With the death of Maurice Strong on November 28, the world has lost one of the great pioneers in sustainability. Strong was unique in his time. A self-made millionaire businessman, he also had a strong social conscience and was a leader in environmental protection. As someone from a poor family, he worked to reduce poverty, and was the founder of the Canadian International Development Agency in the latter 1960s. This was a major step to create Canada’s modern aid policy. Strong stepped onto the world stage in 1972 as head of the UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm, the first major global conference to link environmental quality and human well-being. He was then asked to found the United Nations Environment Programme, the first global environment institution. In the 1980s, he was an important member of the World Commission on Environment and Development (The Brundtland Commission), which produced the 1987 report, Our Common Future. This book popularized the term sustainable development, and launched the worldwide discussions on how to achieve it. Strong went on to organize and lead the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development is held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The conference included the Earth Summit, the largest meeting of world leaders in history. Among its numerous outcomes was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the first global agreement seeking to control greenhouse gases.

Strong was also a highly successful businessman, who headed Power Corporation of Canada, Petro-Canada and Ontario Hydro. He brought a business perspective to environmental discussions at a time when most business people avoided talking about the environment. I remember him making business analogies to sell environmental stewardship. Strong was one of those rare people who could move between the world of business and environmental diplomacy. He had access to world leaders, and a talent for bringing together a wide range of opinions to come up with an agreement that all could accept. He is a historic figure. For a short video on his career, click here.

In the sustainability movement we tend to focus on the three pillars: environment, economy and social. The attacks yesterday in France should remind us there is more to a sustainable world. Nearly 30 years ago The Brundtland Report warned that the threat of nuclear war and the arms race made it more difficult to have a sustainable world. Today, nuclear war seems less likely, but we have regional conflicts, and have had terrorist attacks in countries around the world, including France, Britain, Spain, the United States, Canada and a number of countries in Africa and the Middle East. War and terrorism pre-empt attention and resources from efforts to develop economies and build a more sustainable world. We need to treat ongoing wars in the worldl and terrorism as great threats to a sustainable future.

How can values drive the greatest challenge humans face: moving to sustainability? How can we change development to fit within Earth’s natural limits, and still live a good life? This series of articles takes us through the evolution of some major environmental issues in recent history, looks at visions and principles that can guide us in the future, examines some of the barriers to change and gives examples of leadership for sustainability.

Why are we not more sustainable?

In the first article I traced the evolution of environment as a major public issue. In the second I showed major sets of goals and principles to achieve sustainability. In this third article I look at some barriers to achieving sustainability.

Sustainable development was an exciting new concept in the 1980s. How are we doing at making it happen? Our societies are more environmentally literate and aware than ever before, so why are we still sliding deeper into ecological debt? Since the 1987 Brundtland Report, there has been a huge growth in world economic output, with roughly a doubling in Gross World Product. The world is a better place for many people. They live longer, healthier lives, have higher incomes and greater mobility. Many people have been and are being lifted out of poverty by the increased economic development. More people have enough food, safe drinking water and better health care. We have cleaner cars, chemicals that do not destroy the ozone layer, more reforestation, organic food, recycling and alternative energy. Many forms of pollution have been reduced. We have reversed some environmental degradation, and reduced some other impacts.

While these are important steps, they are not nearly enough to achieve a sustainable world. A growing global population and higher average per capita consumption are increasing many environmental pressures. The world is still consuming and polluting faster than nature can produce and safely assimilate. The environment is going through the greatest changes in human history. Greenhouse gases are building to ever more dangerous levels in the atmosphere. Fossil fuels still produce about 82 per cent of the world’s commercial energy. Many forms of agriculture are putting large amounts of chemicals into the environment. Globally, we are losing more forests than are being replanted. Close to 90 per cent of the world’s fisheries are fully exploited or overfished. Many underground water resources are being drained faster than they are replaced by nature. Thousands of chemicals are released into the environment with little or no understanding of their health impacts. Why are we not doing better? Let’s look at some of the barriers to greater change.

Read the rest of this entry »

How can values drive the greatest challenge humans face: moving to sustainability? How can we change development to fit within Earth’s natural limits, and still live a good life? This series of articles takes us through the evolution of some major environmental issues in recent history, looks at visions and principles that can guide us in the future, examines some of the barriers to change and gives examples of leadership for sustainability.

