How can governments balance the desire for climate action with the usual discontent that follows any major climate regulation? Looking to the past reveals key insights.

Half a century ago, the depletion of planetary natural resources was also a major concern, alongside the perceived implications this would have for economic growth.

Indeed in 1990, the biologist Paul Ehrlich lost his famous bet against economist Julian Simon when he predicted ten years earlier that prices of raw materials would increase over the long-term due to limited supply and increased demand. This outcome did not come to pass.

At the same time, the reverberations of the government-supported work of biologist Norman Borlaug, who helped usher in the Green Revolution, were still being felt.

Simply put, gloomy Malthusian predictions of population collapse overlooked arguably more fundamental factors of human ingenuity and technological innovation — perhaps because their impact is so hard to predict and quantify.

While natural resources may be limited (and the ecosystems we rely upon are fragile), alternative sources of energy can be perfected and new cultivation methods can be invented. Governments should remember the work of Borlaug and the insights it provides into promoting innovation when looking to address the climate crisis.

Taxing carbon

Concern about climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions has grown exponentially since Simon and Ehrlich first made their wager in 1980. So much so that the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) ended with a statement of intent and pledges to move away from fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions.

One commonly discussed mechanism to do so are carbon pricing schemes, or a carbon tax.

It is generally accepted among economists that carbon pricing schemes such as taxing pollution, subsidizing reductions in pollution, or establishing markets for emission rights, would help reduce emissions. These schemes can easily be justified on the basis that emissions are a textbook example of an “externality,” or a side effect of some economic activity on third parties.

Would such a move be effective, though? The available evidence shows that carbon taxes set at reasonable levels have a limited to sometimes insignificant effect on individual behaviour, although there are variations across sectors and countries.

This limited effectiveness, and the fact that Canada only accounts for 1.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, suggests the planned massive increase of this tax by the Canadian federal government would have a very limited effect on global carbon emissions. It might also increase inequalities across the population, as some households will be more impacted.

Moreover, substantial increases in carbon taxes to account for the social cost of externalities can permanently antagonize a fraction of the population with regards to climate policies, and even trigger popular protests.

A planned increase in gasoline taxation triggered the widespread “gilets jaunes” protests that paralyzed France for months. The current context is perhaps even more explosive due to high levels of inflation and rising housing costs paired with higher interest rates.

Considering this delicate political balance, it is perhaps not surprising that governments often make bold claims about the importance of mitigating climate change without actually doing much.

When they take action, as Justin Trudeau’s government did, they are criticized about the negative consequences for the energy sector, public finances and the division of power between federal and provincial governments. In the end, their decisions may also depend on electoral considerations.

What shall they do? Wise politicians should remember the power of their words and set up proper incentives and infrastructure for the adoption of new technologies. By shaping the public discourse and hinting at future policies, they can direct the attention of scientists and entrepreneurs to specific issues who are better placed to find solutions to environmental problems.

Simply put, the limits of political possibility mean governments can only do so much. It is essential that governments use their power to not just regulate, but incentivize innovation.

Promoting innovation

In the next few years, the advancements could be the widespread adoption of solar power, nuclear power, carbon capture and electric cars. In a few decades, it could be nuclear fusion, some type of geo-engineering, space-based solar power or another technology unimaginable today. At least if the electric grid is updated accordingly.

This is something that governments can either hinder or facilitate. Other useful measures include investing in scientific research, as well as science, engineering and business education, and ensuring innovative firms can receive financing by cultivating a well-developed financial sector.

Likewise, mechanisms such as carbon taxation may be useful not primarily because of their direct effects on carbon emissions, which are limited, but rather because the signals that they send will spur technological innovation and the phasing-out of existing technologies. Through their words and actions, governments can help shape the direction of technological innovation.

To fight climate change and other challenges, the world needs space and support for scientists who will revolutionize the technological environment and more entrepreneurs and financiers to help these technologies reach their full potential.

The post For real progress on climate, politicians, scientists and entrepreneurs need to get it together appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The plan, put forward by the Council for Clean Capitalism, calls for the federal government to invest $50 billion per year over six years in key sectors: buildings, transportation, electricity, heavy industry, and oil and gas.

It came in the waning days of a federal election campaign in which the climate crisis has been a central issue, and in which all leading parties have pledged to take action to reduce emissions, though with vast difference in terms of policy ambition.

The Capital Plan for Clean Prosperity represents the kind of government efforts that are typically employed only in time of a major war or economic crisis, and its proponents argue that such an economy-wide intervention is precisely what is required to prepare Canada for the rapid transition to a low-carbon economy that will be essential to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

Under the council’s proposal, grants would be made available to oil and gas and heavy industry companies that could guarantee that the investments would result in a 50% reduction in either greenhouse gas emissions or energy use in the targeted operations. Similarly, developers and contractors would receive grants for zero-carbon-ready buildings, whether through new construction or retrofits, while fleet operators, including transit authorities, would receive grants to cover the incremental costs of upgrading new vehicle purchases to be zero-emissions vehicles (ZEV). Funds would also be made available to cover the full cost of interprovincial high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) power lines.

The council argues that the increased debt incurred by Ottawa would be offset by massive job creation and higher tax revenues that would result from the increased business activity.

All told, the investment effort would reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by 139 megatonnes annually by 2025, taking Canada 70% of the way to its Paris treaty commitment, according to modelling done by Corporate Knights, an affiliate of the Council for Clean Capitalism. Under the Paris Agreement, Canada committed to reduce emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 and is now being urged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to be even more ambitious.

The GHG reductions would be in addition to the impact of measures adopted by federal and provincial governments over the past four years, which Environment Canada has projected would leave Canada some 78 megatonnes above its target of 513 megatonnes in 2030.

“The Capital Plan for Clean Prosperity demonstrates that transitioning to a low-carbon economy is less about ‘shutting down’ than it is about retooling, diversifying and growing,” said council coordinator Toby Heaps, who is also the publisher of Corporate Knights magazine. He added that the investment benefits are especially significant in the oil sector, “which offers the biggest carbon savings bang for buck, and where production costs per barrel will be critical to remaining competitive.” The plan estimates that an investment of $21 billion over six years would reduce GHGs by 30 megatonnes per year by 2025, saving the sector $10 billion in energy costs over the same time frame.

The members of the Council for Clean Capitalism include Teck Resources, HP Canada, Sun Life Financial Canada, BGIS (formerly Brookfield’s real estate management arm) and BASF Canada. Corporate Knights did the economic modelling for the capital plan.

Any effort to implement such a plan would run into significant challenges. It would add $300 billion to the federal debt over six years, represent a massive government intervention in the economy, and effectively subsidize the country’s oil and gas producers despite calls from clean energy advocates to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies.

However, when outlining the plan for the council, Heaps said that the urgent nature of the climate crisis justifies an unprecedented response from government.

“Stimulus of this scale would be justified by the economic benefits that accrue from a once-in-a-generation energy transition and by the need to respond to the climate emergency,” he said.

