April 1st 2022

Feature story

Canada’s new, new climate plan

The Trudeau Liberals are running free at the front of the pack following the release of their new climate “roadmap” this week. None of the major political parties, none of our provincial governments, none of the usual suspects are giving them serious competition.

That’s a serious problem for climate progress since there’s no jockeying for position, no race to the top and not much leverage advocates can use to ratchet policies upwards.

But, credit where it’s due — the feds keep pressing ahead, well beyond the necessities of raw politics. We have a legit climate hawk appointed as minister overseeing climate change and a clean energy advocate at natural resources.

This week, Justin Trudeau released the new Emissions Reductions Plan (ERP), giving as good a speech as you could hope to hear from a political leader aiming to rally the public behind action on climate change. “Lives and livelihoods are on the line,” Trudeau said. “Big oil lobbyists have had their time on the field… It’s no time for excuses, it’s time for bolder climate action.”

I’m sure you’re well aware of this government’s failings and conflicts. But you don’t even have to scan around the world, just listen to the loudest provincial premiers to recognize that national climate policy could very easily be in much dirtier hands.

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So, let’s dig into what the Liberals are doing with their unchallenged position on climate policy. The first thing to know about the big new climate plan is that it isn’t one. It’s much better described as a “roadmap.” Many of the important regulations have yet to be figured out.

What the roadmap does, for the first time, is show what each sector could do if strong regulations are finalized and brought to bear. This is one of the ERP’s great strengths — it will allow much more accountability. Each sector has its marching orders and we’ll be able to gauge whether we’re making the necessary carbon cuts in the oil and gas industry or transportation or electricity, or any of the other sectors of the economy.

Transparency isn’t the same as progress, but it will be painfully clear who is pulling their weight and who’s trying to shift their share onto others.

But the roadmap did not spell out how each sector’s regulations will be structured. The government says it’s going to cap and cut emissions from oil and gas. It’s going to clamp down radically on methane emissions. It’s going to mandate sales quotas for electric vehicles and then put standards on heavy trucks as well.

Each of these regulations now heads off into a convoluted consultation process, each of them too arcane to garner much public attention and highly susceptible to pressure from industry lobbyists.

The auto industry is already complaining about proposed sales mandates for electric vehicles. Alberta politicians are livid about the oil and gas cap — Jason Kenney calls it “insane” while Rachel Notley calls it a “fantasy.”

Each of these regulations could not only be gutted but also dragged out in endless negotiations. The running joke on this front is the federal Clean Fuel Standard, first proposed in 2016, pummelled beyond recognition and not yet in force.

The Liberals have such an unrivalled position on climate that they have little to lose in making compromise after compromise, regulation after regulation. The counterweight is going to have to be pressure from civil society exposing the contradictions between industry posturing and its actions.

Whether it’s banks, Big Auto or Big Oil, they have all made public commitments to zero out their carbon pollution. It’s getting hard to find a government anywhere in the world that hasn’t done the same.

That’s already testament to the power of a climate movement aligned with science — the direction of travel is now clear. The roadmaps are being drafted and the course is being charted sector by sector. We have no way of knowing how quickly we can accelerate. We just know that every fraction of every degree matters.

The Roundup

Zelensky: Russian aggression should accelerate green transformation

A couple of weeks ago, we marvelled at the incredibly brave Voices from Ukraine calling for an end to the fossil fuel era in the midst of Putin’s invasion. This week, Zelensky addressed the Danish parliament: “Russian aggression against Ukraine and against everything on which life in Europe is built is an argument for accelerating the green transformation on the continent,” he declared.

“Long before this war, it was obvious that humanity should reduce the use of fossil fuels. The era of coal and oil has caused very serious damage to the environment, our planet as a whole. Green technologies, green energy have become a logical and fair response to this challenge.”

Banking on chaos

Canada’s big banks are making all the usual noises about net-zero. But they actually increased support for fossil fuels last year, by an eye-watering $61 billion (that’s in Canadian dollars and, yes, with a “B”).

RBC is the biggest offender, increasing its funding by $23 billion in the last year alone.

RBC ranks as the fifth-largest fossil fuel bank in the world. Scotiabank and TD also place in the “Dirty Dozen” — the world’s top 12 most destructive banks.

Since the Paris Agreement was signed, Canadian banks have funnelled $911 billion into coal, oil and gas. Across the world, the top 60 banks have poured US$4.6 trillion into fossil fuels (yes, with a “T”).

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This week, Cloe Logan put together a how-to guide for Canadians who want to make sure your own money isn't funding an industry whose product is one of the main drivers of climate change. Your investments could be in fossil fuels — here’s how to find out and move them.

