Climate change is rapid change with the Freeland doctrine.

Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s minister of finance and deputy prime minister, and Danielle Smith,  premier of Alberta, may have to accommodate rapid change in energy politics in the opinion of Max Fawcett writing in the National Observer.

Oil and gas in decline

That future is being rapidly rewritten, not just by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the impact it’s having on energy prices but also OPEC’s recent decision to cut oil production against the wishes of the United States and other energy importers. “In its support of Russia’s request for production cuts, OPEC casts itself in a role that will hasten its own demise,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, a professor in the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. “Anyone who can move away from oil will — national governments, businesses, cities, consumers. OPEC’s actions are simply a nail in a coffin that was already being built.”(Fawcett, 2022)

Global responsibility and long term prosperity in Canada may be coming together through widespread adoption of alternative energy options even in Alberta.

References

Fawcett, M. (2022, October 14). The 'Freeland doctrine' will be grist for Danielle Smith. National Observer. Retrieved October 15, 2022, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/10/14/opinion/freeland-doctrine-will-be-grist-danielle-smith? 

Engineering Climate Change for a just transition

Engineering is a discipline, based on science, that works to achieve realistic outcomes for deploying technology to solve problems within boundaries set by deadlines and economic constraints.

Engineering Discipline and Climate Change

 

Following the science to the low carbon world is best implemented by engineering professionals.

Professor Susan Krumdieck, a New Zealand engineering academic, is currently Professor and Chair in Energy Transition at Heriot-Watt University, where she leads the academic programme of the Islands Centre for Net Zero. Her research and teaching since 2000 at Canterbury University in New Zealand focused on developing the engineering methods and innovative technologies for adaptation to reduced fossil fuel production and consumption.

Transition Engineering is an emerging field where engineers in all disciplines use a standard methodology to change unsustainable practices through innovating and carrying out “carbon shift projects” that achieve the deep 80% downshift in fossil fuel use, while increasing long-term real values, reliability and wellbeing… There are thousands of carbon shift changes that stop fossil carbon from being extracted and reduce the risk of runaway global warming..1

Six Areas where Transition Engineering can apply established methodology to determine the most suitable path to reduce fossil fuel production and consumption are:

1. OIL, GAS AND COAL PRODUCTION
2. TRANSPORT
3. ELECTRICITY
4. CAPTURING AND BALANCING EMISSIONS
5. AGRICULTURE
6. POPULATION

OIL, GAS AND COAL PRODUCTION

Deep and rapid reduction of emissions requires deep and rapid reduction of fossil fuel extraction and production and engineering analysis to inform international and national policy energy transition to low carbon.

 

TRANSPORT

Transport Transition Engineering is paramount for reduction of automobile production, decommissioning of fuel depots and service stations, growth of electric rail, urban trams and coastal shipping, and particularly in innovating ways to adapt for freight logistics and airline travel.

 

ELECTRICITY

Electric Power Engineering experts will work with Energy Managers, Energy Engineers, and Building Services to develop demand-side participation innovations that marry up the supply and demand. Engineers work with politicians and the public to determine the potential energy supply, costs and power grid stability.

 

CAPTURING AND BALANCING EMISSIONS

Engineers in coal and gas power generation, fertiliser production and steel production will be honest with politicians and the public about the possibility to engineer the transition to 80% less emissions with Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS), and begin immediately to either install such systems or engineer the transition in some other manner.

 

AGRICULTURE

Agricultural Transition Engineering to achieve economically effective downshifting of fertiliser use, water consumption, and ruminant stock numbers.

 

POPULATION

The Transition Engineering ethos of preventing what is preventable leads engineers to work on problems that have not previously been the purview of engineering.

 

The training and experience of engineers needs to be applied to the transitions required by climate change. In this way, expertise in the deployment of technology according to a plan that calculates the requirements for a just and economically feasible outcome, can result in career opportunities for technologists, technicians, and tradespeople in the low carbon world necessary for our best lives in the coming decades.

 

References

  

1 (2021, June 18). The Role of Engineering in Addressing Climate Change - Panmure .... Retrieved November 20, 2021, from https://www.panmurehouse.org/perspectives/articles/the-role-of-engineering-in-addressing-climate-change/

War, Energy Demand, and Climate Crisis

The war launched by Russia against Ukraine has brought economic sanctions against gas and oil previously imported to Europe.