The plan would add $50 billion annually to the federal deficit for six years – roughly 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) – and drive the federal debt-to-GDP ratio up by 10 percentage points, to 44%. The Conservative government under Stephen Harper posted a deficit of $55.6 billion in the depths of the Great Recession in 2009/10, or 3.4% of GDP, but cut the shortfall in half within two years.

“Stimulus of this scale would be justified by the economic benefits that accrue from a once-in-a-generation energy transition and by the need to respond to the climate emergency.”

A recent Scotiabank report suggested that the federal government should be prepared to inject as much as $100 billion of stimulus, or 4% of GDP, into the economy if the global economy stalls as expected.

Heaps acknowledges that it would be challenging to justify a plan that essentially pays corporate Canada to make the reductions that climate crisis advocates argue companies should be doing on their own. However, such investments would pay enormous dividends by preparing the Canadian economy for a low-carbon future, boosting economic activity and jobs, and achieving dramatic reductions in GHG emissions, he said in an interview.

Canada’s response to the looming climate emergency has been a key issue in the election campaign that resulted in a Liberal minority government.

The Conservatives have campaigned against a carbon tax and have offered only modest alternatives, including a two-year subsidy for home renovations, to reduce emissions.

The Green Party occupies the other end of the spectrum from the Conservatives, with ambitious plans for retrofitting buildings, prohibiting the sale of gasoline- or diesel-powered automobiles by 2030 and stopping approvals for new oil and gas projects and slowly decreasing existing operations.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has promised to exceed Canada’s 2030 emissions target, but the party has not laid out a clear path to do so. The Liberals point to existing commitments that include major multiyear spending for green infrastructure such as public transit while offering, for example, a new policy of home energy retrofit loans to be financed by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

The New Democrats – who may hold a balance of power in a minority government after the election – and the Green Party have both campaigned on a pledge to end subsidies and tax breaks for the oil and gas sector. The plan by the Council for Clean Capitalism would, in contrast, provide the industry – and the oil sands sector in particular – with annual multibillion-dollar subsidies over the next six years.

The Council for Clean Capitalism plan would allocate $21 billion to oil and gas companies to invest in technology that reduces their emissions. Heaps said that the oil industry offers the biggest GHG reductions per dollar invested of any sector and must be part of the solution if Canada is to have a shot at meeting its 2030 emission reduction goals.

The industry, which accounted for 27% of Canada’s emissions in 2017, is already spending more than $1 billion annually on efforts that reduce GHGs. However, it is typically only pursuing operational changes that improve energy efficiency and yield attractive rates of return due to lower operating costs. Suncor Energy, for example, announced last month that it will invest $1.4 billion to replace two coke-fired boilers with natural-gas-fired co-generation units that will produce steam for its oil sands operations near Fort McMurray and provide 800 megawatts of power for the grid. The system will reduce GHGs from steam production at the site by 25% (or 2.5 megatonnes per year) while providing a “robust” rate of return to be a “significant contributor to the company’s goal of growing incremental free funds flow by $2 billion by 2023,” the company said.

Oil industry veteran Gord Lambert said there are significant opportunities to reduce emissions throughout the industry, from the extraction of bitumen to the refining of crude into petroleum products, but companies need to see reasonable payback before making the spending commitments. “Lots of ideas are available to the sector, but the [lengthy] time-to-payout is making investment difficult,” said Lambert, a Suncor retiree who now serves as CEO of Alberta’s energy regulator and as a board member at Alberta Innovates, a provincial agency that provides financial support for innovation.

The province helps finance technological innovation with revenues generated by a provincial carbon levy that was first put in place by a Conservative government and was increased by the New Democrats after they took power in 2015. However, environmental campaigners argue the federal government should not be subsidizing the oil industry, even if such spending reduces emissions per barrel. “We need to get off oil, not reduce upstream emissions per barrel,” Greenpeace campaigner Keith Stewart said. “Public funds should be focused on a wholesale transition off fossil fuels.”

Perhaps a less politically divisive area of focus in the capital plan is its call for investment in energy efficiency and electrification in the buildings and transport sectors, which together account for over a third of the country’s emissions.

Each of the national parties has some form of energy retrofit policy in their platform, ranging from a refundable tax credit worth up to $3,800 offered by the Conservatives to an ambitious plan to retrofit every building in the country by 2030 put forward by the Greens.

The Capital Plan for Clean Prosperity urges Ottawa to allocate $78 billion over six years to cover the incremental costs of making new buildings zero-carbon ready and to retrofit buildings in Canada. It estimates that the industry is prepared to invest $795 billion between 2020 and 2025, and the incremental 10% provided by Ottawa to cover costs of upgrades to new buildings and retrofits would be enough to bring a quarter of all commercial and residential buildings to a zero-carbon-ready standard by the end of 2025. (Zero-carbon ready suggests a property owner can reduce a building’s energy consumption to the point that any emissions from fossil fuels are offset by onsite renewable energy.)

The investment in the building sector would provide the largest boost to economic growth, the council said. The investment program would also lower costs for building owners, whether commercial developers or homeowners, and generate tax revenues for government to help offset the spending.

The targets for building retrofits (3% of total building stock per year) are consistent with the most aggressive plans seen in Europe and in U.S. states like New York and Connecticut, said Brendan Haley, policy director for Ottawa-based advocacy group Efficiency Canada.

However, there is a stubborn resistance among builders and owners to adopt the off-the-shelf technology available to dramatically reduce energy consumption in buildings. Energy efficiency technologies can require significant upfront costs that are only recouped over time. There are also barriers such as the need for management time and attention to decide what technologies to embrace, the reluctance of building operators to incorporate new systems, and the tendency of business executives to want to invest in revenue-generating assets rather than cost-saving operational changes. Those hurdles could be effectively overcome through the provision of “free money” from the federal government that would generate broad economic and environmental benefits for the country, Haley said.

The Capital Plan for Clean Prosperity represents a radical departure for a country that has long struggled to meet its climate commitments and has battled over carbon taxes and the fate of oil pipelines. It also represents an opportunity for whatever party is in power after the Oct. 21 election to demonstrate a vision on the climate crisis that goes beyond “business as usual.”

Shawn McCarthy is an independent writer and senior counsel with Sussex Strategy Group.

The post Council urges new Parliament to take on massive climate investment plan appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The unexpected or improbable happen, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. We can only hope for the former. Heck, maybe we’ll see a true breakthrough in that elusive goal of nuclear fusion power production – you just won’t see me predicting it here. That said, certain sustainability themed events in 2014 do offer a sense of what we can reasonably expect to witness in 2015, even if based on momentum alone. Here are a few to consider:

Keystone dies

Despite confident talk out of TransCanada chief executive Russ Girling, the Keystone XL pipeline project will likely get the official thumbs down, to the delight of critics such as billionaire Tom Steyer. The United States, for one, is flush with domestic shale oil and doesn’t need Canada’s oil as much anymore, and some of Obama’s final comments in 2014 suggest a rejection is coming. For example, speaking on The Colbert Report in early December, Obama called Keystone a potential contributor to climate change and said there “aren’t a lot” of jobs likely to be created from it. “Essentially, this is Canadian oil passing through the United States to be sold on the world market,” explained the man who can veto any attempts to get Keystone built. “It’s not going to push down gas prices here in the United States. It’s good for Canada.” Since when has a U.S. president approved something just because it’s good for Canada?

