“[As] much as distance has fractured communities compared to traditional times,” he explains, “farmers still tend to form a community,” coming together for community events and “fighting for causes.”

Fighting for causes happens to be Hansgen’s other job. As president of the Ontario branch of the National Farmers Union (NFU), he lobbies government on behalf of family farms. The union is a vocal opponent of Highway 413, the Ontario government’s proposed 52-kilometre throughway that will pave forests and agricultural land around the outskirts of Toronto.

The province argues that the new highway would fight congestion in one of North America’s fastest-growing regions, but Hansgen and the NFU see it differently. They are concerned that the highway’s construction will destroy hundreds of acres of nature and farmland in the Greenbelt – two million acres of protected land in a region known as the Golden Horseshoe – and contribute to urban sprawl along its route.

“[The 413 is] going to threaten a whole bunch of natural heritage features,” Hansgen says. “We’re talking about loss of ecosystem diversity, loss of climate change mitigation, loss of protection to our waterways.”

And, according to Hansgen, it won’t make traffic any better, as the province claims; rather, it’s only going to make gridlock worse. “Every traffic study on highways verifies that when you build a highway, the cars are soon to follow. And that is exactly what’s going to happen here,” he says.

Real solutions to the root problems

Hansgen was born in the eastern Ontario town of Lanark and, at age 14, got his first job picking and processing organic garlic. Back in the mid-1990s, the term “organic” wasn’t in common usage, and Hansgen says he “didn’t even understand what it meant.” That is, until he spent two summers apprenticing on a biodynamic farm that produced goat’s milk, eggs and pork.

Today he and his wife grow carrots, onions and about 4,000 heads of garlic on a small plot of pesticide-free land surrounded by wildlife, including sandhill cranes, trumpeter swans and, one time this summer, a bear.

Hansgen shares his passion for protecting the Greenbelt with thousands of other farmers who are members of the NFU, an organization that works for not only environmental protection but social justice. “We’ve supported other unions, other disadvantaged people, because lots of farmers feel like they work very hard for little profit,” he says. “We feel like we’re at the social margins already and so have sympathy for other people who are on the margins of society.”

Right now, a top priority is saving the Greenbelt, which is too precious to be sacrificed for another highway. It contains “some of the best-quality farmland in the world in one of the most forgiving climates in the world,” he says.

If the province were serious about tackling congestion, it would expand mass transit, make better use of current highways and increase densification within municipalities’ present boundaries. These solutions, Hansgen suggests, get at the problem’s root cause. “If we took that money [allocated to the 413] and poured it into proper infrastructure for public transit, that would probably solve all of the domestic traffic issues right away,” he says. “[And] if we could bypass trucks along the 407 – which is a very underutilized highway except for peak times – it would get rid of most of the commercial traffic immediately.”

But will farmers’ recommendations find a receptive audience in Ontario’s legislature? Hansgen thinks they will.

“Agriculture is one of the biggest industries in Ontario, so we’re a huge financial block,” he says. “We tend to be employers. We tend to be fairly large spenders at local businesses . . . And since we’re spread out across the province and we’re well connected and well funded, I think that’s enough justification to say we should be listened to.”

Gideon Forman is a transportation policy analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation.

The post This Ontario farmer is leading a movement to stop a highway appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Earlier this year, the David Suzuki Foundation circulated an open letter calling for the protection of southern Ontario’s greenbelt, citing the proposed Highway 413 north of Toronto as a major threat. It would run 52 kilometres from Vaughan to Milton and pave over more than 400 acres of the  greenbelt’s invaluable forest and wetlands, as well as more than 2,000 acres of Ontario’s most productive farmland.

The fact that the David Suzuki Foundation is urging the preservation of nature may hardly be news. But what distinguished the open letter — along with the signatures of author Margaret Atwood and former Toronto mayors — was its inclusion of a number of business leaders, among them Jonathan Westeinde, the Ottawa-based CEO of Windmill Developments.

I was intrigued at the idea of a land developer coming out publicly against the highway. Everyone knows the expressway’s construction would cause a staggering increase in the value of properties along the route.

