Alberta Conservative Senator Doug Black worries that Canadians are illiterate when it comes to energy and he’s on a mission to educate them.

“If we don’t address the issues facing us now,” he warns, “the prosperity my generation enjoyed will not be enjoyed by the next generation.”

Black is a rarity in the Senate, one of only three senators who were elected by voters in Alberta and then appointed to the Senate by Stephen Harper. Given the discredit that august body has fallen into, though, he may not hold that seat for long.

During the first half of 2015, Black travelled from coast to coast in his quest to educate Canadians about “the development of our energy resources and to discuss ways in which Canada can responsibly maximize its energy resources to benefit all Canadians.”

But it’s an odd crusade. Instead of meeting Canadians where they mostly congregate, in malls, union halls, church basements and community centres, he’s meeting them in posh hotels like the Vancouver Four Seasons, Toronto’s One King West, Edmonton Westin, Montreal Hyatt Regency and Ottawa’s Shaw Centre.

[view:in_this_series=block_1] Black’s Energy Tour

That’s because his “energy literacy tour” isn’t aimed at ordinary Canadians, but at the elites, the people who are already well-educated about energy, at least from the industry perspective. The tour is sponsored by the Economic Club of Canada, whose “audience members are drawn from the most senior levels of Canadian business, industry and government,” the club’s web site informs us.

The site features testimonials from the president of the Canadian Gas Association, the chief lobbyist for the Toronto-Dominion Bank (also a director of the Canadian-American Business Council), and the communications director for an oil and gas service corporation.

They’re certainly up to snuff on energy literacy, which raises the suspicion that the purpose of Black’s meetings with the elite is to promote the industry and further the development of Alberta’s oilsands.

And the Economic Council of Canada has set up blue ribbon panels of industry insiders and experts to help devise strategies to achieve this goal. The Toronto session in April, for instance included executives from Enbridge and Kinder Morgan along with Brian Tobin, vice-chair of the Bank of Montreal (BMO) and former premier of oil-rich Newfoundland and Labrador.

At that meeting Tobin worried that foreign investment is moving to the United States, where the investment review regime is more “flexible” than Canada’s. And Tobin would know about the problems foreign investors face in Canada: BMO acted as an adviser to China’s state-owned CNOOC in its contentious $15.1-billion takeover of oil and gas producer Nexen in 2013.

Kinder Morgan Canada’s Ian Anderson, who was also on the speaker’s bill, said he couldn’t understand why “a couple of hundred” protestors would want to hold up his company’s plans to build a pipeline under Burnaby Mountain. “Where is this opposition coming from?” he asked his audience. “What fear is motivating it?”

But instead of addressing why so many Canadians fear growing oilsands development, the energy elite, with Black in the vanguard, pushed back.

Advancing “Dialogue” on Energy Future

Black, who is one of Canada’s top oil and gas lawyers, has been immersed in the industry for decades and has many leading oil and gas executives as clients. He’s also a senior Alberta Progressive Conservative fundraiser and the party’s former finance vice-president, and he’s not afraid to admit he represents Big Oil in the Senate.

“One of the reasons I ran for the Senate,” he states on his web site, “was to advance a national dialogue on our energy future.” But is it a monologue rather than a dialogue he’s advancing?

Black heard his clients venting their incredulity over the way the public was showing such intense opposition to energy infrastructure, as Alberta Oil magazine explains. How could the public be so ignorant as to not see the connection between energy development and prosperity, the oil executives demanded to know.

So Black set out the make the connection. In 2009 he co-founded the Energy Policy Institute of Canada (EPIC), an organization with “a singular focus on one task: to draft an energy strategy.” It was almost like a service to his clients and the industry.

This rather benign sounding goal masked the real purpose of the organization, which Linda McQuaig saw as “a lobbying vehicle for dozens of extremely wealthy, powerful fossil fuel companies … all hell-bent on developing Alberta’s tar sands.”

Members included the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, Canadian Gas Association, EnCana, Imperial Oil, Shell Canada, TransCanada Corp., and many others.

Industry Drafting Legislation

The group released its strategy in 2012 after three years of discussions and meetings with various governments and industry interests. It was pooh-poohed by the corporate media, but an analysis by the ForestEthics Advocacy Association reveals that the oil industry — through EPIC — helped write the rules “that now restrict public participation on the environmental impacts of tar sands expansion projects.” ForestEthics documents the profound impact the EPIC report had in at least one crucial area of energy development — government regulation.

EPIC recommended that the “federal government must develop regulations that restrict participation in federal environmental assessment reviews to those parties that are ‘directly and adversely affected’ by the proposal in question.”

It also recommended that “the relevance and credibility of evidence presented for environmental assessments must be explained.” This precise language is now found in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012, on the National Energy Board’s website, and on the National Energy Board Application to Participate Form, ForestEthics notes. It’s just one example of many in the report.