Oil and gas

 

The increase in the price of these fossil fuels has stoked the embers of sunset industries of eastern Canada’s oil and gas production and heated up the pressure to build pipelines to export western resources to Europe. CBC News reports that Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey says his government is promoting the province's oil to NATO countries, as the war in Ukraine rages. He said his government is pushing Newfoundland and Labrador oil as an alternative to Russian fossil fuels.

"We have right here what the world needs as well, and that is to relieve some of our NATO partners of the tyranny of Russia and their stranglehold on the energy around the world," he said, when asked about the provincial government's efforts regarding the war. Furey said they're not trying to capitalize on what he noted is a humanitarian crisis, but did say his government is "making sure that our voice is heard internally and externally" with regard to the province's offshore oil industry.1

 

Michael Gorman of CBC News reports that the Goldboro Nova Scotia LNG project could be revived as a floating barge while demand grows for non-Russian gas.

Goldboro Nova Scotia

 

Pieridae Energy abandoned the land-based project last summer amid cost concerns.

There would not be a need for a 5,000-person work camp, for example, during construction, although Millar said the full-time workforce would be similar — about 150 people. He said the company would build a "small hotel" by the site to provide lodging. The construction that would be required includes a jetty and a spur of a pipe to connect the vessel to the Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline. While some barges have their own power supply, Millar said Pieridae has talked with officials at Nova Scotia Power about requirements if the barge it leases does not have its own power source.2

 

A report in the Economist asserts that climate change must be adapted to as well as opposed even as efforts to reduce its impact on lives and ecosystems are falling ever shorter.

Previous reports on impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation relied on prediction. In this one the authors need only to look around them to catalogue increased flooding, more heatwaves, stressed ecosystems and millions of lives that have become harder to live. The “emissions gap” that dogs climate policy is well known. Though the reductions in emissions that the world’s countries have pledged themselves to make are steeper than they used to be, they still fall well short of those needed to give the world a good chance of keeping the rise in average temperature relative to pre-industrial levels well below 2°C. The new report highlights a parallel adaptation gap. Though efforts to reduce the impact of climate change on lives and ecosystems are greater than they once were, the extent to which they fall short of what circumstances require is increasing, as impacts pile up apace.3

Natasha Bulowski, News, Energy, Politics, Ottawa Insider with the National Observer writes that Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada, is rebuking Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s assertion Canada must “get some pipelines built” to help “defang” the Russian President.

“The solution to global energy problems is not to increase our dependency on fossil fuels,” said Guilbeault. The best way to improve the energy security of European countries is to simply reduce dependence on oil and gas “regardless of where it's coming from,” he said. Even if Canada could build more pipelines to increase oil and gas capacity, this would take “a number of years” and wouldn’t address the crisis people in Ukraine and Europe are now facing, he added. The real solution, he says, is to “quickly deploy renewables and cleantech” to reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas.4

 

Kathryn Harrison, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, reviews the idea that Europe will want to replace Russian oil and gas with fossil fuels from elsewhere.

If Europe does face a gas shortage, immediate solutions are needed and costly investments for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and similar projects will take years to get approved and built, she added. “Making investments in new fossil fuel facilities that won't be built in the time they need and then will be white elephants as the continent shifts away from fossil fuels is not an obvious solution for Europe,” said Harrison, referring to the European Union’s pledge to reduce emissions 55 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.4

 

A press release from the Climate Action Network asserts that Canada’s oil and gas industry's current attempt to lobby for fossil fuel expansion should be recognized as the desperate ploy of an outdated industry that has never failed to capitalize on a crisis.

In the spring of 2020, Canada’s oil and gas industry used the pandemic as an excuse to press the federal government to water down or suspend environmental regulations and to delay the introduction of UNDRIP legislation. Its current attempt to lobby for fossil fuel expansion should be recognized as more of the same: the desperate ploy of an outdated industry that has never failed to capitalize on a crisis. This week’s IPCC report, cataloguing an “atlas of suffering,” underscored the dire consequences of the world’s addiction to fossil fuels and the urgent need to break the habit. As Svitlana Krakovska, the climate scientist heading Ukraine’s delegation to the IPCC, said when her team was forced to withdraw from the negotiations to move to bomb shelters: “Human-induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots: fossil fuels, and our dependence on them.”5

 

Cloe Logan, writing in the National Observer, reports that environmentalists, citizens and academics are urging the federal government to reject Newfoundland offshore oil project known as Bay du Nord.