Goals and principles for a sustainable future

In the first article I tracked the emergence of the environment and sustainable development as major public issues. This article looks at goals and principles to guide decision making for sustainability.

The second World Conservation Strategy says, “The purpose of development is to enable people to enjoy long, healthy and fulfilling lives.” It goes on to say, “Development will only succeed if it maintains the productivity, resilience and variety of the biosphere.” Read the rest of this entry »

What will it take to get to a really sustainable world? I’ve been writing about environment and sustainability for close to 50 years. Often the discussions about how to solve environment problems centre on the technical issues. How can we build a better battery so more people will use electric cars? How many fish or trees can we harvest without running down the natural stocks? How do we deal with pollution in our food, air and water? Barriers to sustainability are more in our heads than in our workshops. The increasing pressures on our natural environment are driven by our demands and how we satisfy them. These demands are governed by our values, and what we think is right and wrong. If we continue trying to fix each environmental problem after it has become serious, we will never catch up. If we really want to stop over polluting and over consuming nature, we need a big shift in our values.

This is the first in a series of articles looking at environment, sustainability and values. In the first one I’ll try to sum up the past half century of environmental issues and how our values have been evolving. In the second article, I’ll lay out some goals and principles for sustainability. In the third, I’ll examine barriers slowing progress toward sustainability. In the fourth, I’ll look at people who are showing leadership in a transition to a more sustainable world.

Then, my colleague, Eric Hellman, co-creator of the famous Blue Box recycling program in Ontario, will continue the series with a story of the power of collective, individual changes to affect a society. He’ll explore ways we may be able to deal with the roots of our ‘unsustainability,’ starting with the values and attitudes that drive our behaviour in the first place. I hope this series will spark a discussion, and look forward to your thoughts and comments.

  Read the rest of this entry »

As government leaders prepare to head to the Paris climate summit on November 30, the world is still behind the eight ball when it comes to even slowing greenhouse gas emissions. It is not even on track to meet the target agreed to by governments to limit the long-term rise in the average global temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.

Global greenhouse gas emissions are increasing rapidly, and energy use is the single largest source. Fossil fuels make up 82 per cent of global commercial energy, the same as 25 years ago. Renewables are only forecast to reduce fossil fuels to around 75 per over the next two decades. At the same time the International Energy Agency has forecast that global energy demand will grow by 37 per cent by 2040. In other words, emissions are still predicted to go up even we know they need to come down.

How can we turn around this unsustainable trend? One way is to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency says governments around the world subsidize fossil fuels to the tune of $550 billion a year—more than five times greater than supports for renewable energy. Canada’s Pembina Institute estimates that this country subsidizes fossil fuels by close to $1 billion a year. The newly elected federal Liberal government said in its election platform: “We will fulfill our G20 commitment and phase out subsidies for the fossil fuel industry over the medium term.” This message has been reinforced by a new report that says removing fossil fuel subsidies and putting just 30 per cent of the savings into renewables and energy efficiency would cut greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 25 per cent in 20 countries it studied. The study Tackling Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Climate Change: Levelling the energy playing field was done by the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Our world is in a period of widespread change. On the economic front, markets and employment are unstable as one country after another becomes a global competitor. We have to evolve our industrial strategies to cope with the effects of globalization and competition from lower wage countries. Health care costs keep rising as the population ages and scientists discover new and more expensive ways of keeping us alive.

Environmental challenges, especially climate change, are forcing us to move the world’s energy system from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Excessive and improper fertilizer use is causing huge pollution problems in lakes, rivers and parts of oceans. Overharvesting and habitat losses are threatening many fisheries and species on land.

Thirty years ago, we were in the midst of another difficult period as governments and industries struggled with how to reduce pollution and still make money. Then, the big problems were acid rain, the weakening ozone layer and toxic chemicals in food and water.

It was at this time that the World Commission on Environment and Development, the Brundtland Commission, was travelling the world listening to people and evolving its message that development was needed, but it must be economically, environmentally and socially sustainable. A number of Canadians, inspired by that work, created the National Task Force on Environment and Economy, a group of environment ministers, and leaders from business, the environment movement and academe. Their recommendations led to the creation of round tables on environment and economy across Canada. They did a lot to raise awareness of the need to integrate economic, environmental and social factors in decision making. They were less successful in keeping high-level decision makers at the table to come to agreement on how to make development more sustainable.

