At the same time, inequality makes it harder to fight climate change, partly because it corrodes the social trust we need to work together for the common good. Climate tools like carbon pricing often make it more expensive to heat homes and tank up vehicles, which could be particularly burdensome for poor families.

Canadian carbon pricing is better designed than that. About 70% of families get more back from federal climate rebates than the fuel charges they pay. But we’re still rather stuck. Canada’s climate pollution remains stubbornly high, with the worst reduction record in the G7. And inequality is just as high as it was 50 years ago.

Canadians have not engaged very productively with the debate about whether the climate crisis and inequality are competing causes in a zero-sum game. But our neighbours to the south are showing us that bold public policy can improve them both at the same time.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s Justice40 initiative promises that at least 40% of the benefits from federal investments in climate and clean energy will flow to disadvantaged communities. This would be a major shift from past approaches. As the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council notes, front-line communities are routinely left behind in the competition for government funding, because of bias, inertia and a lack of capacity. Even if there is no racial bias, organizations that are well resourced with people, technology, know-how and connections are better able to obtain government funding than those most in need.

In the hope of changing this trend, this summer the White House directed 21 federal government programs to immediately start enhancing benefits for disadvantaged communities. Each agency must define “benefits” and “disadvantaged communities” for its programs, including flood mitigation assistance, lead hazard reduction, and loans and grants to farmers for renewable energy and energy efficiency. Each program is tasked with conducting meaningful community engagement, evaluating the distributional effects of their programs, and deciding how to modify them.

Inequality makes it harder to fight climate change, partly because it corrodes the social trust we need to work together for the common good.

At the same time, five U.S. non-profits got together to help front-line communities apply for the new federal money. In August, their Justice40 Accelerator gave $25,000 plus guidance to each of 52 environmental-justice-focused community organizations, so they’ll have staff, computers and know-how to apply when Justice40 grants are available.

Inequality in Canada is not as extreme as it is in the U.S. Measured by the Gini coefficient, Canadian inequality is roughly the same as it was 50 years ago. Still, many Canadians say they can’t worry about the climate breaking down in 20 years if they can’t make the rent in three weeks, particularly if they don’t see how climate policies will benefit them. A version of Justice40 in Canada could help build public support for climate action and increase our ability to withstand the worst effects of climate breakdown.

The good news is that many climate policies would be of particular benefit to disadvantaged communities. For example, Vancouver is focusing on energy retrofits of low-income and social housing to reduce fossil fuel use, climate pollution and operating costs while creating good green jobs and supporting local businesses. Typically, these buildings are cheaply built and poorly maintained, expensive to heat and uncomfortable to live in. Fixing them would boost the clean economy while giving residents more comfort and dignity.

Low-income residents also live in the dirtiest air and would benefit the most if it were cleaned up. What makes their air so dirty? Fumes from gas- and diesel-powered vehicles, especially older cars and trucks. A generous cash-for-clunkers program can get these vehicles scrapped. A 2009 U.S. program was so popular it ran through its $1 billion of funding in weeks.

Plus, it’s easy now to provide better ways to get around. Halifax is planning electric buses on dedicated lanes to reduce climate, toxic and noise pollution. Low-income and disabled residents are particularly dependent on good transit and benefit the most from not having to own a car. Dedicated transit lanes are the cheapest, fastest way to improve speed, service and reliability. Halifax Transit expects to save $24,000 a year per electric bus on operating costs because they require less maintenance and use no gas. The city also anticipates that its plan will reduce congestion and servicing costs while increasing property tax revenue.

Better transit, in turn, improves the case for eliminating requirements for developers to build parking in their buildings, as Buffalo and Edmonton have done. This makes housing less expensive and facilitates smaller-scale developments in walkable locations. This can also reduce the amount of concrete used in development, as underground parking lots require a lot of the material, which has a heavy carbon footprint.

