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.

Now 79, David Anderson has been fighting to prevent oil tankers on the coast of British Columbia since he was first elected 48 years ago. In the early 1970s, he was the architect of an inside passage tanker moratorium and a number of other restrictions on B.C. offshore drilling and tanker exports imposed by then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau — which may or may not still exist. Anderson would go on to serve as federal Minister of Environment under Jean Chretien, after a stint in provincial politics, including as leader of the provincial Liberal party. Anderson left politics in 2006, but has remained a steadfast advocate for the coast he loves.

The following interview was conducted on November 15, 2016, weeks before the federal Liberals announced a north coast crude tanker ban and approved the expansion of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline. It has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.

Christopher Pollon: There has been a lot of confusion about the restrictions on oil and gas drilling and tankers that were created back in the early 1970s, and the current status of those. What is the history of this?

David Anderson: [Those restrictions] were put in place in 1971. I guess you could say I was the instigator.

I went to Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and he agreed in 1970, when the Alaska pipeline battle was going full bore, that we should put a moratorium on offshore drilling. At this time [British Columbia] had 28 wells drilled at sea off the west coast of Vancouver Island and in Hecate Strait. The safety record for drilling and tankers was abysmal then — it has improved, so it has gone from dismal to bad.

Trudeau was concerned about that and the Alaska traffic [from tankers carrying Alaska oil to the lower 48]. The most likely route was the inside passage down to somewhere in Puget Sound. And that clearly was a major risk, to have tankers plying the inside passage, so Canada was determined to get them on the outside coast in the open ocean, where in fact if there were an incident, it wouldn't be like the Exxon Valdez or the Queen of the North. It would at least be a ship in trouble, with the opportunity perhaps of getting a tug out there to help it out. Also, if you have an open ocean spill, you are less likely to foul the coast.

The idea was that we were trying to prevent tanker traffic in the inside passage, and Trudeau was persuaded. He was quite an environmentalist — and I mean Pierre Elliott Trudeau — and he was persuaded. He put a moratorium on the drilling because drilling licenses require you to do so much work in a certain time period to hold the license. He said no, we'll waive that and put a moratorium on any work. So, [oil companies like Chevron] didn't lose their licenses, they are still valid out on the west coast. But 1971 was the year that they ceased to be operational.

CP: What about on the south coast?

DA: At that point we already had tanker traffic going out of Vancouver from Trans Mountain…I think most of it went to California, which is sort of ironic because we used to get entirely supplied by California a few decades before Alberta oil started to flow.

So what Prime Minister Trudeau did at that time, he said, 'we'll cap the exports at their present level.' The issue, of course, was if you take away somebody's business, they're entitled to compensation.

And also there was the issue of inconsistency with respect to refined products. We had refined products going to a lot of coastal communities, to Vancouver Island, obviously by sea. But the basic concern was that we would be in protracted negotiations and/or litigation with Trans Mountain, if we took away their export market. So what we did, we froze the level, and said, you can carry on doing what you're doing now, but we're not letting you expand.

CP: Were these restrictions made into law?

DA: It was informal. It was never formalized by an order in council. Neither of these things were formalized by order in council. And what Justin Trudeau is now planning on doing is at least formalizing the northern ban on tanker traffic, crude oil movements in northern British Columbia waters.

CP: So for the south coast, there was a restriction created for how much Trans Mountain can move?

DA: Absolutely.

CP: So, does any of this apply now? Or did these non-formalized directives die when that Prime Minister left office?

DA: Well, I can't answer that definitively; it would take a constitutional lawyer. But I guess you'd have to say that anybody can put in a proposal to be analyzed for moving oil. The National Energy Board has its methods of evaluating, and the government has its methods of evaluating proposals.

But there was in place the knowledge that it was government policy to prevent exports exceeding the level that they were at in 1971. So if you could persuade the government that its policy was wrong, then you could perhaps get a permit to increase the level.

CP: So has Kinder Morgan specifically addressed or challenged this export cap on the south coast?

DA: No, what they've said is, it doesn't exist because it was not formalized in an order in council or law.

CP: I wanted to ask you what the federal government’s perception of this moratorium has been, and the provincial government, for that matter, as well. My understanding is that the original moratorium restricted oil and gas exploration and development on the inside coastal seabed, and it barred Alaska-bound oil tankers from the Dickson Entrance, Hecate Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound. 

DA: Well, there's another wrinkle to this thing. The Americans have the right to use the inside passage to connect two states: Washington and Alaska. We do not have full jurisdiction when you have a sea route between two states, even though it passes through Canadian internal waters.

We had to persuade the Americans to go offshore, and that's why we got Trudeau so interested. He didn't want to have the inside passage used for this major expansion in Alaska oil traffic. Two million barrels a day, that's a lot of oil moved south. 

