In his first appearance on the world stage, Vance made clear that the United States wouldn’t be playing ball. The Donald Trump administration believes that “excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it’s taking off,” he said. “We’ll make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies.”

His remarks confirmed a widespread fear that Trump’s return to the White House will signal a sharp turn in tech policy. American tech companies and their billionaire owners will now be shielded from effective oversight.

But upon a closer look, events this week point to signs that just the opposite may be unfolding. A host of nations took notable steps toward address growing safety and environmental concerns about AI, indicating that a regulatory tipping point has been reached.

Wide consensus

The two-day global summit in Paris, chaired by France and India, led to broad consensus. Some 60 countries signed on to a Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable AI. This included Canada, the European Commission, India and China.

Both the United States and the United Kingdom declined to sign the statement. But the prevailing winds are against them. The meeting in Paris was the third global summit on AI, following meet-ups at Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom in 2023 and in Seoul, South Korea, in 2024. Each of them ended with similar declarations widely endorsed.

The Paris communiqué calls for an “inclusive approach” to AI, seeking to “narrow inequalities” in AI capabilities among countries. It encourages “avoiding market concentration” and affirms the need for openness and transparency in building and sharing technology and expertise.

The document is not binding. It does little more than tout principles or affirm a collective sentiment among the parties. One of these – perhaps the most important – is to keep talking, meeting and working together on the common concerns that AI raises.

Environmental challenges

Meanwhile, a smaller group of countries at the Paris summit, along with 37 tech companies, agreed to form a Coalition for Sustainable AI – setting out a series of goals and deliverables. While nothing is binding on the parties, the goals are notably specific. They include coming up with standards for measuring AI’s environmental impact and more effective ways for companies to report on the impact. Parties also aim to “optimize algorithms to reduce computational complexity and minimize data usage.”

Even if most of this turns out to be merely aspirational, it’s important that the coalition offers a platform for collaboration on these initiatives. At the very least, it signals a likelihood that sustainability will be at the forefront of debate about AI moving forward.

Signing the first international treaty on AI

A further notable event at the summit was that Canada signed the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law. In recent months, 12 other countries had signed, including the United States (under former president Joe Biden), the United Kingdom, Israel and the European Union.

The convention commits parties to pass domestic laws on AI that deal with privacy, bias and discrimination, safety, transparency, and environmental sustainability.

The treaty has been criticized for containing no more than “broad affirmations” and imposing few clear obligations. But it does show that countries are committed to passing law to ensure that AI development unfolds within boundaries – and they’re eager to see more countries do the same.

If Canada were to ratify the treaty, Parliament would likely revive Bill C-27, which contained the AI and Data Act.

The act aimed to do much of what Canada agrees to do under the convention: impose greater oversight of the development and use of AI. This includes transparency and disclosure requirements on AI companies and stiff penalties for failure to comply.

What does this really mean?

While the United States signed the Framework Convention on AI and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law in the fall of 2024, it likely won’t be implemented by a Republican Congress. The same might happen in Canada under a Conservative government led by Pierre Poilievre. He could also decide not to fulfil commitments made under other agreements about AI.

And if Poilievre comes to power by the time Canada hosts the next G7 meeting in June, he might decline to honour the Trudeau government’s commitment to make AI regulation a central focus of the meeting.

The Trump administration may have ushered in a period of more lax tech regulation in the United States, and Silicon Valley is indeed a key player in tech – especially AI. But it’s a wide world, with many other important players in this space, including China, Europe and Canada.

The events in Paris have revealed a strong interest among nations around the globe to regulate AI, and specifically to foster ideas about inclusion and sustainability. If the Paris summit was any indication, the hope of sheltering AI from effective regulation won’t last long.

Robert Diab is a professor in the faculty of law at Thompson Rivers University.

This article was first published in The Conversation. It has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style. Read the original story here. 

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Under the 2021 Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, Ottawa must publish targets for 2035 by December 1, and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has confirmed that the government will release the proposed targets on schedule. Signatory nations of the Paris Agreement, including Canada, are also expected to announce their 2035 targets at next month’s Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Net-Zero Advisory Body (NZAB) – a group appointed by Guilbeault to help the government find a credible path to net-zero – is proposing that Ottawa set a 2035 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 50% and 55% below 2005 levels, a 10% increase from the current federal target for 2030. Under the Paris climate agreement, countries are expected to ratchet up their targets every five years.