Such a cooperative government response could be due to the efforts of EPIC’s co-chair, Bruce Carson, a long-time Tory insider who had been a senior aide in Harper’s PMO. Carson brought EPIC’s’ document to Nigel Wright, Harper’s chief of staff, who promised to read it “over the weekend” and urged Carson to “feel free to give me a call at any time.”

Carson reported back to Black that he’d briefed Wright, who “seemed generally supportive.”

“Excellent, Need Nigel on side,” Black responded.

A year later, Carson, who earned a $120,000 annual honorarium for his work, was charged with engaging in illegal lobbying and influence peddling, because he broke the five-year ban on lobbying after leaving the government’s employ, among other charges. Meanwhile Black became a senator and took his seat on the Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, where he could continue his work.

He outlined his mission in his maiden speech to the Senate:

All interested parties now agree that on an urgent basis we must find ways to export our energy products and to help educate Canadians about the importance of market access. For success, we need Canadians to accept that their future prosperity depends on our solving this problem. We must ensure that governments and energy producers have the social licence needed to make the critical infrastructure projects.

Black’s History of Industry Lobbying

Black has fronted for Big Oil before. In 2002 he was chief lobbyist for the Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions, a group that appeared on the scene several months before the Jean Chrétien government prepared to ratify the Kyoto Accord. The CCRES was created by Burson-Marsteller, the PR giant that specializes in creating astroturf organizations.

The organization was framed as “a broad cross-section of Canadian industry,” but the money came from Black’s clients in Big Oil. CCRES pulled all the stops in its efforts to derail Kyoto, including expensive saturation TV ads in Ontario. But it couldn’t prevent Chrétien from proceeding with ratification.

Not that it mattered. A decade later, Black’s party was in charge in Ottawa, Kyoto was ancient history, and Black was still furthering Big Oil’s interests, this time by educating Canadians about the need for oil pipelines if we want continued prosperity.

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.

Vancouver city council’s unanimous decision to commit to running on 100 per cent renewable energy is the kind of political leadership the world desperately needs says Jørgen Randers, professor of climate strategy at the Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway.

“Despite the looming catastrophe of climate change the market will choose to do nothing,” Randers said in the keynote speech at the ICLEI World Congress 2015, the triennial sustainability summit of local governments in Seoul, South Korea.

Nor will voluntary actions on climate be enough. Strong legislation, intelligent policy and collective action are the only ways to keep humanity from a nightmare future, said the former business executive who still sits on boards of major corporations.

“It is totally obvious what we should do. And it is only a little more costly.”

However capitalism is exactly the wrong system to deal with a long-term risk like climate change, Randers explained. Capitalism is designed to allocate capital to the most profitable projects and climate action is an additional cost.

Of course, failure to act will be an economic disaster as regions and countries are forced to devote more and more of their capital and labour to coping with climate impacts. Flooding, heat waves, water and food shortages and building defences to buffer those impacts will be very costly, he said.

Randers is a co-author of the landmark 1972 book Limits to Growth, which was updated in 2004. His latest book is 2052 A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years. Based on the latest scientific, economic and other data, 2052 is a real-world look into the next 40 years. It says global CO2 emissions will not begin to decline until 2030 producing a very hot planet 3 to 4 C hotter than today by 2080.

“The climate will just get worse and worse…it will be very unpleasant especially for the poor,” he said.

“There is a strong moral imperative to act on climate,” Andrea Reimer, Vancouver’s deputy mayor, told DeSmog Canada in Seoul.

“There’s also a fantastic economic case. So why shouldn’t Vancouver be a leader on this?” Reimer said.

Andrea Reimer addresses crowd at ICLEI World Congress 2015. Photo: Stephen Leahy

A new study substantiates this. It found that world’s biggest economies could save $520 billion a year if they go 100 per cent renewable. Such a shift would generate three million new jobs.

On March 25, Vancouver voted to make such a shift. More than 90 per cent of the city’s electricity already comes from hydro and shifting to 100 per cent will only take a few years.

Converting all of the cities’ heating and cooling systems will likely take until 2030 or 2035, she said. City staff are working out the details and timelines. Transport will be tougher still, perhaps taking until 2050.

“This could happen sooner with national and provincial government support,” Reimer said. Cities and local governments only get about eight per cent of total taxes paid by Canadians.

Vancouver is one of about 50 cities pioneering the path to a low-carbon future. Others include San Diego and San Francisco in California, Sydney, Australia, and Copenhagen which plans to be carbon neutral by 2025. Nearby Malmo, Sweden, will be 100 per cent renewable for all three sectors — electricity, heating/cooling and transport — by 2030.

Tackling all three sectors at same time works far better than just doing one said Anna Leidreiter, coordinator of the Global 100 per cent RE Alliance — an international alliance of organizations pushing for a shift away from fossil fuels. It is much easier to cope with renewable energy fluctuations and stabilize the grid when heating/cooling and transport are integrated, Leidreiter told DeSmog Canada.

