Welcome from The Right Hon. Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry

Discussion hosted by Diana Fox Carney, economist and public policy expert

Panelists

• Catherine Abreu, executive director, Climate Action Network
• Bruce Lourie, president, Ivey Foundation (and Member of the Taskforce for a Resilient Recovery)
• Tom Rand, managing partner, ARCTERN VENTURES
• Gregor Robertson, global ambassador, Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy
• Michael Sabia, chair, Canadian Infrastructure Bank
• Dianne Saxe, former Environment Commissioner, Ontario

Expert Commentators

• Céline Bak, president, Analytica Advisors
• Karim Bardeesy, executive director, Ryerson Leadership Lab
• Terri Lynn Morrison, director of strategic partnership, Indigenous Clean Energy (ICE)
• Dave Sawyer, chief economist, Canadian Institute for Climate Choices
• Ralph Torrie, senior associate, Sustainability Solutions Group and Partner, Torrie Smith Associates

The post CK TV: Watch our final Building Back Better roundtable appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Welcome from The Hon. Seamus O’Regan, Minister of Natural Resources.

Discussion hosted by Diana Fox Carney, economist and public policy expert.

Panelists

• Jeremy Baines, president, Neste US
• Linda Coady, executive director, Pembina Institute
• JP Gladu, principal, Mokwateh
• Laura Kilcrease, CEO, Alberta Innovates
• Mark Little, CEO, Suncor
• Steve MacDonald, CEO, Emissions Reduction Alberta
• Dan Wicklum, CEO, The Transition Accelerator

Expert commentators

• Céline Bak, president, Analytica Advisors
• Sara Hastings-Simon, senior researcher, Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines
• Shawn McCarthy, sustainable finance and climate journalist, Corporate Knights
• Terri Lynn Morrison, director of strategic partnership, Indigenous Clean Energy (ICE)
• Chad Park, lead animator, Energy Futures Lab
• Dave Sawyer, chief economist, Canadian Institute for Climate Choices
• Ralph Torrie, senior associate, Sustainability Solutions Group and partner, Torrie Smith Associates

The post CK TV: Watch our roundtable on Building Back Better with Energy Innovation appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Discussion hosted by Diana Fox Carney, economist and public policy expert

Panelists

• Tzeporah Berman, International Program Director, Stand.Earth

• Valérie Courtois, Director, The Indigenous Leadership Initiative

• Magali Depras, Chief Strategy Officer, TC Transcontinental

• Rob Keen, CEO, Forests Ontario

• Daimen Hardie, Executive Director, Forests International

• David Martin, Chair, WWF Canada

• Jane Rabinowicz, Executive Director, SeedChange

• Darrin Qualman, National Farmers Union, Director of Climate Crisis Policy & Action

Expert Commentators

• Céline Bak, President, Analytica Advisors
• Terri Lynn Morrison, Director of Strategic Partnership, Indigenous Clean Energy (ICE)
• Lara Ellis, Senior Vice-President, Policy and Partnerships, ALUS Canada
• Dave Sawyer, Chief Economist, Canadian Institute for Climate Choices
• Ralph Torrie, Senior Associate, Sustainability Solutions Group and Partner, Torrie Smith Associates

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“If you look at pictures of what it was like in the old days, with copper and tin mining, it was devastation. It was terrible. I heard people couldn’t breath,” she says, speaking at a closed-door event held recently in Toronto. Sitting beside her was close friend and internationally renowned wildlife artist Robert Bateman.

“To get to the outhouse, they would have to tie a rope from the house to the outhouse and follow it on really bad days.”

But Sudbury is now a “beautiful” example of how a place that was once destroyed can come back to life, she adds, pointing to the return of the peregrine falcon.

Her comments are timely, given that a recent report from Statistics Canada found Sudbury residents the happiest in the country. When asked to rate their life satisfaction from a scale of zero to 10, about 45 per cent of people living in Greater Sudbury picked nine or 10, indicating very high satisfaction. It was the highest response rate of any city.

The connection between nature and happiness formed a big part of Goodall’s and Bateman’s discussion, which was organized by the Jane Goodall Institute as part of efforts to find corporate sponsors for its youth-focused Roots & Shoots program.

Goodall, who is a UN Messenger of Peace, says she suffers “extreme despair” at times when thinking about the pollution humans have inflicted on the planet and the crippling poverty of those most affected. Climate change also gets her down, and the signs are all around: summer temperatures during a Nebraskan spring, spring-like winters in Utah, persistent drought in California, and flooding in the United Kingdom.

“This pattern is replicated everywhere I go in the world,” she says. “All of this is pretty gloomy, but what I always give as my first reason for hope is the young people” – and she’s encouraged by the numbers that showed up at the New York climate march last September.

Bateman agrees that the energy, drive and optimism of younger generations are ingredients for hope, but he laments how too many are shifting away from nature.

“We are nature, but we seem to be denying it,” he says. “The average kid spends 7.5 hours a day, seven days a week, looking at a screen.

“How much time does the average kid in society spend in nature? None. How much time did kids spend in nature in all previous generations? All the time.”

The full conversation can be viewed below by clicking on the video, which was made available to Corporate Knights courtesy of event sponsor Loblaw Companies.

The post Jane Goodall, Robert Bateman commiserate about a planet in despair appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The video below highlights the startling gap between Canada’s richest and poorest citizens. The richest 20 per cent owns over 67 per cent of all wealth, while the poorest 20 per cent own none at all – zero per cent.

Canadians from across the political spectrum think this is a problem. Eighty-six per cent said this gap was a problem, including 74 per cent of Conservative voters. The Broadbent Institute found that most respondents (83 per cent) agreed that political parties should take a pledge not to introduce any tax cuts that may increase the gap.

The post VIDEO: Canada’s wealth gap appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, responded to questions from journalists on Monday regarding falling oil prices, renewable energy and responsible investment.

One of the main strengths of renewable energy, she said, is the predictability of price. First, countries need only make an initial investment to install renewable energy technologies. After that, the price is predictable and not subject to supply and demand, she said. Another bonus for renewable energy is that its prices should never and would never be subject to negotiations between countries, she said.

More countries will soon realize that clean energy is in their long-term interests, said Figueres. But the path forward is not clear. Deciding how much responsibility certain countries should take is “more an art than a science,” she said. In the absence of “environmental police,” the energy transition will be a gradual process that is left up to the will of governments and their citizens, she added.

When it comes to investment, Figueres said she had no doubt that capital will flow toward renewable technologies once governments reaffirm their commitments to meeting the two degree Celsius goal to avoid catastrophic climate change.

“From a financial and business perspective, [we have] a stronger case every day for renewables and a weaker case…for fossil fuels,” she said. Governing boards of companies are realizing that they cannot incur the risk of stranded assets and that they need to think about the long-term viability of their investments, she added.

The video below provides many more statements by Figueres regarding the slow but certain path toward a green future.

https://youtu.be/kvuR6ed1vF4?list=UUXy9Efp5QoTGGxmpKBujLLQ

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