Live blog of “U.S. and Canada: Advancing the Climate Change Agenda”
Smart Prosperity’s Will Scott will be live-blogging from today’s event featuring Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment & Climate Change Canada & Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator starting at 2pm EST.
Email your question for the live Q&A, along with your full name and affiliation, to: events@sustainableprosperity.ca
15 minutes away! Things are all set up at uOttawa to welcome Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna and US EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy!
Vice-President of Research at uOttawa Mona Nemer has taken the stage to welcome uOttawa Professor and co-Chair of Smart Prosperity Stewart Elgie; Minister of Environment and Climate Chang Canada Catherine McKenna; and US EPA Administrator McCarthy. Vice-President Nemer highlighted the magnitude of climate change as the problem of our time and the university’s improvements in environmental performance.
Vice-President Nemer thanked Minister McKenna for the new budget’s proposed infrastructure funds for post-secondary institutions, ‘Hopefully you will be back to inaugurate some new buildings.” (Investment in advanced infrastructure is one of Smart Prosperity’s 5 Big Ideas.) uOttawa has made major strides already by cutting emissions by 23% from 2005 levels and is on-track to meet their goal of 35% reduction by 2020 (notably double Canada’s national target of a 17% reduction). VP Nemer also highlighted the new Canada Research Chair on Innovation at uOttawa (another of Smart Prosperity’s Big Ideas).
Professor Stewart Elgie has taken the stage and highlighted the new reasons for optimism in achieving our environmental goals — the Paris Agreement, the Vancouver Climate Declaration, and the 2016 budget. It has been shown that we can decouple carbon emissions from economic growth and clean technologies are becoming increasingly competitive with their fossil fueled peers.
Reminder: don’t forget to submit your questions via email to events@sustainableprosperity.ca along with your full name and affiliation.
Administrator McCarthy complimented Minister McKenna but not the April weather in Ottawa before highlighting the importance of protecting our ecosystems and shared border areas, including 4 of the 5 great lakes.
Administrator McCarthy talked about how renewed Canada-US relations have led to — ‘Not just working together, leading together’. She complimented the important role Minister McKenna played at COP21 and the exciting time we are now in. She emphasized the importance of acting on reducing methane emissions, as agreed upon in last month’s agreement between Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama. She also stressed the importance of “innovative technologies to move our economies forward to have the type of economy that will sustain us in the future”
Administrator McCarthy, along with President Obama have no intention of slowing down before the end of his mandate and intend to maintain the momentum through the market opportunities presented by falling renewable energy generation costs and increase in jobs. She acknowledges that clean energy is the future, allowing Canada and the US to grow their economies while improving environmental performance and take a leadership role internationally.
The Administrator went on to talk about the health impacts of climate change that affect every citizen — as today is World Health day — outlined in the recently released EPA report.
Administrator McCarthy closed by highlighting the enormous opportunity for collaboration with Canada to provide global leadership in the field of climate change.
Minister McKenna started by highlighting the very special time we are in, where progress is happening and the opportunity for more and faster progress is apparent. She acknowledged the trillion dollar industry we can access if we are innovative and invest in clean technologies.
“Our economic prosperity tomorrow depends on the environmental decisions we make today”
Minister McKenna went on to emphasize the challenges climate change poses to Canada’s Indigenous communities and the important role they play in achieving a more sustainable future.
This is an opportunity for all of us “to be entrepreneurial, innovative, and to find better solutions to build stronger economies and a sustainable future for all”
The Minister announced the launching a web portal on Earth Day (April 22) that allows anyone to submit their ideas and solutions for climate change to contribute to the Pan-Canadian Framework on Climate Change and Clean Growth. She encouraged the audience to “team up with unusual suspects in your field, making your suggestions all the more powerful”. We couldn’t have said it better Minister McKenna, here at Smart Prosperity we have an exceptional group of diverse Canadian leaders with plenty of ideas!