That’s Germany’s approach where more than 80 regions are already 100 per cent renewable and 60 more regions are on their way.

Even Seoul is moving on this. The rapidly growing megacity of 11 million plans to generate 20 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2020 by covering all of its public structures — water treatment plants, subway stations, schools etc. with solar panels.

Another essential policy for effective climate action is a carbon tax that rises to $100 a tonne, Randers said. “Carbon markets will not do it,” he said.

Even Ontario’s recently announced cap and trade market has been criticized by the likes of Canadian economist Jeff Rubin for being too weak to be effective. Cap and trade schemes operating in the European Union’s have also been found to be too complex, costly and ineffective by most analysis. However, even critics will agree a price on carbon is essential for meeting our global emission reductions goals.

British Columbia’s carbon tax shift is widely considered a smart policy and the best of its kind in North America. A 2013 study DeSmog reported on showed the carbon tax has allowed B.C. residents to enjoy the lowest income tax in the country (not Albertans), use the least amount of fuel per person and have arguably the healthiest economy. However, the tax needs improvement. For starters, the rate has been frozen at $30 a tonne since 2012 and there are backwards exemptions for the oil and gas sector.

Ultimately, people and businesses want to live and work in clean and green urban areas. And whoever develops expertise in shifting to 100 per cent renewable energy will own the 21st century, Reimer said.

Image Credit: Bart Speelman via Flickr

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The White House confirmed today that President Obama will veto Congressional legislation designed to greenlight construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, the contentious project first proposed six years ago to carry more than 800,000 barrels per day of Canadian oilsands crude from Alberta to refineries and export facilities along the Gulf of Mexico.

Despite strong indications of support in Congress, the Obama Administration has already indicated it will veto the bill to expedite approval of the $8 billion project if approved. A similar bill was blocked by Democrats in the Senate in November.

“If this bill passes this Congress the president won’t sign it either,” Josh Earnest, White House press secretary, said. Obama rejected TransCanada's application to build the pipeline in 2012, suggesting congressional Republicans had set a "rushed and arbitrary deadline" for the project's approval.

The bill, proposed by Republican Senator John Hoeven from North Dakota and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia, will be debated in a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Wednesday with the panel set to vote on the project Thursday.

“For us to continue to produce more energy and compete in the global market we need more pipelines to move crude at the lowest cost and in the safest, most environmentally friendly way,” Hoeven said in a recent press conference. “That means that pipelines like the Keystone XL are in the vital national interest of our country.”

According to Danielle Droitsch, director of the Canada Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Obama “made the right call.”

“What’s needed now is for him to kill the dirty tar sands pipeline outright,” she said in a statement.

Droitsch said the president is clearly focused on the question of national interest.

“On principle, the president is right to put the national interest first. It’s not the role of Congress to short-circuit the legitimate process of presidential review designed to ensure the best outcome for the country."

She added Keystone XL “would pipe some of the dirtiest oil on the planet through the breadbasket of America so most of it could be shipped overseas. It’s not a plan to help our country. It’s about big profits for big oil – and big pollution for the rest of us.”

The president indicated he will stick to the official pipeline review process and noted an ongoing challenge to the pipeline’s route through Nebraska has yet to be resolved.

In addition to massive public opposition to the pipeline, plummeting oil prices are calling into question both the short and long-term viability of North American oil projects.

As Canadian economist Jeff Rubin recently put it in a Globe and Mail op-ed, the political economy of oil is rapidly changing our relationship with fuel transport infrastructure:

“The first thing Canadians should recognize about the new world order for oil prices is that – contrary to what we’re being told by our federal government – the economy is no longer in dire need of any new pipelines. For that matter, it can live without the new rail terminals being built to move oil as well. Yesterday’s transportation bottlenecks aren’t relevant in today’s marketplace.

At current prices there won’t be any massive expansion of oil sands production because those projects, which would produce some of the world’s most expensive crude, no longer make economic sense.”

Bill co-sponsor Joe Manchin – one of the few Democrats to support the pipeline – said he is encouraged by the fact that the Keystone XL bill is one of the first pieces of legislation this year.

“We have everything to gain by building this pipeline, especially since it would help create thousands of jobs right here at home and limit our dependence on foreign oil,” he said.

Yet to the White House, the move is symbolic of potential discord with the Republican-led Congress.

"Congressional Republicans are well aware of the position of this administration, which is that we believe clearly that this administrative process is the one that should determine the viability of this project and that is a long held view," White House press secretary Earnest said.

"So it may raise questions about the willingness of Republicans to actually cooperate with this administration when you consider that the very first bill that is introduced in U.S. Senate is one that Republicans know the president opposes," he added.

According to The Hill, Hoeven and Manchin already have a plan to push passage of the pipeline legislation later in the year, despite Obama’s veto.

