Climate change is forcing us into a historic shift that will remake our societies. If we do not virtually stop pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we will destroy our civilization. If we do make the drastic cuts needed, we will have to make seismic changes in how we use energy and how we manage forests and other wild lands. The last time the world faced such a dramatic decision was in the second half of the past century, when we were at imminent risk of nuclear war. I remember a time of fear and ferment. Those of us who lived in North America feared a nuclear war with the then Soviet Union. It would have killed tens of millions, and devastated the planet with radiation, fires and smoke that would have shut out the sun, causing “nuclear winter.” Young people, the baby boom generation, reacted with anti-nuclear peace marches around the world. It’s harder to calculate the impact of peace marches, but by the late 1980s there was a shift among major nuclear powers toward a reduction in missiles and a de-escalation in nuclear threats.

There is always the potential for a nuclear war among the great powers, but it seems unlikely now. Today the greatest single threat to civilization is environmental decline, particularly climate change. It is forcing us to change. The question is will the change be peaceful and organized or will it be chaotic and harmful. Faced with the crisis, many politicians and business leaders seem frozen like deer in the headlights. They have made some gestures toward curbing pollution, but it is far from enough to save the planet. Last year greenhouse gas emissions were rising. As in the last century, many young people are taking up the cause, with their own marches and demonstrations trying to push the world to action.

The anti-nuclear protestors of the past century had leaders such as British philosopher Bertrand Russell and Australian physician Dr. Helen Caldicott. The leading figure for today’s climate protests is 16-year-old Swedish student, Greta Thunberg. Last year she skipped school to sit on the steps of her country’s Parliament with a sign demanding the government do more to stop climate change. She has become a Joan of Arc like figure for student protestors around the world. This year there have been worldwide student “climate strikes” with tens of thousands skipping classes to march in protest against political failures to stop climate change. Also last year a group in the United Kingdom formed the Extinction Rebellion movement to protest against failure to stop climate change. Peaceful protesters barricaded roads and bridges at major city landmarks. They shut down parts of London as people attached or even glued themselves to buildings. At one point police had to stop arresting protestors because they ran out of holding cells.

It’s too early to tell what impact if any these protests will have more than 450 communities around the world and some higher levels of government, including the United Kingdom and Ireland, have declared climate emergencies. Some are backing up the declarations with actions to move to renewable energy.

The latest bad news is that about 1 million of 8 million known species on Earth face extinction because of what we are doing to the planet. The report from the UN-backed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is the most comprehensive yet on the health of plant and animal life on Earth. Humans are now the dominant force of change on the planet. We have altered three-quarters of the land, and 85 per cent of wetlands are gone. Coral reefs are dying. One-third of marine stocks are over fished and 60 per cent are fished to the maximum sustainable level. The changes are driven by an ever-growing population and increasing per capita consumption. The big change agents are agriculture, fishing, logging, urban sprawl, pollution, over-hunting and invasive species. The losses are not just about other species. “Nature plays a critical role in providing food and feed, energy, medicines and genetic resources and a variety of materials fundamental for people’s physical well-being and for maintaining culture,” says the report. This just the latest report to warn we are destroying our own life support system. Back in 1987 Our Common Future the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development said we have a responsibility to leave a habitable world for future generations.

The species report, Nature’s Dangerous Decline, says stopping the destruction “…may only be achieved through transformative changes across economic, social, political and technological factors.” What all such reports lack is specific instructions that would make it clear just what needs to be done and by who. The reality is that the United Nations is not able to support documents that say we need to rapidly move away from gas-powered cars, leave fossil fuels in the ground, catch fewer fish, reduce forest clearing, reduce urban sprawl and generally consume less meat, energy and materials. That will take an independently-funded organization that can put together a respected team of world experts to design a roadmap toward sustainable production and lifestyles.

What makes a “good” country in a world of environmental crises, civil wars, terror attacks, mass migrations and a political drift toward closed borders and narrow short-term interests? Simon Anholt, came up with his own set of measures the Good Country Index. It calculates what each of 153 countries contribute or takes away from the common good of humanity, relative to their size. Anholt, is an independent policy advisor who counsels governments and corporations on a wide range of issues, including national identity and reputation, education, trade, security. His index, started in 2014, changes from year to year. This year, Finland, The Netherlands and Ireland top the list, based on their performance in such fields as science, culture, peace, equality, health and the environment. War-ravaged Iraq and Libya are at the bottom. A BBC story gives a good overview.

