August 19, 2009

It has become clear to anyone following the science of global warming that adapting to climatic changes will be absolutely necessary. Changes have begun and will only become more pronounced in the future, for all sectors and all regions of Canada.

Take the mining sector. Yes, it’s a natural resource sector but not necessarily one of those we think of when we hear of climate change impacts. Droughts in the prairie wheat belt, beetle infestations and fires in our forests, disappearing salmon due to warmer water temperatures…these may be top of mind. But a report released today by the David Suzuki Foundation shows that the mining sector is also vulnerable to global warming: see www.davidsuzuki.org.

There are several recent examples of climatic events having an effect on mining operations. In 2006, a diamond mine in the Northwest Territories had to send supplies in by helicopter, with millions in additional costs, because warmer temperatures made the winter road impassable. Intense rain events have flooded roads, cutting off access to mines. Hot, dry conditions have impeded water usage for Quebec gravel mines, forcing gravel quarries in Quebec to curtail production in order to abide by dust suppression regulations..

In fact, the researchers commissioned by the Foundation found that a significant percentage of those surveyed from the mining industry (between 34 and 48 per cent, based on separate surveys) say that climate change is already affecting their operations. Two-thirds of those think the impacts have been “bad” or “very bad.” Let’s remember that primary mineral extraction alone is a $10 billion industry, employing 50,000 people.

Given that impacts are happening, are mining companies trying to adapt? It depends who from the industry you ask. Not surprisingly, mining practitioners who had directly experienced disruptive climatic events were significantly more likely to be planning to adapt. What is surprising, however, is that those that think that future climate change will be bad for business are not more likely to be planning for those impacts. So adaptation to global warming is happening in only a limited way and on an ad hoc basis.

The research revealed another interesting discrepancy. All of those surveyed who work in day-to-day mining operations thought that future climate change would affect their companies. However, only 1-in-4 senior executives perceived this threat, suggesting that inertia in senior ranks may be constraining adaptive planning in the Canadian mining sector.

The lessons from the research are clear. Mining industry leaders need to more effectively communicate the potential risks of global warming. Companies need to identify the most cost-effective measures and technologies that will allow mines to adapt, specifically looking for win-win adaptation strategies.

Governments have a role too. Regulations are needed to mandate that mines plan for climate change both during their operational lifespan and throughout decommissioning. Regulatory certainty is also needed with respect to reducing emissions and thus minimizing global warming. After all, we still have a choice to experience a little climate change or a lot of climate change. Guess which of those scenarios will be easier and less costly to adapt to?

BY DALE MARSHALL

Posted by Dale Marshall at August 19, 2009
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August 10, 2009

Assertions that government can’t pick technology winners are mostly meaningless

Success in the marketplace is only one indicator of whether a technology is truly a winner for Canadians. There are many environmental costs, born by all of us, that are not reflected in a given technology’s performance in the marketplace.

BY PIERRE SADIK

It is axiomatic that government can’t pick technology winners, right? This aphorism is often tossed around on Parliament Hill, particularly by the current government. Both this assertion and its corollary, that the private sector is better at picking technology winners, bear further scrutiny.

The claim that government is hopelessly myopic in picking technology winners is a common refrain coming from many different quarters. Free market types use it to condemn federal government subsidies aimed at promoting renewable power or saving jobs. Environmentalists sometimes use it to condemn boondoggles such as the billions in federal subsidies to Atomic Energy Canada Limited for the hapless CANDU reactor. And governments use it when they don’t want to offer further subsidies.

The fact that everyone and their uncle feels comfortable using this expression is perhaps an indication of just how bereft of meaning it has become.

The assertion that government can’t pick technology winners begs three important questions. What is it that government is doing that we characterize as “picking” a winner? In what context is the technology in question being adjudged a “winner”? If the federal government does indeed have a predisposition for picking losers, who is deft at picking winners?

In terms of the first question, most observers will agree that government is trying to pick a winner when a given technology is provided a government subsidy that competing technologies do not enjoy. But subsidies come in many different forms and guises. For instance, the renewable power sector is currently subsidized by the federal government via a production incentive of one cent per kilowatt hour. The coal and oil powered electricity sectors do not receive this subsidy.

