The beginning of December has been chosen by significant opinion leaders to address us about climate change.
December decisions
Pope Francis calls on COP 25 leaders in Madrid to show political will to safeguard healthy planet.
new commentary on Pope Francis's encyclical
“We must seriously ask ourselves if there is the political will to allocate with honesty, responsibility and courage, more human, financial and technological resources [to the climate crisis],” he said, in the pontifical message, which was welcomed by activists.
“Numerous studies tell us it is still possible to limit global warming. To do this we need a clear, far-sighted and strong political will, set on pursuing a new course that aims at refocusing financial and economic investments toward those areas that truly safeguard the conditions of a life worthy of humanity on a healthy planet for today and tomorrow.” He put particular emphasis on the role of young people, who “show a heightened sensitivity to the complex problems that arise from this emergency. We must not place the burden on the next generations to take on the problems caused by the previous ones.”1
Twenty-six CEOs and civil society leaders in Canada have sent a letter to First Ministers to tell Prime Minister and Premiers “time is now” for implementing a clean economy. Building a low carbon, high performance economy is a vital environmental responsibility. It is also a major economic opportunity for all sectors and regions of the country.
Transition Opportunities
As a diverse group of leaders from business, labour, youth, Indigenous and environmental organizations across Canada, we believe the time for us to capture this economic and environmental opportunity is now.
The evidence and the urgency for seizing this opportunity is all around us. Globally, the transition to a clean economy is estimated to be worth $26 trillion and 65 million new jobs by 2030. This will create opportunities in all sectors. Canada’s cleantech sector can tap into a growing global market set to double in the next five years. And boosting innovation and efficiency in the resource and energy sectors – in which Canada has great strengths – represents a $3.6 trillion opportunity by 2030. Becoming a leader in clean performance and innovation will strengthen our competitiveness, attract capital, generate good jobs, and improve Canadians’ quality of life – as summarized in a new report released today by Smart Prosperity Institute, entitled “8 Reasons for Canada to Transition to a Clean Economy Now”. Canada is well positioned to seize these opportunities. We have a highly skilled work force, strong entrepreneurs and innovators, world-class financial institutions, proven economic strengths in many sectors, and a population that is ready to act for a cleaner, better future. And we have already started. All around us we can see a shift towards emissions-free vehicles, greener energy, cleaner industrial production, and smarter, more efficient buildings.2
The threadbare climate and environment policies of Doug Ford’s Ontario government are insufficient to meet Ontario’s 2030 emission reduction targets and are riddled with errors and omissions, according to the province’s fiscal watchdog.
“Our audit concluded that the emission-reduction estimates in the plan are not based on sound evidence or sufficient detail,” Lysyk said in her 2019 annual report, which was released on Wednesday. Ford’s government moved to scrap the prior Liberal government’s cap and trade program, which was raising almost $2 billion a year, and began dismantling the broader climate action plan it funded within days after forming government following the provincial election held on June 7 last year.3
The expert advice calls us to seize the opportunity to attack the climate emergency with realistic action now!
President Hilda Heine said the Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands had been fighting rising tides even before last week's disaster when powerful swells averaging 5m (16ft) washed across the capital of the Marshall Islands, Majuro.
Sea level rise in Nova Scotia
Political leaders and climate diplomats are meeting in Madrid for two weeks of talks amid a growing sense of crisis. The world's average surface temperature is rising rapidly because human activities release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2). These gases trap heat in the atmosphere, a bit like the glass roof of a greenhouse. At the meeting, Ms Heine commented: "Water covers much of our land at one or other point of the year as we fight rising tides. As we speak hundreds of people have evacuated their homes after large waves caused the ocean to inundate parts of our capital in Majuro last week." She added: "It's a fight to the death for anyone not prepared to flee. As a nation we refuse to flee. But we also refuse to die."1
Yamide Dagnet Yamide Dagnet, David Waskow, Christina Chan, Joe Thwaites, Kelly Levin and Nathan Cogswell report on the priorities at COP25 that will provide some hope for situations like that in the Marshall Islands. The world must continue to build momentum ahead of 2020 so that all countries offer more ambitious national climate commitments next year. Spain and Chile have demonstrated a “can-do” approach to the climate challenge that should inspire the world and shape what is accomplished at COP25.