But Westeinde, as I discovered during an exhilarating discussion this summer, is not like other developers. In fact, he’s better understood as an environmentalist or social activist than the builder of a billion dollars’ worth of real estate projects.

He got his start in the sector early. His parents ran one of Ottawa’s largest construction firms. “I’ve been on construction sites since I was 11,” he says. “But by the time I was 18, I didn’t want to have anything to do with construction as a career path…I saw the friction, lack of innovation…”

He hails from a family of engineers, but he “felt the need to be a contrarian,” so he completed his undergrad degree at Western University in economics. He considered doing graduate work in marine biology — “I’d always had an interest in the environment, particularly the oceans” — but he eventually did an MBA and worked briefly as a venture capitalist.

The year 2003 was a turning point. Westeinde began to see the business case for renewable energy after reading Natural Capitalism and started planning Windmill. “It was a real influencer,” he says of the classic volume on environmental economics. “There was a real focus [in the book] on real estate and how it’s one of the few industries that, if worked on properly, can be a net positive…And I also saw if we really focus on sustainability, it can be the core driver of innovation in the industry.” Here, ecological thinking is not an afterthought but a central organizing principle that feeds land developers’ creativity and success.

Westeinde’s original plan was to create an “ecosystem” of partnering businesses. He brought together some of Canada’s greenest architects and engineers as seed investors, but he wasn’t wholly satisfied with the results. “It worked in theory for a bit and then they all got bought by larger firms and lost their souls.”

He persevered and soon Windmill bid on its first major request for proposals, Dockside Green, a massive housing development in Victoria, B.C., which was one of North America’s first LEED platinum communities. Westeinde still seems astonished that he was successful. “You can imagine as an early start-up with not much capital base behind us bidding on a $750-million project; it was a big leap.”

Central to Westeinde’s philosophy is a commitment to regeneration. The goal isn’t merely to minimize damage but to improve things.

There was a real focus [in Natural Capitalism] on real estate and how it’s one of the few industries that, if worked on properly, can be a net positive…And I also saw if we really focus on sustainability, it can be the core driver of innovation in the industry.

-Jonathan Westeinde, CEO of Windmill Developments

Regeneration can also have a social dimension. Westeinde proudly tells me about a community called Parkway House he’s planning along Ottawa’s national capital bike path. The site is currently occupied by a disabled adults’ housing facility that, unfortunately, faces bankruptcy.

“We have structured a deal with them where we’re able to monetize their land to get them a brand new facility, get them an annuity that will not have them worry about funding again and give them a very healthy place in the community while creating an intensified development there.” This sounds like urbanization at its best: sensible density married to active transportation and social justice. “Instead of the value of that land going into someone’s pocket to buy themselves a bigger house, it’s going to create a brand new facility for these [disabled adults] and long-term safety net.”

Our conversation turns to the greenbelt. I ask Westeinde, naively, if there could ever be an organization called Developers for Greenbelt Protection. I say part of what makes southern Ontario attractive to new homebuyers is its wild spaces. He’s skeptical. “You’re looking at a situation where you’ve got a field that’s either worth nothing or it’s worth tonnes of money, based on it being in the greenbelt or not…. Unless someone is told they can’t [develop it], unfortunately, the thinking is just short-term.”

Nature will be protected, he suggests, not by corporate good will but regulation. “When I started in the industry, I was always in favour of carrot versus stick, in the sense that developers would do the right thing if incented accordingly. Increasingly, unfortunately, I’m falling on the side that it’s just got to be a stick.”

Yet Westeinde remains optimistic. Recently, he’s seen signs that the real estate industry is embracing sustainability. The driver, surprisingly, has been funders. “In the first 15 years of Windmill… the conversations in the room were [with] the architects, the engineers. Capital was not there. Capital just saw [sustainability] as friction… [But] in the last two years, capital is now driving a lot of the agenda.”