Then there is urban greening. Low-income communities tend to live in heat islands with few trees. Tree planting helps to improve mental health, sequester carbon, catch rainwater, clean the air and cool the surrounding area. In the U.S., a new tree-planting project aims to help combat climate change, boost well-being and support economically disadvantaged areas. Tazo, a tea company owned by consumer products group Unilever, and the U.S. conservation organization American Forests have partnered to bring “Tree Equity” and urban forestry jobs to low-income areas in five American cities.

These examples show that considering inequality when choosing climate policies can improve environmental justice while protecting the more stable climate upon which all of us depend. Doing both at once may not be easy, but we’ve run out of time to leave either goal behind. Those demanding justice now won’t wait until the climate crisis is solved, and climate action can’t wait because reckless burning of fossil fuels will soon push the goal to limit warming to 1.5°C (i.e. a stable climate) out of reach. Lucky for us – we can do both.

Dianne Saxe is an environmental lawyer, a former environmental commissioner of Ontario, and the deputy leader of the Ontario Green Party.

The post Should Canada steal Biden’s Justice40 plan? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Building emissions are rising

For most municipalities, heating and cooling buildings is a major source of climate pollution (namely, greenhouse gases, refrigerants and soot), though only 12% of Canada’s total. While both new and existing buildings have become more efficient in recent decades, these gains have been more than offset by increases in population and customer demand for more space. That helps explain why emissions from buildings have increased 9.5% since 1990. It’s also one of the reasons that Canada’s emissions increased again in 2019, directly contrary to our international commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Yet in the challenging journey to net-zero, eliminating emissions from heating and cooling buildings is one of the easier tasks. Older buildings, in particular, waste large amounts of fossil fuels, largely because so much air and energy leak through their walls, roofs, floors, doors and windows. We already have the technology to fix this and would reap many benefits from doing so.

Most people would prefer to live and work in buildings that are draft-free, warm in the winter and cool in the summer, that are inexpensive to keep that way and non-polluting. A source of renewable energy, such as solar panels or geothermal heating and cooling, can add self-sufficiency and resilience. In the 2021 Texas blackouts, owners of efficient homes with their own solar power avoided the misery and broken pipes that plagued so many of their neighbours.

Then why do existing buildings so rarely receive meaningful energy upgrades, even when they are renovated? My last report as Ontario’s Environment Commissioner, A Healthy, Happy, Prosperous Ontario: Why We Need More Energy Conservation, showed that challenges with financing the upfront cost are one of the main obstacles.

Why PACE financing works

Municipalities can play a key role in providing access to attractive financing for the incremental costs of energy retrofits, because of their ability to unlock PACE financing programs. PACE programs lend willing property owners the funds needed for upgrades through low-interest, long-term, fixed-rate loans secured through a property tax mechanism. The owner’s utility savings help pay back the loan, which can stay with the property or be paid out when it is sold. (This is important since the average homeowner moves every few years, while deep retrofits can take a decade or more to pay back. The purchaser automatically takes over the loan obligation.) In some cases, utility savings make retrofits cost neutral to the homeowner. The owner also receives improved comfort, higher resale value, and reduced capital equipment costs, and knows they are doing something about our greatest crisis.

PACE programs remove several significant barriers: property owners don’t have to put money up front, their credit rating may not matter, interest rates remain low, and they don’t have to keep paying back the loan if they move. For lenders, the loans are low risk because they’re secured through property tax, which has low defaults, high priority and adequate security.

Well-designed PACE programs make good financial and environmental sense, although they require patience. For example, Halifax Solar City photovoltaic systems cost an average of $20,000, for estimated savings of $57,000 over 25 years. A study for Our Energy Guelph calculated that a $3.2 billion investment in community energy – two-thirds of it in building retrofits funded through PACE – would yield $4.9 billion over 30 years, through energy savings, carbon price savings and electricity sales. Plus, the retrofits would slash carbon emissions and make homes more comfortable.

