Our Comment in Nature calling for oil sands moratorium

Here is the press release for our Nature paper, released June 25, calling for a moratorium on oil sands expansion. This means no loss of current jobs in the oil sands. But it does mean a return to sanity from this selfish rush to accelerate global warming, ocean acidification and ecological destruction - events that will lead to huge economic and social costs according to a just-released study by the World Bank. It does mean that we should not build new pipelines like Keystone XL, Northern Gateway and others.

Press release:

Scientists call for a Halt to Oil Sands Expansion Until Policies Address True Costs and Global Impacts.

A Comment published today in the journal Nature calls for a moratorium on new oil sands projects in Alberta, Canada due to flaws in how oil sands decisions are made. The authors are a multidisciplinary group of economists, policy researchers, ecologists, and decision scientists. They argue that the controversy around individual pipelines like Keystone XL in the US or Northern Gateway in Canada overshadows deeper policy flaws, including a failure to adequately address carbon emissions or the cumulative effect of multiple projects. The authors point to the contradiction between the doubling of the rate of oil sands production over the past decade and international commitments made by Canada and the US to reduce carbon emissions. “The expansion of oil sands development sends a troubling message to other nations that sit atop large unconventional oil reserves,” said lead author Wendy Palen, Assistant Professor at Canada’s Simon Fraser University. “If Canada and the United States continue to move forward with rapid development of these reserves, both countries send a signal to other nations that they should disregard the looming climate crisis in favor of developing the most carbon-intensive fuels in the world.” The authors point out that oil sands development decisions (e.g. pipelines, railways, mines, refineries, ports) made in isolation artificially restrict public discussions. Debate in the news media and during hearings for individual projects are limited to evaluating the short-term costs and benefits to the local economy, jobs, environment and health, and do not account for the long-term and cumulative consequences of multiple projects or of global carbon pollution. Co-author Joseph Arvai, Professor and Research Chair in decision science at the University of Calgary, explained the problem. “Individual projects – a particular refinery or pipeline – may seem reasonable when evaluated in isolation, but the cumulative impacts of multiple projects create conflicts with our commitments to biodiversity, aboriginal rights, and controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Though we have the knowledge and the tools to do better – to more carefully analyze these tradeoffs and make smarter long-term choices – so far governments have not used them.” A moratorium would create the opportunity for Canada and the United States to develop a join North American road map for energy development that recognizes the true social and environmental costs of infrastructure projects as well as account for national and international commitments to reduce carbon emissions. Anything less “demonstrates flawed policies and failed leadership”, the authors state.

Contact:

Wendy J. Palen

Department of Biological Sciences

Simon Fraser University

Burnaby, BC, Canada

Thomas D. Sisk

Landscape Conservation Initiative

School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability
Northern Arizona University

Flagstaff, Arizona

Maureen Ryan

School of Resource and Environmental Management

Simon Fraser University

Burnaby, BC, Canada

Joseph L. Árvai

Department of Geography

University of Calgary

Calgary, AB, Canada

Mark Jaccard 

School of Resource and Environmental Management

Simon Fraser University

Burnaby, BC, Canada 

Anne Salomon

School of Resource and Environmental Management

Simon Fraser University

Burnaby, BC, Canada

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Balsillie School of International Affairs

University of Waterloo

Waterloo, ON, Canada

Ken Lertzman

School of Resource and Environmental Management

Simon Fraser University

Burnaby, BC, Canada

The Doublespeak of the Dirty Carbon Economy

I wrote this piece which appeared as an Op-Ed in the Vancouver Sun and in the Huffington Post Canada edition via DeSmog Canada on August 13, 3012.

George Orwell used parody and caricature to expose the propaganda lies of the fascists and communists who threatened humanity in the mid-20th century. Today, his talents are badly needed to counter the propaganda of corporate executives who seek self-enrichment by accelerating the burning of the coal, oil and gas here and abroad.

Good news for stopping carbon pollution in BC

Today, on Earth Day, the NDP under Adrian Dix made a convincing case for British Columbians' support in the upcoming provincial election by re-affirming its opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and stating its opposition to the proposed KinderMorgan expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Our political leaders must have the honesty and courage to reject jobs that involve accelerating carbon pollution, yet the BC Liberals under Christy Clark have been completely silent on this ethical duty to our kids - in spite of claims to care about families. As an economist, I have seen strong evidence that we can create sustainable jobs to replace the earth-destroying jobs from expanding coal and oil production. In 2007 the BC government stopped two coal-fired and one natural gas-fired power plants and the replacement electricity from wood waste, small hydro, wind and other renewables created far more jobs according to independent analysis by leading accounting firms.

Asking the wrong question about Keystone XL

Oral Testimony to the US Congress Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing entitled

“H.R. 3, the Northern Route Approval Act.”