He gives the example of Quebec’s titanic pension-plan manager, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which funds a number of real estate operations and aims to be net-zero by 2030.   “They said to all their operators, ‘Because we’ve got to meet these goals, unless you can come back to us with a plan to show us how you’re also going to meet those goals, we’re not going to fund you anymore.’ So, now, these operators are going, ‘Shit, we gotta figure this out.’”

That, says Westeinde, is “changing the conversation. That part I’m extremely encouraged by.”

I come away with admiration. Here’s a developer who could make much more money if he compromised his principles. He won’t.

“We’re turning down projects that have a fantastic financial return, but we just can’t see the way [to make them sustainable].”

The post Meet the land developer trying to stop a highway through Ontario’s greenbelt appeared first on Corporate Knights.

As the country’s need for power grows through the decarbonization of transportation, industry and space heating, the Liberal Party climate plan is proposing a clean energy standard to help Canada achieve a 100% net-zero-electricity system by 2035. 

The proposal echoes a report released August 19 by the David Suzuki Foundation and a group of environmental NGOs that also calls for a clean electricity standard, capping power-sector emissions, and tighter carbon-pricing regulations. The report, written by Simon Fraser University climate economist Mark Jaccard and data analyst Brad Griffin, asserts that these policies would effectively decarbonize Canada’s electricity system by 2035.

“Fuel switching from dirty fossil fuels to clean electricity is an essential part of any serious pathway to transition to a net-zero energy system by 2050,” writes Tom Green, climate policy advisor to the Suzuki Foundation, in a foreword to the report. The pathway to a net-zero grid is even more important as Canada switches from fossil fuels to electric vehicles, space heating and industrial processes.

While the NDP and Greens also call for a net-zero grid by 2030 (five years earlier than the Liberals), only the Liberals have promised to institute a clean electricity standard, which is the specific mechanism under federal law that would permit Ottawa to use regulation and carbon pricing to achieve its target. And while the Conservatives promise to upgrade the grid, their platform doesn’t include a net-zero electricity system target.

Under Jaccard and Griffin’s proposal, a clean electricity standard would be established to regulate CO2 emissions specifically from power plants across Canada. In addition, the plan includes an increase in the carbon price imposed on electricity system releases, combined with tighter regulation to ensure that 100% of the carbon price set by the federal government is charged to electricity producers. The authors propose that the current scheduled carbon price of $170 per tonne of CO2 in 2030 should rise to at least $300 per tonne by 2050.

In Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the 2030 standard would mean that all fossil-fuel-powered electricity plants would require carbon capture in order to comply with the standard. The provinces would be given until 2035 to drop to zero grams CO2 per kilowatt hour, matching the 2030 standard for low-carbon provinces (Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island). 

Alberta and Saskatchewan targeted 

Canada has a relatively clean electricity system, with about 80% of the country’s power generated from low- or zero-emission sources. So the biggest impacts of the proposal will be felt in the higher-carbon provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Alberta has a plan to switch from coal-based electric power to natural gas generation by 2023. But Saskatchewan is still working on its plan. Under the Jaccard-Griffin proposal, these provinces would need to install carbon capture on their gas-fired plants by 2030 and carbon-negative technology (biomass with carbon capture, for instance) by 2035. Saskatchewan has been operating carbon capture and storage technology at its Boundary Dam power station since 2014, but large-scale rollout at power plants has not yet been achieved in Canada. 

With its heavy reliance on nuclear and hydro generation, Ontario’s electricity supply is already low carbon. Natural gas now accounts for about 7% of the province’s grid, but the clean electricity standard could pose a big challenge for the province as it ramps up natural-gas-generated power to replace electricity from its aging Pickering station, scheduled to go out of service in 2025. Pickering currently supplies about 14% of Ontario’s power. 

Ontario doesn’t have large geological basins for underground CO2 storage, as Alberta and Saskatchewan do, so the report says Ontario will have to build up its solar and wind generation significantly or find a solution to capture CO2 from its gas plants. The Ontario Clean Air Alliance has kicked off a campaign to encourage the Ontario government to phase out gas-fired generation by purchasing power from Quebec or installing new solar or wind power.