There are at least 34 clean-energy financing programs available across Canada. Halifax Solar City was the first, launching in 2013. It has financed most of the solar water heaters and PV systems in its city. Yet, despite many pilot projects and an alphabet soup of programs,[iii] Canadian PACE programs have not achieved either speed or scale. Instead, they run into obstacles that should be easy to fix. For example, half of all applicants to Toronto’s Home Energy Loan Program (HELP) were unable to proceed with their retrofit because their mortgagee didn’t consent. U.S. PACE programs have been leaving us in the dust, despite the environmentally hostile leadership of the Trump years.

Given the need for urgent, transformative change, what could  help Canadian PACE programs takeoff?

1. Ensuring that mortgagees cannot block PACE loans for energy upgrades.

There is no legitimate reason to allow mortgagees to block PACE loans for energy upgrades. Property tax default rates are low, and properties that have undergone PACE upgrades have a lower-than-average default rate. Equally important, according to a study in the Journal of Structured Finance: energy upgrades are the only renovation that yield a larger increase in property value than they cost. This obstacle could easily be resolved by legislation or by provincial governments setting up a loan-loss reserve to protect mortgagees. In the meantime, municipal councils can ask local banks and credit unions for formal commitments to automatically consent to PACE upgrades.

2. Encouraging private sector funding of PACE loans.

Few municipalities have the spare capital to fund PACE themselves. Some compete for federal government funds via the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), plus local government dollars and perhaps a little private capital. (Ottawa, for example, has a pilot project combining FCM funding with a loan from the Vancity Community Investment Bank.) This approach cannot provide enough money to scale. It’s great that the federal government has increased the FCM Green Municipal Fund to approximately $1 billion, including a $300-million Community Efficiency Financing Plan. But it could take more than $800 billion to retrofit all existing buildings across Canada.

The private sector can provide money at this scale, and is indeed eager to do so, but is having trouble finding appropriate programs to fund without excessive risk or administrative costs. PACE programs could be a good fit. They can qualify for municipal green bonds, which are finding strong market appetite at better-than-usual rates. An inexpensive government loan-loss reserve would make these programs especially appealing and would minimize interest rates to homeowners.

In addition, private sector funding is less at risk of disruption by elections. Reducing political risk could improve contractor capacity, supplier capacity, customer awareness and customer confidence.

3. A multi-municipal entity with economies of scale.

One of the factors that has fuelled U.S. PACE growth to over US$8 billion is an independent third-party administrator that serves many municipalities. This makes it easier for municipalities that  want a PACE program but lack administrative capacity, technical expertise, know-how and capital, or simply want to reserve their borrowing power for other things.

Purchasing, marketing, administration and borrowing are all cheaper at scale. A mission-driven administrator can ensure that these programs are focused on the public good and not on predatory loans. A common entity can tap sources of private funds, such as pension plans, that prefer to lend amounts far too large ($50–100 million) for most individual municipalities.

Our Energy Guelph hopes to fill this role in Canada. If they, or a similar organization, succeed, Canadian municipalities may be able to grow their PACE programs at unprecedented speed to unprecedented size, and kick-start building retrofits across the country. After all, on the road to net-zero, funding building retrofits is one of the easier problems.

Dianne Saxe is one of Canada’s most respected environmental lawyers, with a Clean50 award, a Ph.D. in Law, and a Law Society Medal. She was a popular Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, reporting to the Legislature on environment, energy and climate. She now heads SaxeFacts, hosts the Green Economy Heroes podcast, is Deputy Leader of the Ontario Green Party

The post Canada’s buildings are a climate drag – can they pick up the pace? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

1.   Physics doesn’t compromise

The climate crisis is not a normal political negotiation between different interests, where solutions come from compromise. The climate crisis is a collision between human beings and physics. Physics, like gravity, doesn’t compromise.

