DECODING CLIMATE SCIENCE,
Tom Spears decodes the latest climate science, emissions targets and what it all means for ordinary people.
Q What has Canada done about climate change up to now?
A Political bodies in Canada have been promising to reduce emissions that warm up our climate since the late 1980s, but actual emissions keep going up. The latest accord Canada signed, in Copenhagen in 2009, promised to cut our emissions drastically, but since then they’ve actually risen.
On the plus side, we have made great strides in energy efficiency. But a growing population and a growing economy have pushed emissions higher — except during the recession years of 2008-2009, when levels fell because factories closed.
Q What effect is climate change having on Canada?
A The challenges of climate change are most evident in the North, where melting permafrost from rising temperatures is eroding the stability of roads, buildings, pipelines, and other infrastructure.
Water shortages are becoming more commonplace across Canada, due to low river flows in many parts of the Prairies, shrinking glaciers and snow packs in British Columbia, as well as rising temperatures and decreasing water levels in the Great Lakes in Ontario.
The warmer summers and milder winters in B.C. contributed to the outbreak of the mountain pine beetle, which destroyed huge swaths of B.C.’s forests.
Going forward, the Prairies are at risk of more frequent droughts, severe floods and wildfires, and B.C.’s fisheries will be stressed from rising water temperatures, while Atlantic Canada is at risk from rising water levels and more severe storms.
Q So what can be done now?
A We asked Mike Wilson, executive director of a green energy think tank called Sustainable Prosperity; and Brian
Branfireun, a Western University professor with a Canada Research Chair in environment and sustainability, about the science of climate change and its counter-measures.
Q What’s new in climate science in recent years?
A Branfireun says recent studies are refining previous estimates, but the overall message is the same: “The actual trajectories (forecasts) are really no different over the last three assessments” by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “The uncertainty bars around them have reduced, and in the latest assessment we also have actual measurements” of changing climate that matches predictions. “We’re not just speculating like 20 years ago.”
Current projection: Our best hope is to limit the increase in Earth’s average temperature to three Celsius degrees by 2100.
Q Will the government take action on emission-cutting measures by itself?
A No, although many people expected that governments alone would take action on the Kyoto Protocol, which covered emissions from 2008 through 2012, until Canada backed out. Wilson: “It’s about government sending signals to the market that will motivate individuals and businesses to innovate. The vast majority of reductions we need are going to come from business innovation or individual lifestyle changes,” pushed by government policy.
Q If Canada really intends to meet commitments, how will that affect me?
A Wilson: “I don’t think we can keep driving the same cars. I think we have to get into other modes of transportation,” and more efficient cars. He believes a mix of more efficient cars and more public transit will lead to major emissions improvement.
He says the biggest improvements for individuals are in our homes and workplaces. “There’s a ton that can be done through building codes and things like that to make buildings more energy-efficient. The difficulty is it takes a long time for building stock to turn over.”
And he says we can expect more tax breaks for small cars and efficient appliances, and higher prices for big energy users.
Q Will I have to set my thermostat at 12 degrees all winter to meet climate commitments?
A Wilson: “We’re a northern country … We’re still going to want to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. But there’s tremendous improvement that can be made on how big a GHG (greenhouse gas) footprint the heating or cooling in your house has to have.”
An example: thermostats can now calibrate with a person’s smartphone and motion detectors to know where a person is in the home, and can warm up only those rooms a person is using.
Q Who’s going to make this happen?
A Wilson: “Governments send the policy and pricing signals to the market so that the individuals making consumption choices or businesses making their production choices can be motivated … to choose lower greenhouse gas emitting processes or sources.
“Economics backs it up. When things get more expensive, people tend to buy less of something, especially when (a substitute) becomes cheaper.”
An alliance of renewable energy producers called the Canadian Council on Renewable Electricity says we must double our generating capacity of clean electricity (wind, solar, hydroelectric) “and use that energy efficiently to power our buildings, vehicles and industries.”
Q Has anyone actually made this work in the real world?
A Yes. British Columbia began a carbon tax system in 2008.
Wilson: “Since that carbon tax went into place, fuel use in British Columbia has gone down 16 per cent. And the B.C. economy continued to grow at pretty much exactly the same rate as other provincial economies that hadn’t put a carbon tax in place. They managed to reduce their GHG emissions, doing no harm to their economy. So the things we have heard before about the job-killing carbon tax did not (happen) out there.”
Q Will meeting carbon targets fix the climate?
A No. They’re a way to limit the amount of change or at least slow it down, but they won’t make climate change go away.
Q How will reaching our emissions targets affect me?
A Branfireun: “For people in Ottawa, Toronto or London, what it means is not a whole lot. If we can stem the increase in global temperature we will soften the frequency and magnitude of extreme (weather) events which are forecast.” He says cities near our latitudes should be hoping to escape rainstorms like the one that flooded Toronto in 2013.
In Canada’s North the stakes are higher.
“The Far North is anticipating six to 12 degrees average increase” in temperature, “and that means a lot for the frozen parts of our country. We can joke all we want about how it will be a lot nicer in the North,” but it will do ecological damage and wipe out winter roads and pipelines that depend on permafrost.
Q Will more efficient machines be enough to reduce our emissions?
A Possibly in the future, but it hasn’t worked so far. Environment Canada summarizes the issue: “In 1995, GHG emissions started to decouple from economic growth, a shift that can be attributed to increases in efficiency, the modernization of industrial processes, and structural changes in the economy. These long-term trends have led to continued improvement in emissions intensity since the late 1990s. However, emissions intensity seems to have stabilized in the last few years.”
Canada’s Gross Domestic Product has grown 71 per cent since 1990 while our greenhouse emissions have risen only 18 per cent. But they are still rising, making real reduction an elusive goal that, year by year, recedes before us.
Q Would reducing oilsands production fix the problem?
A It would help but wouldn’t be enough. The oilsands put out 62 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2013. That’s 8.5 per cent of Canada’s total that year (726 million tonnes). A drastic step such as cutting production in half (assuming emissions also fell by half ) would still leave us well short of our current Copenhagen target of about 621 million tonnes in 2020. Meanwhile, oilsands are the fastest-rising source of our emissions.