Peter Ladner writes in Business In Vancouver about the BC Provincial Gov’t’s tricky balancing act — LNG dreams within a low-or-no-carbon future.
But now with the Paris commitment, the new federal government’s embrace of a low-carbon future, the diminishing chances of a bright, shiny LNG future, rising B.C. GHG emissions and no chance of meeting legislated 2020 reduction targets, getting real about GHG reductions is unavoidable.
Great job as always Peter. Check this out, 21 Countries That Slashed Their Emissions and Grew Their GDP:
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2016/04/05/21-countries-that-slashed-their-emissions-and-grew-their-economies?int=a01109
Something tells me that examining data from Ukraine and Hungary might tell you more about shutting down communist era facilities than providing a blueprint for Canada.
And here’s a fun tool comparing the size of Canada to Denmark
http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/DK/CA
…and?
Tessa, …and….it’s very easy to make stats suit one’s argument and make spurious comparisons to construct a thesis.
But it’s not easy to counter peer-reviewed, evidence-based research and observed data.
…I’m still not sure what your point is in all this, Bob.
The biggest gains in most of those countries so far have been mostly from shutting down coal based power plants and supplementing dirty electricity with cleaner power which currently includes NG based power.
BC is in for a much harder time to make a proportional dent. Most CO2 in BC is from transport and heating. Since our power is already 93% renewable, we have to focus on electrifying a whole bunch of individual sources of CO2 instead of removing big point sources.
The tech has really only started to get there in the last couple years to fix our emissions, so it’s not exactly surprising that others have surpassed us recently.
Regardless, it’s time for $120-$200 per tonne carbon pricing in the near future. We also need to start building additional clean generation capacity quite quickly.
Carbon pricing is like another PST or GST as energy is in everything we use, especially food. Are we also lowering GST of PST in parallel to make it revenue neutral ?
Are we educating folks that everything will be more expensive if we raise carbon taxes, especially food as the chain of tractor-combine-ship-truck to get your apple, banana or bread loaf to your local store uses a lot of fossil fuel today ?
Are we eliminating better, far more effective options such as road tolls, higher parking fees in residential neighborhoods, extra high annual licensing fees for the gas guzzling hummer or F350 to induce smaller cars or less trips ?
Full-cost road pricing is something that should happen anyway. It reduces the extent to which we need hike the carbon tax higher for everything else
There’s a simple solution: grow food and make stuff closer to home markets. This can be inspired through a set of policies on food security and economic diversification.
Everything has a price. Likely the price will be far far higher. We need to consider (intended and unintended) consequence of our actions or policies. Frequently they are ignored or shown only in a highly biased fashion.
Decreasing the length of today’s highly tenuous and complex supply chains will most definitely stabilize prices and foster local production (i.e. jobs and tax revenue).
And are you sure that’s going to be less carbon intensive? Is heating those Delta greenhouses better than shipping product in from more suitable climates?
Heating the greenhouses in Delta comes, in part, from using steam heat from combusted methane (and electricity generation) that emanates from the Vancouver landfill which just a decade or so ago would have been vented into the air. Other greenhouses use wood chips and pellets, and that is problematic.
The outdoor growing season here is longer than all other agricultural areas in Canada. Heating greenhouses occurs only for about four and a half months in winter. Greenhouses on the Prairies where the year-round insolation has great potential could use solar thermal with geoexchange heat storage. Expensive to build, but low in operating costs where fuel is used only on a supplemental basic.
I don’t know what it is, but government paralysis seems to be the Canadian way.
There are so many benefits from investing in renewables that even the oil industry is now hopping on board. Enbridge (yes, the sponsors of Northern Gateway) and Suncor are both planning on investing big in solar in Alberta. Wind is even more promising and slightly cheaper. Perhaps they are motivated by embarrassment over al the bad press, but this can only yield dividends down the road.