CP: So the two million a day was from what source?

DA: Alaska, from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, and then onward from Valdez by tanker. 

It's now down to about a fifth of that I think. It's way down. Production has dropped off in Alaska, as the field was exhausted.  

CP: What was the dynamic at the time with the Americans, were they resistant to moving the tankers to the outside waters? 

DA: We had to persuade the Americans, because technically, as far as I could see, they had the right to take a route between the two American states which we had agreed to in the various border agreements that took place about the turn of the century.

They also had the right that comes with having the world's largest navy, the right of superior power. So we had to persuade them. Now, to persuade them to get offshore, we had to be consistent. And you couldn't be consistent if you were allowing drilling [in B.C. waters]. And you couldn't be consistent if you were allowing Canadian exports.

CP: What is the best course for the current Prime Minister if he is sincere about wanting to protect the coast?

DA: The first thing is to do a proper analysis of coastal risks. We have never had anything, except for the Thompson inquiry in the 80s, where you looked at the whole coast and said, which areas are the lowest risk?

We've always just responded to company proposals such as the Enbridge [Northern Gateway] one, or the Kinder Morgan one.

We've never done a systematic evaluation of the safest place to put a port. And actually, in my view, the safest place is probably on the north coast, a place like Port Edwards. But, I'm sure you haven't heard very much about Port Edwards. It's got the least obstruction from port to open ocean, the shortest distance from port to open ocean, and so it may be the safest. I use that just as an example.

Or take Kinder Morgan. If their proposal moved to Roberts Bank, the risk of a shipping accident declines dramatically. Why? Because their current proposal means taking a tanker a day out through Second Narrows, under the bridges and out with all the traffic coming into Vancouver harbour.

Tugboat people say 'no problem, we'll just handle it with tugs,' but a tug can't stop a loaded tanker. The inertia of such a vessel is so extraordinarily high, the energy represented by its weight times the speed, it's not possible for tugs to turn it on a dime.

So even shifting the terminal of the pipe from Burnaby to Tsawwassen will reduce your tanker risk of an accident at the terminal dramatically. Nobody has done this comparative analysis of these various sites. Nobody has said well, 'to really be safer we might want to go down to Cherry Point,' which is [nearby in] Washington state, where we may get greater safety of shipping, because that's the terminal that's been used for Alaskan oil for the last 30 or 40 years.

Or maybe we should build a terminal out at Port Angeles, out in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, as far out to the ocean as we can, on the grounds that the closer to the ocean, the fewer obstacles in the way.

So if I have one piece of advice to Trudeau, this being Justin Trudeau, for God's sake, start doing some systematic risk analysis of where we can have the safest system!

The second advice to him is to basically acknowledge, 'my father knew something that I think I should pay attention to. He was a smart man. He put in a ban on the north coast, and he put in a moratorium, or at least, a grandfathering [export] cap on the south coast. I should look very carefully before I change my father's policies.'

It's his dad that did it, and his dad did it for good reasons.

CP: What do you make of the whole Trump factor, and the prospects of the Keystone XL pipeline being back on the table?

DA: That has turned everything on its head. You don't need Kinder Morgan now to expand the tar sands in Alberta.

By the way, Kinder Morgan, Keystone XL, Energy East and Enbridge, all four of them were designed to expand what they're doing on the tar sands today. It's not to maintain market, to keep things going at the current level. It's to expand it.

That's a very questionable proposition. We know this source of oil is heavy in emissions, and we know that in future we're going to have to cut down on emissions, so if we're going to take the Prime Minister seriously on emission reduction, you're going to have to find even larger cutbacks elsewhere.

So, this expansion concept has to be analyzed. Most people think that, well, we're doing this to give a market for Albertan oil, because they think somehow or another we've lost markets. We haven't lost existing markets. And when the industry is pressed on this they say, oh we don't get a good price in the states, they're bad customers. Well, we get the price the industry negotiated. If they're incompetent in handling the business, you know, please will they bite the bullet and resign!

CP: How does it feel to see many of these issues unresolved today, given that they had been addressed so long ago?

DA: I've been fighting oil on the coast since I was first elected 48 years ago. And it's the same irritating business: you're not getting coherent, logical decision making, we're responding to companies without picking the best place, and we're making decisions on the fly based on politics in Alberta rather than on economic and environmental considerations.

Trudeau has admitted…the NEB evaluation system is flawed, and yet he's not repaired it.

He's said that we have climate change as the biggest issue we're facing, and yet he doesn't have climate change worked into this major increase in emissions that the Kinder Morgan proposal represents.

There's a whole pile of illogical aspects that irritate me enormously. 

Image: Tankers and cargo ships near Vancouver B.C. Photo: Ari Fester via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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.