What Canada did very well in that period was to develop the multistakeholder process, which brought major sectors together to try to tackle the new concept of sustainable development. What might be useful now is to revive that process, but with a clearer focus on how to achieve sustainability.

We know a lot about the changes that our needed. We know we need innovation to achieve many of these changes. Why not convene meetings in different parts of the country to hear what people think needs to be done and what they want to do? There should be a strong focus on young leaders and innovators from different parts of society and with different expertise. It’s not just about technologies, but changes in how we think about the future of our society. We would need people with ideas about the sustainable use of the environment, clean, healthy and interesting economic development, and how we can evolve our society in a way that makes it more equitable and improves our health.

Who should lead? I remember a meeting in the latter days of the National Task Force on Environment and Economy in 1988. The president of a major chemical company said that the federal government should convene leaders from different sectors to come to consensus on what each should do to be more sustainable, and how they would support each other’s efforts.

In a few days, Canada will have a new government. Whoever wins, they have to tackle these challenges. This could be a way for them to find a way forward and seek widespread agreement rather than pushing ideas that result in conflict.

According to an international survey, most environmental experts are getting more worried that ecological decline is threatening our future. For 24 years the Asahi Glass Foundation in Japan has polled people around the world about their level of concern about how the deteriorating environment threatens human survival. Experts from governments, academic institutions, NGOs, corporations and mass media are asked to plot their level of concern on the face of a clock.

This year, more than 2,000 people from 152 countries responded. Only about 10 per cent of people had a relatively low level of concern. The highest readings on the clock, about two hours to midnight, were from people in Oceania (threatened by rising global seas) and from Canada and the United States. The global average time was 9:23pm. The lowest levels of concern were in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Africa and the Middle East.

The Asahi Foundation’s Environmental Doomsday Clock is modeled on the Doomsday Clock created by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 1947 to represent the threat of nuclear war to human survival. More recently it has also reflected other risks, such as climate change.

In early August the United Nations agreed on 17 sustainable development goals and 169 specific targets for the post-2015 UN development agenda. It has a strong focus on ending poverty and hunger, ensuring equity, promoting sustainable patterns of consumption and production, and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the new development agenda “will chart a new era of Sustainable Development in which poverty will be eradicated, prosperity shared and the core drivers of climate change tackled.”

The document, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, resulted from two years of negotiations that had unprecedented participation by civil society. The agenda is to be formally adopted in late September by a summit meeting of some 150 world leaders at the UN headquarters in New York.

The new agenda with its 17 “integrated, interlinked and indivisible goals” is a successor to the eight Millennium Development Goals, adopted in 2000. That global agreement covered an array of issues including slashing poverty, hunger, disease, gender inequality, and access to water and sanitation by 2015.

The 17 sustainable development goals

The world has made some progress on environmental sustainability mainly between 1990 and 2010, but there were also important losses. A new report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development gives a snapshot of how we are doing on Millennium Development Goal 7, Ensuring Environmental Sustainability. This is one of eight international development goals established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000. The report covers a large number of developing countries and some developed nations. It notes that there were many data gaps, making it difficult to give a comprehensive picture.

Among the positive findings:

• There was an important increase in access to safe driving water, particularly in China, India and the broader Eastern and Southern Asia region, but there was a decline in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Only 50 per cent of the world has access to proper sanitation.
• Almost 98 per cent of substances contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer have been phased out of production and use. Developed countries almost completely eliminated ozone-depleting substances, while developing countries made an 86 per cent reduction.

On the debit side:

• Forest area decreased from 32 per cent to 31 per cent globally between 1990 and 2010, with reduced forest quality. There were significant declines in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southeastern Asia and Oceania.
• Global CO2 emissions grew from 21,550 to 31,387 million tonnes a year. From 1990-2010, developing nations increased their annual per capita emissions from 1.66 to 3.16 tonnes.
• Of 600 monitored marine fish stocks in 2009, 29 per cent were considered exploited beyond safe biological limits. (Only about 10 per cent of commercially valuable marine fisheries are monitored, mostly on an irregular basis.)
• About 30 per cent of the world experiences water stress due to shortages of fresh water.