The struggle to tame climate change has entered choppy seas that are turning and tossing in all directions. The course is clear. Every credible report says we have to make rapid and drastic changes to our use of fossil fuels to head off climate changes that will undermine the very way of life we are trying to maintain. The politics are all over the map. In the United States, the president continues to deny climate change is a problem, and pushes for extraction of ever more fossil fuels. Meanwhile the mayor of New York is proposing to spend billions of dollars to protect his city from the rising seas caused by global warming. Same story in Miami. The president has proposed a budget that would cut clean energy spending just as New Mexico voted to decarbonize the state’s electric grid and Nevada’s governor announced his support for bills to expand renewable energy. In Canada, the federal government is promoting the development of heavy oil and pipelines to carry it to foreign markets. It is also imposing a fee on carbon emissions to encourage people to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. Countries around the world are struggling to both provide reliable energy and make the transition to a carbon neutral economies. Energy companies are struggling to keep up with the changes as they plan investments that are supposed to last for decades.

Can a 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl get more action on climate change than politicians and business leaders? Last August, Greta Thunberg, then 15, skipped classes and rode her bicycle to the country’s Parliament where she sat on the steps with a sign demanding the government do more to stop climate change. Thunberg continued her protests, missing school every Friday even after the elections. At first, she was alone, but her persistence inspired other young people around the world, and drew respect from people such as the head of the United Nations.  Soon, she became the global voice of youth exasperated by the failure of policymakers to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions. In December, she told politicians at the COP-24 global climate summit: “You are not mature enough to tell it like is,” and that they were leaving the burden of clean-up to the next generation. She has recently been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Last Friday, hundreds of thousands of students in more than 100 countries followed her lead and walked out of school in a protest dubbed the Youth Climate Strike. The students expressed anger at older generations for not doing enough to fight pollution, and fear for their future on a warming planet. They carried banners with such messages as “I’m not showing up for school because adults aren’t showing up for climate,” and “why should we go to school if you won’t listen to the educated.” Greta Thunberg has joined the ranks of such renowned figures as Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who survived a Taliban assassination attempt because she sought an education. She went on to become a global activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate.

Damage to the planet is getting so dire that our health is at risk unless we take rapid action. This week the United Nations Environment Programme issued its sixth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6). The encyclopedic 740-page report on the world environment was produced by 250 scientists and experts from more than 70 countries. Among the findings:

• Air pollution, mainly from industries, vehicles and fumes from cooking, kills 6-7 million people prematurely every year.
• Water quality continues to decline in most regions of the world. Diseases in contaminated water kill about 1.4 million people every year, and chemical pollutants are disrupting male and female fertility, as well as child neurodevelopment.
• Greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, and the planet gets warmer. If the world is to meet targets for controlling climate change, emissions need to drop by between 40 and 70 per cent globally by 2050, and to net zero by 2070.
• Humans are causing one of the greatest extinctions of life in millions of years. This loss of species is creating a poorer planet, and threatening food security.
• The oceans and their inhabitants are being changed by over-fishing, global warming, acidification and tonnes of pollutants dumped into their waters every year. Plastics, which are found everywhere in the seas, break down into microscopic particles that end up in food we eat.

Pressure on the global environment keeps growing. The world population is some 7.5 billion, with median projections estimating nearly 10 billion by 2050 and nearly 11 billion by 2100. Consumption using an extract-make-use-dispose approach has “increased resource exploitation beyond the recovery ability of ecological systems.” Much of this is still powered by burning fossil fuels, which causes climate change; energy consumption is forecast to increase by as much as 60 per cent in the next few decades. “Current patterns of consumption, production and inequality are not sustainable,” the report finds, and “…trends in environmental degradation are projected to continue at a rapid rate…”

The report calls for a new way of thinking and living, moving from the ‘grow now, clean up after’ model to a near-zero-waste economy. It suggests ways we can move to sustainable development. “They include changes in lifestyle, consumption preferences and consumer behaviour on the one hand, and cleaner production processes, resource efficiency and decoupling, corporate responsibility and compliance on the other hand.” For example, adopting less-meat intensive diets, and reducing food waste would reduce the pressure to increase food production, including clearing more land.