As the report points out, the federal government has Supreme Court–sanctioned authority to impose carbon regulations, such as a clean electricity standard, and carbon pricing on the provinces.

The federal government can also mandate a national approach to CO2 reduction regardless of fuel source, encouraging higher-carbon provinces to work with their lower-carbon neighbours. The Atlantic provinces would be encouraged to buy power from hydro-heavy Newfoundland, for example, while Ontario would be encouraged to buy power from Quebec, Saskatchewan from Manitoba, and Alberta from British Columbia.

The Canadian Electricity Association, the umbrella organization for Canada’s power sector, did not respond to a request for comment on the Jaccard-Griffin report or the Liberal net-zero grid proposal.

Liberal-NDP battle over climate policy

The proposed clean electricity standard is part of a Liberal-NDP battle over climate policy in the current election campaign, prompted in part by an assessment by Jaccard of the parties’ climate platforms. Jaccard has rated the overall Liberal climate plan as 8/10, which is not surprising given that his own recommendations for carbon pricing and the more recent clean electricity standard are in the plan. At the same time, he ranked the NDP’s climate platform at 2/10, saying it was hobbled by unrealistic burdens on industry to pay for decarbonization.

Ironically, the NDP plan calls for the kind of strong regulation and stringent carbon pricing throughout the economy that Jaccard specifically recommends for the electricity system in his net-zero electricity report.

Just how much more clean power will Canada need? 

The proposal has also kicked off a debate about exactly how much additional electricity Canada will need in coming decades.

In his 2015 report, Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in Canada, energy and climate analyst Chris Bataille estimated that to achieve Canada’s climate net-zero target by 2050 the country will need to double its electricity use by that year.

Jaccard and Griffin agree with this estimate, saying that Canada will need more than 1,200 terawatt hours of electricity per year in 2050, up from about 640 terawatt hours currently.

But energy and climate consultant Ralph Torrie (also director of research at Corporate Knights) disputes this analysis.

He says large-scale programs to make the economy more energy efficient could substantially reduce electricity demand. A major program to install heat pumps and replace inefficient electric heating in homes and businesses could save 50 terawatt hours of consumption on its own, according to a recent report from Torrie and colleague Brendan Haley. 

Put in context, 50 terawatt hours would require generation from 7,500 large wind turbines. Applied to electric vehicle charging, 50 terawatt hours could power 10 million electric vehicles.

While Torrie doesn’t dispute the need to bring the power system to net-zero, he also doesn’t believe the “arm-waving argument that the demand for electricity is necessarily going to double because of the electrification associated with decarbonization.” 

Eugene Ellmen writes on sustainable business and finance. 

The post Cleaning up Canada’s electricity is critical to meeting climate pledges appeared first on Corporate Knights.

That organ invented a concept none of the other creatures had – the future – and realized we could affect that future by what we do in the present. By looking ahead, we were able to, using our experience and observation, anticipate hazards or favourable possibilities and thus deliberately choose to avoid danger and take advantage of opportunity. 

Foresight was a major factor in our survival and success as a species, and we have grown explosively as a result. But today, we have become a very different animal. We now use foresight to serve priorities far beyond basic biological and social needs like food, shelter, clean water, clean air, energy from sunlight – elements that are the key to our survival and well-being. Now foresight is used to sustain elaborations of human constructs like economics, politics, law and religion. However, the COVID-19 crisis is a reminder of our basic animal nature – and the difficulty humans have prioritizing the wisest choices when politics and economics intrude on what is a biological challenge. 

We’ve been aware of the threat global warming poses to humanity since 1824, when the greenhouse effect was first described by Joseph Fourier. By the 1950s, Russian climatologist Mikhail Budyko presciently warned that loss of Arctic sea ice would accelerate warming. Taking the science seriously, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson warned about the need to act on global warming in the mid-1960s, and Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House in the late 1970s. 