Armed with analysis from the Canadian Climate Institute, NZAB says its proposed reductions are both feasible and affordable. While Canada has made “significant progress” on climate action since signing the Paris treaty in 2015, NZAB co-chair Simon Donner writes in the report, “more aggressive and sustained action is necessary to reach our 2030 emissions targets and to shift to a long-term net-zero pathway.”

The government acknowledges the need for more action to achieve its 2030 goals, let alone to meet its pledge to be carbon-neutral by 2050. However, provinces are balking at tougher measures, and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is preparing to fight the next election – expected within the year – on killing the Liberals’ carbon tax.

NZAB also recommends that the federal government establish a maximum cumulative emissions level for the period between now and 2050. This “carbon budget” approach would reflect the country’s ongoing progress better than annual targets, it says. 

The advisory body also notes that the targets and budget are net figures. While emission reductions must be the primary focus, Canada can also rely on “negative” emission approaches, including nature-based solutions and purchasing credits from other nations.

The battle over what counts as realistic reduction targets

Some energy analysts question NZAB’s confidence in the feasibility and affordability of its proposed 2035 targets, given the hurdles to implementing the fundamental economic changes that are needed to meet the targets: lack of clear and consistent government policy, lack of capital and a skilled workforce, supply chain challenges in building a clean energy infrastructure, and the political price of adding short-term costs to consumers.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s a big and growing disconnect between the pace of emissions reductions dictated by climate science and the pace of emissions reductions that’s possible when you look through the lens of social sciences,” says Monica Gattinger, director of the Positive Energy program at the University of Ottawa.

Canada’s ability to reduce emissions is limited by how well it can address the connected implementation challenges, Gattinger says. 

“The target needs to be ambitious, but we need to understand how we get there,” says Guilbeault. “I am not a big fan of setting targets where we have no idea how to get there. I think it is counterproductive and discourages people.”

Climate Action Network (CAN), an umbrella group of civil society organizations, argues that the government should aim for a 60% reduction from 2019 levels. The more ambitious target represents a fairer share of Canada’s contribution to the problem as a large emitter, says CAN executive director Caroline Brouillette, speaking in a phone interview. “If Canada doesn’t do its fair share in the global effort to keep us at 1.5 degree, who is going to?” she asks.

But setting more ambitious targets would escalate the political fight that is expected to take centre stage in the next election.

Provincial governments in Alberta and Saskatchewan have been waging a war against Ottawa’s proposed emissions cap for the oil and gas industry, which was promised in the 2021 election by the Liberals but has yet to be finalized.

Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) in Alberta has launched a national advertising campaign denouncing the emissions cap as a de facto limit on production, which the Liberals deny. In 2023, the UCP laid out a climate plan that claims to set “realistic aspirations” of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. However, Smith’s government has not set any pathway with targets to keep them on track and has virtually shut down new construction in the renewable-power sector. 

“A sober assessment is that Alberta is not serious about any meaningful reductions in GHG emissions,” says Martin Olszynski, an environmental law professor at the University of Calgary.

At the UCP convention in November, members will vote on whether carbon dioxide should be considered a pollutant or the “foundational nutrient for all life on Earth.”  

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the federal carbon levy in 2021. The majority ruled that “climate change is real” and that “it is caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities and it poses a grave threat to humanity’s future.”

Ontario is also offside with the federal approach, notably Ottawa’s planned net-zero electricity regulations, which would require provincial grids to be carbon-neutral by 2035. The province’s Independent Electricity System Operator has recommended that the province plan for continued use of natural gas for power in order to keep prices down as renewables and nuclear ramp up.

Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives under Premier Doug Ford jettisoned the more ambitious GHG targets set by the previous Liberal government and aim to reduce emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 – Canada’s original Paris commitment. The Trudeau government, along with other countries, subsequently increased its ambition for 2030, as required by the Paris Agreement.

A spokesman for Environment Minister Andrea Khanjin said that Ontario is focused on its 2030 target and has introduced climate initiatives such as electrification of energy-intensive industrial plants, a clean energy grid and support for the electric vehicle industry.

In October, Ontario lost an appeal of a lawsuit brought by seven young plaintiffs, who argue the province has violated their Charter rights by weakening the climate target and thereby causing harm to  youth and future generations. 

Ontario’s Superior Court reinstated the case after a lower court judge rejected it, and it now must go to trial.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misattributed the recommendation for Ontario to continue using natural gas.

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The three big makers of gas turbines are General Electric, Siemens and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, and together they have seen global sales – as measured by total megawatts of capacity – decline by half since the high-water mark in 2014.

Faced with growing competition from low-cost clean energy options, all three companies are cutting back global operations related to the gas-fired power business after ramping up in anticipation of a shift away from coal and nuclear.

