When it comes to climate change, Canada is in the delicate position of being both a fossil fuel exporter and environmental champion. At COP26, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made clear that the political calculus on this issue has changed. Former Privy Council Clerk Kevin Lynch and former White House aide Paul Deegan provide the context for our current status quo. 

Kevin Lynch and Paul Deegan

Since COP1 — the first United Nations Climate Change Conference in Berlin back in 1995 — the dialogue around our impact on the planet has gradually moved in the right direction, but action hasn’t followed suit. Carbon dioxide emissions released by global fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes have jumped from about 25 billion metric tonnes annually in 1995 to roughly 35 billion metric tonnes by the time of COP26 in Glasgow.

Since 1995, China has achieved the dubious honour of becoming the world’s largest emitter, now accounting for more CO2 emissions than the four next offenders combined: the United States, India, Russia, and Japan. Together, these nations account for an eye-popping 60 per cent of all global emissions. And the trend is still upward for emissions from China, India and the developing world.  

While the US, Russia, and Japan, Canada and most EU countries have managed to cut CO2 emissions modestly over the past decade, the reality of emissions math is that global emissions have to reach zero on a net basis by 2050 to arrest the upward march of global warming. That is the immensity of the challenge of climate change. The immediacy of the challenge is equally daunting: this decade will decide whether we have bent the CO2 emissions curve enough to have a shot at net zero, or not. 

Geopolitically, given the difficulties of getting nearly 200 countries to agree to anything, COP26 was a moderate aspirational success despite some last minute backsliding by China and India and unrealistic expectations by activists. Now comes the hard part – turning those aspirational goals and earnest pledges into effective actions across the 200 countries that signed on to saving the planet in Glasgow.

As Bill Gates summed up this challenge in his recent book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: “We need to accomplish something gigantic we have never done before, much faster than we have ever done anything similar. To do it, we need lots of breakthroughs in science and engineering. We need to build a consensus that doesn’t exist and create public policies to push a transition that would not happen otherwise.” 

What does this all mean for Canada? When it comes to thinking about climate change in a Canadian context, it’s important to consider who we are from geographic, social, economic, and political/diplomatic perspectives. 

Geographically, Canadians are blessed far more than most around the planet. Our national motto, “A Mari Usque ad Mare” (from Sea to Sea) may have missed the Arctic Ocean, but it definitely captures the sheer vastness of our country. We are the second-largest country by geographic size, after only Russia. We have the world’s longest coastline, at more than 200,000 kilometres. We share the world’s longest international border, some 9,000 kilometers, with the United States. We are one of only eight Arctic nations. We are the third most-forested country in the world, with nearly 350 million hectares. We have the fourth largest supply of fresh water in the world, at more than 2,900 cubic kilometers. We’ve got towering mountain ranges and endless prairies, glaciers and tundra, massive woodlands and mighty rivers, and pretty much everything in between. We are the stewards of all this, and it is in our own self interest to protect, at a minimum, our piece of the planet. 

And climate change, and its consequences, are not only a reality today across Canada but will have an even bigger impact tomorrow.

The federal government’s 2019 Canada’s Changing Climate Report highlights some indisputable truths. Canada is warming at an alarming rate. Canada’s annual average temperature over land has warmed by 1.7 degrees C since 1948. The change is most pronounced over the North, which has seen an increase of 2.3 degrees C over the same period. This warmer climate is producing more severe heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and urban floods. All of this is taking a toll on our communities, our farmers, our infrastructure, and our resilience. 

The Arctic is the proverbial canary in the climate-change coal mine. Snow and ice are disappearing. Most small ice caps and ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic will disappear by 2100. The Beaufort Sea and Baffin Bay are projected to have extensive ice-free periods during summer by mid-century. Glaciers across the mountains of western Canada could lose 75 percent to 95 percent of their volume by late century. Spring lake-ice break-up could be 10 to 25 days earlier by mid-century, and fall freeze-up five to 15 days later. There is a polar bear on the toonie to remind us we are an Arctic nation, and today both the Arctic and that polar bear are grievously endangered by climate change. 

The 2019 federal report also highlights the risks climate change brings to the availability of fresh water – something we have in abundance but take for granted at our peril. Smaller snowpacks and loss of glacier ice will produce lower summer flow, and warmer summers will increase evaporation of surface water. The even faster disappearance of freshwater supplies in the United States and elsewhere has the potential to stoke geopolitical tensions and transborder demands to “share” vital water resources. 

Our three oceans are also changing, and sea levels are rising. Oceans are becoming less salty, which affects their ability to sequester greenhouse gases. Higher sea levels will give rise to more frequent and more extreme high water-level events. Hurricanes will become a more commonplace occurrence in warmer Canadian waters. Coastal remediation will be an imperative, not an option.