The problem is we have the ability but lack the willpower. The authors say support is still missing from the public, business and political leaders who are clinging to outdated production and development models.

After two years of backsliding, is the United States ready to once again be an environmental leader? Historically the country was a pioneer in creating environment departments, and passing clean air and water laws. Since Donald Trump became president two years ago federal environmental action has stalled and protections have been weakened. [However, many state and municipal governments have continued with their environmental agendas.] Now, some members of the Democratic Party are proposing a major sustainability agenda. It is called the Green New Deal, harking back to the New Deal President Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought in during the Great Depression of the 1930s to stabilize the economy, and provide jobs and relief to the many unemployed. The Green New Deal is aimed at systemic racial, regional, social, environmental and economic injustices. It would provide more support for health care and education, strengthen labour laws, promote a more sustainable food system and rapidly move the United States to renewable energy. It is certainly the most ambitious sustainability plan for any major nation so far.

This week some of the richest and most powerful people in the world are at the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos. Usually, the focus is on keeping the global economy running smoothly. Now the winds of environmental change are blowing through these corridors of power. Before the meeting the forum published the Global Risks Report 2019, with a stark assessment of the future. While issues such as economic instability, trade wars, cyber-attacks and the instability of some states were part of the list of concerns, the report opens with the statement: “Environmental risks continue to dominate the results of our annual Global Risks Perception Survey. This year, they accounted for three of the top five risks by likelihood and four by impact.” People were worried about extreme weather and rising sea levels as the result of climate change, and about a failure of the world to reduce the risks and to prepare for the coming changes. The report also highlighted biodiversity loss, saying species abundance has dropped by 60 per cent since 1970, “affecting health and socioeconomic development, with implications for well-being, productivity, and even regional security.”

The report worries about the world’s willingness to tackle the big problems given the hardening of political and social divisions within and among many countries. A growing number of countries are looking inward and turning away from the multilateral institutions built up over the past 70 years. “Global risks are intensifying but the collective will to tackle them appears to be lacking,” the report warns, saying the world appears to be “sleepwalking” into crisis. “We are drifting deeper into global problems from which we will struggle to extricate ourselves.”

Today, the opening was dominated by environmental issues. Prominent British naturalist Sir David Attenborough said there have been so many changes to the planet that “the Garden of Eden is no more.” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that leaders who deny or fail to do enough to deal with climate change are on the wrong side of history. She said they just have to look at receding shorelines in the Pacific to see how a warming planet is causing sea levels to rise. She said wants to bring the New Zealand Maori philosophy of ‘guardianship’ of the environment into politics and get leaders to think beyond election cycles.

Every three years Canadians get to tell Environment Canada what it thinks of the federal government’s approach to sustainability. The environment department has posted the draft 2019 to 2022 Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, and is asking people to comment on it up to April 2. The draft strategy sets out priorities, goals and targets for a dozen sectors, including climate change, clean growth, greening government and sustainable food and forests. People are asked for their ideas of sustainable development, their sustainability priorities and what they will do to make the country more sustainable.

It was another small step for humankind in the face of the greatest disaster our species has faced since the last ice age. Last Saturday, representatives from 196 countries and the European Union signed the Katowice Climate Package. The Katowice guidelines cover how to set new targets for financing emissions reductions, how to measure progress and how to verify reductions. The meeting in a coal mining city in southern Poland was unable to reach agreement on how to create a market in carbon credits. The issue of making even deeper cuts to emissions has been pushed to a UN summit next September. One delegate summed up the meeting by saying, “it’s what’s possible, but not what’s necessary.”

The Katowice conference, known as COP24, is the latest in a series of global meetings trying to reach agreement on how to control climate change. It came just a few weeks after an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] report warning that global warming on Earth is proceeding faster than governments are responding. The IPCC report, Global Warming of 1.5° C  said the world’s climate will reach a dangerous 1.5 degrees Celsius increase from pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030, bringing extreme drought, huge wildfires, great floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people. As a sign of how contentious climate change has become, four oil-producing countries, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, blocked the inclusion of the IPCC findings in the official text from Katowice.

