aspire to achieve.”

The premiers added visions and principals included in the plan will allow “provinces and territories to work together, in respect of their own jurisdiction, on energy issues and grow the economy, protect the environment, mitigate climate change, create new opportunities for individuals, organizations and businesses, and enhance the quality of life for all Canadians.”

In a section called “Climate Change and Social and Environmental Responsibility,” the plan included a strategy to address global warming and move towards a lower carbon economy.

The strategy would recognize the importance of environmentally and socially responsible energy development, transportation systems, and enabling technologies to support conservation, efficiency, and effectiveness in the use of energy resources.

And it would allow the nation to “transition to a lower-carbon economy through appropriate initiatives, such as carbon pricing, carbon capture and storage and other technological innovations, while meeting current and future energy needs.”

A related article in The Globe and Mail said the recently-elected premiers of Ontario and Quebec — Kathleen Wynne and Philippe Couillard — suggested they were the driving force behind the strategy’s climate change considerations.

Despite the agreement, Wynne said there will be tensions between provinces that want to achieve progress on climate change, and others eager to boost oil exports.

“I think that is a tension that will continue to exist but the reason it is important to have a Canadian energy strategy is that we’ve got to manage that tension – it exists and we’ve got to deal with the realities of the oil sands, and we’ve got to deal with the realities of transporting that fuel, and we’ve got to deal with the realities of climate change,” she told the Globe and Mail.

The premiers agreed to finalize the strategy before their 2015 summer meeting.

While the proposed energy strategy does not include firm targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Canada, under the Copenhagen Accord, has committed to reducing domestic carbon emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020, a level many analysts say will not be met. A recent report from Environment Canada shows that without stronger emissions reductions Canada will not meet that target.

By way of comparison, the European Union has set three key targets for 2020. These include a 20 per cent reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels; raising the share of the region’s energy consumption produced from renewable resources to 20 per cent; and a 20 per cent improvement in Europe’s energy efficiency.

EU projections indicate the region will comfortably meet its 20 per cent emissions-reduction target by 2020.

Image Credit: Premier of Ontario via Flickr.

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Last Tuesday the government of Ontario announced the Thunder Bay Generating Station – Ontario’s last coal-fired power plant – had burnt off its last supply of coal. The electricity of Canada’s most populous province is officially coal free.

“Today we celebrate a cleaner future for our children and grandchildren while embracing the environmental benefits that our cleaner energy sources will bring,” says Bob Chiarelli, Ontario’s 
Minister of Energy, in a press release.

The coal power plant in Thunder Bay was one of five in Ontario that a little over ten years ago produced 25 per cent of the province’s electricity. Burning coal is a particularly polluting form of generating electricity and shutting down Ontario’s five coal plants is the equivalent of pulling seven million cars off the road in terms of global warming greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Ontario is the first province or state in North America to successfully phase out the burning of coal to produce electricity. The Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development describes the move as the “single largest regulatory action in North America” to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The province’s coal phase out arrives a year ahead of schedule. Ontario Premier Ernie Eves committed in 2002 to shut down all the province’s coal power plants by 2015. Last year, the province’s current premier Kathleen Wynne introduced legislation that will ban coal from being used for electricity production in Ontario ever again. 

The Ontario Clear Air Alliance (OCAA), a Toronto-based organization that played a central role in the coal phase out welcomed Tuesday’s announcement describing it as a “great day for our province and our planet.”

David vs Goliath – Ontarians' Campaign to Shut Down Coal Plants

“When we started our campaign, people in Ontario who considered themselves to be politically astute, assumed that we didn’t have a chance to achieve a coal phase-out. And it is not surprising that they thought so. We were engaged in a David and Goliath battle,” says Jack Gibbons, director of the Ontario Clear Air Alliance.

“The majority of the people of Ontario didn’t know that Ontario had coal-fired power plants. And they certainly didn’t know that our Nanticoke Generating Station on Lake Erie was the largest coal plant in North America and Canada’s #1 air polluter,” Gibbons told DeSmog Canada. Nanticoke shut down last December.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance formed in 1997 to push for an end to coal in the province. Currently the Alliance consists of ninety public health organizations, faith groups, unions, hydro utilities and municipalities, including the City of Toronto.

“People thought that while the OCAA might be well meaning it was engaged in a futile campaign that was sure to fail,” recalls Gibbons.

The political context in Ontario was less than ideal for a campaign against coal when the Alliance got started. Progressive Conservative leader Mike Harris was premier at that time. The ‘Harris Years’ remembered by many Ontarians as a time of severe cuts to the public sector and clashes with environmental groups. This was not the premier one would expect to bring about the end of coal in Ontario.

Surprisingly, it was Harris who legislated in 2001 the closing of the Lakeview coal power plant in Mississauga. Lakeview closed four years later becoming the first of Ontario’s five coal plants to shut down.