Image Credit: Susan Melkisethian via Flickr

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Over 140 groups, including environmental organizations, unions and freedom of expression advocates have signed a petition urging the Ontario legislature to enact strong legislation to prevent the abuse of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs).

According to a press release from Greenpeace Canada, anti-SLAPP laws have already been implemented in Quebec, a majority of US states (28) and several other countries "to prevent powerful companies and individuals from lodging meritless lawsuits, often for defamation, which are designed not to protect reputation but to silence critics."

These lawsuits "make it more difficult for civil society to act as watchdog of the powerful," curbing freedom of expression by saddling defendants, "often public interest advocacy groups, with with massive legal fees, draining their resources and distracting them from their core work," says Greenpeace.

Shane Moffatt, forest campaigner for Greenpeace Canada, said that "these meritless lawsuits tangle up our courts and waste taxpayers' dollars," and that "it is time to move quickly to protect Ontarians when talking about the issues that matter most to them."

The petition presented to Ontario MPPs has been signed by over 140 groups, including Greenpeace Canada, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Council of Canadians, Marineland Animal Defense, and the Centre for Law and Democracy. The petition expresses concern at the increasing use of SLAPPs and denounces it as a form of "legal harassment" by corporations and governments that is a "growing threat to meaningful citizen participation."

The groups stand behind the right of individuals and organizations "to freely express opinions on issues of public interest, including the future of Canada's forests, without fear of lawsuit."

The petition cites "citizens reporting of environmental violations, filing complaints with government agencies, contacting the media, speaking at public meetings, participating at hearings before administrative tribunals or engaging in public campaigns" as among the activities that provoke SLAPPs.  

"Deep pocketed corporations must be prevented from attacking organizations or individuals with abusive lawsuits to shut down public debate," said Maude Barlow, national chair of the Council of Canadians. "They undermine the court system and impose a chilling effect on public debate."

Several of the groups supporting the petition have been targeted by SLAPPs. Greenpeace Canada is fighting a $7-million defamation lawsuit brought by logging giant Resolute Forest Products, donations towards fighting which can be made online. Marineland Animal Defense founder Dylan Powell is facing a $1.5 million SLAPP from Marineland. Both cases are for engaging in public interest criticism.

The issue of SLAPPs being abused came to prominence in Ontario when Big Bay Point residents were hit with a $3.2 million lawsuit by developers.

"Our organizations play a crucial role in shining a light on issues the public would otherwise never be aware of," said Powell, of Marineland Animal Defense. "Unfortunately, case law offers little protection and this legislative void will be used as leverage until anti-SLAPP legislation exists."

"The need for effective anti-SLAPP laws has been proven around the world," said Toby Mendel, Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Democracy and Annie Game, Executive Director of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. "It is critical that Ontario and other Canadian jurisdictions bring themselves into line with these global developments."

Organizations can sign the petition letter online.

Image Credit: CNW Group / Green News

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.

Ken Wu is executive director of Majority for a Sustainable Society (MASS) and co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance. 

For Part 1 of this article, click here.

In the first part of this article, I described what specific challenges the climate movement faces when confronting its own limiting tendencies as well as industry funded public relations campaigns. In this second part I outline what I think are four essential ways the climate movement must evolve in order to overcome these obstacles.

FIRST, we must become a lot more political, in the sense that it’s fundamentally the laws, policies, and agreements that shape our greater society and economy. And it’s our society and economy which are the foundations of our personal lifestyles. What is available, affordable, practical, and possible in our lifestyles is largely a product of the society in which we live – what clean energy sources exist at what price relative to dirty energy, how available public transit is, how well or poorly our cities are designed for walking, cycling, and accessing our needs, how energy efficient our buildings are, and so on.  

No individual is an island unto himself; the way we live is fundamentally shaped by the economy and society in which our lifestyles are nested.  