The renewable power subsidy is designed, in part, to give renewables an advantage over coal and oil, or at least level the playing field between these energy technologies. But at the same time that the federal government is subsidizing renewable power it is also simultaneously subsidizing oil and coal via an accelerated capital cost allowance and other tax breaks. So who exactly is government picking as the technology winner in the electricity sector? Perhaps even more noteworthy is that the oil and coal sectors also receive an astronomical implicit government subsidy by being permitted to emit greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere at little or no cost.
Which takes us to the second question: what does “winner” mean? In what context is the technology in question being adjudged a “winner” and for whom is it a winner? Probably the most common definition attributed to “winner” in this context is that the winning technology is the one that succeeds in the marketplace.
But the marketplace is a fairly narrow lens through which to judge a subsidized technology. Success in the marketplace is only one indicator of whether a technology is truly a winner for Canadians. There are many environmental costs, born by all of us, that are not reflected in a given technology’s performance in the marketplace. Economists call the unaccounted for cost a market externality, because the market is unable to internalize the cost. This shortcoming means the marketplace understates the actual costs to society, thus skewing which technology wins and which loses.
The refrigerant Freon provides an excellent example of this phenomenon. Freon technology was originally deemed an unqualified winner by the marketplace. It is cheap, non-flammable, noncorrosive, odourless and, above all, highly effective. But government had to step in to pick another winner because, while Freon was a sales winner, the ozone depleting characteristic of this gas where not accounted for by the marketplace in the determination of which technology should win as a refrigerant.

If the government is rotten at picking technology winners who is deft at picking them? The corollary of “the government can’t pick technology winners” is probably that the private sector can. But the private sector has an equally dubious record of picking technology winners, particularly if we take into account the true social cost of a given technology. Hence a portfolio approach may be the best hedge against the pervasive inability to pick winners. Government can adopt a portfolio approach by investing in several different technologies at once. One of the best ways to do this is to offer a performance-based subsidy instead of a technology-based one.

That’s exactly what the federal Conservative government did when it offered the ecoAUTO rebate subsidy for cars that meet a certain fuel efficiency standard. The performance-based subsidy was open to all technologies - gasoline, hybrid electric, biofuels - as long as the fuel efficiency threshold was met. It worked, and prompted Honda to improve the fuel efficiency of its Fit and Civic compact models solely for the Canadian market (something that is typically unheard of). Contrast the federal Conservatives’ approach with the Ontario government’s $10,000 subsidy for plug-in electric cars like the Chevy Volt - a targeted subsidy that excludes all other low emission vehicles technologies. The Ontario government’s subsidy is highly controversial, and perhaps justifiably so.

Pierre Sadik is the manager of government affairs for the David Suzuki Foundation. The opinions expressed are his own.

This column was first published in The Hill Times.

Posted by elijah v at August 10, 2009
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August 05, 2009

Competing Visions from Provinces on Climate Change

Posted by Dale Marshall at August 05, 2009
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August 03, 2009

Canada’s Arctic Rush

By DALE MARSHALL

Canada unveiled its Arctic strategy this week, and it is a little discouraging that a melting Arctic seems to inspire, for Canada and other northern countries, dreams of riches rather than nightmares of global warming. The new strategy (“Our North, Our Heritage, Our Future”) states that a greater Canadian presence in the Arctic is not adversarial, but the argument is unconvincing. That’s because the strategy focuses on the exploitation of natural resources and the military presence needed to establish our ownership over them.

We are not alone. A Russian submarine planted a flag at the North Pole in 2007, attempting to lay claim to undersea riches like oil and gas. Last week, Denmark revealed its military plans to patrol Greenland with ship-based helicopters and fighter planes. Norway and Sweden have held military exercises to prepare for confrontations in the Arctic. And the U.S. and Canada continue to argue over whether the Northwest Passage is Canadian territory or international waters.

The new Canadian strategy gives a nod to the environment, mostly discussing new protected areas in the North, something the government deserves credit for. There are also many references to Inuit communities and people.

But this is belied by the overwhelming emphasis on exploiting “the immense store of mineral, petroleum, hydro and ocean resources” and beefing up our military presence to “protect” these from foreign interests. As the strategy states, “We are putting more boots on the Arctic tundra, more ships in the icy water and a better eye-in-the-sky.” Even northern research seems focused on mapping resources on land and on the seabed and proving Canadian sovereignty over them.