April 10, 2013

The State Department assumes that future production of the Alberta oil sands will be the same even if it denies construction of Keystone XL. Yet a great deal of evidence contradicts this assumption. Ironically, much of this evidence comes not from environmentalists, but from industry analysts, Canadian politicians, and even the oil sands producers themselves.

US politicians should reject the Keystone pipeline

By Mark Jaccard
Originally published in The Hill on March 13, 2013

As a Canadian energy and climate economist, I have first-hand experience with the magician-like techniques of the Canadian government and petroleum industry as they try to double the output of our highly polluting tar sands. Politicians in Washington should be wary, especially if they are sincere in wanting to spare us and our children from an increasing barrage of Katrinas, Sandys and droughts.

Magicians use slight-of-hand to distract us from what they are really doing. The fossil fuel industry and its allies have spent a lot of money to bombard us with messages about the jobs and tax benefits of increasing carbon pollution via this or that fossil fuel project. Count how many times they explain how this carbon pollution is consistent with what scientists say and politicians promise in terms of avoiding devastating climate change. Of course, they don’t explain. That is the art of deception on which magic is based: to get you looking the wrong way. If you were to look the right way, you would see that we cannot be expanding fossil fuel infrastructure today and keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius (3.7 Fahrenheit). That infrastructure – all of it – must be stable or contracting.

But my Canadian government and the tar sands industries who want Keystone argue that somehow, miraculously, increasing carbon polluting infrastructure will not increase carbon pollution. (George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth has nothing on these guys.) They argue that even without Keystone Alberta tar sands would be developed to the same extent. So you might as well approve Keystone – so the argument goes.

But this is simply not true. Tar sands production is currently about 2 million barrels per day. At this level it already has trouble getting to market, which is why tar sands producers must accept a lower price for their oil – which is good news for U.S. gasoline purchasers, but not for investors hoping to expand tar sands.

Keystone would help tar sands producers expand output by 50 to 100 percent. Without it, output would stay constant. But this is where the magicians offer their next deception. They claim that even without Keystone tar sands production would increase because the oil would simply be shipped to China via a Northern Gateway pipeline through British Columbia. You might as well build Keystone and keep the oil from going to China, so the magicians argue.

In fact, the likelihood of this is slim – and getting slimmer every day. The reason is British Columbia. My province is the Canadian, and perhaps the North American, epicenter of two important social movements – environmentalism and rights activism by aboriginal peoples.

British Columbia has North America’s only real carbon tax, with all of its revenues returned as income and corporate tax cuts. And our electricity policy is the toughest in North America, allowing no fossil fuel power without carbon capture and storage. It is no surprise that polls consistently show that a majority of British Columbians oppose Northern Gateway.
Our provincial election is in May, and the opposition party, which is well ahead in the polls, has promised to prevent the project if it forms the next government.

British Columbia’s aboriginal peoples are proud, organized and active in defending their land and coast. Court rulings have made it extremely difficult to develop resource and infrastructure projects without their support, and almost all the tribes along the proposed pipeline route and on the coast are adamantly opposed to Northern Gateway. They have promised lengthy court battles and even civil disobedience should anyone try to build it.

The odds against Northern Gateway are huge. Without it and Keystone, there is no tar sands expansion, no increase in carbon pollution. Stopping Keystone will hinder tar sands expansion; believing otherwise is nothing more than a magician’s delusion.

If U.S. policy makers don’t want to lock-in a Sandy-Katrina future for our children, rejecting Keystone is one of the most obvious and easiest steps.

(Link to original article)

The incredible logic of planetary destruction – rationalizing a new oil refinery on the B.C. coast

Media tycoon David Black says he wants to protect the B.C. marine environment he loves from an oil spill that could result from tankers shipping bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to China and other overseas markets. To this end, he just announced that he has the necessary financial backing for his proposed oil refinery at Kitimat, which would convert bitumen into gasoline, diesel and other refined petroleum products.

His logic is that a spill of gasoline and diesel would be less harmful to the marine environment than bitumen. Presumably this is true.

But like any school child, Mr. Black must be aware that we need to stop investing in facilities and infrastructure that put carbon pollution into the atmosphere – whether that occurs here or in China. Long lived investments, like his proposed refinery and the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would feed it, last many decades. Yet, scientists tell us repeatedly, and with increasing urgency, that global emissions need to start falling in this decade to have any chance of not increasing temperatures more than 2 Celsius above pre-industrial levels – a tipping point that is likely to unleash storms, droughts, epidemics and eventually significant sea level rise.

Mr. Black does not talk about how we prevent this catastrophe. This is not surprising – because his proposed refinery is not part of a healthy path for the planet and our children. The healthy path requires investments that produce zero-carbon electricity and biofuels for our vehicles, that prevents export of fossil fuel products to anyone who burns them to release more carbon pollution, and that combines with other leading jurisdictions to apply trade measures to pressure such countries to stop polluting.