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/03/28/news/solar-industry-says-70000-jobs-knocking-albertas-door
BC has huge wind and geothermal power potential. Yet Christy and her Government of Gas appear more than ever to be beholden to the industrial Middle Ages with their LNG energized in part by subsidized public hydro power. Maybe Petronas execs bought her a $20,000 steak dinner or something. But LNG is an export commodity never meant for future domestic use and is utterly limited by the high decline rates of shale formations and the cost of drilling + freezing that dictates a no go until world prices allow a profit.
Wind and geothermal would be permanently rooted in the community. A long-term sustainable industrial strategy could be to direct stable power (geothermal can straighten the intermittency curve of wind) to key industrial uses and for export not just to the US, but to other provinces. Geothermal is ripe for serious R&D and ultimately patents, and could be part of a package where R&D is also focused on tech and intellectual property, not to mention low emission cement and steel.
These, along with high-return urban initiatives like transit, are the economic replacements for fossil fuels we need to explore if we are to reduce emissions substantially.
Yes, 93% of BC’s power is renewable, but with climate change “renewable” takes on a different meaning when you rely so heavily on glacier-fed reservoirs. The glaciers are melting very fast, and considering how long it takes to bring centralized power projects online, it’s time to plan for wind, tidal and geothermal power to replace the swaths of hydro that will diminish and ultimately disappear later this century.
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Near+total+loss+glacial+Alberta+expected+2100+researchers/10949165/story.html
Decentralized district and individual solar PV also need to be addressed through provincial policy where highly-centralized BC Hydro has been saddled with about $17 billion in accumulated debt so far.
That’s more dependant on the reservoir system. The bigger the reservoir, the less of a problem it is. The Peace River system has something crazy like a 2 to 3 year storage volume if I recall correctly.
Mica and Revelstoke also have a pretty vast reservoir.
The systems will also produce the same amount of power if the rainfall stays the same. The irregularity of the power will however increase.
I would love a geothermal job though. Sign me up.
Geothermal and conservation could supplement and extend the reservoir storage periods. But we are about to fly past the carbon budget that would keep warming below two degrees, and the glaciers will deplete faster. The existing dam system in BC is not designed to capture rain runoff from the Coastal Range, but that may be a very real possibility in future.
We have already spent the carbon budget for 1.5 degrees, which effectively makes the Paris Agreement obsolete. So say prominent climate scientists. This means a very different future, and water will become one of Canada’s most precious resources.
Let’s focus our attention on energy demand reduction not primarily on more or different forms of energy production.
That’s not going to work. At a certain point diminishing returns occurs with conservation. Power Smart is already starting to miss it’s goals.
Additionally replacing our existing natural gas consumption and oil powered transport is going to take tonnes of new generation.
Yes at some point but we are nowhere near that. We barely encourage smaller or fewer cars, for example which are far more energy efficient because we don’t toll roads, we don’t toll parking in residential areas, we don’t charge extra for very large vehicles. We could easily cut our fossil fuel usage for cars by 50% with these measures. If we used less cars or smaller cars we’d also use less resources and less energy to build them. A new Tesla uses at least as much energy to build one than one with a six cylinder engine. So is a Tesla therefore that much better ? Better to avoid or reduce car use, for example by more biking of car sharing or transit.
Check this out: http://www.velometro.com which is a new Vancouver based covered e-bike sharing firm. That would reduce energy use in Vancouver for example if we deployed 2000 of them, like Evo and/or Car2Go today !
How about a 25% to 50% carbon levy on imported plastic crap, say cheap toys, shoes or furniture that last a lot shorter than real wood furniture, leather shoes or high quality toys. Our throw away society uses a lot of unnecessary energy as every thing purchased costs energy. That is why I think that far higher consumption taxes are the way to go, are far more green, than higher income taxes. Encourage work but not consumption. We tax the wrong stuff. If we bought less ( because it is taxed higher) we’d use far less energy to make it, ship it and then truck to the dump !
Fossil fuels don’t create emissions by themselves. It is the burning off it. Yet we invest 2 X $1B into Bombardier, subsidize the Ontario car manufacturers and don’t even toll most roads.