Pope pumps up Paris

There’s a general sense out there that the UN climate summit in Paris (COP21) won’t be just another bureaucratic gabfest leading to nothing. Progress was made at the Lima conference in December, and the chorus of influential stakeholders urging action – political, business and religious leaders of all stripes, as well as major international institutions and institutional investors – has grown substantially louder. The U.S.-China climate deal, despite its flaws, carried tremendous symbolic weight and the voice of climate skepticism has faded into irrelevance. The voice of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, on the other hand, is expected to grow substantially after Pope Francis issues a clarion call to action in the lead-up to Paris. As reported in the Guardian, the Pope is also expected to address the UN general assembly and meet with leaders from the world’s other main religions to build support for his message. On the ground, public calls for climate action have grown increasingly intense, as demonstrated by the People’s Climate March in September. All forces appear to be aligned and determined. Obama has even made it a ballot issue in the 2016 election.

Demands on disclosure

Investors, meanwhile, will grow increasingly aware of “carbon bubble” risks in 2015 as more of the world’s central bankers – following in the footsteps of the Bank of England – recognize such risks as both real and material. As momentum builds on climate action, so too will pressure on companies to be more transparent about climate risks and on major asset owners to disclose both the carbon intensity of their holdings and their exposure to climate risks – from resource scarcity to extreme weather to regulation and carbon pricing. The spotlight is shining particularly bright on the spending of oil companies.

Green bond breakout

The flipside of climate risk is climate opportunity, and nowhere is this clearer than in the area of green bonds. The market more than tripled in 2014 and could triple again in 2015 to nearly $100 billion. That’s still a tiny portion of the $80 trillion global bond market, but it’s a psychological milestone that gives green bonds some much-needed credibility beyond niche circles. Expect more governments – federal, subnational and municipal – to embrace green bonds as a way to fund low carbon, climate-resilient infrastructure, and a double-downed commitment from international lending agencies such as the World Bank. For an in-depth overview of the green bond market, check out Bernard Simon’s special report this month in Corporate Knights magazine and online.

EVs proliferate

A look-ahead piece wouldn’t be complete without some sort of comment on low-carbon transportation, particularly electric vehicles. Sales in 2014, of both plug-in hybrids and pure electrics, didn’t live up to projections. In the U.S., for example, Obama set a target of one million cars by 2015. But by the end of 2014 there were only about 270,000 plug-in vehicles on U.S. roads. Annually, such vehicles still represent less than 1 per cent of total vehicle purchases. EV critics will point to that as failure, but haters gonna hate, right? Fact is, plug-in vehicles at this stage in their development are outpacing the growth of hybrid vehicles, and in 2015 carmakers will continue to expand the number of models that are commercially available. Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache recently said battery costs for EVs continue to fall, choice in the market continues to climb, and compliance with efficiency regulations will make internal combustion engines more expensive. As climate regulations tighten, countries will lean more on the potential of using low-carbon electricity to power transportation. Low gasoline prices, meanwhile, are a blip that will not derail the long-term trend. I’ll go out on a limb, however, and declare there will be a big announcement regarding energy storage in 2015, and it won’t come from Tesla. I’ll also declare attempts by Hyundai, Toyota and Honda to introduce fuel-cell vehicles in 2015 will fall flat – again. And expect electric utilities to more actively support EV growth in 2015. As this Edison Electric Institute report concludes, their survival depends on EV proliferation.

Crowdfunding jumps shark

Crowdfunding sites were all the rage in 2014, so much so that it’s quite possible general-purpose crowdfunding sites such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter will jump the shark in 2015. Such sites have become dumping grounds for projects that haven’t been able to get funding support anywhere else – and for good reason. Sure, there are some good quality projects hidden within the garbage, but finding them has become too time consuming. As well, the number of crowdfunding promotional e-mails entering inboxes has grown exponentially, causing crowdfunding fatigue to set in. Not that crowdfunding doesn’t serve a noble purpose, but the novelty is wearing off. If I’m right on this, we’ll see the crowdfunding marketplace become increasingly fragmented in 2015, with more sites emerging that target a particular type of funder. This means increased reliance on Google-style tracking as part of efforts to build loyal networks that support well-defined causes. We’re already seeing this with some sites supporting serious scientific research and renewable energy projects.

Smart home delivers

Could 2015 be a pivotal year for the smart home? Based on observations while shopping this holiday season, it looks like smart home technologies are ripe and ready for mainstream adoption. You can sense it by reading the weekend flyers from Best Buy, or walking through Home Depot. Intelligent LED light bulbs, switches, thermostats and sensors are cheaper and easier to install. There’s more selection. They synch easily with your home’s existing Wi-Fi and you can control them with free iOS and Android apps downloaded to your smart device. I recently purchased an IP security camera for $99, connected it to my home Wi-Fi in minutes, and effortlessly downloaded an app that lets me watch my dog while I’m at work. While not a sustainability app per se, it’s an illustration of the ease with which these technologies can be installed and used. Expect choice on the market to explode in 2015, costs to fall, and adoption to rise substantially – and not just because we’re driven to make our households more efficient. There’s a reason why Google purchased Nest, the “learning thermostat” company, last January. When it comes to the “web of things” the bottom line is that people love their gadgets, perhaps even more than saving money.

Canada: Benchmarking buildings, pricing carbon

Closer to home, expect at least two Canadian municipalities in 2015 to embrace mandatory energy reporting for large public and commercial buildings, starting with Toronto. Mandatory reporting has been in place for several years now in a dozen or so U.S. jurisdictions, including New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., and is widespread in Europe. Evidence suggests it is quite effective at reducing the carbon footprint of a city’s building stock – on average, buildings see a 7 per cent annual reduction in energy use after three years. Also, expect Ontario to reveal details of plans to introduce a carbon tax in the province, a move that will stimulate province-led discussions of a national carbon pricing strategy. For a look at where Ontario may be heading, look to our January 22 issue of Corporate Knights.

And who knows? Perhaps in 2015 there will be a few black swans, such as bi-partisan support in the U.S. for a carbon tax. Pleasant surprises are always welcome.

The post Look ahead: What to expect in 2015 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

That’s what founding chair Chris Ragan, a professor of economics at McGill University, is counting on. To achieve that high standard, Ragan believes economists are best placed to deliver the message. After all, inaction on environmental issues largely stems from the belief that environmental policy and economic policy stand in direct opposition to each other. We expect environmental groups to say this isn’t true. But have a group of respected economists from across the country debunk this belief and there’s a greater chance someone will listen – and maybe even act.