Renewable power is now competitive with new gas generation across much of the world – especially outside North America, which still benefits from a glut of the fossil fuel, according to reports from groups like Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) and McKinsey & Company.

As a result, renewables are grabbing a bigger share of the market than had been expected.
“Until just a few years ago, solar and wind power were more expensive than fossil-fueled electricity in most places, but cost parity has now arrived,” Jules Kortenhorst, chief executive officer at Rocky Mountain Institute, wrote in a September blog post. “Some argue that renewable costs will stop falling. But the evidence suggests that prices for renewables will drop far below incumbent energy sources, and fast.”

Those shifting fortunes are masked somewhat by the ongoing boom in gas demand. Turbine sales are down from historic highs, but even the lower volumes result in additional gas in the global power mix. Gas consumption grew by 4.6% in 2018, the fastest pace since 2010, the International Energy Agency noted recently.
However, declining turbine sales and the steep drop in the price of clean power raises new questions about the role of natural gas as a transition fuel in the drive to a zero-carbon future.
At stake is whether the decarbonization of the world’s energy systems can occur rapidly enough to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees C, or preferably 1.5 degrees.

A rapid transition – consistent with Paris climate goals – would see fossil fuel use in the electricity sector peak over the next decade before steadily declining, while a more gradual trajectory projects continued growth in gas, in particular, through to 2040, according to The Speed of the Energy Transition, a report by the World Economic Forum published this September.

Betting on the wrong horse

Gambling on long-term gains for natural gas is proving to be a costly error. General Electric Company is still struggling after making a bad bet on the gradual scenario four years ago.

In 2015, the company paid US$13.7 billion for the electricity generation and distribution assets of France’s Alstom. The acquisition came just as the market for gas turbines turned down, forcing GE to write off assets and lay off staff.

In early 2017, GE projected that sales of gas turbines between 2017 and 2026 would total 78 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity. By the end of that year, it had cut that forecast nearly in half, to 40 GW, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) noted in a recent report.

“The world is transitioning away from fossil fuels – particularly expensive imported thermal coal and gas – into low-cost, zero-pollution domestic renewables such as wind and solar,” Tom Sanzillo, IEEFA finance director, said. “This is where the smart money is, but GE failed to pick the trend – and ultimately failed.”
GE declined to comment for this article, but the company says that it is retooling its gas turbine business and that it expects gas to play “a vital role” in the global power sector in the coming years.

With the impacts of global warming becoming more dramatic with each passing year, energy executives – and their government owners and regulators – are increasingly committed to reducing their greenhouse gases, Paul Browning, president of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) America, told a conference in Toronto this August.

“Right now, our customers around the world have a very high focus on decarbonization of the power grid,” he said. “And so we’re very focused on developing and commercializing the technologies that our customers are going to need to continue down the path to decarbonization.”

While Browning said MHPS’s gas-turbine sales have held up better than its competitors, he acknowledged that future prospects are not as bullish as was forecasted just a few years ago.

The Japanese company is making a bet on hydrogen, both as a storage medium and as a renewable source of energy that can be burned in gas turbines to power the grid. (Hydrogen is a manufactured source of energy. When the power used to make it is solar or wind, it is a low-carbon source that can be dispatched at times when those intermittent renewables are not available.)

Currently, MHPS turbines can run on up to 30% hydrogen, combined with natural gas. Browning said the future models will be able to run completely on hydrogen.

Current battery technology is competitive for short-term storage, but other options – vastly improved battery designs, renewable hydrogen or carbon-capture-and-storage – will be needed to ensure grid reliability over longer periods, the MHPS executive said.

Renewables getting cheaper all the time

The slump in gas-turbine sales has both cyclical and long-term causes, said market analyst Mark Axford, who tracks the industry for global power customers.

In 2014, global sales of gas-powered turbines hit 60 GW, but sales fell to 31 GW last year, Axford said. He expects sales this year will be roughly equivalent to the 2018 figures.

There was a spate of new construction prior to 2015 that will take some time to work off, even as China’s economy – a key market – has slowed from its breakneck growth pace.

But there is also a faster shift to renewables as falling costs and government subsidies drive sales. The subsidies “are doing exactly what they were intended to do – they’re distorting the market in favour of renewables,” Axford said.

However, new analysis suggests that renewable power – coupled with demand management – is cheaper than gas even without subsidies or carbon pricing. In the United States, a clean energy portfolio of solar, wind, storage and demand management would provide lower-cost power than 90% of the proposed 68 GW of gas-fired power now being planned, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) says in a new report.