The hypocrisy is astounding !
Why EVs will actually drive UP oil prices: http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/will-electric-cars-unplug-oil-prices
1M e-cars will reduce worldwide oil demand only about 50,000 barrels a day. We use roughly 100M/day today.
The weaning off oil will take a long LONG time.
“Fossil fuels don’t create emissions by themselves. It is the burning off it.”
Well, the natural gas industry is one of the largest emitters in the province of B.C.. Plus, what exactly are you going to do with natural gas once you’ve extracted and sold it? Burning it is pretty much the only option.
My point was that the user, the CONSUMER has to be reminded, via taxation policies that it is she/he that is the CO2 creator, not so much the producer of the coal/gas/gasoline/oil !
In Canada we do next to nothing to stop oil use yet hamstring our job and tax producing oil & gas industries and import oil into Quebec, Ontario or NB from oil producing regions.
We subsidize Bombardier, GM, Ford, Toyota etc as they make planes, buses, cars and we think their jobs & taxes are somehow superior than oil & gas high tech jobs. How about a levy of $10,000 on each new oil producing car levied onto Ford made in Ontario but not a BMW imported into Canada ? That would be the equivalent of our current policies regulating oil & gas !
On housing your position is very clear and I agree with many of your suggestions.
On carbon you contradict yourself so much that nobody can figure out what you want. In this thread you talk about imposing more taxation to discourage consumers from using carbon while in other threads you argue against carbon taxation. You argue against car use and propose new parking fees while simultaneously calling for the construction of new highways and bridges to relieve congestion and thus encourage thousands of additional driving trips.
David:
We need more highways and bridges / tunnels as we ship and truck more as an exporting and importing nation, and because we have 1M+ more likely 2M+ folks moving to Lower Mainland the next 30-40 years.
We need to also tax consumption, real estate and vehicles more, and incomes less.
We have to increase supply ( of energy supply and car throughout capacity ) as well as reduce demand ( cars, energy, land use, water … ) per capita.
Both are required.
just like drug dealers are only supplying demand, I suppose. We have no responsibility.
In my opinion, tackling climate change requires a holistic approach starting from the production of fossil fuels right to the end-users.
BC has electricity from hydro generators. BC is energy zero CO2 now. BC is one of the cleanest energy producers on earth.
California, Washington and Oregon have a population of 50 million in a SMALLER land area than British Columbia, which has a population a tenth the size.
Get a perspective!
BC may have low-emission power generation, but that doesn’t mean it’s no-emission. Our transportation and building emissions released during over the life of operations are quite high. We have longer distances to travel, and do a lot more flying and trucking. We also take unnecessary overseas vacations more often than most.
While California, Oregon and Washington states have per capita annual emissions of 9.18, 9.63 and 10.38 tonnes respectively, BC rings in at 14.9 tonnes, 44% higher than our neighbour just on the other side of the line. Still, BC is 32% lower than the Canadian average of 22 tonnes per capita, which makes it one of the top emitters on the planet on a per capita basis.
Many deniers and diminishers use the argument that Canada emits only 2% of worldwide GHGs. While statistically true, it is also statistically true that the embedded emissions throughout our entire economy in our exported oil and gas, and in imported goods (sometimes one and the same), will push that number up substantially, perhaps conservatively over 50%.
The other fact not acknowledged is that GHGs do not have passports and cross boundaries literally with the wind and ocean currents. And they are cumulative. That is, waiting for the next guy to limit emissions while pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere and oceans faster than can be mitigated for several generations is a fool’s game.
Another way of looking at it, if every economy accounted for its own embedded emissions from all sources, both exported and imported, China, which produces all that useless crap (as Thomas puts it) for export, not for its own domestic use, could reduce its carbon footprint by about 60% when the worldwide carbon trading budget is calculated. If carbon was priced fairly, you can bet that Canadians would adjust their lifestyles accordingly.