And here is the biggest irony of all. Mr. Black justifies his proposal by his desire to protect the coastal marine environment. But this requires that he close his eyes (and distract the rest of us with baubles of jobs and tax revenue) to the effect that carbon pollution has on the oceans. Report after report from marine scientists track how rising CO2 concentrations in the oceans are killing sea life, starting with scallops and other acid-sensitive organisms. Mr. Black and his project would help advance the very destruction he claims he wants to avoid. The logic is astounding. And yet no one in the mainstream media is talking about this.

Climate and Voting – the environmental, social justice and survival issue of our times

British Columbia, where I live, will have a provincial election in May 2013. By a strange set of circumstances, BC voters have a rare opportunity, for the second provincial election in a row, to significantly influence the global climate struggle with their vote. Ironically, this means switching their vote from what it was in 2009 – it can’t get more non-partisan than that!

In 2009, the NDP opposition crassly promised if elected to kill in the cradle North America’s only true carbon tax, even though they had previously argued for its implementation. Many climate-concerned voters, who might have normally voted for the Greens or the NDP, voted for the governing Liberals in order to save the tax. During the campaign, I joined with experts from a diversity of ideological perspectives to try to convince people to vote strategically in our first-past-the-post system, hoping to ensure the NDP would lose swing ridings and not form government. (The NDP often emphasizes its concern for social justice, but sometimes seems to forget that climate change is one of humanity’s greatest social justice issues – just ask someone from Bangladesh, or a similarly vulnerable poor country, who understands the human implications of climate change.)

The Liberals just barely won the election and the carbon tax was saved, a victory that was even more significant than we thought at the time – since the global financial crisis soon blunted climate policy initiatives in most, but not all, jurisdictions. Today, the tax stands symbolically as the only significant carbon tax in North America, representing a model for future policy efforts. Policy advisors study the tax, the New YorkTimes writes about it, even Republican politicians have talked favorably about it. Preventing the NDP from destroying the tax was the most critical outcome of that election. The struggle was stressful, but successful.

In this election, however, the roles are reversed. The reason is the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

Recent papers in Science and Nature on our global carbon emission limits – summarized in Bill McKibben’s article inRolling Stone – explain what many of us have known for at least two decades. Humanity cannot develop our massive unconventional oil resources while at the same time preventing the 2 C temperature increase that scientists believe could destabilize the climate, perhaps leading to runaway global warming. In Canada, this means that we cannot be expanding production levels and transport infrastructure for Alberta’s tar sands. This does not mean shutting down the tar sands tomorrow. With existing production facilities and pipeline infrastructure, its operation would continue for decades. But it cannot be expanding with new major developments and additional pipeline capacity. As McKibben points out, the math is ridiculously simple – and terrifying.

This means that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the US and the Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to the BC coast should not be built. They would allow tar sands production to double from its current level of 2 million barrels per day.

The past three decades have shown that the vast majority of politicians have proven adept at expressing great concern for the threat of global warming, while not actually committing to policies that would stop or reduce emissions growth. The governing Liberals in BC, for example, have said they still believe in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, yet promote rapid expansion of shale gas production and new coal mines. They express “concerns” about Northern Gateway, yet refuse to promise to stop it if re-elected in May. We all know what this means.

In contrast, the opposition NDP has promised to kill the project. And believe me, a provincial government that wanted to kill a project like this would be able to do it – even if the federal government had the jurisdiction to approve its construction and had already done so.

The NDP is leading in the polls, but that does not mean they will win the election. The Conservatives have all but collapsed, which will mostly help the Liberals. And the Greens are still capturing a large share of voter interest, which will mostly hurt the NDP. Meanwhile Liberal supporters pound away with personal attack ads – a strategy that has worked well for Stephen Harper in election after election – and one wonders if some desperate oil patch money is behind this. The election outcome is definitely not a foregone conclusion.

All of this sets the stage for well-meaning people concerned about climate to make a tragic mistake this May – by voting Green in ridings where it could have ensured the election of an NDP member instead of a Liberal. (We must never forget how Ralph Nader’s Green candidacy helped George Bush just barely defeat Al Gore.)

In my view, this election is, and should be presented by people concerned about climate, as a referendum on Northern Gateway, and we should be encouraging individuals to vote NDP in any riding where the NDP has a chance of defeating the Liberal candidate, even if that individual would prefer to vote Green in an electoral system with proportional representation. The only riding where I am suggesting climate-focused people might vote Green is in the Victoria riding where climate scientist Andrew Weaver has an excellent chance of winning (hence not a wasted vote) and would be supporting an NDP or Liberal government where it did the right thing and hounding it where it did not. (For example, both the Liberals AND the NDP are too bullish on shale gas and LNG exports – a subject for a future blog.)