And in a mixed finding, terrestrial and marine protected areas increased from 8.3 to 14 per cent between 1990 and 2012, mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, there was an increase in the number of species forecast to become extinct in the near future, particularly in northern Africa, West Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Every once in a while we get a sea change in how we deal with environmental problems. Finally we are getting that change for the control of greenhouse gases. Ontario announced it will join Quebec and California in a program called cap and trade. The provinces put limits or caps on industrial sources of greenhouse gas pollution. If some industries get below their emission limits they can trade (sell) their unused quota to other industries that find it cheaper to buy credits than control their pollution. The net result is total emissions have to go down.

The greenhouse gas controls are creating the biggest crackdown on a major air pollutant since the acid rain controls of 30 years ago. Recently, Ontario and Quebec chose to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2008, British Columbia has had a carbon tax on fossil fuels, and use of these fuels declined 16 per cent helping to cut the province’s emissions.

Under cap and trade, governments impose limits to carbon emissions, but they leave it up to the market to decide how the cuts will be made. Around the world countries are moving to various systems to put a price on carbon dioxide pollution as a way of encouraging people to reduce it.

There are many strong and well-established arguments for pricing carbon emissions. It is a basic economic principle that if something becomes more expensive you will use less of it. There more costly the pollution the more incentive to reduce it.

The sticking point has always been resistance from polluters. This has slowed government controls on carbon pollution for years. But there has been seismic shift. The public accepts that the climate is changing and we face severe risks. Very importantly, a number of major industries have agreed on the need for pollution cuts.

A panel discussion held at the Toronto Stock Exchange in early April provided a glimpse of those changes. There were two hosts. One was Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission www.ecofiscal.ca, a highly credible group calling for governments at all levels to use market-based approaches to discourage pollution and to encourage innovation. The other was the Cement Association of Canada, whose members are an important source of greenhouse gases. Along with Michael McSweeney, president of the cement association, panelists included David Paterson, vice-president of Corporate and Environmental Affairs for GM Canada, and Craig Alexander, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist for the TD Bank. What was most important was that all three business leaders on the panel were agreeing on the need for a price on carbon. This is an important signal to governments that they can move without getting too much pushback from business.

The event was another important move by the ecofiscal commission www.ecofiscal.ca, which was created last year with the goal of promoting “practical fiscal solutions for Canada” that lead to economic and environmental prosperity.

The Ecofiscal Commission is chaired by McGill University economist Chris Ragan, who has worked at the Bank of Canada and the federal finance department. The very diverse advisory board includes leaders from the business and financial sectors, the environmental movement, and former political leaders.

For the first time in some 4.5 billion years, one species – us – is consciously changing the planet Earth.

Our nuclear fallout, carbon emissions, forest clearing, agriculture, urbanization, elimination of other species, erosion and releases of a vast array of chemicals are making the world a different place from the one that evolved naturally.

Close to half of the planet’s ice-free surface is used for agriculture and urban development. Our impacts in the atmosphere are huge. Greenhouse gases released in ever greater amounts are raising the world’s temperature and making the oceans more acidic. Our chemicals have chewed a hole in the protective ozone layer.

We humans have been making some changes to the planet for thousands of years, probably starting with the use of fire to clear landscapes for hunting. Major changes started to build with the industrial revolution, dating back to the 1700s. But the “great acceleration” of impacts began in the 1950s when human population and activities began a rapid expansion, aided by new technologies.

Geologists categorize the past into eons, eras, periods and epochs, based on how the planet has changed, based on the fossils and minerals found in layers of rocks. According to the International Union of Geological Sciences we are now in the Holocene epoch that began at the end of the last ice age, about 11,700 years ago.

Because human impacts are so great, and many will be so long lasting, scientists are looking at declaring a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene, http://www.anthropocene.info, a period defined by human impacts on the planet.

What does this mean for sustainability? It’s simply another warning – a big one – that human impacts on our world are huge, long lasting and many are dangerous for our future. It lays out the challenge of bringing our lifestyles within planetary boundaries in a very powerful fashion.