In September, Los Angeles approved a solar plus battery storage project that will procure 6 to 7% of the city’s power at record low prices (3.3 cents per kilowatt hour).

New analysis suggests that renewable power – coupled with demand management –
is cheaper than gas even without subsidies or carbon pricing.

Indeed, assuming clean power technology continues to fall in price, the cost of new power from those fossil-free sources will be lower than the operating costs of gas-fired plants within 15 years, the RMI report says. In that case, utilities will face pressure to close the gas-fired plants prematurely, just as they did in moving away from coal to gas over the last several years.

Some two-thirds of the world’s population live in countries where wind or solar – or both – are the cheapest source of new electricity generation, BNEF said in its annual outlook. “By 2030, new wind and solar ultimately get cheaper than running existing coal or gas plants almost everywhere,” the report said.

Within five years, batteries will be the most cost-effective way to meet the daily peaks in electricity demand, and by 2030, battery storage will compete with gas as a source of power for when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, BNEF said.

BNEF’s forecasts are based on a “least cost optimization” outlook, which assumes continued declines in renewable and battery costs and that utilities will adopt the most cost-effective power.

If the world shifts from two-thirds fossil-fuel power in 2018 to two-thirds zero emissions by 2050, half of the world’s power will come from renewables such as wind and solar, BNEF said.

However, under its forecast, gas-fired power capacity would still double between now and 2050, with the fossil fuel serving to meet peak demand and back up the intermittency of the renewables.

As governments around the globe push utilities to get to 50% – and eventually 100% – non-emitting, the grid will need either gas “peaker” plants (that fire up when demand spikes) coupled with carbon-capture or far more storage capacity for renewables to provide a steady stream of power.

BNEF analyst Seb Henbest said the world’s power mix may be on track to meet its 2030 Paris commitments, but after 2030, it goes off course with the stubborn reliance on gas and legacy coal plants.

The outlook does not factor in technological breakthroughs or the potential for more aggressive government policies to reduce emissions, such as carbon pricing, renewable portfolio standards or eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, he said.

“Beyond 2030, you need to accelerate beyond the least-cost options to meet targets,” Henbest said.

Gassing down

Among the more bullish supporters of the dash to gas has been the International Energy Agency (IEA), whose executive director, Fatih Birol, has touted the potential for liquefied natural gas (LNG) to reduce coal use in Asia, where coal plants are still on the rise.

In the IEA’s sustainable development scenario – which is meant to reflect 2 degrees C Paris commitments – gas demand continues to grow to 2025 before flattening out. It sees gas as the only fossil fuel for which demand in 2040 is higher than today.

Some analysts warn that natural gas will face the same fate as coal, with stranded assets whose operating costs are undercut by cheaper, zero-carbon options. “The financial shocks now being experienced in the natural gas sector are reminiscent of similar patterns in the coal sector, where euphoric forecasts of growth based on East Asian demand a decade ago led to over-expansion and financial collapse,” said Global Energy Monitor in a report, The New Gas Boom, released this summer.

“The financial shocks now being experienced
in the natural gas sector are reminiscent
of similar patterns in the coal sector.”
—Global Energy Monitor

Critics have urged the IEA – which advises global governments on energy policies – to produce a scenario that is fully consistent with a 1.5 degrees scenario and that relies less on fossil fuels and carbon storage technologies to capture CO2 after it’s emitted.

At the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York, major oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and Norway’s Equinor touted the role of natural gas as a cleaner-burning fuel that can be instrumental in eliminating emissions from the global power sector.

However, the companies are making slow progress in reducing the fugitive release of methane, a powerful short-term greenhouse gas, even as U.S. President Donald Trump moves to kill federal regulations that would force the industry to capture the methane in all new oil and gas facilities.

“The challenge for natural gas is that methane emissions work to undo much of the climate benefit that we thought we were getting from gas in the switch away from coal,” Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of Energy at Environmental Defense Fund, said in an interview.

Equinor recently had its wrists slapped by the U.K.’s advertising regulator after running spots on the Underground that implied natural gas is a “low carbon” fuel.

“While the oil industry is pinning its hopes on gas and is working hard to convince politicians that we’ll need gas for decades to come, they simply can’t stand up to these kind of claims,” said Murray Worthy, a senior campaigner for Global Witness, which launched the complaint. “And since gas isn’t low carbon, it has no place in the U.K.’s zero-carbon future.”

Shawn McCarthy writes on sustainable finance and climate for Corporate Knights. He is also senior counsel for Sussex Strategy Group.

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