Governments that treat the climate crisis as a “balance” between the economy and the environment are doomed to fail. Instead, our prosperity depends on respecting the limits of the natural systems on which our lives depend. They cannot keep absorbing our greenhouse gases (and other wastes). We’re already so close to the edge of disaster that every extra tonne worsens our chances against an overwhelming health, economic and environmental threat.

The IPCC has shown us how close that edge is. For a world that is “only” 1.5° hotter, rich countries like Canada must cut emissions at least 45% by 2030 and emit zero –yes, zero– net greenhouse gases by 2050. For a world that is “only” 2° hotter (less stable and safe than today with significant food and economic damage), rich countries must cut emissions at least 25% by 2030, and reach net zero by 2070.

This scale of reductions can only come from slashing the fossil fuels we burn, starting right now. We won’t get there if we burn all the fossil fuels that we have already found, much less keep exploring for more. We won’t get there if we keep investing in new ways to supply, or burn, fossil fuels. We won’t get there by improving carbon intensity while allowing totals to grow. We will only get there if we burn less fossil fuel every year than the year before.

2.   We can’t count on magic

It would be lovely if technology (and planting trees) would magically allow us to continue our current lifestyles without much effort or expense. I think we’d all vote for that; in fact, we’ve been betting the planet on it. But it is not a real option.

Technology and innovation do play a huge role. Solar and wind power, batteries, electric vehicles, LEDs, all make the transition to a greener economy easier, faster and better for public health. There is enormous financial opportunity for improvements in all areas of human activity, from agriculture to water to conservation and clean energy, and perhaps carbon capture and storage. Once we launch an all-out effort, innovators will likely find greener ways to meet human needs. And planting trees can take some carbon back out of the atmosphere over time, if the resulting forests can survive heat, drought, pests and fire.

But we’ve left it too late to just wait for someone somewhere to invent something to make it all easy. Inventions like that are rare, take time, and always come with costs of their own..

3.   No one will do it for us

“States, politicians, and corporations have consistently used bad economic arguments to stall climate action… that it would alter markets, threaten economic growth, harm citizens’ way of life, and kill jobs. This is … cynical and short-sighted” – UN Human Rights Council

It’s comforting to tell ourselves that our emissions are too small to matter, but Canada is one of the world’s ten top climate polluters, and a highly visible one at that. The more fossil fuels that we burn today, the more expensive, disruptive and unmanageable climate damage will become. It’s cynical, short-sighted and selfish to leave these mounting costs until “later”, to effectively dump them on our kids. If we do, we will have earned their contempt.

Nor will poor countries, who have done much less than we have to create the climate crisis, can do the heavy lifting for us. Instead, they will be looking to us for compensation, as they struggle with massive climate damage. And hundreds of millions may try to escape fire, flood, thirst and famine by migrating here. Wouldn’t you?

4.   We have lots to gain

Yes, cutting climate pollution now is an enormous challenge for democratic politicians. Many people may not “want” to do what the climate crisis demands: to pay much more for energy, to use much less of it, to put longer-term communal benefit first. But physics doesn’t care what we want.

Putting the economy first got us into the current mess, and putting the economy first won’t get us out of it. But Canadians have a lot to gain from reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, on top of the climate imperative. As the UN Human Rights Council wrote: “Climate action should not be viewed as an impediment to economic growth but as an impetus for decoupling economic growth from emissions and resource extraction, and a catalyst for a green economic transition, labour rights improvements, and poverty elimination.”

The worldwide market for green, low-carbon goods and services is already exploding and Canada has many strengths to build on. Energy conservation creates green jobs and allows families, businesses and public institutions to spend less on heat and more on what matters most. Building complete communities instead of sprawling suburbs slashes commutes and saves taxes.

And the federal carbon price “fee and dividend” approach helps to reduce inequality, by returning 90% of the money to all households.