Canada played a major role in 1988, when 300 scientists, policy-makers from 46 countries, UN representatives and NGOs met in Toronto. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney spoke, and Stephen Lewis, Canada’s UN ambassador, chaired the conference, which concluded that global warming represented a threat to humanity second only to a global nuclear war and called for “urgent action” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% over 15 years. Had Canada acted on our foresight then to achieve that target, we could have ​led the world away from the urgent crisis we now face.

The Nature of Things did its first television program on global warming in 1989. That year, I hosted a CBC radio series, It’s a Matter of Survival, that warned of a perilous future if we didn’t act immediately. The huge public response to that series prompted me to form the David Suzuki Foundation to look at the underlying root causes of our unwillingness to act on our basic survival instrument, foresight – to look ahead, recognize the danger of the climate emergency and act to avoid it. 

Fast forward three decades and the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow will be the 26th annual meeting to deal with a crisis we have long known about. If history is any guide, COP26 will accomplish little. While there are numerous solutions to climate change, ideological differences, national interest, corporate priorities, religious pressures, political timidity and legal strictures all act to block real action. All the while, the reality of climate change becomes ever more obvious and dire. 

The biggest hurdle is our belief that the economy or political future must be considered first. The most challenging obstacle to action is the mindset that no longer recognizes that our very lives and well-being remain utterly dependent on nature – air, water, soil, photosynthesis and biodiversity – while economics, politics and law are human creations. (Has COVID-19 respected human borders or cared about corporate or political priorities?) Humanity has inadvertently created an existential crisis by failing to recognize that we remain embedded in a web of relationships in nature and must act as a single species with a common goal.  

I have no idea what the final path will or should be. I only know that if we keep putting ourselves and our inventions (economics, politics, law) ahead of nature’s laws, we will bicker away and try to resolve the issue with incremental changes here and there.  

We must act the way we do in science fiction movies when Earth is invaded by aliens from another galaxy who kill humans indiscriminately: seize the challenge as one species in a common commitment to defeat a threat that imperils all of us.

Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

On December 9, David Suzuki joined Corporate Knights with Margaret Atwood and Sheila Watt-Cloutier for a fireside chat about climate action.

Watch the full event below.

For more information about the event, visit corporateknights.com/paristoglasgow.

The post What will it take to bust through climate stalling? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

In advance of this week’s throne speech, a coalition of grassroots groups has launched the first Canadian bill that shows a $20 bill’s long-term value if the federal government invests in a green recovery.

Recent calculations made by economists at Corporate Knights found that for every $20 invested in a green and just recovery, $307.85 would be contributed to Canada’s GDP over the next 10 years. This figure was calculated by factoring $125 in direct investments by the private sector and other governments, as well as multiplier and indirect benefits.

The Green New Bill campaign talks up the potential value if the to-be-announced recovery package is invested in a green future, in particular on those low-carbon Canadian assets best aligned with global growth trends. Canadians are being invited to explore the $307.85 bill to learn more about the real socioeconomic impacts of a green recovery, from job creation to lowering global emissions to saving money on our energy bills.

Ralph Torrie, senior associate with Sustainability Solutions Group, said in a statement, “We can lay down a foundation for wealth creation, create a huge number of jobs [and] put Canada on a pathway to being carbon free by 2050 while restoring and supporting nature in the process. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make the changes that are necessary to get on the road to an economic and environmental recovery.”

The Green New Bill is an educative initiative informed by a coalition of grassroots groups, including the Green Budget Coalition, the Strathmere Group, CAN-Rac, Corporate Knights and the Task Force for a Resilient Recovery, led by the David Suzuki Foundation. The campaign figures are based on Corporate Knights’ Building Back Better strategy, which includes a $40 billion federal fund for research, development and deployment of breakthrough technologies to unlock billions of dollars of value from zero-carbon commodities, electric vehicles and batteries, non-energy applications of petroleum resources such as lightweight carbon fibres, and other innovations where Canada has the ingredients to succeed in globally competitive markets.

The fund would crowd in $105 billion of private capital while focusing on ensuring that all Canadians benefit from the intellectual property generated. The prize for getting this right? Canada gets to be the supplier of choice for $125 billion of zero-carbon commodities annually by 2030 while creating 1,000,000 person-years of employment.