Western individualism sees each person as an island divorced from society and economic circumstances. As a result, many North American environmentalists instinctively emphasize efforts towards personal lifestyle purity as a fundamental remedy to environmental problems despite being in a system that, at this time, is based on fossil fuels in almost every regard (hence the need for larger societal change). Needless to say this is a virtually impossible task that plays well into the hands of fossil fuel advocates who are bound to find “inconsistencies” and “hypocrisy” in the personal lifestyles of all those who care about the fate of the planet![view:in_this_series=block_1]   Government regulations that shift our energy choices at their sources, that is, at the point of resource extraction or energy production, from dirty to clean energy, or from low to high energy efficiency in our technologies, will automatically be incorporated into the lifestyles of all consumers, whether or not they are environmental idealists.   In addition, studies show that voluntary or “non-compulsory” methods to reduce carbon emissions have a minor impact and real progress occurs through regulations and tax shifting. If we want to change both corporate and individual behaviour, putting an escalating price on carbon, banning coal-fired plants, and strengthening regulations and standards are vital.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t pursue personal lifestyle reforms – just that if the goal is to actually change the outcome for the climate, the major leaps forward will come through regulations, government policies, and political action.   SECOND, as much as the climate change movement emphasizes the problems, we must also emphasize the solutions and a positive vision of a sustainable, low carbon society. That is, how a low carbon society would support ramped-up green businesses and jobs, create more livable cities, foster greater community, improve our health, support global peace and stability, and sustain the natural diversity and beauty of the planet.    After repeatedly hearing about impending disaster, many people tune out. We can’t psychologically stay in emergency mode forever.  If the “inconvenient truth” is always a negative crisis message, it’ll be easier to hear the “reassuring lies” over the long run. However, if the truth is also a positive alternative vision – that we can have a better quality of life in a sustainable society based on clean energy, efficiency, smart planning and liveable communities – it’s a message most people can stay with and promote. That’s not to downplay the need to get the facts out about the real crisis – just that we must lead our message with positive solutions more often.   THIRD, our positive solutions must emphasize the economy, on how people can make a living. The economy is usually the top concern in public opinion polls, with the environment often lagging far behind except in limited “peak years” like 1990 and 2006. As long as the environmental movement fails to emphasize how people can realistically make a living in lieu of stopping destructive industries, it will stay in the margins, always too weak to transform the status quo. Publicly emphasizing the viability of a clean and efficient economy will help expose the falsehood that there is no practical alternative to fossil fuels, a “fact” often assumed to be true due to the alternative’s lack of exposure.   The basic fact also remains that if we don’t significantly shift our economy towards efficiency and renewables, the factors causing the problems will only continue – that is, our huge appetite for energy and jobs in the absence of clean energy alternatives will ensure that burning fossil fuels will always have the popular support to continue until it triggers runaway global warming.   LASTLY, the climate movement must become broader-based, aiming to mobilize the mainstream public, not just progressives and environmental activists – that is, we must actively engage green businesses, unions, faith groups, scientists, farmers, First Nations, and a larger diversity of ethnic communities, among many others. Small groups of angry “activist superheroes” will not save the planet – only an informed, large-scale movement that represents a majority cross-section of society will have the power to fundamentally change it. This will naturally undermine the fossil fuel advocates’ PR claims that the movement consists primarily of “others” who are different from regular Canadians.   The current climate resurgence will be different than the previous surge in 2006. Movements naturally evolve, and hopefully in a way that allows them to make sufficient inroads to change the fundamental outcomes. In 2013, I believe that we’ll see the return of hope.

For Part 1 of this article, click here.

Image Credit: Ken Wu at McLaughlin Ridge by TJ Watts from Ancient Forest Alliance.

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.

Ken Wu is executive director of Majority for a Sustainable Society (MASS) and co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance. Read Part 2 of this series here.

After years of apathy and political inertia, North America’s climate sustainability movement has found itself in the midst of a timely resurgence, as is evident by the recent massive expansion of Bill Mckibben's 350.org movement against the Keystone XL pipeline.

With climate change regaining its footing as a central political issue, now is the time to pressure governments to enact the needed laws, policies, and agreements required to curtail runaway global warming. But unless the moment is seized right, climate action will be stymied again – and there is no time to wait for another opportunity.

During his State of the Union address on February 12, 2013, US President Barack Obama stated:

"For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change…We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science – and act before it’s too late."   Recent studies project that the Earth’s average temperature is on course to rise over four degrees this century, far beyond the two degree rise when “runaway” global warming kicks-in due to positive feedbacks that make it extremely difficult to halt.

The question now is if the climate movement will grow strong enough, fast enough, to ensure sufficient government regulations, carbon pricing, policies, and international agreements to stop runaway global warming.

[view:in_this_series=block_1]

The climate movement faces two likely obstacles when tackling global warming issues today: PR pushback from the fossil fuels industry and the movement’s own internal shortcomings. Addressing these issues simultaneously will require a broad-based response that coordinates political action, positive solutions and a smart economic emphasis.

Understanding the Obstacles   It’s important to recognize that the climate movement will have to face up to the influence of industry profit. Highly coordinated campaigns designed by Big Oil and their political backers are crafted to influence both public understanding of complex issues as well as policy creation.

Recent research, for example, has uncovered the efforts of the Koch brothers, US oil industry billionaires, to deny the scientific legitimacy of global warming, to dismantle regulatory bodies like the US Environmental Protection Agency, and to paralyze action on climate change at the international level.   In Canada, campaigns like Ethical Oil and the federal government’s depiction of environmentalists as ‘foreign funded’ ‘extremists’ both operate like the larger climate denial machine, which distracts and detracts from fact-based arguments by calling the credibility of environmental organizations, or individuals, into question.