Game Changer – Ontario Medical Association Speaks Out Against Air Pollution

“The involvement of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) in the air pollution issue changed everything,” Gibbons told DeSmog Canada.

On May 12th, 1998, the president of the OMA, an organization representing the province’s doctors, announced “air pollution is a public health crisis” in Ontario. Two years later the Association released a study showing air pollution killed 1,900 Ontarians per year and cost the economy $10 billion annually.

“While the politicians could ignore the environmentalists when they said that smog kills, they couldn’t ignore Ontario’s doctors. And neither the politicians nor OPG (Ontario Power Generation) dared to challenge the doctors when they said that air pollution is a public health crisis in Ontario. As a result, the politicians had to find a solution to this crisis,” says Gibbons from Toronto.

The Thunder Bay coal power plant will be converted to biomass in order to keep producing electricity and has retained sixty jobs in the process. According to the province of Ontario, a combination of nuclear, biomass, natural gas, waterpower, wind and solar power have made up for the power coal once produced. All are far less polluting than coal-fired electrical generation.

Is a Phase Out of Nuclear Power Next? 

As for the Ontario Clear Air Alliance, one campaign has ended and a new campaign has already begun. The Alliance’s focus now is to phase out nuclear power in Ontario, possibly a far more difficult task given over half of Ontario’s electricity comes from nuclear and the province’s two biggest political parties – Liberals and Progressive Conservatives – support nuclear power.

Gibbons believes by using a similar strategy that the Alliance’s used for its coal campaign they will succeed in phasing out nuclear. The pillars of the organization’s success with coal, according to Gibbons, was having a clear message, good solution, and credible messenger, addressing an important political issue, and building a strong base of public support.

“That in a nutshell is how we achieved the coal phase-out,” Gibbons told DeSmog Canada.

The Ontario Clear Air Alliance’s goal is for Ontario to run on one hundred per cent renewable energy by 2030.

Image Credit: coal power plant by Wigwam Jones via Flickr

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Canada's crown jewel of environmental research may yet survive the Harper government. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced yesterday the province would work with Winnipeg's International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) to keep the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area open.

The 45 year old freshwater research facility in northern Ontario considered unique in the world was closed March 31st over protests from the scientific community and the public.

“Premier Wynne's announcement is most welcome but this is far, far from over,” said Diane Orihel, PhD student at University of Alberta and the founder of the Coalition to Save ELA.

“It's wonderful that IISD will lead but they don't have the $2 million to keep the ELA open. There will need to be a huge fundraising effort involving provincial governments, university and industry,” Orihel told DeSmog.

The investment will be more than worth it given the history.

Research done at the ELA warned the world about the dangers of acid rain as well as mercury and phosphorus pollution. Regulations that protect the health of the environment in Canada many countries are based on the work done at the ELA.

The United States just recently tightened regulations on mercury emissions coming from coal plants because of research at the ELA proved that if those emissions are reduced, mercury levels that make fish like trout risky to eat decline.

"We proved that if emissions are reduced mercury levels in fish decline fairly quickly," said Orihel who has spent 10 years at the ELA.

"That research couldn't have been done anywhere else."

The US paid for the mercury research and although Environment Canada has access to the data and long promised tighter regulations, it still has not acted Orihel said. 

The ELA is an outdoor lab with 58 lakes where researchers can experiment on an entire lake while comparing results to nearby lakes. This type of large-scale and decades long experimentation cannot be done anywhere else she said.

It costs $2 million a year to keep the ELA running. That's much less than 1% of the Department of Fisheries budget says Carol Kelly, a retired University of Manitoba ecologist who has done research there for more than 30 years.

An important experiment to determine the environmental impacts of nanosilver was fully funded and ready to go this year at the ELA. "We don't know what these tiny nanoparticles will do in environment and they're already in a lot of products," Kelly said in an interview.

Hundreds of products including food containers, socks, shoe inserts, sports clothing and towels are sold as ‘anti-bacterial’ or ‘odour controlling' now contain nanosilver particles that are smaller than a virus. Lab research has shown they can mutate fish embryos.

"We know nanosilver particles are getting into rivers and lakes but we don't know what they are doing to fish or other species," she said.

The ELA is the best place in the world to do this research. It makes no sense to close and government officials have never offered a credible reason for doing it said Kelly.

The only reason for the closure is to keep Canadians from knowing about the risks of new products like nano-silver or emissions of chemicals from the tar sands said Orihel.

"If public doesn't know then they won't fight for regulations to protect them."

A year ago most Canadians had never heard of the ELA. Now surveys show that 75% know about it and most, no matter what party they voted for, want the ELA to stay open she said.

“I hope the Harper government will co-operate and make this a quick and relatively painless transition.”

Image Credit: DFO.

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