Here are four key tasks for countries at COP25: 1. Step up ambition.
COP25 will be a moment to highlight those who are clearly ready to enhance their commitments and shine a spotlight on what’s needed from others next year.
2. Make progress on outstanding rules. Parties will also discuss the scope and amount of proceeds from carbon trading that will be set aside to assist vulnerable developing countries to help them adapt to a changing climate. Agreeing to weak or bad rules to meet an artificial deadline could do more damage in undermining climate ambition than delaying the rules another year.
3. Assess Loss and Damage. Parties will no doubt pay particular attention to how the WIM has, over the past six years, enhanced action and support for averting, reducing and addressing loss and damage associated with the impacts of climate change — and what can be done to strengthen this particular function of the WIM, (Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage) including through the possible establishment of a taskforce on loss and damage finance.
4. Advance finance and capacity-building. Developing countries — particularly those most vulnerable to climate change — cannot step up climate action without financial support from developed ones. So far, 28 countries have confirmed $9.7 billion in pledges to the Green Climate Fund’s replenishment; 12 of those countries have at least doubled their contributions compared to 2014. This is a positive step, but many more countries should contribute, including Australia, the United States and wealthy oil-producing states.2
Climate Analytics is a non-profit climate science and policy institute based in Berlin, Germany, with offices in New York, USA, Lomé, Togo and Perth, Australia, which brings together interdisciplinary expertise in the scientific and policy aspects of climate change. Climate Analytics aims to synthesise and advance scientific knowledge in the area of climate, and by linking scientific and policy analysis provide state-of-the-art solutions to global and national climate change policy challenges. There is no single, agreed framework on what is a fair contribution to global efforts. Assessing what is fair depends on the viewpoint and interests of governments.
Each category puts an emphasis on one particular aspect of effort-sharing and can therefore result in (very) different outcomes from the other categories: Responsibility: emissions reductions below a reference are determined by the level of a country’s historical emissions. This was first proposed by Brazil in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations (UNFCCC, 1997)
Capability/Need: emissions reductions below a reference are determined by a country’s level of economic capability, often measured by GDP/capita or the Human Development Index.
Equality: emissions per capita converge to, or immediately reach, the same level for all countries, e.g. (Chakravarty et al., 2009; GCI, 2005)
Equal cumulative per capita emissions: emissions need to be reduced so that cumulative emissions per capita reach the same level, e.g. (Pan, Teng, & Wang, 2013; WBGU, 2009)
Responsibility/capability/need: a range of studies have explicitly used responsibility and capability as the basis for distributing emissions reductions e.g. (Paul Baer, Athanasiou, Kartha, & Kemp-Benedict, 2009; Winkler, Jayaraman, et al., 2011)
Capability/cost: a range of studies use equal costs or welfare loss per GDP as a basis. This is essentially a combination of mitigation potential and capability.
Staged: a suite of studies have proposed or have analysed approaches where countries take differentiated commitments in various stages. Categorisation to a stage and the respective commitments are determined by indicators using many equity principles, e.g.(Michel G J den Elzen & Meinshausen, 2005; Höhne, Gardiner, Gilbert, Hagemann, & Moltmann, 2008).3
Many consider it fair that those who have made a bigger contribution to the problem - or have a higher capability to act - do more.
Framework on what is a fair contribution
Others argue that purely economic metrics should be applied with emission reductions made where they are cheapest.
Canada needs more contribution
The CBC reports that more than 130 people — many of whom were former oil and gas workers — attended a full-day conference organized by the GoldMind Project focused on how to enter the renewable energy industry. Oil and gas engineer Bryan Hnatiuk, who was laid off five years ago, was one of them. "I just don't know where the opportunities are, and that's why I'm here today," he said. Solas Energy Consulting managing director Paula McGarrigle made the jump from oil and gas to renewables two decades ago, first helping Suncor, then Shell transition to some green projects.
