OPED February 24, 2014
Canada could be a world leader in clean
energy through innovation
By Bruce Hyer
Clean technologies can pave a path to
innovation and sustainable economic
growth. The global clean-tech industry has
huge economic potential for Canada. Clean
energy technology is efficient and
diversifies energy sources. It also reduces
negative environmental impacts, especially
by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Worldwide, the clean technology economy
is worth $1-trillion, and is expected to grow
to $3-trillion by 2020. Canada currently
captures only one per cent of the global
clean-tech market. The 2010 report by the
National Roundtable on the Economy and
the Environment (NRTEE) ranks Canada
sixth in the G8 for clean energy
performance, and eleventh in the G20.
“The future is low carbon,” the NRTEE
stated 2012, but Canada is a laggard in the
emerging low-carbon economy. Sustainable
Prosperity reports that instead of
anticipating and preparing for the inevitable
energy future, Canada is sitting on its hands,
and we will be forced into changes for
which we are ill prepared. “Lost market
opportunities, strategic disadvantages … and
higher costs of mitigating climate change,”
will result, according to the Mowat Centre.
Canada could become a world leader,
increasing our clean-tech market share sixfold to $60-billion by 2020. Once one of the
world’s top energy research and
development funders, today Canada’s
funding is short term and poorly
coordinated. Clean-tech innovators have to
compete with large artificial advantages of
fossil fuel companies. While costs of their
greenhouse gas emissions are huge, those
costs are not on their balance sheets. The
Conservatives promised to do away with oil
and gas subsidies, but they continue to give
them an incredible $1.3-billion in
unjustifiable tax breaks.
The Pembina Institute’s “Competing in
Clean Energy: Capitalizing on Canadian
Innovation in a $3 Trillion Economy” points
to three necessary policy changes:
Targeted clean energy support
Fossil fuel companies have a subsidized
advantage over clean-tech entrepreneurs.
Sustainable Development Technology
Canada (SDTC), the arms-length agency
that has supported Canada’s clean-tech
industry, has allocated $560-million to 226
clean-tech projects since its establishment in
2001. The Mowat Centre and the Standing
Senate Committee on Energy, Environment
and Natural Resources have praised their
work. In 2013, the SDTC funding rate was
cut by 60 per cent. To support clean-tech
innovation, we must at the very least restore
the $100-million in annual funding to the
SDTC. It’s a tiny price to pay for energy
innovation, especially when compared with
the $1.3-billion oil and gas subsidies.
National energy strategy
Canada is the only major industrialized
country with no national energy strategy,
just patchwork provincial and federal
regulations. Unbelievable, when so much of
our economy depends on natural resources
and energy production. A national energy
strategy should support clean-tech and show
leadership in developing a clean energy
economy. It might also allow us to put
Canadian energy first, and use our strategic
energy resources to meet domestic energy
needs before we further increase exports.
Carbon pricing
Pricing carbon is the most crucial step to
support fledgling clean-tech industries.
Carbon Fee & Dividend is a simple,
transparent, revenue-neutral carbon pricing
system that would be easy and inexpensive
to administer. Under Fee & Dividend,
polluters will pay for their carbon emission
equivalents only at the source, and the
revenue generated from these payments will
be paid directly to consumers on a per capita
basis. Fee & Dividend will use the
marketplace to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, guide Canada toward a transition
to sustainable energy, while benefitting
Canadian consumers.
These recommendations merge
conservation and economics. Future
governments must take clear action to
support Canada’s clean-tech industry.
Canada will become a world energy leader
only when we proactively support clean-tech
innovation.
http://www.hilltimes.com/policy-briefing/2014/02/24/canada-could-be-a-world-leader-in-cleanenergy-through-innovation/37578