5.   Fossil fuels must cost more

Reducing climate pollution requires a dramatic reduction in demand for fossil fuels as well as in their supply. Governments should maximize fossil fuel conservation as well as low-carbon electrification of the grid, design land-use to minimize fossil fuel use, and support investment in innovation and the green economy.

But actions to reduce demand make little headway when fossil fuels are cheap. Every regulation, policy, subsidy and pipeline that increases the supply of fossil fuels, or reduces their cost, undermines efforts to reduce demand. Both energy conservation and low-carbon technologies have struggled in the face of low oil and gas prices since 2014, and Canadian fossil fuel consumption has risen.

Fossil fuel demand will not drop in free markets until these fuels become much more expensive. We can’t expect the market to make that happen – higher prices stimulate more supply, which brings the price back down. Since proven fossil fuel reserves are enormously larger than physics will allow us to burn without catastrophe, carbon pricing or regulation will have to keep them in the ground.

6.   Meet necessary demand with the cleanest practical supply

It’s not yet practicable to do some things without fossil fuels, so there will be some market for them for decades, perhaps longer for non-emitting uses of petroleum or with carbon capture and storage. ­That market should be met by the cleanest practical supply, factoring in the full climate costs of transportation, remediation and spills.

That means thermal coal should be eliminated ASAP. Gas can be cleaner than coal if producers and distributors eliminate leaks of unburned methane, but it’s still a significant fossil fuel that must be mostly phased out by 2050. What about the oil sands? Since we must curb emissions quickly, the first step is to stop expanding them. Oil sands crude is more expensive and more polluting to produce than most other global crudes because of the energy and water required to separate bitumen from sediment and to upgrade it into crude. Oil sands producers are also building up a huge remediation liability with orphaned oil wells already polluting Alberta.

Some producers now claim that they can produce oil sands crude with a lower environmental and climate footprint than competing sources of crude. If they can prove it, there should be a legitimate though declining market for their products in Canada and abroad.

7.   The green transformation must be big and and it must come fast

It’s too late for incremental change. As pervasive and mainstream as fossil fuels are today, investment in low-carbon energy and efficiency must overtake fossil investments by 2025.

For this, governments have essential roles that no one else can play. Transforming our relationship to fossil fuels requires enormously scaled up research, training, innovation, investment and infrastructure. Investors, municipalities and the private sector will jump in only with strong, long-term targets, rules and incentives. Most important are clear, predictable rules that don’t change when governments do, including a steadily rising carbon price. As Ron Mock, CEO of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, said, “You can’t invest $2-3 billion into a country only to find that every four years the rules have changed.”

8.   We can’t have a green economy without Indigenous reconciliation

A big, fast green transformation will, among other things, probably require infrastructure (e.g. electricity transmission lines) on or across the territories of Indigenous peoples. Will Indigenous communities block such infrastructure, or help to build, operate and own it?

Indigenous peoples have growing judicial clout and public support. Their resulting ability to block infrastructure creates precious leverage for communities whose legitimate interests have often been trampled. That may drive investment away – or become a doorway to a new economic partnership in a thriving green economy.

9.   Strive for climate justice

The climate crisis will affect everyone, but some far more than others. Within Canada, those who suffer the gravest consequences of the climate crisis, such as remote and northern indigenous communities are among those least responsible for the climate crisis. They’re at the front lines of flooding, fire, erosion, loss of ice roads, and the disappearance or contamination of traditional foods, with neither the resources nor the insurance coverage to recover from environmental disasters. These communities deserve help to prepare for, and recover from, climate-related crises, and to shift away from fossil fuels.

As well, governments should help those Canadians that will suffer disproportionately from carbon pricing and its rising energy costs are a particular challenge. Instead of pushing down the price of fossil fuels, help those communities reduce how much fossil energy they need and make ends meet while reducing climate pollution, improving public health and building a sustainable economy.

Finally, those Canadians that have contributed to climate pollution by producing fossil fuels, and who now face loss of their skills, livelihoods, savings and communities will also need support. These communities deserve a “just transition” to help them find a meaningful place in the new economy.