So, the global temperature keeps rising, the ice sheets are melting, the climate in becoming more extreme and unpredictable. Countries have started to react, but the pollution cuts promised are nowhere near enough. Global net emissions of carbon dioxide would need to fall by 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach “net zero” around 2050 in order to keep the warming around 1.5 degrees C. Instead, emissions are rising. We are now on a track to see global warming reach 3C by the end of this century, taking us into uncharted and dangerous territory. According to the IPCC, lowering emissions to a safe level, while technically possible, would require widespread changes in energy,industry, buildings, transportation and cities, the report says. It would mean a dramatic overhaul of the global economy, including a shift away from fossil fuels.

At the COP 24 global climate negotiations in Poland, thousands of people are struggling to come up with detailed plans on how to control climate change. They are under pressure from a grim report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this fall that gave us until 2030 to start making major cuts to greenhouse gases or face disastrous impacts on our lives. It means transforming the world economy, now mainly powered by fossil fuels, and doing it in just a few years. It’s an unprecedented challenge. As people come to terms with the reality of the transition they face two huge questions. What are the best and most feasible ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and how do we make a transition that is just and fair to people, many of whom will see their jobs vanish and lives altered?

The changes have started. Last month nearly 3,000 General Motors employees in Oshawa were told their jobs will end next year when GM closes the huge car factory as part of a shift to electric and self-driving vehicles. GM is just one of the major car makers to announce a move to cleaner vehicles. There is a huge knock-on effect. The union representing the GM workers said the closure will cost more than 5,000 direct jobs, as well as about 15,000 indirect jobs in the region.

Another sector facing major dislocation is fossil fuels. Some of the  first to be affected are people in the coal industry as Canada moves to phase out traditional coal-generated electricity by 2030. As part of the plan Ottawa launched the Task Force on the Just Transition for Canadian Coal Power Workers and Communities, including funding for skills development, economic diversification, and transition centres. The federal government said a just transition “…is an approach to economic and environmental policy that aims to minimize the impact on workers and communities during the transition to a low-carbon economy. This approach includes involving workers and communities in decisions that would affect their livelihood. It identifies and supports economic opportunities for the future and helps workers and communities succeed through and benefit from the transition.” For an excellent article on the impact of the move away from coal see The Narwhal article on Alberta miners.

We are just at the beginning. If we are going to reduce greenhouse gases enough to avoid the worst of climate change, it is clear that we have to phase out fossil fuel energy. That will affect tens of thousands of people in the industry and millions more who are involved in the fuel businesses. It will affect everyone who use these fuels to heat their homes and power their cars and industries. The task force for a just transition should be just the first step toward a national strategy to help the nation’s greatest change ever. It needs to be our new industrial strategy for the long term.

We usually expect signals of a shift to sustainability to come from governments or non-government organizations. The announcement by General Motors that it is shutting its huge car manufacturing plant in Oshawa next year is a terrible blow for thousands who work there and for parts suppliers. But it is also a signal of big changes coming as business responds to environmental pressures. As part of the closure of Oshawa and four other plants in the United States, GM said it will stop building a number of gasoline-powered sedans to focus more on electric and self-driving vehicles. GM is just one of the major car makers to signal a shift to cleaner vehicles. Big companies know the world has to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, and people are slowly migrating to hybrid and all-electric vehicles as their range improves. There is also growing political pressure. A number of countries, particularly in Europe, have said they want to phase out fossil fuel powered vehicles over the next few decades. The challenge for governments and workers is to adapt to the new reality and become part of electric car future.

We know the climate is changing. It’s clear that if we don’t stop pouring greenhouse gases into the air we will have more and worse fires, floods, storms, droughts and disruptions to our lives. People also know that we need change how we travel, heat our buildings. Many of our jobs will be different. What most are not sure about is how to move to a sustainable lifestyle without giving up many things they take for granted. People are looking for clear messages about a transition that won’t leave them unemployed and bankrupt. Governments traditionally provide leadership to guide societies through periods of change. Some have started to impose controls on greenhouse gases, but many hesitate to order the major changes needed to stop runaway climate change.

Politicians understand that we can’t get the big changes needed for sustainability without a social consensus. We can’t achieve such consensus without discussions that include everyone. Too often the discussion about climate change amounts to people shouting at each other. So, how do we move from isolation to agreement? I had the chance to listen to experts on communicating climate change issues. They and other commentators say that too often the messages about climate are still about the threats. They need to move spelling out practical solutions, and they need to be led by a range of highly respected leaders.