And yet, Canada’s Arctic strategy proposes no solutions for dealing with the biggest threat to the fragile and vulnerable environment and Arctic indigenous peoples—climate change. The impacts of global warming are mentioned, and often, but not what the Canadian government will do to stop it. Most often, what follows any mention of climate change in the strategy is a reference to newly available resources. Inuit leader Sheila Watt-Cloutier has stated that “Our hunting culture is literally melting away as ice and snow disappears.” A thousand new parks won’t protect northern ecosystems in the absence of strong climate change policies and it is entirely unclear whether Arctic indigenous peoples will be able to adapt to the rapidly changing environment. The strategy fails to address this issue.

Stephen Harper’s Arctic mantra, “Use it or lose it,” is wildly off-base. The Inuit don’t “use” the North. They are the North. They—and we—are at risk of losing the ecological and cultural diversity of the North not because of lack of use, but because we aren’t protecting them from their greatest threat. Canada’s vision of using “it” will likely make it worse.

Originally published in The Vancouver Sun's Community of Interest blog.

Posted by elijah v at August 03, 2009
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August 03, 2009

'Global warming as new religion?' Give me a break - climate change is serious

By Jim Hoggan, in the Vancouver Sun

There is a strange conviction, in certain circles, that the world's environmental community has grown superhumanly strong - an idea that, with the cock of an eyebrow or the curl of a lip, any leading environmentalist can strike fear into the hearts of academics, politicians and businesspeople around the globe.

As the chair of the David Suzuki Foundation, the leading environmental organization in Canada, I wish that it were so. To borrow the fiery rhetoric of Vancouver Sun columnist Jonathon Manthorpe, I would be delighted, if only for a day, to be one of the "ayatollahs of puritan environmentalism" or the "Torquemadas of the doctrine of global warming."

Maybe then, I could use the power of religious fundamentalism and the threat of a Spanish-style inquisition to encourage the making climate change policy that was based on actual science rather than on overcharged emotion and obvious self-interest.

Apparently, however, that time has not yet come. Certainly not if we have to contend with the "reality" Manthorpe defined in his July 28, 2009 Sun column, "Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites."

Manthorpe rests his entire argument on the work of the Australian climate skeptic Ian Plimer and especially on Plimer's latest book, Heaven and Earth - Global Warming; The Missing Science.

Plimer, a mining geologist, dismisses the concern about climate change as irrelevant, a view Manthorpe endorses by adding, "It is, of course, not new to have a highly qualified scientist saying that global warming is an entirely natural phenomenon with many precedents in history."

If that were true, Manthorpe was honour bound to offer examples of these scientific leaders - even one example. Because the record shows that the "highly qualified" scientists - the ones who are actually doing research in the field and publishing their work in reputable journals rather than in populist books - are virtually unanimous that climate change is an urgent concern.

In addition to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the science academies in every major country in the world have endorsed the fundamental science of climate change and urged international action. Check the website of the Royal Society of Canada if you have any doubts.

Certainly, there are contrarian "scientists." These (like Plimer) tend to be experts in other fields (like geology) and (like Plimer) they are frequently associated with energy industry advocacy groups (like the Natural Resources Stewardship Project) that exist not to further the work of science but to confuse the public conversation.

If Manthorpe were truly interested in climate science, there are dozens of good books and thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers from which he might have gained reliable information. Instead, he read Plimer, whose book is riddled with errors (Google "Deltoid" and Ian Plimer for an entertaining list).

For example, Manthorpe writes: "(Plimer) says atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at the lowest levels it has been for 500 million years."

Well, Plimer may say so, but it is verifiably not true. There is reliable and widely reported research showing that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is currently higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years - at least.

Again, Google "Lonnie Thompson" and "Antarctic ice cores" if you want confirmation.

Climate change is a serious issue - and one that should be taken seriously, especially by journalists who have a soap box and a good reputation. In an age when reliable, peer-reviewed scientific reports are readily available to anyone with an internet connection, we all should reject arguments that are based on epithets and ad hominem attacks and that gloss over the actual details of this unprecedented scientific and environmental crisis.

But don't take my word for it. You should search out your own good sources.

And the next time someone tells you that Canadian environmentalists are more influential than, say, the most profitable (energy) companies in the history of profit, pause and reflect. The next time someone argues that selfish (and by implication, dishonest) scientists created the threat of global warming because they want to fatten their research budget, imagine how much easier it would be to get research from government funding agencies or from the private-sector interests devoted to big oil if only your research showed that climate change was, in Manthorpe's words, "a harbinger of good things to come."

Jim Hoggan is the chair of the David Suzuki Foundation in Vancouver.

Posted by elijah v at August 03, 2009
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