Socially, Canada’s Indigenous peoples are on the frontline of the impacts of climate change. Remoteness in terms of foodstuffs, health care and emergency response; a lack of infrastructure; reliance on diesel; decreases in ice thickness which create dangers for those on foot and for vehicles; and changes in wildlife habitat – both in water and on land – make Indigenous communities particularly vulnerable. Yet, they can teach us and the world much about responsible stewardship of our land and resources. 

Economically, climate change is the most daunting challenge of our time, but also a huge opportunity if we respond with innovative policies, embrace new technologies and don’t lose sight of being competitive. For Canada, a nation equally rich in resources and in talent, we can be a leader in the transition to a net zero future. Energy remains our biggest export earner, and fossil fuels are going to be needed for some time to come. We need a two-track approach that is both clear and innovative: to help our fossil fuel industry transition to a low-carbon future and to grow Canada’s clean energy sector. The world will continue to need our natural resources but we have to transition to producing them in a climate-friendly way. It’s about sustaining paychecks and sustaining the environment – two things that are increasingly intertwined and primary drivers of living standards.

As Jock Finlayson and David Williams of the Business Council of British Columbia wrote recently wrote in The Globe and Mail: “…policy makers must avoid undermining Canada’s role as a trusted supplier of energy, minerals/metals, foodstuffs and other raw materials. The world consumes these products and will keep buying them – hopefully from us. Yes, it’s a complex balancing act. But Canadian living standards depend on getting it right.”

Whether it’s solar, wind, electric vehicles, battery storage, geothermal, hydrogen, small modular nuclear reactors or carbon capture and storage, technology is rapidly becoming better and cheaper. Why can’t we think of combining the low carbon footprint of small modular nuclear reactors and carbon capture and storage with the government’s proposed policy of a cap on oil and gas sector emissions to create a win-win scenario? Can we become a leader in aspects of electric vehicle production, reducing transportation emissions through regulations and building an export industry at the same time? How do we turn our science strengths to re-imagine how we do mining, farming and fishing, all pillars of our economy?

On the clean energy side, we are most competitive globally at nuclear and hydroelectric power. At nearly 400 terawatt hours, we are the second largest hydroelectric power producer in the world. While that’s impressive, China more than trebles us, and even more so for nuclear power capacity. Here, there is great room for cooperation among the federal government, provinces and First Nations to expand hydroelectric production and distribution, and to consider small modular nuclear reactors for the oil sands, major mining projects and power in the north.

To achieve these transitions and others at the scale and speed needed, governments will need to provide the incentives and supportive regulatory environment to hasten the private sector’s adjustment, university researchers will have to become vital partners in finding technological solutions. And financial markets will have to support these transitions by adjusting their short-term return expectations and financing innovative technologies.

Politically, besides building a strong public consensus for change and the impacts of those changes, the biggest challenge for the federal government will be working effectively with the provinces. To state the obvious, this will not be easy, but it is absolutely necessary given the reality of our federation and it will require a degree of two-way engagement, common purpose, and flexibility. At the same time, getting the business sector on the same page is crucial, and this will take equal dollops of policy certainty, assistance and partnership.

Diplomatically, climate change presents more downsides than upside, which is why we have to invest heavily in our foreign policy capacity and mobilize like-minded friends in other countries. In particular, the developing world has to be part of the climate change solution, and the developed world has to help them financially and technologically in their transitions, first and foremost away from coal.  

The American relationship on climate change holds both promise and risk. While Joe Biden is not Donald Trump, his trade policies have Trumpian echoes and there is a lack of coherence to his foreign policy. Protecting American jobs and local self interest will be powerful forces during the difficult adjustment to net zero, as can be seen by the Biden administration’s proposal to exclude Canadian-made (and Mexican) EVs from purchase incentives offered to Americans. But Biden recognizes there is a climate crisis and it requires both domestic action and international cooperation. 

The COP26 Summit in Glasgow presented an opportunity to reboot and reset the relationship, seeking alignment over an effective Canada-US climate plan, and in so doing demonstrate coordinated North American leadership to the world. We have done it before on the environment, and it is time for a repeat performance.  

Glasgow achieved about as much as could have been realistically expected. It turned public attention around the world to the issue of climate change, its gravity and its urgency. The “why” is clear, the focus in every country has to be on the “how” of building a greener, cleaner and prosperous future. But climate change is an existential global threat and we can deal with it better, cheaper, and faster by doing it together.  

Contributing Writer Kevin Lynch, a former Clerk of the Privy Council, was vice chair of BMO Financial Group.

Contributing Writer Paul Deegan, a former BMO and CN executive, was Deputy Executive Director of the White House National Economic Council under President Clinton.