But you’ll also hear a number of other arguments that seem to be becoming standard fare in climate denial or pro-fossil fuel talking points. You’ll hear, for example:

• that fossil fuels are indispensable for a flourishing economy flush with employment opportunities
• that alternative energy, while a worthy ideal, is just not viable
• that putting a price on pollution through mechanisms like a carbon tax would dismantle the economy
• that even the dirtiest fossil fuels in North America, like Alberta's tar sands, are more environmentally and morally superior than conventional oil from other nations with poorer human rights records
• that emerging technologies will make all fossil fuels clean and safe, including coal and bitumen

 

It's along this last point's line of thought, or wishful thinking, that you see the emergence of "clean coal" and "ethical oil," all of which rely more on rhetorical constructions than breakthrough technologies.

Room for Improvement

While the public relations campaigns launched by fossil fuel funds are undermining progress for climate sustainability, the environmental movement’s own entrenched tendencies might be partially to blame.

Some of these limiting tendencies are, for example:

• An underlying emphasis on voluntary, personal lifestyle reforms instead of the primacy of societal change through politics, laws, regulations and policies that reshape our economy, land-use, cities, and infrastructure.
• Being the movement of “no” or “stop”, that is, too much negative emphasis with proportionately less attention to solutions and alternatives.
• An insufficient focus on the economy, on how businesses can flourish and people can have jobs when destructive industries are restricted or phased-out.
• Aiming to mobilize the “same old, same old” minority, the 20% of strong progressives and environmentalists in society – or the minuscule fraction of activists among them.

  Seeing the Way Forward

By surmounting its own limiting tendencies, the movement can counteract many of the fossil fuel industry's PR attacks and also move out of the margins, beyond the turf of mainly environmental idealists and activists, into a force that moves the much larger mainstream public with the power to change the status quo.

To read Ken's thoughts on how the climate movement might evolve to overcome these challenges, stay tuned for Part 2 of this article.

Image Credit: Ken Wu beside a fallen redcedar near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island by TJ Watts from Ancient Forest Alliance.

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 Evangeline Lilly, Canadian actress.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a Canadian actress who has been living abroad in Hawaii for the past ten years. I have been involved in such well-known projects as the television series “Lost”, the indie hit “The Hurt Locker”, the blockbuster film “Real Steel” and the upcoming second and third “Hobbit” films.

To hear Evangeline Lilly tell her story, listen here:

I grew up in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta surrounded on all sides by the never-ending golden fields of wheat that so signify the Canadian prairies. From there my family moved to British Columbia where flat, open plains were replaced with majestic, mountain vistas and beautiful green valleys. Trees, rain, snow, farms, wildlife, snow peaked mountains and insects defined my upbringing.  

From my Grandfather’s homemade cabin in the Gulf Islands to our summers spent camping on the Okanagan Lake, as a Canadian I was always surrounded by natural beauty.

I remember when I was summoned away from Canada. There was a job waiting, it offered a lot of money, and it meant I would move to Hawaii…Hawaii: paradise. If you know anything about my history, you’ll know that that job was my role as “Kate” on the television series Lost and you’ll know that I took it and left Canada…never to move back.  

So now, I have been living in “paradise” for ten years. Do I miss home? Always. Every day that I’m gone. Because, you see, being Canadian is in my bones, it’s an identity that I can’t and don’t want to escape. Tropical beaches with turquoise waters are beautiful, but my heart wells and my soul sings when I see pine tree covered mountains and stretches of interminable deciduous forests.

I am Canadian. I can’t help myself. Beavers, and moose, and bears, and squirrels all make me feel proud. Snow, and ice, and lakes, and rivers are all a part of me. The Rockies, Niagara, the Great North, and Hudson’s Bay are symbols of who I am. Rosy cheeks, frostbite, neighbours, and hard work are all a part of my Canadian identity.

When I think of home, I think of the wilderness. Canada is one of the last natural expanses left on planet earth, but right now, that vestige is being seriously threatened.  

The tar sands in Alberta, the construction of new pipelines, the industrial abuse of clean water, the elimination of environmental laws and mistreatment of First Nations peoples are some of the greatest threats to our identity as Canadians. We are known as harmonious people: living in harmony with ourselves, with the rest of the world, and with nature.  

But our response to these issues has not been in keeping with that reputation. In a time when the world needs to band together in order to learn how to live in harmony with nature, I would have expected Canada to be leading the charge, but we’re not.  

Preserving nature in Canada is not just about Global Warming – it’s about preserving our heritage, our history, and our harmony: our identity.

Will you stand against the damages being done to our wilderness? Will you stand up for nature because as a Canadian, nature has shaped you?  

I am Evangeline Lilly and I am Canadian. What are you?

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 post is second in a series on the Canada-China Investment "Straitjacket:" Exclusive Interview with Gus Van Harten. You can read Part 1 here and Part 3 here.

Right now Canadians stare down the barrel of a 31-year long legal trade agreement with the Chinese government that did not become public knowledge until September 26, 2012.