To give the commission a trans-partisan persona, it enlisted 14 advisors from across the political spectrum, including former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, former Ontario New Democrat Premier Bob Rae, and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning. Steve Williams, chief executive of Suncor Energy, and McKinsey & Co. global managing director Dominic Barton are also part of the advisory board, which includes academics and environmentalists.

Ragan is a former special advisor to the governor of the Bank of Canada, so he knows how government thinks and works. But the challenge he has set up for the commission is complex and daunting. In a nutshell, the goal is to save the environment without increasing the size of government, hurting the vulnerable, undermining the competitiveness of Canadian industries, and triggering the redistribution of resources across provinces.

Corporate Knights recently had the chance to chat with Ragan about the Ecofiscal Commission and how he expects its work over the next few years will unfold and be received:

CK: What is the commission all about?

RAGAN: We are a group of Canadian economists who are very policy savvy, with a great deal of experience in terms of designing and implementing and analyzing real-world policy across the country. We’re backed up by a group of advisors, who really are exceptional Canadians from across business and civil society and the political spectrum. These people all came together, sharing the conviction that a stronger economy and healthier environment are both possible and go together. What lies at the heart of moving forward in both dimensions is a redesign of our fiscal structures across the country.

CK: When was the idea born, and how did it evolve to this point?

RAGAN: I wish I could tell you there was a Eureka moment, but there was not. Over the last few years my head has been thinking about green growth. I have also been thinking about part of the literature that talks about de-growth; literature that I don’t, for the most part, agree with. I’ve also been thinking about environmental policies and how that relates to green growth. All of these things kind of came together leading to this idea that we’re at this impasse in Canada – too many people believe you cannot have a cleaner environment without weakening the economy. I believe this is wrong. So how do you get past that impasse? How about bringing together a bunch of economists who are actually saying a stronger economy and cleaner environment go together? The idea was, that ought to matter. It’s not just the message, but it’s the messengers. This commission is not saying something completely new, but we’ve got a new machine that is assembled to actually do the research and make the arguments. And if we have an advisory board chalk full of exceptional people from across the political spectrum, and from the environment and from business and from civil society, then people will say this is not a venture from a particular part of the political spectrum – it’s not left wing, it’s not right wing – this is something everybody can get behind. So over the past three years we’ve been slowly building that machine.

CK: Are you pleased with how it’s been received publicly so far?

RAGAN: I’m delighted. If you had asked me at the end of October to write down what a successful launch day would look like, I don’t think I would have written down the whole set of things that happened on that day and the day or two following. It has exceeded my expectations, frankly.

CK: Is this a sign that the mood of the public and media is shifting? Is the timing right for this initiative?

RAGAN: A number of people have said to me over the last few days the timing for this couldn’t be better. I wish I could say it was all carefully planned, that somehow we just hit the nerve of the people at the right time, but we’re not that clever. What’s true is that the mood or mindset is starting to change on this. Canadians are starting to wonder about how to do better economically and how to do better environmentally. I think they do see some problems. They are starting to detect that there are environmental costs that are no longer abstract but are real. But they’re looking for a way forward. What the commission is offering or suggesting is there is a way forward, there is a very sensible way forward, but in order to identify this path you need to get a bunch of people who are going to look in detail at the fiscal structures, and you have to engineer those fiscal structures. Most normal people don’t think about the details of the fiscal system, but that’s exactly what these commissioners are good at. So I think there’s hopefulness in the commission that is tapping a nerve. Yes, it has been fortuitous timing.

CK: Is this filling a gap created in spring 2013 after the federal Conservative government shut down the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy?

RAGAN: The motivation and thinking for the Ecofiscal Commission long predates that event. But the commission is also quite different. One of the significant things about the Ecofiscal Commission is that it is fully independent. It does not rely on any government for financing or anything else. That’s very important. Independence not only gives us security, but that independence gives us credibility. If there’s a group of economists that are speaking their own minds, and if we can get 12 economists to say here is a particular message on pricing pollution, and here’s a way to do it in a way that’s fair and mindful of the competitive challenges and of jurisdictional realities – that we are fully independent and non-partisan – then people are going to say “Let’s hear what these guys have to say.”

CK: The question is, will government listen to you?

RAGAN: It’s hard to make a blanket statement about governments in this country. There are a lot of governments. Our attention is focused on provinces and cities, because we think that’s where most of the action is, quite frankly. All of the issues we’re going to be addressing are very relevant for provinces and cities, and most of them are only relevant for provinces and cities. At some point we’ll write a report on residential waste and scarce landfill capacity. That’s a very local issue – nobody wants to make the federal case about residential garbage. And if you talk about water access or water pricing in some areas of the country where water scarcity is becoming a real issue, that’s very much a provincial issue and probably a local issue, but not a federal issue. On carbon, frankly, we live in a country where three provinces are already acting on carbon, and there’s actually pretty good reasons for that to happen provincially.

CK: How do you get all those governments on the same page?

RAGAN: What we want to do is identify a principle, a basic principal that is really an Economics 101 principle, which guides our thinking in the design of our fiscal structures. Let’s raise more revenue by taxing pollution, and let’s raise less of our revenue through corporate and income taxes and some of the most growth-retarding taxes we have ever created. You can apply it to residential garbage. You can apply it to road tolls. You can apply it to water. You can apply it to carbon. You can apply it to a whole bunch of things. Our job is just to identify those opportunities. The opportunities that are front-of-mind in Halifax may be different from the ones in Winnipeg, may be different from the ones in Vancouver, and that’s fine.

CK: You’ve got your work cut out for you. What’s your game plan over the coming years?

RAGAN: We certainly do have our work cut out for us. Our plan is to be around for five or six years. I am committed to not making this a retirement project for myself. We plan on issuing a report roughly every fourth months – a series of reports over five or six years on a series of issues, but all of them looking through what we call the ecofiscal lens – that is, looking for policy opportunities that involve the pricing of pollution and the recycling of revenues. If done right, we can identify opportunities where various governments can emerge with better economic outcomes and better environmental outcomes. We’ll be travelling the country talking about the reports we have just released, but also gathering information for the reports in progress. This is a really important part. If we are going to write reports that are useful to city and provincial governments from across the country, then we’ve got to really understand and build in some of those local details. That’s only going to happen by talking to people.

CK: Would the commission frown upon the regulatory approach largely adopted so far?

RAGAN: That’s a good question. The general argument that we make in our first report, which we sometimes call our landscape report, is that in a large number of settings pricing is a more efficient policy approach than direct, prescriptive, qualitative regulations. But there are some exceptions. There are situations where regulations actually are okay, and there’s a large number of situations where pricing, whether through a tax or cap-and-trade or some hybrid, is going to be more efficient. If you’re talking about carbon emissions that have multiple sources and those sources are quite heterogeneous in terms of their abatement costs, that would be a pretty good situation for the use of ecofiscal policies.