Here’s how the plan breaks down 

Greening homes and workplaces: $3.80 yields $130 in GDP impact

With every $3.80 invested in greening Canadian buildings forecasted to yield $130 in GDP within a decade, investing in residential- and commercial-building retrofits and electrification is considered the most effective – and quickest – way to stimulate economic recovery, create jobs and facilitate emission reductions. That explains why doing so tops the agenda of most post-pandemic recovery strategies. By 2030, deep retrofits of 60% of Canadian homes and buildings will reduce our annual GHG emissions by 57 megatonnes and create more than three million person-years of employment.

Federal retrofit investing could provide grants and low-interest loans to jumpstart a nationwide campaign to upgrade the efficiency, comfort and quality of all types of homes and workplaces. The campaign hopes that the federal government will also finance workforce training and innovation in new business and financial models to reduce the costs of mass retrofits, as well as contribute to auditing and planning costs. Torrie says building heating/cooling and electricity savings of more than $20 billion per year will recoup the investment.

Greening the grid: $1.23 invested, $52.38 in GDP impact

The transition to a low-carbon future necessarily includes a massive shift to electricity for vehicles and buildings while at the same time ensuring that the electricity supply is carbon-free. Decarbonizing the grid in Canada will require $129 billion in investments that would generate more than 900,000 person-years of employment over the next 10 years and slash 75 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. For every $1.23 invested in greening the grid, the GDP impact would be $52.38.

Federal spending would be highly leveraged in this sector, with the government taking a leadership role in the promotion of interprovincial trade in electricity. The key will be to focus on financing the construction of new transmission capacity between provinces that have a surplus of carbon-free electricity and those still dependent on fossil fuel generation. In provinces with high solar and wind potential, the federal government can speed the transition to a carbon-free grid by investing in renewable electricity and utility-level storage, for example by buying the emission reductions at the going carbon price. Torrie estimates that fuel and electricity savings of more than $24 billion per year will recoup the investment.

Among its many benefits, the Green New Bill will help reset relationships with Indigenous communities, says Torrie. “The decentralized and renewable technologies that comprise the emerging energy system are lighter on the land, lend themselves more readily to Indigenous community ownership and employment, and facilitate a real commitment to the standard of free, prior and informed consent.”

Supporting the electric vehicle revolution: $2.57 invested, $44.41 in GDP impact

Electric vehicles already have a lower total cost of ownership than gas-powered cars, but the initial cost and a lack of charging stations are barriers to uptake. In this plan, EVs make up more than 40% of all the cars and trucks on the road by 2030. Government spending in this area is focused on building the charging infrastructure in homes, communities and all along the Trans-Canada Highway, as well as on providing incentives for early adopters of electric vehicles, including buyers of trucks, school buses and transit buses. In addition, $370 million of the $2.57 billion would go to the construction of 2,000 kilometres of new bike and pedestrian rights-of-way. All totalled, the EV and active transportation transition are expected to generate more than 800,000 person-years of employment by 2030 and reduce GHG emissions by 66 million tonnes per year.

Nature-based solutions: $4.05 invested, $8.51 in GDP impact

Specific initiatives in this area include planting 10 billion trees, sequestering carbon by converting marginal agricultural land, and reducing the use of nitrogen fertilizer on Canadian farmland. These short-term measures will require $22 billion in federal investment, create 160,000 person-years of employment and reduce annual GHG emissions by 35 million tonnes. Complementary policies to protect at least 25% of Canada’s land and oceans and to encourage sustainable agriculture and forestry will ensure that these sectors continue their time-honoured contribution to Canadian prosperity.

Supporting Canadian innovations: $7.46 invested, $56.27 in GDP impact

The Build Back Better strategy includes a $40 billion federal fund for research, development and deployment of breakthrough technologies for zero-carbon commodities, batteries, electric vehicles, non-energy applications of petroleum resources, and other innovations where Canadian firms can succeed in globally competitive markets. The fund would crowd in $105 billion of private capital while ensuring that all Canadians benefit from the intellectual property generated. The prize for getting this right is for Canada to be the supplier of choice for the $125 billion zero-carbon annual commodities market by 2030 while creating one million person-years of employment.