One thing has always puzzled me. I assume from posts here that we are all lovers of science? And that science tells us that we are in the Holocene Interglacial period. Interglacial as in a time between ice ages. So if you know glaciers are coming to cover most of our country, wouldn’t you advocate doing something to stop it? Or would you roll over and say “it’s nature’s way”?
Very good point, Bob. There certainly is no denying that we are headed for the Big Chill, yet nothing much seems to be being done. We are going to need much more energy to keep from freezing to death, this includes our brothers and sisters down in the temporarily-warm southern states of the USA.
Short of a massive expansion of nuclear power generation and transmission facilities Canada will have to consider the gradual de-population of some northern regions. Millions will eventually be displaced, these refugees will seek warmth and shelter. BC will be the initial destination, as it is already. The retirees are always first and they are coming faster than ever now as retiring boomers.
In the interim, the east and all of Canada will have to burn increasing volumes of fuel. Maybe the UN will kick Canada out for increasing levels of CO2 emissions. It’s all too horrible to contemplate.
Very funny, Eric. And original too. Why don’t you teach a course or something, and call it all “free speech” or “sarcastic humour” when you are inevitably laughed out of the lecture hall?
The last thing I’d ever do is go blurting my mouth off to young people or children because I’ve lived long enough to know that scares fall like leaves in autumn.
OK. Besides, I never quite saw you as the blue alpaca sweater and pocket pen protector type.
Brown corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches and a pipe for deep thoughts. No.
That perfectly illustrates the magnitude of global warming. It’s enough not only to stop another ice age in its tracks, but to heat the Earth at a rate never seen before even in the geological record.
But how accurate is interpretation of the geological record. It’s inexact. We don’t know exactly how long it took to warm previously. But if science called for another ice age in 150 years, would you advocate doing nothing?
Even within the minimum and maximum interpretations, the average indicates an unprecedented rate of warming and development of carbonic acid in the ocean. Even if we stopped all GHG emissions tonight, the warming will keep on for generations fueled by the GHGs already in the atmosphere. It takes a long time to wind down. This is why James Hansen wrote a book with the title “Storms of my Grandchildren.”
Advocate doing nothing about an oncoming ice age? Of course not, just as I wouldn’t advocate doing nothing about planetary warming. Kind of a dumb question, Bill … er Bob.
For an informed answer from scientists themselves, you can try contacting the following climate researchers who have loads of peer-reviewed work and publications under their belts on these topics. All have dealt with analyzing and modeling the geological record.
Dr. Andrew Weaver at: andrew.weaver.mla@leg.bc.ca
Dr. James Hansen at: jeh1@columbia.edu, who also published a recent op-ed in the Boston Globe entitled “Our Children’s Right to a Viable Future”:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2016/20160309_OurChildrensRightToAViableFuture.pdf
Dr. Michael Mann at Penn State University, Earth System Science Centre: mann at psu.edu
You can also send an enquiry to the scientists at Skeptical Science: contact@skepticalscience.com
For an informed answer you can email several climate scientists directly. Contact information for Andrew Weaver, James Hansen and Michael Mann can be found through Google, and all have loads of peer reviewed publications and tonnes of research on the geological climate record.
Hansen published an op-ed in the Boston Globe on March 9th on climate change. You might want to look that one up too.
You could also post and enquiry with the scientists at Skeptical Science: contact@skepticalscience.com
Be sure to post their responses back here, eh?
Bob,
We are in the Anthropocene era.
Bob, I did some clicking for you.
http://skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age-intermediate.htm
Bob, I understand that what I’m about to say comes across as a bit rude, but please believe me when I say that I mean no disrespect to your character when I say:
The fact that you don’t understand something doesn’t make it false.
(I want to highlight that there are millions of things that I don’t understand, so I don’t mean to claim any superiority in that regard. But I think it’s human bias to dismiss things that we don’t understand, and I get the feeling you’ve fallen into that trap here.)