According to George Marshall of Climate Outreach those trying to promote climate action have to connect with people’s values and concerns. That means starting a conversation not by trying to sell solutions right away but by listening. The discussions need to be about how climate change will affect people, their families and the things they care about. The goal should be to find common ground. Although climate change is rapidly worsening, the discussions cannot be rushed. It will take time for people to change attitudes.

How you hold such a conversation? One example is the Alberta Narratives Project, part of an international movement to hold discussions about climate change. Earlier this year the project team held 55 meetings with a wide range of people, including farmers, oil sands workers, energy leaders, senior business people, youth and environmental activists. Not surprisingly, it found “…marked differences in opinion between different occupation groups, different parts of the province and, especially between people holding different political values. These divisions make it increasingly difficult for Albertans to discuss climate change and energy with each other, to conduct a civil debate around options for the future, or to form a coherent and sustained vision of the future.” The narratives project aim is not to advocate or even educate but “…to replace a combative and acrimonious debate with a constructive conversation based on shared values.” People running the project found an openness to renewable energy, but most felt that fossil fuel production in the province will continue for many years, even generations. They found 39 per cent of those surveyed wanted to see more oil production and 35 per cent wanted a decrease.

The message to politicians is clear. A transition to a sustainable future cannot be dealt with in one or even two election cycles. It’s hard for people to accept that many of the ways we have been using fossil fuels for generations, even centuries, are no longer sustainable. It’s even harder to figure out how we can make a smooth and relatively painless transition to a clean, green economy and lifestyle. It will take many years. Now is the time to engage people in a discussion about what is important to them and how to preserve that during one of the greatest transitions in modern human history.

It is a historic first: a government is being punished for doing too much for the environment. French President Emmanuel Macron recently increased taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, in order to help finance a transition to renewable energy. Public reaction was swift and often violent, including the largest demonstrations in France since the riots of 1968. Many complained the tax was hurting low income people who had to drive. The demonstrators, wearing yellow safety vests that are found in every car, also complained about the cost of living and income inequality. The protests were so widespread that the French government has suspended the tax. For a good analysis of fuel taxes please see an article by the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

President Macron was trying to meet France’s commitments to the Paris Accord to fight climate change by making fuel more expensive thus encouraging people to switch to electric cars. But, it appears he failed to heed a core premise of sustainable development – the need to integrate environmental, economic and social needs. This is the biggest challenge facing political leaders. How do you make a transition to a renewable fuel economy without harming people whose livelihoods depend on the production or use of fossil fuels? What happened in France is a powerful signal to leaders around the world. They face increasing pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions but to do it in a way that does not cause too much pain for their citizens. Are there other ways of doing it?

In 2008, British Columbia imposed North America’s first broad-based carbon tax on fossil fuels for transportation, home heating and electricity generation. But, the government also reduced personal income taxes and corporate taxes by a roughly equal amount. As a result, there has been relatively little opposition. The province has been gradually increasing the carbon tax and by now has raised the price of diesel fuel by close to 9 cents per litre. The French tax raised diesel by 24 Euro cents per litre and came rapidly.

In Canada a number of provinces now have carbon fees, but in 2019 the federal government will impose a carbon tax on any province that does not. The federal government says it will give back most of what it collects in household rebates so people will not suffer financially. The goal is to encourage people to shift to lower carbon fuels thus reducing costs while still collecting rebates. So far there has been strong criticism from opposition politicians but no signs of a popular resistance to the pollution fee.

People are more worried than ever about the fate of the planet according to the 27^th annual survey by the Asahi Glass Foundation in Japan. It publishes an Environmental Doomsday Clock based on a “Questionnaire on Environmental Problems and the Survival of Humankind.” The responses are recorded as how much time we have left to fix environmental crises. This year the foundation got 1,866 responses from people in 139 countries. On average, people felt we at 9:47pm, with not much time to save the planet. The greatest concern was from people in North America and western Europe, while the lowest concern was in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The 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.

