Business heeds Stern warning
My story in today’s Toronto Star reflects on British economist Sir Nicholas Stern’s visit to Toronto yesterday. The fact that his presence managed to draw hundreds of business and political types — literally packing the room — is yet another sign that we’ve reach a tipping point in the climate-change debate. As the CEO of Shell Canada pointed out, a couple of years ago it would be difficult to attract so many business people to hear an economist talk about the environment. But Stern has become somewhat of a celebrity since he released his Stern Review last October and warned the world that acting decisively on climate change at minimal cost today will prevent certain economic collapse down the road as extreme weather, rising sea levels and droughts play havoc on the world economy.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
February 20th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Hi Tyler,
I was at the event too – Sir Nicholas delivery was very polished (no doubt he’s given the same speech many times before). I’m curious, what did you think about his singling out carbon capture and storage technology as a means to improve carbon efficiency over the long run? He cited Canada as being a world leader in capture, but not in storage. How does this jive with your experience?
February 20th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Good observation. I don’t know if you were at the Hart House event as well, but when Stern mentioned the carbon capture/storage stuff David Suzuki disagreed and warned that the technology has not been proven and shouldn’t be relied on as a silver bullet.
As for Canada being a world leader, I think he’s only citing that because of our success with the Weyburn project in Saskatchewan. Not to say we don’t have a lot of knowledge about carbon capture/storage, but I’m not so sure we’re that much ahead of the pack. The European Union has engaged in a massive carbon sequestration project, and I have yet to see similar proposals making any headway in Canada.
Personally, I’ve got problems with relying too heavily on sequestration, given the difficulting of monitoring the state of underground storage and possible leaks over the long term.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Storage is of concern as it is pie in the sky at the moment. If it takes $40/barrel to get carbon as gas or liquid out of the ground, how can it cost less to compress and or liquify it and put it back into the ground.
Sequestration is no doubt a large sink, but has limitations.
The aspect of both storage and sequestration that leaves me uneasy is that both are a license to continue the fossil fuel party, and do not lead us on a road to sustainability, they postpone the inevitable, with as yet unresolved risks of storage.
How do we make the committment required for sustainability if we continue divert limited $ resources to unsustainable technologies.
Cheers
February 21st, 2007 at 6:07 am
It all comes back to this: conservation is the only sure thing right now. A few well-placed, one-time subsidies could drive down the cost on many helpful building components, and how much money does government invest in our cycle network? To say nothing of public transit. These fruit are hanging so low that they’re hitting us in the face, yet we ignore them. It seems that the vague concept “technology” is a tremendously seductive one for slightly dim-witted politicians.
June 5th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Well it sure is an emotional scene to see an economist talking about environment. We all know that economy and the global environment will never get along. We can only hope that the wisdom will defeat the greed.
June 14th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Climate change doesn’t cause hurricanes, but hot ocean water makes them more powerful. Climate change doesn’t cause rainfall, but it can increase the frequency and severity of heavy flooding. Climate change doesn’t cause droughts, but it makes droughts longer. I believe that economic dynamism can be combined with environmental and social responsibility. High financial returns can go hand in hand with respect for human rights, and the preservation of the planet’s natural resources. Business must accept that real change is the only response to climate change and other environmental crises.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:39 am
There is a simple rule about the environment. If there is waste or pollution, someone along the line pays for it. I think investing money into slowing climate change is not just about saving some guy from a flood in 100 years. Climate change effects entire ecosystems (the other problems aside from population do not) and we have such a small understanding of ecology and feedback loops and nature’s resilience. The temperature changes we have experienced over the past 150 years may be slight, but the rate of change (a couple of degrees in a couple of 100 years versus thousands of years) does not allow time for plants and animals to adapt. Everything is connected and it’s impossible to predict all of the effects of climate change and consequently it is much more difficult to put a price tag on the benefits of investing money in slowing the rate of climate change.
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