Bob, If we value science, and are worried about glaciers coming back, we could do some research on how current CO2 emissions have already extended the current interglacial period. Agustin provides the Skeptical Science explanation, but here is one such paper, (peer reviewed, and cited many times):
http://www.odlt.org/dcd/docs/archer.2005.trigger.pdf
Short version is, we have several hundred thousand years before worrying about glaciers, and that is with current CO2 emissions, which don’t show much sign of reducing.
Of course, that refers to a new glaciation period, not the state of our existing glaciers which are disappearing so fast that those who have researched the issue are calling for a major rethink on agriculture, hydro power generation and urban water conservation.
Prof. Clarke’s work predicted 70 per cent of the glacier mass present in B.C. and Alberta in 2005 will be gone by 2100. That will have effects on everything from aboriginal fisheries to agriculture in Alberta to power generation in British Columbia, some that are already noticeable.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/troubled-waters-face-bcs-bridge-glacier/article27985100/
Absolutely true, MB. I was referring to Bob worrying about glaciers covering his property (in 150 years, in one claim) and Eric’s claim that we are heading into a “Big Chill”. Both being ludicrous positions.
We clearly should be worried about the disappearance of glaciers.
Cold water species will survive: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=4503#.VwdHLT_ytE7
Should be headlines.
So we have effectively stopped the next Ice Age? This doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me.
Don’t throw those gloves away yet.
Over a hundred years of data re-examined and, as most us suspected (according to peer-reviewed international polling companies), all that peer-reviewed data could be bunk.
This is also repeatedly peer-reviewed. It also has multiple government and journalist seals of approval, maybe even the Good Housekeeping Institute.
“From the publicly available data, Ewert made an unbelievable discovery: Between the years 2010 and 2012 the data measured since 1881 were altered so that they showed a significant warming, especially after 1950. […] A comparison of the data from 2010 with the data of 2012 shows that NASA-GISS had altered its own datasets so that especially after WWII a clear warming appears – although it never existed.” –
See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2015/11/20/german-professor-examines-nasa-giss-temperature-datasets-finds-they-have-been-massively-altered/#sthash.r46T8cQ8.QuIwSLRi.dpuf
Good grief, man. You see 97% consensus among climate scientists around the world and you think to yourself, “this guy working from his basement must be on to something!”
When you post these things on this blog, do you imagine that someone out there will think you’ve really spotted the mistake that thousands of climate scientists have missed? (And that the fossil fuel industries, their politician friends, and their media friends have also missed?)
Or are you just trolling for a reaction?
What, you think this s a click-free zone, Eric?
Here’s what I found in only three minutes on Ewert. He is a member of:
Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie (EIKE) is a German climate contrarian organization, founded in February 2007. The organization’s motto is “Nicht das Klima ist bedroht, sondern unsere Freiheit! Umweltschutz: Ja! Klimaschutz: Nein” (Not the climate is at risk, but our freedom! Environmental protection: Yes! Climate protection: No”).
EIKE has no physical address, but only a P.O. Box in Jena. All members work from their home offices, according to EIKE. Many members are elderly and come from engineering professions.
EIKE cooperates with the libertarian foundation Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit and seems to have quite some connections to members of the libertarian party FDP.
EIKE does not disclose its sources of funding. However, they insist that they are not funded via CFACT (which was in turn in part funded by Exxon at times), but get small to medium donations from private persons.
EIKE published a petition to Angela Merkel on 2009-JUL-26[4]. The letter denies a significant anthropogenic cause of global warming, and was, until December 2010, signed by about 400 people, ranging from engineers, meteorologists, geologists and chemists to forest officials, journalists, physicians and businessmen.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Europ%C3%A4isches_Institut_f%C3%BCr_Klima_und_Energie
Not one real climate scientist among them. Not one report or paper on climate change that was subject to review by climate scientists or published in reputable, independent science journals. [Likewise, you’d think medical research papers would be reviewed by medical professionals, and so forth.] Not one member who would voluntarily identify their funding sources (sounds just like the Fraser Institute). A very politically connected and ideologically trussed up organization.
That is not an objective view of climate science and is an amateur rebuttal to the posts above. One could expect better.