10.        Honest facts, honest conversations

We need to talk about the climate crisis and we must be impeccably honest with each other. This crisis will be hard enough without lies, such as the misleading carbon price stickers that the current Ontario government is forcing gas stations to post.

The truth is, we are almost out of time. It’s already too late for either consumers or producers to continue our current lifestyle unchanged. Only urgent action everywhere can stem the tide of climate disruption, preserve our way of life and turn this challenge into opportunity. Oil,  gas and coal must decline, not grow. Consumers and business must pay much more for energy and use less. Everyone must innovate.

Canadians can pull together to meet this challenge. The sooner we act, the easier and less costly it will be. Instead of waiting for catastrophes to frighten us into action, we could seize opportunities to reduce fossil fuel use, to protect ecosystems, to improve public health and to build better lives. There will be adjustments along the way; we must all be willing to make some changes and some sacrifices. But the changes we need seem harder and scarier than they really are. We can still do this, if we act now.

A version of this article first appeared on opencanada.org.

Dianne Saxe is president of Saxe Facts, a business providing strategic advice and presentations on climate, energy and environment. She is the former Environmental Commissioner of Ontario and is a certified environmental law specialist.

The post 10 principles to guide the transition to a green economy appeared first on Corporate Knights.

As water levels continued to climb along the Ottawa River in late April, the nation’s capital became one of the latest Canadian towns to declare a climate emergency. It’s not a moment too soon. After 30 years of work by the largest scientific collaboration in human history, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the climate crisis that humanity faces is now beyond question. A generation after they were first predicted, the impacts are now increasingly visible in Canada and around the world. Fires, floods, droughts, storms, wind and extreme heat are becoming increasingly severe.

In Ontario alone, insured losses from extreme weather events exceeded $1.3 billion in 2018. Uninsured financial losses by individuals, companies and institutions are often estimated to be one to three times as large as reported insured losses. On top of that, the Insurance Bureau of Canada reports that governments incur about $3 in damage to infrastructure and other public services for every $1 of those insured losses. And all these figures only cover losses measured directly in money, omitting significant health and environmental damage.

In the face of this crisis, as well as the collapse of biodiversity, it is beyond tragic that so many “senior” levels of government are doing so little – or worse, in some cases undoing a decade or more of hard work. With a federal election looming, the future of federal climate action is also uncertain.

In these dispiriting circumstances, municipal leadership is of great importance. As the owners and operators of most of Canada’s infrastructure, municipalities are at the front line of much climate damage. In many ways, they have more to lose from climate inaction than other levels of government. For one, they bear increasing social welfare needs as climate change disproportionately affects the poorest and most vulnerable. Municipalities are also much more vulnerable to liability lawsuits than senior levels of government, and municipal representatives are more visible and accountable to their constituents.

Fortunately, municipalities can also do something about it, which is why it’s exciting to see so many Canadian municipalities joining the ranks of over 520 councils around the world in declaring climate emergencies.

Most of these are in Quebec, where over 300 municipalities have signed “declarations d’urgence climatique.” Others in Canada include Halifax, Vancouver, Kingston, Hamilton, Richmond, London, Burnaby, Nanaimo, Burlington, St. Catharines, Moncton, and Old Crow!

A declaration will not, of course, accomplish anything unless it’s followed by real action. Only significant changes to business as usual can meaningfully affect the trajectory we’re on.

Aside from the enormous cost of adapting to the wilder, weirder weather that’s coming, adaptation will likely become impossible if we don’t reduce emissions. And climate pollution mitigation is where we face the biggest policy and implement gap.

Where can municipalities cut emissions?  

The majority of urban GHG emissions come from three sources:

• energy use in buildings (a function of both energy sources and energy demand)
• transportation
• waste management

Municipalities can tackle the climate pollution they themselves emit through heating and cooling municipal buildings, water treatment and use, vehicle fleets, waste management, etc. But they can have the largest climate impact by influencing the emissions of others – namely, all of us who live and work in and visit their municipalities.