The post Delivering hope from the mouths of economists appeared first on Corporate Knights.

BNP Paribas Investment Partners, the Paris-based fund manager, is lobbying the pharma sector in support of the AllTrials campaign, which was started by U.K.-based Sense About Science, a charitable trust. The campaign is pushing for much greater transparency around clinical trials, a necessary and crucial step in the process of drug development. Unfortunately, around half of clinical trial results have never been published. Perhaps not a surprise, trials with negative results are twice as likely to remain unreported as those with positive results. At the same time, industry funded trials that have been published are much more likely than independently funded trials to show positive results. Helena Viñes Fiestas, who heads sustainability research at BNP, said some companies have faced enormous fines by not disclosing clinical trial data. As recently as 2013, several pharmaceutical firms paid over $10 billion in fines for not fully articulating secondary effects they were aware of. Companies have also been criticized for wasting significant amounts of money conducting unnecessary trials when such funds could be better directed towards research and development and trials that have greater potential.

Ottawa moves to protect Canada’s “brand” abroad

Canada is introducing a new social responsibility policy aimed at protecting the country’s positive “brand” in overseas markets, and mining and energy companies that don’t toe the line could find themselves cut off from government support. That includes financing and other supportive services from agencies such as Export Development Canada, not to mention the many Canadian embassies around the world that help companies gain a foothold in foreign markets. The news was reported in Friday’s Globe and Mail, which said that International Trade Minister Ed Fast is also appointing a new corporate social responsibility counselor with added powers to assure policy compliance. In addition, the federal government is requiring that resource companies comply with new transparency standards, by reporting, for example, payments made to foreign governments.

Viking women failing to crack glass ceiling

Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland are hailed as being more civilized societies because of the equal opportunity provided to women. As The Economist points out, the state provides world-leading coverage for childcare and maternity leave, and more women graduate from Nordic universities than men. Take a tour of their respective parliaments and women are equals or dominate the chambers, and mandatory quotas on corporate boards assure women are well represented. In the C-suite, however, and even among senior managers, women aren’t faring so well. As the magazine points out, Denmark, for one, was ranked 72^nd by the World Economic Forum when it came to the gender gap in upper management of publicly traded firms.

Barclays, MSCI launch green bond index family

Barclays and MSCI have come out with a new green bond index family that measures the global market of fixed income securities issued to fund projects and initiatives that have direct environmental benefits. Securities must pass an independent and objective assessment by MSCI ESG Research to be included in the index family. The assessment looks at how proceeds of the bond issue will be used, whether projects meet criteria, how funds will be managed, and how results will be reported. Additional fixed income index criteria are then applied to this screened universe to identify index membership on a monthly basis. “The availability of market standard indices is important in establishing clear, broadly accepted guidelines for the new issuers rapidly entering the market,” said Sean Kidney of the Climate Bonds Initiative. “The stature of Barclays and MSCI will help to bring attention to green bonds.”

NYC comptroller Scott Stringer leads board accountability project

The man who has auditing power over New York’s $75 billion annual budget and oversees the city’s five municipal pension funds – which together represent $160 billion in assets – is leading an initiative that aims to bring better corporate governance practices to the boardrooms of big U.S. corporations. Specifically, Stringer wants to leverage the huge shareholder clout that the country’s public pension funds have to push through long-needed governance changes. Corporate Knights’ managing editor Jeremy Runnalls chatted with Stringer about the Boardroom Accountability Project, which was launched last week with a coalition of large public pension plans. Its goal: pressure companies to let shareholders that control at least 3 per cent of company shares to nominate their own board candidates. “The fact is that friends of friends are still placed on boards and then often make decisions that are not in the long-term interests of shareowners,” Stringer told Runnalls. “I think this project promises to transform the dynamic between shareowners and corporate boards by giving investors real power to nominate corporate directors.

The post November 14, 2014 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

And where did President Barack Obama land? He got some love, but still came in a distant fourth. Phil Radford, who at the time was executive director of Greenpeace USA, wasn’t impressed with Obama’s record, particularly as it related to climate change. “We haven’t seen real leadership from the president on this issue,” he said.

Joe Romm, founding editor of the popular climate news site Climate Progress, was a little more sympathetic given the political obstructionism Obama had faced from a Republican-dominated Congress. “If it weren’t for climate change, he could be No. 1,” said Romm. “He said he would focus on climate in his second term. If he keeps true to that, then he could get higher on the list.”

How much higher we may soon find out.

It seems Obama is keeping to his word, if the emissions-reduction deal he announced Wednesday morning with Chinese President Xi Jinping is any indication. Most observers were completely blindsided by the news. Obama held his cards close. He gave no hint of a coming deal or that negotiations were even taking place, perhaps because he wanted to be in front of a story that he knew Republicans would pounce on.

China pledged to cap its emissions by 2030 or earlier. The U.S. said it would reduce its GHG emissions by 26 per cent to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025, roughly doubling its previous pledge. Together, the U.S. and China represent 45 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions. The fact they have broken through what was seen as an impenetrable – and at times politically convenient – diplomatic logjam has stimulated hope as the next round of international climate negotiations approaches, and has pulled the rug out from those who pointed to a lack of action from the U.S. and China as an excuse for their own inaction.

Wednesday’s announcement on its own isn’t going to solve our climate woes. Crunching the numbers on this agreement misses the larger story. Even if purely symbolic, this is about demonstrating momentum-building leadership where, up until now, it has not existed at the scale required. The European Union’s efforts have been commendable. With the U.S. and China now on board, things get really serious.

With this announcement, as Politico reported, “The Obama administration is set to roll out a series of climate and pollution measures that rivals any president’s environmental actions of the past quarter-century – a reality check for Republicans who think last week’s election gave them a mandate to end what they call the White House’s ‘war’ on coal.”

Obama, in the final rounds of this heavyweight political fight, seems to have engineered a kind of Republican rope-a-dope.