Greening heavy industry: $0.88 invested, $16.17 in GDP impact

Green public procurement policies that include a premium of $100/tonne of GHG avoided for low-carbon steel and cement would give these industries the incentive they need to invest in new low-carbon production technologies. A $480-million-per-year program of subsidies for the development and deployment of low-carbon production processes in these industries could unlock the $3.7 billion of private capital investment per year they need for decarbonization. Complementary policies for the industrial sector include incentives for electrification and for zero-waste technologies and processes. These initiatives generate more than 234,000 person-years of employment and GHG emission reductions of eight million tonnes per year.

The post How a $20 bill could be worth close to $308 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that nearly one-third of COVID-19 patients are black, even though they make up just 13% of the U.S. population. Numbers are similar for COVID-19 death rates. This pattern is true across nearly all jurisdictions that collect data.

In Canada, we don’t collect race-based data, but the information we have indicates a similar trend. People in North Montreal, the lowest-income neighbourhood in the Montreal Metropolitan Area, are falling ill and dying in greater per-capita numbers than in other neighbourhoods. Stats from Toronto Public Health show higher infection rates in areas with greater proportions of low-income people or newcomers.

Like climate change, COVID-19 is a threat-multiplier. Both crises compound and highlight existing inequities. As early as 2009, Scientific American pointed out that climate change will impact the poor most. Those who’ve had the smallest role in creating carbon emissions will pay the greatest price.

These days, there’s much talk about stimulus and recovery investments that could help us build back better, putting us in a stronger position to weather future shocks and crises. These are crucial discussions, but they must address equity.

Recent Anstice polling shows that we’re more compassionate and caring right now. People generally want others to be safe, have food, be able to pay their rent and have a chance to thrive in the future.

Even before the pandemic, an Abacus Data survey showed that Canadians are more supportive of climate and energy transition policies if policymakers demonstrate that they’ve thought about equity and included measures to ensure people who have been more marginalized aren’t negatively impacted by these policies.

And in a recent Ipsos public opinion poll, 61% of Canadians expressed that in the economic recovery from COVID-19, it’s important that government actions prioritize climate change.

Taken together, these polls suggest a path forward. If values have shifted toward care and compassion and away from consumerism, and if people in Canada are more supportive of energy transition policies and investments, then now is the time to advance policy and investments that address equity and reduce climate risk while creating more just, inclusive communities.

There are reasons to be hopeful.

The Canadian Urban Sustainability Practitioners have a new tool that explores energy poverty.  It shows that in my community, Vancouver, visible minority households are twice as likely to experience energy poverty. Often inequities are hidden, but if we can see them, we can begin to address them. And this will likely resonate with people, especially right now. Tools like this could help governments make decisions that address greenhouse gas reductions, job creation, health and equity.

For example, instead of incentives for single-family housing retrofits, there may be more co-benefits to addressing retrofits for low-income, multi-family housing or social housing. There may also be more public support for these initiatives.

In online meeting rooms across the country, elected officials and government staff at all levels are debating how to advance climate policies that also improve health and resilience as we emerge from the pandemic. Some are putting active transportation infrastructure in place to help with physical distancing and provide healthy mobility options that get people outdoors. Others are considering building retrofit projects that create jobs.

I hope they also consider the polling that shows people’s values are coalescing around empathy and caring, and that even before the pandemic, there was higher support for policies that address equity.

We now have the opportunity to work together to build a future that’s headed toward net-zero carbon, that’s more resilient, healthier, equitable and inclusive. We’ll need to rely on our values, clarity of purpose and courage to try new things, and to learn and adapt so that we can truly build back better.

Sherry Yano is the community renewable energy manager at the David Suzuki Foundation

The post Leaders must address equity to build back better appeared first on Corporate Knights.