The trade treaty, known as the Foreign Investment Protection Agreement or FIPA, has garnered notable opposition in the past three weeks, with NDP trade critic Don Davies calling for public hearings, Green Party MP Elizabeth May calling for an emergency Parliamentary debate, and campaign organizations Leadnow.ca and SumofUs.org gathering over 39,300 opposition signatures (and counting) to deliver in person to Ottawa.

Yesterday, the Canadian Press reported the Harper government's refusal to host public hearings. Elizabeth May's October 1 request was also denied on the grounds that FIPA does not meet the test of emergency.

The trade agreement, or treaty, as it is called, is slated for ratification at the end of this month. The Commons trade committee will be briefed on the document in a one hour hearing.

With a trade deal that threatens Canadian sovereignty looming on the horizon and a government committed to expediting its approval, DeSmog caught up with trade investment lawyer and Osgoode professor Gus Van Harten to talk through some of the details.

In this segment Van Harten discusses why the Canadian government would pursue a deal of this sort, outlining the implications of the agreement for environmental legislation in Canada and development in the tar sands, especially in light of the spring's Omnibus budget bill C-38.

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Van Harten also considers the implications of the trade agreement for undecided energy projects like the Northern Gateway Pipeline and, significantly, if first nations and environmental groups were to blockade projects of this sort – who's rights the government would be obliged to protect. 

Below is Part 2 of our interview:

Carol Linnitt: As you have described it, it doesn't seem to make much sense for Canada to sign this agreement.

Gus Van Harten: I can tell you – trying to think about why the government would sign the China-Canada deal – it’s very unfavourable to Canada because of the way in which, as I was saying earlier, we have an open economy and China’s is closed, so the deal really, in fact appears likely to benefit Chinese investors far more than Canadian investors in China, because there will just be more Chinese investment here, because we’ve allowed more in. But I was trying to think why the government might do it, well I thought of different reasons, one might be that they sort of want to score the political bragging rights, of, ‘we signed the deal’, which is, you know, very short sighted, but sometimes governments are kind of shallow like that.

Another explanation would be that they want to open up the economy to this investment, and so that shareholders in Canadian companies in the oil patch can sell their shares at a premium to the Chinese, and get that benefit.

But another more troubling explanation which would require greater sophistication by the government but is not – certainly shouldn’t be ruled out – is that they foresee changes in attitudes about the oil patch, in the United States, in Canada, and that this may lead to new regulations on the oil patch, in that, climate can’t just be wished away forever, and that governments might take steps to regulate the oil patch in ways that investors wouldn’t like.

If you bring in a lot of Chinese investments, and you sign the Canada investment deal, you kind of get the Chinese investors to do your dirty work for you, for years after the current government is gone, because the Chinese investors can beat up on new governments that actually do take steps to change the balance between the investor rights in the oil patch and the general interest in addressing climate change or other issues like pollution and so on.

CL: Wow.

GVH: So that’s probably the most troubling aspect, is that this is designed to be a straitjacket, and it will have effect on Chinese investments that have been let in for the next 31 years after the deal’s been signed. Because the deal has a 15 year term, you have to give another year’s notice to terminate the deal and then after it’s terminated it still applies for another 15 years for investments that are in the country at the time of termination.

CL: So you’re saying that this deal has an active shelf life of 15 years, but stays in effect for 31 years?

GVH: Yes, the treaty does, meaning the treaty will be available to protect Chinese investors, including not just the Nexen investors, if they’re allowed to buy Nexen, but any other Chinese investors who come into the oil patch. I don’t think the government wants to see the whole oil patch Chinese owned, but I think it’s quite likely we’ll see significant portions of it Chinese owned, and once significant portions are Chinese owned, the you’ve also given lawyers who work for the Chinese investors this powerful tool to beat up on governments anywhere in Canada, you really frustrate the ability of Canadians to elect governments that are going to get more serious about the environmental consequences of the oil patch. That will be for 31 years from the date of this deal coming into effect, which is right now forecast to be about a two weeks away.

CL: And what’s the significance of that for, say, something like the northern gateway pipeline project that’s still in decision process?

GVH: Well, I mean, first of all, if that pipeline is owned, if foreign investors are spending money in relation to the proposed pipeline, then they right there could conceivably use the China-Canada deal to object to decisions taken by Canada, for example the British Columbian government, in objection to the pipeline. So the BC government may say ‘we don’t like the deal for the pipeline, we won’t supply electricity to it,’ well if they did that and the pipeline had Chinese money in it, the Chinese investors could say ‘you are discriminating against us, you don’t treat other investors in pipelines the same way in BC, so why are you discriminating with this pipeline, you’re not allowed to do it, and any money we lose as a result, you have to compensate us. You, Canada.’

And that’s not just the money that they put into the pipelines, they that’s their lost profits, that’s the money that otherwise reasonably would have earned, had this pipeline gone forward.