“The Bay du Nord project poses significant environmental risks and it would undermine the urgent global effort to reduce emissions and protect climate stability. Instead of expanding oil production, our priority challenge right now is managing a wind-down of oil production that allows workers and communities to seize the benefits of the low-carbon energy transition,” said Carter. “Approving Bay du Nord would take Newfoundland and Labrador in the wrong direction — both in terms of the climate crisis and long-term economic security.”6

 

The time frame for building new LNG facilities and pipelines is long and the “just transition” for workers in Canada’s GHG producing industries needs immediate retraining for green energy careers. To delay GHG reduction action may eliminate the existing workforce from transition and exacerbate the consequences in more intense storms, fires, and floods in Canada.

 

References

1	(2022, March 3). Furey promotes NL oil as Russian invasion drives up fuel prices - CBC. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/nl-oil-russian-invasion-1.6370127
2	(2022, March 3). Goldboro LNG project could be revived as floating barge while .... Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/goldboro-lng-energy-project-gas-pieridae-1.6370827
3	(2022, March 5). Climate change must be adapted to as well as opposed. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/03/05/climate-change-must-be-adapted-to-as-well-as-opposed
4	(2022, March 2). Environment minister rebukes claims Canadian oil and gas can fix .... Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/03/02/news/environment-minister-rebukes-claims-canadian-oil-and-gas-can-fix-europes
5	(n.d.). Climate Action Network. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://climateactionnetwork.ca/
6	(n.d.). Environmentalists, citizens and academics urge feds to reject .... Retrieved March 5, 2022, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/03/03/news/environmentalists-citizens-and-academics-urge-feds-reject-newfoundland-offshore-oil

 

Stakeholders change Oil and Gas Investment

 

The Oil and Gas industry is dealing with stakeholder reluctance to invest in future oil and gas developments in Canada.

Looking at gas and oil investment

 

Emma Grane and Jeffrey Jones reporting in the Globe and Mail, write that  Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. were recently handed significant defeats over their approaches to fighting climate change. Canada’s Suncor Energy Inc. announced a long-awaited target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 that put the oil sands producer’s ambition in line with the federal government’s commitment under the Paris Agreement.

Shareholders – including the world’s largest fund managers – are also forcing companies to account for, and deal with, the risks they face in the global transition to cleaner energy sources. Suncor Energy aims to cut emissions by more than one-third while boosting oil production “Obviously, there’s an enormous amount of attention focused on how we move forward,” Mark Little, Suncor’s chief executive officer, said in an interview. “I think it actually says people are wanting energy companies and oil producers to be part of the solution, and, quite frankly, I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that. “The oil industry globally deploys enormous amounts of capital, it has massive technical project execution and operational capabilities, so it’s hard for me to envision how the world actually achieves its ambition without industries like the oil industry participating in the energy transition.” Suncor’s net-zero plan comprises strategies to meet an interim target of cutting emissions by 10 megatonnes a year by 2030. They include adoption of carbon capture, use and storage; production of low-carbon fuels and hydrogen; fuel switching in its oil sands operations; and renewable power generation, including wind energy. Importantly, Suncor is setting company-wide CO2 targets rather than intensity goals. That’s a departure from most of its Canadian peers, which measure their emissions per barrel produced.1

Nick Wells of the Canadian Press reports in the Globe and Mail that a First Nations group criticizes Woodside Petroleum’s move to sell its Kitimat LNG stake. Woodside Petroleum Ltd., an Australian company, says it plans to sell its 50 per cent stake in the 480-kilometre Pacific Trail Pipeline and the proposed LNG facility at Bish Cove.

The First Nations Limited Partnership, which represents 16 First Nations in northern B.C., says the decision to sell is both disappointing and poses a threat to its members’ commercial interests. Woodside’s announcement comes after Chevron Canada Ltd, the operator of the project, said earlier this year that it would stop funding further feasibility work on the project. The company put its interest up for sale in December 2019, but has failed to find a buyer.2

The risk associated with investment in oil and gas in Canada is connected to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with IPCC recommendations and IEA plans to achieve global temperature targets.