Getting to sustainability is always going to be hard. A major article in The New York Times Magazine gives a perfect example. It documents how scientists pushed almost to the point of trying to control climate change a generation ago. The article, Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change, documents how scientists, including those from the fossil fuel industry and policy makers especially in the United States knew of the hazards of climate change decades ago. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, senior politicians were seriously considering ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Members of the fossil fuel industry mounted a campaign against controls on their products. Politicians backed away from commitments. While the article is largely about American science and politics, it provides good insights into how hard it is to get societies to make the huge shifts needed to become sustainable. The article is about 30,000 words long. It’s worth reading through if you want to see how issues rise from the science and are handled by politicians. If you want a good synopsis of the implications for dealing with complex issues, go to the epilogue.

The Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion project has degenerated into an old-fashioned jobs vs. environment battle. The federal government, which bought the pipeline from Kinder Morgan, says the project is needed to maintain jobs in the heavy oil industry. Opponents say it encourages more oil production and greenhouse gases. Ottawa has tried to counter that by saying part of the deal is that it will ensure there is a price on carbon in Canada to encourage a reduction in pollution. The problem is that while the pipeline is certain to make it easier to ship more oil to markets, there is much less certainty that the government can ensure reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. Until the country has a clear road map on how we are going to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets, people will be sceptical of any plans that are likely to increase pollution.

Nearly three years ago, Canada along with other members of the United Nations agreed on 17 sustainable development goals and 169 specific targets for the post-2015 UN development agenda. These included 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. According to a report by the Ottawa-based McLeod Group, it’s hard to know how we are doing. The report says Canada has yet to produce a national framework setting out how it will reach the sustainable development goals. McLeod Group cites a report published last fall by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. saying that Canada did not have data on 108 of 169 sustainable development targets. Where data existed, the country was only on track for 17.

No aspect of the transition to sustainability is more difficult and controversial than energy. We are heading into a climate change crisis. Yet more than 81 per cent of global energy comes from burning fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gases that are causing global warming. Governments and people around the world are struggling with how to change to new energy systems. The UN climate experts say we need to cut carbon emissions by about 70 per cent by mid-century. It was interesting to hear James Hansen, one of the world experts on climate change tackle that issue in a speech last night in Toronto. Hansen, formerly Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is now at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directs a program in Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions. His testimony to the U.S. Government in the 1980s helped make climate change a major public issue. In his speech Hansen made a pitch for more nuclear power. He said that research into cheaper and more efficient forms of nu

James Hansen Credit: The Independent

clear energy is lagging, but there are indications that new reactors could be far more efficient and produce much less radioactive waste. Ironically, a group at the entrance to the speaking venue was handing out flyers calling for a shutdown of one of Canada’s major nuclear power stations, about 35 km to the east. Both Hansen and the protesters were making the point that all forms of energy generation have some risks and benefits. These clashes of ideas are useful to push the kind of debate we need to have, but they are like isolated flashes of light that come and go. What we need is a permanent forum where experts can provide advice on the pros and cons of different energy sources so people can develop informed ideas about what kind of energy future they want, and this can guide governments to make policies that reflect scientific information and public opinion.

The battle over the future of a pipeline to carry Alberta oil sands bitumen to the Pacific is the latest example of how hard it is to move to sustainable development. The Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion project would twin an existing pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby, B.C. The Alberta government wants the new pipeline to get more oil to overseas markets and fetch a better price. British Columbia’s government wants to block the project on the grounds that a spill of dilbit [diluted bitumen from the oil sands] could cause great environmental damage. Many protesters want to stop the project saying we should not be selling more oil at a time when we are supposed to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions from sources such as fossil fuels. The dispute has put the federal government in a bind. It signed the Paris climate accord, which promises to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, but is supporting the pipeline expansion. Last month an extraordinary report by the majority of Canada’s auditors general found that most governments in Canada were not on track to meet their commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “Canada has missed two separate emission reduction targets (the 1992 Rio target and the 2005 Kyoto target) and is likely to miss the 2020 Copenhagen target as well. In fact, emissions in 2020 are expected to be nearly 20 percent above the target.” Most provincial governments have or will introduce pricing to discourage fossil fuel use, but the impacts are far below what is needed to meet even modest targets. While we have carbon pricing and incentives for greener energy and for energy conservation, we still have no clear roadmap of how we are going to meet ever more stringent targets. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world will have to cut greenhouse gas emissions as much as 70 percent by mid-century.