Week 7/8

1. Week 7/8 Energy Systems and Climate Change

2. Overview • Energy Systems in Canada • Oil and Gas • Electricity • Energy and the Environment • Climate Change • Science • Impacts • Debates

3. Energy • Vital part of economy and society. • Canada’s geography, resources. • Different governance structures for electricity vs oil and gas. • Tackling consumption vs production. • Continentally integrated • 90% of US nat gas imports from CDA. • N-S pipelines and lines. • Oil, gas and electricity are major exports. • Energy production and consumption are by far the largest source of GHG emissions in Canada, accounting for more than 80% of emissions in 2005.

4. Energy Use in Canada

5. Electricity by Province

6. Electricity by ownership

7. GHG + Energy

8. Exporting Energy

9. Oil and Gas- Canada in World

10. Provincial GHG Emissions

12. Human Activity and the Environment • Canada is a trading nation and energy now makes up one-fifth of all merchandise exports. In both 1990 and 2003, the production of energy for export resulted in more GHG emissions than the production of any other exported commodity. • In 2008, producers intend to invest $19.7 billion in the oil sands, surpassing the $19.6 billion planned investment by the entire manufacturing sector. • Canada has about 0.5% of the world's population, but contributes about 2% of the total global GHG emissions. Our per capita emissions among highest.

13. Climate Change • Jaccard Ch 1- good overview. • Issue 1- what is it? • Issue 2- anthropogenic or not? (the science ‘debate’) • Issue 3- solutions • Domestic public policy (command and control vs market) • Social change via collective action • International co-ordination • Aliens

15. What is it? • Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. • Causes a range of effects that differ by climactic regions. Floods, droughts. • Difference between random variation and long-term trends. (Jaccard’s dice example). • Vast majority of climate scientists agree: • 1. sharp increase in emissions of GGs (CO2, methane, etc) has resulted from human activities. • 2. these emissions have warmed and are warming the planet. Most comprehensive assessment comes from the IPCC.

16. Impacts in Canada • Globally the effects will differ. Intensifying droughts and heat, impacts for island nations. Warming will be greatest in northern latitudes (Canada). • Arctic Council 5 year study by 300 scientists, published in 2004- 4 degree increase in western arctic from 1953 to 2003. • Issue…what’s a couple of degrees??? • Difference between ice age and today • Less snow, more wind, less water, thawing permafrost. Widening of northwest passage. • -mountain pine beetle killed half of BC lodgepole pine, expected to kill 80% by 2013…only cold winders kill the beetles. • -receding glaciers. –Less ice, means more energy absorbed by the water, = less ice, sea temps rise faster. • “high temperatures evaporate more water from the earth’s surface. This leads to more rain in rainy areas in rainy seasons, and more droughts in dry areas. “

17. Anthropogenic or not? • Are humans causing it? • Film: great global warming swindle. • At stake: rents from extractive industries, consumption. • If humans aren’t causing it, no changes needed. Business as usual. If they are….significant changes to energy, transportation, consumption. • Some theories posit that the sun is responsible, or volcanoes, or that we’re just in a long cycle. • The vast majority of climate scientists (science academy of all major industrialized countries)agree that a) it is happening and b) human activity via the production of greenhouse gasses is causing it.

18. Key factors (rest of course) • Energy sources, efficiency and usage • Transportation fuels (air travel) • Livestock (methane)- food choices • Waste • Forests and bogs act as sinks to capture carbon • Plants and oceans also store. • Co2 stays for about 100 years before being absorbed by plants or oceans. Deforestation and urbanization also contribute.

20. Solutions • Public policy interventions: • Command and Control • Laws, regulations, standards, caps • Start public companies/utilities to develop technology (not mentioned by Jaccard) • Market based policies • Tradeable permits • Subsidies, grants • Pal- ‘do nothing’ is also a policy choice • Issue of cost distrubution is key (West) • Will cost either way. • From Above: International co-ordination/coalitions/ ‘peer pressure’ • From Below: civil society direct action.

21. Solutions: Jaccard • “All Canadians, wherever they live are responsible for GHG emissions because these are driven by the energy they consume in homes, vehicles, and commercial outlets…and by the energy required to produce and deliver the diversity of products they consume.” Jaccard • Land use changes (biomass and forests) • Efficiency (co-gen) • Switching fuels and processes (renewables) • Capture and storage – (Geolog. Formations, scrubbing.)

22. To infinity, and beyond • Ultimately, (surprise surprise) solutions need to span levels and industrial areas. • Jaccardaccepts political and economic parameters as they are. Works within business as usual. Supports cap and trade and CCS as main ways to tackle CC. • The other alternatives include • a) do nothing or • b) varying levels of systemic change- economic, social, cultural. Laxer, for example advocates an energy export exemption and pulling out of NAFTA, a national electricity grid, public ownership of green power, etc…

23. Movie • “What we now have is an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which there is not even a gesture toward balance or explanation of why many of the extended inferences drawn in the film are not widely accepted by the scientific community. There are so many examples, it's hard to know where to begin, so I will cite only one: a speaker asserts, as is true, that carbon dioxide is only a small fraction of the atmospheric mass. The viewer is left to infer that means it couldn't really matter. But even a beginning meteorology student could tell you that the relative masses of gases are irrelevant to their effects on radiative balance. A director not intending to produce pure propaganda would have tried to eliminate that piece of disinformation.” Carl Wunch

24. Discussion • The film is a polemic and was extremely controversial. Seen by tens of millions around the world, translated in to many languages it has contributed to the idea that anthropogenic global warming is a belief, a theory and a misguided one at that. On the one hand, this may be ‘free speech’ and good debate, on the other, damaging misinformation. • Many have accused the film of being propagandist. If you agree, what political agenda/interests do you think it represents? • In what (specific) ways do you think information (or misinformation) affects Canadians ability to address climate change? • What solutions would you propose to address these concerns?