Of course, there is no shortage of opinion out there as to what this U.S.-China deal really means and how it will impact other countries. After all, it’s voluntary – not binding. Below we’ve compiled a list of 23 quotes from politicians, journalists, environmentalists and other high-profile observers from around the world who have weighed in on the issue over the past 12 hours:

“This positive momentum opens the door for all major economies and in particular all other industrialized nations to bring forward their contributions to the Paris agreement in a timely fashion over the coming months. Investors have long called for policy certainty. Today’s announcement is a firm and positive step towards that.”
– Christiana Figueres, executive secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

 “What China is planning — starting on a path of renewable development, so that it can transition from fossil fuels as quickly as possible without damaging economic growth — lays out a model for emerging economies such as India, Brazil, and Indonesia to follow. Likewise, the U.S. is sending a message to those countries, and to the pro–fossil fuel governments in Canada and Australia, that we are serious about putting climate at the center of our international relationships.”
– Ben Adler, Grist.org

“Renewable and nuclear energy accounted for 9.8 percent of China’s energy mix in 2013. They have just promised to double that by 2030. That target will light a fire under China’s already-aggressive renewable deployments and put even stronger limits on coal and other fossil-fuels.”
– Melanie Hart, director for China policy, Center for American Progress

“The U.S. target shows a serious commitment to action and puts the U.S. on a path to reduce its emissions around 80 percent by mid-century. This pledge is grounded in what is achievable under existing U.S. law. However, we should not underestimate the potential of innovation and technology to bring down costs and make it easier to meet – or even exceed – the proposed targets. China’s pledge to increase non-fossil fuel energy and peak emissions around 2030 as early as possible is a major development – and reflects a shift in its position from just a few years ago.”
– Andrew Steer, president and CEO, World Resources Institute

“Our economy can’t take the president’s ideological ‘War on Coal’ that will increase the squeeze on middle-class families and struggling miners. This unrealistic plan, that the President would dump on his successor, would ensure higher utility rates and far fewer jobs.”
– Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senate Minority Leader

“It is the latest example of the president’s crusade against affordable, reliable energy that is already hurting jobs and squeezing middle-class families.”
– John Boehner, Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives

“The United States will be required to more steeply reduce our carbon emissions while China won’t have to reduce anything.”
– Jim Inhofe, U.S. Senator (Republican) from Oklahoma

“Now there is no longer an excuse for Congress to block action on climate change. The biggest carbon polluter on our planet, China, has agreed to cut back on dangerous emissions, and now we should make sure all countries do their part because this is a threat to the people that we all represent.”
– Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senator (Democrat), chairman of Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

“Today could be the most important day so far this century in climate and energy politics… The private negotiations were extensive, and ultimately both Presidents Obama and Xi are giving a signal that they are willing to overcome narrow economic interests to recognize their shared responsibility on this issue.”
– Li Shuo, senior climate and energy policy officer, Greenpeace East Asia

“Game on. The planet’s leading emitters have put the rest of the world on notice: It’s time to act. But while this is an historic step for the U.S. and China, both countries need to push for the strongest goals possible to give the world a fighting chance to stay below 2°C of warming. In the case of the U.S., its earlier pledge to reach 30 per cent reductions by 2025 should be a benchmark for any final global climate agreement.”
– Lou Leonard, vice-president, WWF-US

“By demonstrating their willingness to work together, the leaders of the United States and China are opening a new chapter in global climate negotiations. This bold leadership comes at a critical time for our planet when the costs of carbon pollution affect our lives more and more each day.”
– former U.S. vice-president Al Gore

“Canada has long justified its own failures to limit the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by pointing to the inaction of heavy emitters like the U.S. and China, but that excuse does not stand up to scrutiny.”
– Chris Severson-Baker, managing director, the Pembina Institute

“The difference between a 26 and a 28 per cent cut in U.S. emissions is on the order of 120 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. That’s smaller than the Energy Information Administration’s projected annual growth in Chinese energy emissions for each year between 2025 and 2030. Very loosely speaking, a mere one-year shift in the Chinese peaking year could matter at least as much to global emissions as the difference between the various U.S. targets that have now been announced.”
– Michael Levi, fellow for energy and environment, Council on Foreign Relations

“The U.S.-China climate change deal turns the most pragmatic conservative argument against limiting our own greenhouse gas emissions – that it would amount to unilateral economic surrender – on its head.”
– Brian Beutler, senior editor, New Republic

“I wish that I believed that logic and reason played any role in the politics of climate change. Because if I did, the news of the U.S.-China deal on carbon emissions would be a moment for sudden new optimism.”
– Paul Krugman, economist and New York Times columnist

“It’s not ambitious. First, it’s something they (China) have floated previously, and it still gives them enormous amounts of room to raise emissions. Second and more important, is that they probably won’t raise emissions that much regardless of what they say to the U.S. Their emissions growth has slowed dramatically due to a slowing economy.”
– Derek Scissors, American Enterprise Institute

“Enough is enough. If Tony Abbott and Clive Palmer were waiting for the world to act, well, here it is. Australia cannot afford the Abbott government’s denial of global warming science or his protection racket for the big end of town.”
– Christine Milne, Australian Senator

“If Tony Abbott still refuses to discuss the need to take action on climate change at the G20, he will embarrass Australia in front of the rest of the world.”
– William Shorten, Leader of Australia’s opposition Labor Party

“Today, China and the United States have demonstrated the leadership that the world expects of them. This leadership demonstrated by the governments of the world’s two largest economies will give the international community an unprecedented chance to succeed at reaching a meaningful, universal agreement in 2015.”
– Ban Ki-moon, secretary general, United Nations

“China Vows To Begin Aggressively Falsifying Air Pollution Numbers.”
– headline for the satirical news sites The Onion

“The U.S.-China climate deal announced today in Beijing may well mark the end of finger-pointing between the two countries and the start of cooperation on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. It eliminates what is perhaps the biggest excuse for inaction on a global climate pact: that any other country’s commitments would be meaningless until the two biggest carbon emitters acted.”
– Bloomberg News editorial

“The climate breakthrough in Beijing gives the world a fighting chance… The U.S. and China have yet to put their cards on the table on how they intend to achieve deep decarbonization. Still, the G2 has now spoken, and together with the EU, which made its own bold announcements just recently, the world’s three biggest economies and largest emitters are now on course for a serious agreement in Paris.”
– Jeffrey Sachs, director, The Earth Institute at Columbia University

“A major diplomatic breakthrough and – assuming both sides can carry out their promises – an enormously positive step in the uncertain battle against climate change.”
– New York Times editorial board.

“While China has good ‘intentions’ we get real ‘unemployment’. Such a deal!”
– Pat Michaels, director, Cato Institute Center for the Study of Science

“This announcement clearly means that Stephen Harper can no longer hide behind the excuse that he is waiting for others to act. The international community is clearly moving forward, with or without us – if we do nothing it will be a disgrace.”
– Bruce Hyer, deputy leader, Green Party of Canada

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Yes, concluded Health Canada, some people interviewed and assessed as part of its 1,238 household epidemiological study were shown to get highly annoyed by wind turbine noise and other factors, such as shadow flicker and flashing lights.

While that annoyance has led to increased stress for some, that doesn’t equate to evidence of a health impact, the department reported. “No evidence was found to support a link between exposure to wind turbine noise and any of the self-reported or measured health endpoints examined,” it said in a statement.

It’s important to put this study into context. Launched in July 2012, the research effort was hailed by wind opponents as a major victory, perhaps on the assumption the results would finally demonstrate that wind turbines do make people sick, despite years of research from Europe showing otherwise.

That Health Canada decided to wade into this area also raised suspicion of its motives. After all, it hasn’t done the same for the oil sands, what most would safely consider a bigger health concern. Many in the wind community thought the study would end up being a hit job on wind energy aimed at appeasing the federal Conservative government’s support base in rural Ontario.

