How Canada Can Meet the Climate Challenge of Net-Zero
2020
will forever be etched into our minds as the year that felt like a decade – a global pandemic that halted economies and took far too many lives far too soon, social unrest as institutions faced a reckoning around systemic racism, perhaps the most consequential US election in recent memory, all while the world continued to burn with the Northern California skies wrapped in a blood orange glow.
Phil De Luna
Director, National Research Council
The pandemic is a global short-term shock with impacts that are felt by everyone. There’s a strange comfort in knowing that we’re facing similar challenges and a shared, albeit bleak, experience. By contrast, climate change is a long-term burn with gradual and delayed effects that will persist for generations to come. The impacts of climate change we face today are the result of decades past of GHG emissions. In fact, studies show that continued emissions from committed fossilfuel energy infrastructure account for more than the entire carbon budget that remains if global warming is to be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In other words, unless massive capital investments, decommissioning of existing fossil-fuel based electricity generation, and a ban of new fossil-fuel plants are implemented – we may have already failed to reach our targets. Thankfully in Canada our electricity generation is relatively clean as we are blessed with an abundance of hydroelectricity, continue to implement solar and wind, and have developed a robust nuclear sector. In Canada 52% of annual GHG emissions come from two sectors – oil & gas and transportation. These sectors are extremely
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