CL: I’m thinking about how tenuous the situation has already become in terms of environmental regulations after the Omnibus budget bill was passed and we saw a severe weakening of our environmental reviews and assessments and regulations. In effect the Harper government has instituted this new legal framework in which our pre-existing environmental laws have been weakened, gutted and now we are introducing this new 'straitjacket' to maintain those laws because of the possible difficulty of ever reinstituting them in stronger ways.

GVH: Yes, exactly, and let me spell it out very precisely. In many cases the arbitrators have allowed the investors to argue under the treaties that their treatment by the government was unfair and inequitable, if the government did not provide a stable regulatory framework. So if the regulatory framework is in a particular state, let’s say its currently denuded state because of the changes in the spring budget to environmental legislation, investors from China now say ‘well, we’re going to invest now because we don’t think any of our projects will be subject to environmental assessments and fisheries act regulations’, and so on. A new government comes in when the projects are underway, and says, ‘well actually we’re putting the laws back in place’. The Chinese investor can then say 'ah, but you can’t because we made our investments based on an expectation that there was a stable regulatory framework and that the previous government promised us that that regulatory framework would be stable’.

And so you can’t change the laws so easily. I’m not saying that the arbitrators necessarily would, but many have, interpreted the treaties broadly enough to allow the Chinese investors to receiver full market compensation in those circumstances from the new government due to a change in the regulatory framework. And, in a way, some of the things that the Harper government has done, I understand second hand – but have not confirmed this myself – that one of the ministers, I think Joe Oliver, had said at press conferences that they were changing the environmental laws because that’s what the investors wanted. If he did in fact say something along these lines, the he could have done nothing more to feed the arguments to the  investors’ lawyers down the road, if a new government decided to put the laws back in place. Because Chinese investors would be able to point specifically to his statements, which would be statements on behalf of Canada, that Canada was prepared to remove its environmental laws in order to bring in Chinese investment because that’s what investors wanted. It almost becomes part of the deal. A new government can reverse that decision, but they will have to pay for it.

CL: Well, that is astounding to hear.

GVH: Yeah, it’s kind of disheartening to those who care about, let’s say, protecting the environment for future generations. But on the other hand, the system has invoked very strong reactions by some countries, and increasingly governments that don’t put investor rights ahead of the rights and interests of everyone else are taking steps to unplug the system as best they can. But the decision to allow the China-Canada investment deal to come into effect will have the greatest impact on Canada’s ability to take sovereign decision with respect to its resource sector since any treaty we have signed since NAFTA. And it is comparable to NAFTA in terms of the effect that it will have. Yet it does not allow any access by Canadian exporters to the Chinese market, unlike NAFTA for the U.S. market. For this reason, it seems to be just a very lopsided deal for Canada.

CL: And this is why the conversation that you see coming, even from conservatives, expressing concerns about the fact that China is not a benevolent nation, that this is why that statement is so significant. They’re not talking about whether these are nice guys or not. This is a much more meaningful and significant thing to say about a county like China when you’re preparing to engage in this kind of deal.

GVH: Well let me give you another example. Under the treaties investors are entitled to something called ‘full protection and security’. Now what that has been interpreted by arbitrators in some cases to mean, among other things, that the government has to protect the investors’ property, assets, from public opposition and public protest. So let’s imagine that there are blockades of the pipeline as it’s being built through British Columbia, let’s say by native groups and by environmentalists. The Chinese will have an expectation, backed by the treaty, that the Canadian government through its police, through the courts, will take strong steps to protect the Chinese investors’ business plans from public opposition.

Now, sometimes public protests in opposition to foreign investments in other countries, I’m thinking in particular of a couple of cases in Latin America, one involving oil drilling in the Amazon by Texaco and then Chevron, and the other involving the disputes over a privatised water system in a city in Bolivia, some of those protests have actually led to violence, people have died, and that becomes part of the context for the arbitrators deciding whether the governments’ protection of the investor were sufficient. So it’s a concern, and I think it’s fair to say the Chinese investors may have a different view of how to handle that kind of situation from what we’re used to in Canada.

CL: And suddenly the onus is placed on the federal government to uphold this agreement, and their loyalty will in some sense be split between preserving this agreement that they have with the company and also protecting the rights of the citizens.

GVH: Yes, exact. So the question that the government will now have to face is, how is it going to balance its obligations to respect Canadian democratic protests, including when it’s actually effective in frustrating a pipeline, to balance that against its new obligations to provide full protection and security, backed by a very powerful international arbitration process, which tends often to favour the investors in its legal approach, and to provide that full protection and security under the treaty to Chinese investors. That’s the question the government will now have presented for itself.

[END OF INTERVIEW PART 2]

Gus Van Harten has written extensively on foreign investment deals. His research is freely available on the Social Science Research Network and International Investment Arbitration and Public Policy website.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of my interviews with Gus Van Harten.

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