And make no mistake, this was a comprehensive study – and likely a costly one. It involved staff from Statistics Canada doing in-person questionnaires with the occupants of more than 1,200 households located near wind farms in Ontario and Prince Edward Island. All households within 600 metres of a wind turbine were included, as well as a random sample of homes between 600 metres and 10 kilometres.

Hair samples and blood pressure data were collected to assess stress levels, such as the degree of concentration of cortisol in hair. On top of that, Health Canada spent more than 4,000 hours measuring different levels of wind turbine noise, including low-frequency noise and infrasound.

Again, they found evidence of stress possibly linked to an annoyance factor. There were people who self-reported sleep disturbance, migraines, dizziness, high blood pressure, and other conditions, but as Health Canada pointed out, “the prevalence was not found to change in relation to (wind turbine noise) levels.” In other words, go to a community without wind turbines and you’re likely to find the same level of complaints.

Perhaps most interesting about this study is data that suggests the highly subjective nature of “annoyance” as it relates to wind turbines. The research found that people studied in Ontario were 3.29 times more likely to be annoyed by wind turbine noise than people studied in PEI. Expressed as a percentage, 16.5 per cent of respondents in Ontario were found “highly annoyed” by wind turbine noise versus 6.3 per cent in PEI.

“Investigating the reasons for the provincial differences is outside the scope of the current study,” Health Canada said.

But it’s an important question: Why the difference? Are people living in PEI more genetically immune to noise? From my own experience, the anti-wind movement in Ontario has clearly been more vocal, creating more awareness of alleged health effects of wind through the media and turning the issue into a political hot potato.

What it amounts to is the power of suggestion. Tell more people that wind turbines make you sick, and more people are likely to interpret and perceive their own conditions as attributable to wind turbines. In science, this is called the nocebo effect, the opposite of the placebo effect.

Similar reasoning can be applied to why some areas with wind turbines can experience a temporary decrease in property value while others don’t. Tell somebody something tastes like crap and the odds are they are less likely to take a bite.

Another interesting finding, one that has been found in other studies in other jurisdictions, such as this Dutch study, is that the level of annoyance substantially decreased when the household was benefitting financially from having a wind turbine located nearby.

“Annoyance was significantly lower among the 110 participants who received personal benefit, which could include rent, payments, or other indirect benefits of having wind turbines in the area,” Health Canada said.

“There were other factors that were found to be more strongly associated with annoyance, such as the visual appearance, concern for physical safety due to the presence of wind turbines and reporting to be sensitive to noise in general.”

As mentioned, wind opponents won’t be satisfied by this study. They will continue to call wind expensive and ineffective at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, as well as claim negative impacts on property value. They will continue to brand wind turbines bird killers, despite the fact there are far bigger threats to birds than wind, such as skyscrapers and cats.

And while this study undermines their claims of a sickness they call wind turbine syndrome, they will continue to highlight the annoyance factor as a reason to do away with wind, despite the fact that we all involuntarily experience all sorts of similar annoyance factors throughout out lives – from noisy roads and highways to neighbours that drive you batty.

In the case of wind, that doesn’t mean every effort should not be taken to minimize potential annoyance. Quite the opposite, the wind industry has a duty to do so and should be held to account for negligence or poorly managed projects, when complaints raised are found reasonable.

It also doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who are particularly sensitive to noise, vibration and other things possibly associated with the operation of wind turbines. The same, of course, applies to people particularly sensitive to pollution, wireless frequencies, and certain smells.

What it does mean is that findings from Canada’s health agency, after doing a local, comprehensive and independent study – research that has been vetted by a wide range of scientific experts – has added considerable weight to evidence that says wind turbines don’t make people sick any more than a neighbour’s incessantly barking dog or a demanding, grumpy boss.

Or, for that matter, angry e-mails sent from wind opponents who don’t agree with what journalists write. Let’s hope this study at least puts to rest silly calls in Ontario for a moratorium on wind energy because of potential health implications.

The post No evidence of wind sickness: Health Canada appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The Canadian government, you see, withdrew funding from this world-class and globally unique facility a year earlier. The move was widely condemned by the scientific community, but with support from the Ontario government the IISD stepped in to keep the facility and its laboratories operational.

Unfortunately, this was merely keeping it on life support. Financial support for research was still at a bare minimum. In response, IISD’s crowdfunding campaign aimed to “rebuild the program to its former status” and, ideally, reduce reliance on government support “so that it may never again be shuttered because of changes in policy.”

It was good news when IISD reached its goal of raising $25,000, but the campaign didn’t solve the larger problem of underfunding scientific research in Canada – indeed, around the world. I thought the IISD campaign was somewhat distinct, but since then I’ve noticed more and more scientists reaching out to the “crowd” to fund research that has been rejected by government funders.

Just last week Mohammed Muhaymin, a researcher at University College London, contacted me regarding research he is doing into algae as a source of electrical energy for cities. The university wouldn’t fund it, so he launched a campaign on Indiegogo. “This campaign needs all the help it can get,” he told me.

A day later, I read a guest article on the site IFL Science from Tim Birkhead, a professor at the U.K.’s University of Sheffield. He wants to do a long-term study on guillemots, a type of seabird whose population in Wales was devastated by storms in February 2014. Natural Resources Wales cut funding for such research a year earlier. I went to Birkhead’s crowdfunding site, only to discover that the university has embraced crowdfunding in a big way for supporting all kinds of research projects.

I then searched Indiegogo and Kickstarter, two of the more popular crowdfunding sites, and found all kinds of research initiatives asking for support from the public. Most of them lament the lack of government funding for their research.

There are parallels with public education funding, which is also declining on a per-student basis. Speaking as a parent, public schools these days never pass up an opportunity to fundraise – whether it’s to pay for new books, air conditioners or classroom computers. Bake sales, book sales, dress-down Fridays, pizza day, pajama day, and hat day are among the ways parents are being asked to micro-finance what should be classroom essentials covered by government taxes.

Similarly, it looks like more and more scientists have no other option than to go directly to the public. It’s why three U.S. researchers decided in 2012 to launch a science-specific crowdfunding website called Microrgyza, which was re-launched as Experiment.com this past February.

“Since 2010, 80 per cent of principal investigators spend more time writing grant proposals and 67 per cent are struggling with less funding,” the site states, declaring that “Big Science” has become synonymous with “budget cuts.”

Experiment.com, it states, “is about Science for the people, by the people.” To date it has been used to launch 582 projects, of which 212 were fully funded and 309 failed. All told, it has raised about $1.2 million so far in the name of scientific exploration.

But it’s still very early days, and the way scientists engage with the public is bound to evolve. Nick Dragojlovic, a Vancouver-based science communication researcher, wrote recently on his blog FundedScience.com that the emphasis on specific projects is the wrong approach to take. Scientists, instead, should focus on building an Internet fan base that’s willing to support their longer-term research efforts.