Question time! Here are some highlights:
Optimistically, in 2040 we are in a future of smart prosperity: What will history look back on as your administration’s biggest contribution to the battle against climate change?
Administrator McCarthy believes that the US Clean Power Plan, once implemented in 3 years will be a game-changer for environmental policy. Allowing the US to take a leadership role and engage other key emitters like China and India for acting to reduce our impacts.
Minister McKenna believes pricing carbon in Canada, a move to electrification with clean power, and continued commitment by Canadians will allow us to continue to progress.
Can the US meet it’s INDC targets without cooperation from congress?
The President has been forced to use executive action for a lot of policy due to the lack of participation by congress, this still has a lot of traction in creating lasting change because the executive actions become law and are not easy to undue. We will need more to achieve the needed result, but times are changing and President Obama’s individual action and speaking has engaged the public who ultimately will demand action and change will occur.
Professor Elgie emphasized how the conversation has moved in Canada and even Conservative parties are no longer debating whether carbon pricing is needed but how it should be implemented and where the revenues should go.
What can the Federal Government do to convince provinces to drive a carbon price stringent enough to meet targets?
Minister McKenna thinks a lot of groups, such as Sustainable Prosperity and EcoFiscal, are doing good work to explain why it is the best and most efficient way to reduce emissions. We have made progress in leaps and bounds, exemplified by the Conservative Party of Ontario agreeing on pricing carbon as mentioned earlier. Robust discussions with provinces will be required but the support for carbon pricing is growing with Canadians and governments are ultimately responsible to their constituents.
How do you reconcile being a major oil and gas producer with achieving our climate change targets?
Both panelists agreed that there is a transition underway; while we need to reduce carbon emissions and are continuing to make progress moving towards cleaner sources of energy, we also need to maintain reliable and cost effective energy supply.
The price differentials for renewable energy are falling, and the oil and gas industry needs to do better — but that change won’t happen over night. We need to maintain energy supply and use market based incentives such as carbon pricing to encourage innovation.
Assuming we don’t get on a pathway to achieve our 2C targets: are there geo-engineering solutions to combat climate change?
Although neither the Minister nor Administrator have a geo-engineering solution to offer, they both recognized the need to invest in innovation and use the best science that we do have to reduce our impact.
Canada and the US have a long history of partnering on innovation, what are the best opportunities to collaborate on clean-tech innovation?
The brain-child of Bill Gates, Mission Innovation launched at COP21 in Paris with both the US and Canada signing on. Recognizing that many innovations will fail, some will not — and completely change the game. Providing that space and fostering innovation is key to progress. Exemplified by the new Research Chair in Innovation at uOttawa, universities also play an important role in working together to achieve the new innovations required.
North America has repeatedly tried to incorporate HFCs in the Montreal Protocol. What is holding back Canada, the US, and perhaps Mexico from tri-laterally moving forward on HFC regulations?
Administrator McCarthy acknowledged that we are taking steps to do that and we will get an HFC amendment to the Montreal Protocol. The Montreal Protocol is probably the most successful environmental treat that exists. HFCs can be more than 1000 times more global warming than CO2, we simply can’t afford to fail. Minister McKenna added that we need to do this, and we also need to support developing countries as they move towards a lower carbon economy.
Are we going to get an international standard on aviation emissions?
The International Civil Aviation Organisation is currently working on a modest emissions standard for the airline industry, as well as using market based instruments to reduce emissions. If that process is unsuccessful, both the US and Canada intend on pursuing standards either independently or bi-laterally.
What is the prospect of Mexico joining US and Canada on the recent methane reduction targets?
Mexico appears keen to be a partner and move toward more tri-lateral action on climate change. They want to continue to move forward with the best technologies and improve processes.
Professor Elgie closed by thanking Minister McKenna and Administrator McCarthy and highlighted their infectious optimism we were all able to share this afternoon.
That’s all folks — thanks for tuning in!