The Canadian debate about how to change economic performance to reduce environmental damage has often been chaotic and sometimes downright nasty.

Many experts have proposed changes in economic policies to cut environmental impacts. They have often been ignored by governments that find the ideas too difficult to deal with, or attacked by politicians who refuse to accept ideas contrary to their ideology.

So, despite some important changes in business behaviour, many of our environmental problems are worsening. For example, Canada’s total greenhouse gases emissions are forecast to keep rising, despite federal government promises to reduce them.

That’s why it’s refreshing to see a high-powered and highly credible group calling for governments at all levels to use market-based approaches to discourage pollution and to encourage innovation.

Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission www.ecofiscal.ca says we need to put a price on pollution. We can use the revenue to generate economic benefits, by reducing corporate and personal income taxes, returning money to low-income households, or investing in technology or critical infrastructure.

The relatively new commission says there are many examples of other countries using ecofiscal policies to deal with water conservation, air pollution, traffic congestion and carbon emissions. These policies lead to innovation and greater business competitiveness.

The Ecofiscal Commission is chaired by McGill University economist Chris Ragan, who has worked at the Bank of Canada and the federal finance department. The very diverse advisory board includes such people as former Quebec premier Jean Charest, former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, and the Reform Party’s founding leader Preston Manning. It includes Steve Williams, chief executive at Canada’s largest oil company, Suncor Energy Inc., Peter Robinson, head of one of the country’s major environmental organizations, the David Suzuki Foundation, and Sheila Watt-Cloutier, past chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council.

Their core idea is not new. Economists have long recommended taxing “bads” such as pollution, while reducing taxes on “goods” such as investments and savings. What is new is that such a prominent group of experts are uniting behind the idea. Their credibility will make it harder for governments to ignore their advice.

They have a perfect homegrown example. Since 2008, British Columbia has had a carbon tax on fossil fuels, and used the revenue to reduce personal and business taxes. Since then per capita consumption of those fuels has dropped in the province, while continuing to rise in the rest of Canada. British Columbia’s economic growth slightly outperformed the rest of the country.

We have known for years that we have to drastically reduce fossil fuel use to avoid catastrophic climate change. It is the most important sustainability challenge the world has ever faced.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report, in 2014, said: “The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.” It predicted more heat waves and other weather extremes. The seas will become warmer, more acid and will continue to rise. The IPCC called for “…substantial emissions reductions over the next few decades, and near zero emissions of carbon dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gases by the end of the century.”

The majority of nations have accepted the advice of the IPCC, and agreed on a target of limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees C.

What does this mean?

Previous studies have estimated that about two-thirds of readily accessible fossil fuels need to be left in the ground before 2050 to stay within this limit.

A recent study funded by the UK Energy Research Centre came up with more specific estimates. In the publication Nature authors Christope McGlade and Paul Ekins wrote that globally, a third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80 per cent of current coal reserves should remain unused from 2010 to 2050 in order to avoid exceeding the 2 C target. They say specifically that development of fossil fuels in the Arctic and increased unconventional oil production, such as Canada’s oil sands, go against promises to limit global warming.

The paper highlights a huge contradiction in how the world is approaching the biggest environmental problem. With current energy patterns, we are headed for a 5C warming this century, which is predicted to cause huge environmental and social problems. Despite decades of warnings, going back at least to the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere, held in Toronto in 1988, fossil fuel industries continue to expand the supply, often with government subsidies.

Fossil fuels are the major source of global greenhouse gas emissions. These fuels­—coal, oil and natural gas­—still account for more than 80 per cent of global commercial energy. Mr. Ekins said companies spent over $670 billion last year searching for and developing new fossil fuel resources. By comparison, $214 billion was invested in renewable power and fuels in 2013, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. In 2013, the International Energy Agency estimated that consumer subsidies for fossil fuels amounted to $548 billion, while subsidies for renewable energy amounted to $121 billion. Renewables, including biofuels, biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind, only account for about 13 per cent of the world’s commercial energy.

All of us who are writers and who depend on the right of free expression must react against the murder of 12 people, journalists and their police guards, killed at and around the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris today.

Freedom of expression is the oxygen of democracies. Murdering the messenger is an attack on one of our basic rights.