It’s not just about land use bylaws and taxes, essential though they may be. Municipalities can galvanize private and public action through their targets and the examples that they set. Their relationships with others can build coalitions, generate buy-in and facilitate implementation of new ideas, new financial tools, and new standards of practice.

Vancouver is trying to lead the way. In January, it  adopted its climate emergency declaration, giving staff 90 days to come back with a plan of action. On April 29, Vancouver city council approved a Climate Emergency report with six new pollution reduction targets (called “big moves”) and 53 “accelerated actions”.

The “six big moves” are:

1. Walkable communities: By 2030, 90% of people live within an easy walk and roll of their daily needs.

2. Safe and convenient active transportation and transit: By 2030, two-thirds of trips in Vancouver will be by active transportation and transit.

3. Pollution-free cars, trucks and buses: By 2030, 50% of the kilometres driven on Vancouver’s roads will be by zero emissions vehicles.

4. Zero-emission space and water heating: By 2025, all new and replacement heating and hot water systems will be zero emissions.

5. Lower carbon construction: By 2030, the embodied emissions from new buildings and construction projects will be reduced by 40% compared to a 2018 baseline.

6. Restored forests and coast: By fall 2020, Vancouver will develop “negative emission” targets that can be achieved by restoring forest and coastal ecosystems.

The true significance of these targets won’t be visible until they start changing council decisions, especially on budgets, on infrastructure and on development. Council has promised to put a “climate lens” on its 2020 budget. In the meantime, Vancouver has pledged an impressive list of “accelerated actions” such as:

• considering zero emission areas (essentially car-free zones), road pricing and new parking rules
• density bonuses for zero emission buildings
• a climate trust/green bank to finance upgrades
• adding e-bikes to the bike sharing program
• a comprehensive waste reduction and diversion program for all city facilities
• a procurement policy that prioritizes local food in city-run facilities
• greening community events that the city runs, sponsors, and permits and
• reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel use in city-run buildings and vehicles.

It’s inspiring to see this kind of municipal leadership at a time when good environmental news is in such short supply. Hopefully, Canadian cities won’t be alone in calling climate change what it is – an emergency – and then acting accordingly. Monday, the Ontario legislature will be debating an NDP motion to declare a climate emergency in this province. Any meaningful hope now has to come from a willingness to try new ways of doing things, and as The Democracy Center’s Jim Schulz said,  “from knowing that what is truly possible never reveals itself until we take the risk to seek it.”

Dianne Saxe is president of Saxe Facts, a business providing strategic advice and presentations on climate, energy and environment. She is the former Environmental Commissioner of Ontario and is a certified environmental law specialist.

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We remain one of the world’s most wasteful countries in terms of natural capital, including energy and water. On combined measures of environmental and economic resources, we are losing ground to many others, both developed and undeveloped. Denmark already gets 30 to 35% of its power from wind. China is transforming its economy at a dizzying speed. Just as we tear up Transit City, our best transit plan in a generation, Shanghai will build a 200 station subway in two years. New world clean energy investments are soaring and exceeded $243B in 2010. World wide investment in renewable energy has outstripped annual world investment in new fossil fuel supplies. But Canada remains transfixed by the oil sands.

An effective transition to the Green Economy would cost 2% of world GDP, much of which should come from eliminating annual world fossil fuel subsidies of $700B. And it would take a much better regulatory framework and market based instruments than the ones we have in Canada. Sustainable Development Technology Canada has a great record, having helped 5,600 Canadian innovators grow towards commercial and international success. But the single most indispensable element, as every economist knows, is putting a price on pollution, like a carbon tax. Amazing that we just had a national election without discussing any of these issues.

Originally posted on Dianne Saxe’s blog, Environmental Law and Litgation

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