New record for wind and solar

Wind and solar provided 10 per cent of global electricity generation last year. That milestone has now been passed by 50 countries worldwide, including China and Japan.

Ten per cent may not sound that impressive and, of course, electricity is not all energy. But the key point is the trend — renewables are growing at 20 per cent per year, and we’ve all had a crash course on exponential growth curves lately.

“To be on a pathway that keeps global heating to 1.5 degrees, wind and solar need to sustain high compound growth rates of 20 per cent every year to 2030. That’s the same rate of growth as their average over the last decade,” says the report by Ember.

“This is now eminently possible: wind and solar are the lowest-cost source of electricity on a levelized basis, with ever-increasing global experience of integrating them into grids at high levels. With 50 individual countries now generating more than 10 per cent of their electricity from these quick-to-deploy resources, and three countries already generating over 40 per cent, it is already clear that these technologies are delivering.”

Facebook driving climate denial

Facebook’s algorithm pushes users further and further down rabbit holes of extremist climate denial, according to a probe by Global Witness. The organization created accounts it could track and found they were “recommended more and more conspiratorial and anti-science content.”

For one of the accounts tracked over two months, only one single Facebook recommendation was free of climate disinformation.

Global Witness’ Mai Rosner said: "Facebook is not just a neutral online space where climate disinformation exists — it is quite literally putting such views in front of users' eyes.

"The climate crisis is increasingly becoming the new culture war, with many of the same individuals who for years have sought to stoke division and polarize opinion now viewing climate as the latest front in their efforts."

Bad news from the Great Barrier Reef

Another mass bleaching event has hit the Great Barrier Reef. Along one 1,200-kilometre stretch, almost no reefs escaped bleaching from overheating.

This is the sixth mass bleaching event after the first in 1998 and subsequent ones in 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020 and now 2022.

Antarctic ice shelf collapse

Last week, we looked at the “impossible” shattering of temperature records in the Arctic and Antarctic. Within days, the Conger ice shelf collapsed in East Antarctica.

What’s most worrying is the location — East Antarctica had been thought to be much more stable than West Antarctica. One glaciologist told The Guardian:

“We still treat East Antarctica like this massive, high, dry, cold and immovable ice cube,” he said. “Current understanding largely suggests you can’t get the same rapid rates of ice loss [as in West Antarctica] due to the geometry of the ice and bedrock there.”

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Electric rigs

Maersk is the world’s largest maritime shipping company and we’ve covered the company’s move to ditch fossil fuels in shipping in past newsletters. This week’s news came on land — after ordering 16 electric big rigs last year, Maersk has announced an order for 110 more Class 8 trucks from Volvo.

The fleet of 126 is going to be used for short-haul distribution in southern California. Maersk says it expects to deploy 450 electric trucks in North America from various manufacturers in 2022-23.

Another EV factory for Ontario

Last week, Windsor, Ont. got a new battery plant, this week it’s Chatham. The auto parts giant Magna announced it would open a factory making battery enclosures for the electric version of the F-150 pickup. Magna wasn’t able to keep up with demand for EV parts at its existing factories when Ford decided to double production of the F-150 Lightning after reservations surged beyond expectations.

McKenna to lead UN watchdog on greenwashing

Canada’s former environment minister Catherine McKenna has been appointed to lead a new UN group tasked with combatting greenwashing by “non-state entities.”

UN secretary-general António Guterres announced the initiative saying: “Governments have the lion’s share of responsibility to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century. Especially the G20. But we also urgently need every business, investor, city, state and region to walk the talk on their net-zero promises.”

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Protecting our world

Protecting our world — H̓íkila qṇts n̓ála’áx̌v is the title and first story in a beautiful multimedia series by Rochelle Baker for Canada’s National Observer highlighting the Haíɫzaqv Nation’s resurgence and self-determination in its territory on B.C.’s central coast.

“What we're trying to do as a nation is move away from fossil fuels … but [stay] rooted in who we are as a people.” says Q̓átuw̓as Brown a community engagement co-ordinator (centre in the photo below).

For this week’s final recommendation, I’m suggesting a piece in GQ magazine (!?!). The Razor's Edge of A Warming World looks at eight places in the world where fractions of a degree really, really matter. The article by Emily Atkin and Caitlin Looby leads off with Canadian marine biologist Julia Baum:

“People don’t realize that every 10th of a degree matters.”

That’s all for this week. Thank you for reading Zero Carbon. Please feel free to forward it along and you can always write with feedback or suggestions to [email protected].

Support for this issue of Zero Carbon came from The Trottier Foundation and I-SEA.