Last month, Canada officially committed to slashing its carbon emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 as part of the landmark Paris Agreement. Now, the rubber hits the road.
Four panelists tackled the question of making Canada’s climate commitments a reality at an event held by Liberal MP Joyce Murray in her Vancouver riding April 30.
The town hall was one of several held around the country on implementing Canada’s post-Paris climate policy. The panelists included UBC political scientist and forestry professor George Hoberg, Clean Energy Canada’s Jeremy Moorhouse, former head of the BC Climate Action Secretariat Graham Whitmarsh and UBC forestry professor Sally Aitken.
Aitken said the town hall, attended by around 100 people, underscored the “atmosphere of optimism” since Canada signed the Paris Agreement April 22.
“Of course new technologies are going to make some of these things (climate goals) achievable faster,” Aitken said in an interview with Clean Capital. “But even with today’s technology, there’s so much we can do.”
Aitken, who is director of UBC’s Centre for Forest Conservation Genetics, served on the science committee of the Sustainable Canada Dialogues, which produced a report late last year with ten recommendations on quickly reducing Canada’s carbon output.
The recommendations include adopting a national carbon tax or cap and trade program, eliminating direct and indirect subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, integrating Canada’s electricity grid to allow for power sales from hydroelectric-rich provinces, “safeguarding” biodiversity and overhauling local planning with sustainability in mind.
“There are a whole bunch of things we can do now, which was the whole point of the Sustainable Canada Dialogues,” she said. “What we need is policy. We need policy with teeth to get moving towards these solutions that are available to us.”
Hoberg agreed that carbon pricing will be a key mechanism in driving the shift from fossil fuels.
“The political challenge with carbon pricing is that politicians might balk at the level of prices necessary to get the reductions we need,” he said in an email, adding truly effective carbon taxes will have to be “in the hundreds of dollars.”
“Emissions can also be controlled by regulations, for example banning the use of coal for electricity generation, or requiring that all new building are net zero energy users,” Hoberg said. “Regulations can be very effective. They won’t be as cost-effective, but if they are more politically palatable it might be worth sacrificing some efficiency to get the job done.”
He said public events like the one held April 30 are key in pushing politicians to follow through with climate commitments.
“Politicians won’t act unless they believe that citizens will either support or at least tolerate the changes required to transform to clean energy,” he said. “Getting citizens involved in learning about the energy system and designing solutions to the clean energy transition would likely increase public support for the transition. That would be an important signal to politicians.”
By Jonny Wakefield, May 12, 2016