 

References

1	(2021, May 26). Big Oil loses carbon emissions showdown in landmark case - The .... Retrieved May 27, 2021, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadas-oil-industry-on-watch-after-dutch-court-orders-shell-to-cut/
2	(2021, May 21). First Nations group criticizes Woodside Petroleum's move to sell .... Retrieved May 27, 2021, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/article-first-nations-group-criticizes-woodside-petroleums-move-to-sell/

 

Covid 19 Fossil Fuel and Climate Action

Recent action by the government to support the economy during the Covid 19 pandemic crisis has generated some advice about wisdom in investment that supports our efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Coastal erosion

Shawn McCarthy writes on energy & climate change, and is a senior counsel at Sussex Strategy Group. He is also the president of the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom. McCarthy writes "Sustainable finance principles are moving out of the fringe and into the mainstream. As a result, companies that fail to adequately plan for the longer-term environmental crisis do so at their peril."

 The stark message came from two sources: the Liberal government which imposed climate-related conditions on its financial assistance to large corporations, and from Norway’s $1-trillion sovereign wealth fund which announced it will divest its holdings in Canada’s carbon-intensive oil sands companies.
The decisions announced in Ottawa and Oslo may appear un-related but they are part of a growing “sustainable finance” agenda that aims to re-allocate capital away from firms that are part of the climate change problem, and to plow money into companies and technologies that offer solutions1

Tzeporah Berman is an adjunct professor at York University, chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and the international program director at Stand.Earth. Now with COVID-19, fossil fuel majors are lobbying hard for bailouts, investors are desperate to salvage capital while workers and fossil-fuel dependent communities are often being left behind. This is not an “all of the above” moment. It’s time for governments to acknowledge a more ambitious international effort is needed to provide certainty for investment, stimulate low carbon solutions at scale and constrain growing emissions and production fast enough to keep us safe. That’s why a team of climate, policy and legal experts from around the world is proposing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to be developed along with a strengthened Paris accord.

 The three pillars of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — non-proliferation, global disarmament and peaceful use — provide a framework for an equitable wind down of fossil fuels: 

• Don’t add to the problem (non-proliferation). End new exploration and expansion into new reserves.
• Get rid of the existing threat (global disarmament). Phase out existing stockpiles and production in line with 1.5°C.
• Accelerate an equitable transition (peaceful use). Increase access to renewable energy and other low-carbon solutions and manage a global just transition.

History teaches us rapid, dramatic transformation is possible when a handful of countries committed to high ambition decide to lead. There are many other examples beyond the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty including the Montreal Protocol which phased out ozone-depleting chemicals, bans on asbestos, and restrictions on tobacco. 
As we work to respond to the global health pandemic over the next months, let’s not aim for getting ‘back to normal’. Normal was driving us straight into another catastrophe.  It’s going to take big ideas like a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to generate the resilience, equity and new opportunities the world needs now and for our children’s future.2

Brooks DeCillia reports a CBC News poll, taken just before the economic implications of the coronavirus were becoming clear, that suggests 79 percent of Albertans already thought that the province should transition toward renewable energy. More than nine in 10 Albertans also think the province should do more to encourage the development of the technology sector and 51 per cent think that the province should transition away from oil and gas.

 While support for transitioning away from oil and gas is highest in Edmonton (58 per cent), it has similar levels of support in Calgary (55 per cent). Outside the province's two major cities, only about a third of Albertans (37 per cent) support moving away from oil and gas.3

The economic argument for support of a return to business as before in Canada’s oil and gas sector is weakening. Political decisions need to focus on employment support for workers rather than risky investment in an industry in trouble.

References

1	(n.d.). COVID-19 provides stark reminder on need to act on climate .... Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://ipolitics.ca/2020/05/19/covid-19-provides-stark-reminder-on-need-to-act-on-climate-change/
2	(2020, May 4). It's time for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://news.trust.org/item/20200504090700-pblc5
3	(2020, April 16). CBC News poll: Why the economic crisis could speed up .... Retrieved May 2, 2020, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cbc-news-poll-energy-transition-support-1.5533036