As a former journalist, I have lost brothers in arms in the battle for free speech. We are all at risk of losing a fundamental freedom unless we stand up for free speech.

We must all be Charlie.

It’s time for some good news. On Sunday, more than two weeks of negotiations by 194 countries in Lima, Peru ended with the elements of a climate change agreement scheduled to be completed in Paris in December 2015. By next spring, nations are to produce national plans for controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

Last month, China and the United States, the world’s largest and second-largest carbon polluters, reached a historic accord. The United States promised to emit 26-28 per cent less carbon in 2025 than it did in 2005. China pledged to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, if not sooner. This helped set a more positive tone for Lima.

The Lima agreement was the latest in a series of global meetings, starting with the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere in Toronto in 1988, and including the 1987 Kyoto Protocol, with its promise by a number of developed nations to cut emissions. The Lima meeting is important because it kept the onus for emission cuts on richer nations, but also called for contributions in the fight against climate change from developing countries whose emissions are growing.

While many critics say the world has yet to commit to reduce emissions enough to prevent serious global warming, these are major steps. The world is still seriously tied to fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — which provide more than 80 per cent of commercial energy.

The challenge is to move to renewable energy before greenhouse gas emissions make the world a lot less habitable for humans and other species. There are fears of reaching a tipping point in the climate that will bring severe weather shifts, rising sea levels, and severe effects on human health and the economy.

Who knew that it takes 10,000 litres (that’s 1 tonne) of water to produce a pair of jeans and a T-shirt? Most of that is to grow the cotton. Even a cup of coffee takes 140 litres of water, mainly to grow the beans. A burger with that? There’s another 2 tonnes of water, mainly to grow feed for the beef.

How about a bottle of water? Ironically, it takes 5 litres of water to make the plastic water bottle.

Facts and figures like that are not just entertaining. They can shape our decisions about what and how to consume. They help us to measure our level of sustainability.

These are just a few of huge number of facts and figures that fellow environment writer Stephen Leahy has collected in his new book, Your Water Footprint, published by Firefly Books.

In water-rich countries like Canada, increasing water consumption puts stress on watersheds. The energy needed to purify, pump and carry away used water pushes up energy demands. For many countries in drier regions, water is scarce, creating problems for food production and development. Their situation will worsen as the world population grows, and as climate change brings warmer temperatures. By 2050, more than half the world is forecast to live in regions of limited water supplies.

Already, there are periodic water shortages in the United States, particularly in the dry southern regions, known as the Sun Belt.

If we are to green the economy, can we use pricing to encourage people to reduce pollution? Why not tax pollution?

Recently, the prime ministers of Canada and Australia attacked the idea of carbon taxes and emissions trading as ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, saying these hurt the economy.

In an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail, Munir Sheikh, Canada’s former chief statistician, did a study that found no evidence for these claims. Mr. Sheikh looked at the performance of several industrialized countries that rely on environmental taxes.

He writes that countries with high environmental taxes scored better than Canada on environmental, as well as social and economic indicators. While Canada has a high GDP per capita, it has the second worst labour productivity growth. On income inequality Canada and the United States rank at the bottom of the list, with Denmark and Norway at the top.

The former head of Statistics Canada says his study shows that putting taxes on pollution will not destroy the economy and “that environmental goals are achievable at the same time as economic and social goals.”

He adds his voice to those of such organizations as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which have called on countries to use carbon pricing to reduce emissions and therefore the impacts of a changing climate.

Within Canada, there is some carbon taxation. A British Columbia carbon tax began in 2008, offset by reductions in other taxes. According to the BC government: “The carbon tax puts a price on carbon emissions to encourage individuals, businesses, industry and others to use less fuel and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.” Since 2008, fuel use for transportation in BC has dropped, and the provincial economy has continued to grow. Quebec also has a carbon tax, but it does not have as much impact.

Climate change is one of the greatest threats to sustainability because it will destabilize much in our lives and economies.

Rainfall patterns are already changing, often with more severe and damaging storms. Sea levels are rising and rivers are more prone to flash floods before running drier. Warmer temperatures are forcing many species to move, and hasten the spread of diseases. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned the impacts of climate change may exceed the ability of societies to adapt.