McGarrigle said renewables are a smaller sector than oil and gas, and highly competitive. But also, for those looking to leave oil and gas, the skills are highly transferrable."It still has land acquisition, commercial contracts, stakeholder consultations … all of those key developments are the same," she said.The biggest difference, she said, is that the industry is leaner and has a quicker turnaround — so workers often find themselves working on multiple solar or wind projects across multiple jurisdictions.If you're looking for work in Alberta, you're not alone — so here's some helpAlison Pulvernacher, GoldMind's vice president and one of the cofounders, said the organization was started as oil and gas workers were contending with whether or not the industry would rebound after the downturn a few years ago [4]
Canadian technical expertise developed in the oil and gas industries may be an excellent way for this country to assist developing countries and large emitting countries in taking action to reduce GHG emissions and engineer mitigation projects where damage is already occurring.
Aaron Wherry comments that for better or worse, Trudeau's next 4 years are going to be about climate change.
Canada addresses the climate
It was the sleeper issue of the election campaign - and it's driving a wedge between East and West.
Though his party's own share of the vote was reduced, Trudeau has latched on to the fact that nearly two-thirds of voters cast ballots for candidates whose parties promised a price on carbon and a concerted effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change remains the major policy fault line between Liberals and Conservatives, and it offers Trudeau a path forward as he tries to maintain support for his government in the House of Commons. It is also, underneath all the sound and fury, the most significant point of tension between Ottawa and the West. The Trudeau government was the first federal government to make meaningful progress toward reducing Canada's carbon emissions and the Liberals became just the second government in Canada — after Gordon Campbell's provincial Liberal government in B.C. in 2009 — to be re-elected while promising a tax on carbon emissions. Trudeau's reward is a chance to keep pushing the transition, with all the tension and pressure that entails. However he chooses to move forward, whoever he decides to surround himself with, he is likely to be defined by his success or failure in the pursuit of a low-carbon future.1
Cristine Russell notes that the scientists have been warning about severe global impacts from climate change for more than three decades.
A balance for life
But over the past 12 months those warnings have intensified. Reports detailing the massive environmental, economic, and human consequences of unfettered global warming have come at a fast and furious pace. And, collectively, they are far scarier than the sum of their parts.
The deluge began last October, with the release of a special report from the United Nations’ global climate science authority, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on the potential impacts of a rise in global temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius or more. Three international IPCC working groups with 91 authors and editors from 40 countries examined 6,000-plus scientific studies and called for “global carbon dioxide emissions (to) start to decline well before 2030” to avoid the most severe consequences of global warming. It said “global warming is likely to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate.” The release of the report provided a “breakthrough” moment in public consciousness and press coverage, with countless soundbites, headlines, and images warning of a “12-year” deadline to head off “climate change catastrophe.” The “12-year” catchphrase was even more alarming than the IPCC’s already strong admonitions. The planet won’t implode in 2030, but further delays in major global actions will make it increasingly difficult to move to a low-carbon world... In November, the United States’ Fourth National Climate Assessment, produced by government and outside experts, reinforced the gloom-and-doom message of the October IPCC report. “Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth,” it warned. The Trump administration’s attempt to minimize media coverage of America’s climate report card by releasing it on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, backfired: The congressionally mandated report got double coverage as both an environmental and a political story So, where does this leave us? I’d argue that, more than anything, we’re left with a heightened sense of urgency, as well as uncertainty, about immediate and forthcoming climate dangers. For many years, coverage of climate science reports had an implicit future tense, as in, “It’s a problem for your grandchildren.” Alas, the future came faster than science had predicted, and the world is now confronted with the reality of climate change-related extreme weather events and other threats. The frightening wildfires now racing through Southern and Northern California show what this climate-related new reality looks like for the country’s most populous state....2
A CBC Ideas presentation featuring mathematician and philosopher David Schweickart considers how rethinking capitalism may save the planet.
The political climate in Canada for the Trudeau minority government will require a rethinking of our path that currently s moving away from our commitments to reduce GHG emissions.