“This type of strategic online engagement needs to become a mainstream activity in the scientific community,” wrote Dragojlovic, advising scientists to get savvier with social media. He cited data from a Nature News survey showing that only 13 per cent of scientists use Twitter regularly.

“Whether scientists use niche crowdfunding portals or the growing number of university-hosted crowdfunding websites, researchers’ online networks and public outreach are crucial to their ability to attract donations to support their research.”

This isn’t without its risks, however – particularly as far as the giving public is concerned. How, for example, do average folks determine whether a particular research project or scientist is legitimate? If it or she (or he) has failed to get government funding, is there a good reason for that? For Jeanne Garbarino, director of science outreach at Rockefeller University in New York City, credibility is a big issue.

“Anybody can use the Internet to push out their own agenda, whether it has integrity or not,” Garbarino said during a 2013 presentation at the New York Academy of Sciences. “If someone packages their project in a creative way, offers interesting rewards and then tries to sell it to a community that might not be able to discern whether it’s real or quackery, there’s a real problem.”

Many crowdfunding sites scrutinize projects to make sure they’re not junk, but how deep they go and how competent they are is largely a mystery to citizens looking to give. Garbarino said one solution would be to only accept projects that have been pre-vetted by a university.

Another question: Would crowdfunded science boil down to popularity contests, with the most money going to the sexiest projects and most attractive and charismatic researchers – that is, the rock stars of science? Or, would funding be more linked to how relevant the research is to the individual funder – e.g. a skin cancer survivor funding skin cancer research? In both cases, money might not flow to where it is most needed.

Finally, there’s the question of enabling the habit that governments have of offloading their core responsibilities, as many have done with education funding and other essential services. In other words, the more weight the crowd appears willing to carry the easier it gets for government to pass the buck. Social activists have similar concerns with regard to social impact investing becoming a transfer of responsibility from the public to private sector.

All of that said, the potential that crowdfunding has to positively boost science is undeniable, if for no other reason than because it helps to demystify the funding process and engage a public that has largely be left out of the funding loop.

“What would this world look like if every scientist touched a thousand people each year with their science message?” asked biologist Jai Ranganathan in a commentary for Scientific American. “One thing is for sure: a world with closer connections between scientists and the public would be a better world. And crowdfunding might just help to get us there.”

It’s just a shame we have to embrace it with so much desperation.

The post Crowdfunding science: rewards and risks appeared first on Corporate Knights.

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Five environmental groups and one farmer’s union are working together to dissuade Health Canada from approving a new systemic pesticide that could prove harmful to bees, birds, small mammals and other organisms. The pesticide, called flupyradifurone, attacks the nervous systems of insects and has the potential to contaminate pollen, fruits and seeds of plants. Bees and other pollinators, for one, are already having a hard time coping with the effects of neonicotinoids, which is widely believed to be a major cause of mass bee die-offs. “Scientists have called for a global phase-out of neonics. The last thing we need is another systemic pesticide contaminating the environment,” said Karen Eatwell, a spokesperson for the National Farmers Union. Health Canada has initiated a public comment period on its proposed approval of the new pesticide, says the group, which includes the Sierra Club Canada Foundation and the David Suzuki Foundation. Comments are being received up to November 3.

32 countries at “extreme” risk of conflict

An analysis of 198 countries has identified 32 nations that are most likely to experience conflict and civil unrest as a result of climate change. Bangladesh was found to be the most at-risk country in the world, followed by Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Nigeria and Chad, as well as island nations the Philippines and Haiti. Perhaps even more alarming is that growth economies like Cambodia, India and Pakistan are also on the “extreme risk” list, raising an important question about how much climate change could destabilize our increasingly globalized economy. Maplecroft, the analytics company that produced the report, said that one unifying characteristic of all these economies is their heavy dependence on agriculture for job creation and growth. “Changing weather patterns are already impacting food production, poverty, migration and social stability – factors that significantly increase the risk of conflicts and instability in fragile and emerging states alike.”

85,000 buildings in NYC flood zones: Report

You can bet insurance companies are taking note of this one. A policy brief released this week from the Office of the New York City Comptroller has determined that 84,596 buildings and 400,000 residents in NYC now lie within the so-called 100-year flood plain thanks to the rising effects climate change. The building count more than triples the previous estimate from 2010 and represents property value of nearly $130 billion, according to the analysis. The new estimate came about because of the $14 billion in devastation caused two years ago by Hurricane Sandy. “With such immense value arrayed along the city’s coast, we must act now to make the necessary investments to protect our homes, our businesses and our neighborhoods from the future effects of climate change and the potentially destructive force of another hurricane,” the brief states. “While the costs of resiliency projects are high, investing in the city’s future will pay enormous dividends, both to our waterfront communities and our broader economy.” The brief follows a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists that urges eastern and Gulf coast communities to prepare for chronic flooding over the next 15 and 30 years. To assist with adaptation, New Jersey just launched its Energy Resilience Bank, also in response to Hurricane Sandy. The bank will spend $200 million (U.S.) toward development of distributed energy resources at critical facilities so they can stay operational during outages caused by extreme weather. As Corporate Knights’ Ashley Renders reported today, Canada isn’t immune to the expected rise in flooding events. Unfortunately, it is the only country in the G8 without overland flood insurance.

Climate depression… It’s real

If all of this news about flooding and conflict is getting you down, you’re not alone. Madeleine Thomas at Grist.org wrote an insightful piece this week pointing to the struggle some climate scientists, environmentalists, and other “frontliners” are having with anxiety and depression as a result of climate research. “From depression to substance abuse to suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder, growing bodies of research in the relatively new field of psychology of global warming suggest that climate change will take a pretty heavy toll on the human psyche as storms become more destructive and droughts more prolonged,” wrote Thomas. “For your everyday environmentalist, the emotional stress suffered by a rapidly changing Earth can result in some pretty substantial anxieties.” Corporate Knights had a story on this important but underreported issue in our Summer 2014 magazine. Two years earlier, we ran a feature looking at the impacts of climate change on the mental health of employees working at companies perceived to be contributing to or solving the problem.

Tall travellers of the world unite!

The problem tall people have sitting in airplane seats isn’t really comparable to climate change, but it can cause considerable stress and discomfort – particularly for long flights, and when the person sitting in front insists on permanently reclining their own seat. As The Economist’s business travel blog wrote this week, “Spending three hours wedged into a seat that cannot physically accommodate your legs may not technically qualify as medieval torture, but it’s a close call.” The blog points to the fact that many airlines now accommodate extra-large – that is, heavier – passengers by finding them a complimentary second seat that allows them to spread out. So, it asks, why not adopt the same policy, official or otherwise, for tall people? It’s a reasonable suggestion, and such a call for civility would only be fair. After all, tall travellers have a proud history of helping their shorter peers get their luggage into and out of overhead compartments. But as one of Corporate Knights’ Twitter followers replied, “KLM would go out of business” with such a policy. True, those Dutch folks are pretty tall. But we love them just the same.

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