As human activity is being cited as a major cause of global warming resulting in climate change, Canada has also often been pointed out as being lax on initiatives to reduce greenhouse gasses.
In a unique effort, more than 60 scholars from universities across Canada collaborated on a report of initiatives that could be implemented to transition to a low-carbon economy.
Catherine Potvin (PhD, MSc) was one of the leaders in this effort. She is a professor at McGill University in Montreal and holds the Canada Research Chair in Climate Change Mitigation and Tropical Forests
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The report is called ACTING ON CLIMATE CHANGE- solutions from Canadian Scholars
The group notes that Canada lacks a cohesive and clear policies on climate change and emissions reduction.
It points out that some initiatives have been undertaken by a coupld of individual provinces, but they are limited.
As powers and responsibilities to take action are divided between provinces and the federal government, this has led to “territorial” differences, and difficulties in developing strategies, not helped in some instances by different viewpoints on problems and solutions.
Canada is facing ever rising costs due to such climate issues as droughts, increasing number and intensity of forest fires, insect infestation, major floods, storms of greater intensity and damage, coastal erosion, and more.
Professor Potvin says major cities are centres for greenhouse gas production, and suggests therefore that it is important for all levels of government to recognize the seriousness of the problem facing the country and work together to create the coordinated policies necessary to achieve results in emission reductions and creation of a low-carbon society.
To accomplish this they are suggesting things like a carbon tax, and an integration of Canada’s low-carbon, renewable hydro-electric system to reduce petroleum-based heating and power generation. Another suggestion, discussed for decades but never implemented, is to finally develop high-speed intercity rail to get people out of their cars and out of jetliners. A further aspect is to improve rail freight infrastructure to transfer a sizeable amount of freight from polluting heavy trucks, to low-carbon rail.
The scholars hope the report will stimulate discussion on a transition to a low-carbon economy and collaboration among the various levels of government.
The report concludes, “Several of the policy orientations and actions SCD proposes for Canada’s transition to a low carbon sustainable society could be fully implemented in the next 15 years, given political will and efforts to engage stakeholders across all sectors of society. Other more complex actions might take up to 35 years. It is thus essential to begin immediately. As such, the Climate Change Summit of the Premiers planned for April 2015 is an important milestone.”
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