Two reports give both the downside and suggestions for solutions.

Canada in a Changing Climate: Sector Perspectives on Impacts and Adaptation says the average temperature in Canada rose 1.5 C between 1950 and 2010. At the same time there was greater average precipitation in many areas.

This report was led by Canada’s natural resources department, and was written by 90 authors, had 115 expert reviewers and synthesized more than 1,500 recent publications. It looks at natural resources, food production, industry, biodiversity, protected areas, human health, and water and transportation.

Among key points:

• Canada’s climate is changing, with observed changes in air temperature, precipitation, snow and ice cover and other indicators. Further changes in climate are inevitable.
• Changes in climate are increasingly affecting Canada’s natural environment, economic sectors and the health of Canadians.
• Extreme weather events are a key concern for Canada and there is growing confidence that some types of extreme events will increase in frequency and/or intensity as the climate continues to warm.
• Adaptation is an essential response to climate change.

It forecasts more climate extremes (e.g. heat, cold, precipitation) and gradual changes, such as permafrost degradation, sea level rise and plant species migration.

Climate change will affect resource supply, notably forestry and hydroelectricity. Despite the growing threats, business is not paying attention. “Climate change itself is rarely identified as a priority concern, with industry focused on other immediate stressors, such as economic drivers.”

It will affect food supplies, with increased losses from invasive pests and diseases, and more extreme weather. A warmer climate may allow a modest increase in food production.

Health will be affected. For example, climate-sensitive diseases, such as Lyme disease are moving northward into Canada and will likely continue to expand their range. Research suggests climate change will worsen air pollution in some parts of Canada.

There are already increases in floods and wildfires.

Changes are becoming so profound that some tourism operators are considering promoting “last chance tourism,” offering people a chance to see landscapes, such as glaciers and species, before they decline or disappear.

The report states that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it is already too late to stop some changes, due to inertia in the climate system. This means we have to adapt to a changing climate.

The report comes at a time when there are plans to greatly expand the development of oil sands in western Canada, which would increase global greenhouse gas emissions.

Another report presents a roadmap to try to avoid a climate catastrophe, prescribing specific actions for the world’s biggest economies to sharply reduce emissions.

Pathways to deep decarbonization, was published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations.

Independent teams were assembled from 15 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States. In total they produce 70 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The reports lays out ways these countries can transition to low-carbon economies as part of an effort to help the world meet the internationally-agreed target of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees C.

The analyses for the 15 countries show three pillars for the deep decarbonization of energy systems:

• Greatly increased energy efficiency and energy conservation by all energy users, including buildings, transport and industry.
• The decarbonization of electricity, by harnessing renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, as well as nuclear power, and/or the capture and sequestration of carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning.
• Replacing the fossil fuels that drive transport, heating and industrial processes with a mix low-carbon electricity, sustainable biofuels and hydrogen.

The decarbonization paths rely on assumptions about countries’ ability to use new technologies on a commercial scale economically. For instance, carbon capture and storage is supposed to be available starting in about 10 years. Second-generation biofuels are assumed to come into play by 2020. Hydrogen fuel cells and power storage technology are expected to be deployed starting around 2030.

A recent study found that Ontarians are getting a better education, and have safer communities, but are more time-stressed and insecure in their jobs.

The report, How Are Ontarians Really Doing?, is the latest from The Canadian Index of Wellbeing https://uwaterloo.ca/canadian-index-wellbeing/ an independent organization based at the University of Waterloo. Traditionally, it produces national reports, but this report focuses on Ontario, comparing it to national figures from 1994 to 2010. It was commissioned by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Traditionally, societies measure how they are doing in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or employment rates, which are economic measures. The well-being report looks at these plus social and environmental factors.

This report found that during the 17-year period, national GDP increased by about 29 per cent, but national well-being increased by only 7.5 per cent. In Ontario, the increases were 24 per cent for GDP and 7 per cent for well-being.

Although the data is several years old, it still provides insights into trends that have probably not changed a lot.

During that period, Canada went through a number of economic cycles, and Ontario in particular is still suffering from loss of manufacturing and food processing jobs following the last recession. This led to a decline in living standards, a growing income gap, volatility in long-term unemployment and lower job quality. Read the rest of this entry »