At this point, the prevention of Northern Gateway would be a (second) unique occasion in which British Columbian voters would be able to influence the broader struggle to stop global warming with one X on a ballot. Its cancellation would embolden activists and average citizens to realize that the tar sands and other carbon polluters can be stopped and would contribute to a rethinking of climate policies and emission reduction efforts in the two biggest carbon polluting countries in the world: the US and China.

Jobs for us, a planet for our kids

by Mark Jaccard

Originally published in The Vancouver Sun February 16, 2012

People who profit from an expanding fossil fuel industry want you to be suspicious of climate science. You should be suspicious of them. 

All the world’s leading climate scientists know that burning coal, oil and natural gas is heating the earth. These scientists may debate whether our current path will increase temperatures four or six degrees Celsius in this century, but they all agree that either of these outcomes will devastate British Columbia’s environment during the lives of our children and, eventually, raise sea levels by tens of metres. Unfortunately, the fossil fuel profiteers have a lot of money to buy media coverage, politicians and even a few contrarian scientists who are not climate experts, so our ability to prevent this disaster is a long shot. But, for our children, we have to try.

For one thing, we must see through the deceit of politicians who trumpet jobs from fossil fuel expansion while ignoring the impacts on the planet, not to mention on their own climate promises. Prime Minister Stephen Harper knows that his pursuit of oilsands expansion, the Northern Gateway pipeline across B.C. from Alberta and dangerous oil tankers on our coast contradicts his promise to reduce Canadian greenhouse gas emissions 17 per cent by 2020. Premier Christy Clark knows that her pursuit of expanded shale gas production and natural gas exports contradicts her promise to reduce B.C.’s emissions 33 per cent by 2020. One of her ministers has already justified this destructive choice, saying “jobs come first.” In other words, jobs from destroying the planet are preferred to jobs that preserve it.

But what would happen if we rejected the plans of politicians and fossil fuel profiteers who are propelling us to the high-carbon, planet-destroying economy? Actually, we know the answer. The evidence is all around us.

In 2007, the B.C. government recognized it could not allow fossil fuel electricity plants and meet its emissions reduction promises, so it cancelled contracts to build two new coal-fired power plants and relegated the natural gas-fired Burrard Thermal plant to backup status. Yes, the economy lost jobs associated with these fossil fuel projects. But in their place, BC Hydro contracted for zero-emission electricity from run-of-river hydro, wind and biomass projects. A recent estimate by PricewaterhouseCoopers puts the combined economic impacts of these clean electricity projects at 18,000 person-years of construction and 2,000 full-time jobs, which is more than the coal plants would have created. These include high-paying skilled jobs in engineering, accounting, economics, finance, planning, law, environmental science, hydrology, public relations, construction trades, and technical operations.

Fossil fuel profiteers want us to believe that we must continue to pollute the atmosphere in order to drive our cars. This is not true. Vehicles can run on biofuel (biodiesel or ethanol), clean electricity and hydrogen, none of which pollute the atmosphere. An extended range hybrid car or truck can rely mostly on clean electricity, supplemented with biodiesel or ethanol, giving the same horsepower as conventional vehicles. Since such technologies are already commercially available, you can buy one today.

My research group at Simon Fraser University is currently estimating the job effects in B.C. of transitioning 80 per cent of cars and trucks to zero-emission technologies and fuels over the next two decades. This would create more jobs in zero-emission electricity generation as well as jobs in forestry and biofuel production as cellulosic ethanol can be produced from wood waste and dedicated wood chip-to-fuel facilities. Our preliminary estimate is that the replacement of planet-destroying gasoline and diesel with planet-saving electricity and biofuel in hybrid cars and trucks would create more than 60,000 person-years in construction and 15,000 to 20,000 permanent jobs in the province.

These are crude estimates which we will refine over the coming year of research — they depend on choices about clean electricity projects, biofuel production processes, and vehicle technologies and fuels. Regardless, the lesson is clear. Job creation is not a reason to develop planet-destroying fossil fuels.

We can create as many or more high-skilled, high-paying jobs by shifting now to the planet-saving energy system. As Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank says, “the low-carbon economy will be more energy-secure, cleaner and safer … the high-carbon economy will self-destruct.”

Pipeline itself not the only problem we should worry about: Continued development of the oilsands will increase Canada's CO2 emissions

By Mark Jaccard
Originally published in The Vancouver Sun, January 25 2012

As a sustainable energy researcher, I have been inundated with media requests to comment on the proposed new pipelines from Alberta’s tarsands, especially Enbridge’s Northern Gateway here in British Columbia. I have mostly declined, assuming that with such intense public interest the key issues would get a full airing. But I was wrong — for no one is discussing the proverbial “elephant in the room.” This is the connection between tarsands expansion and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 2007 promise to Canadians to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 65 per cent by 2050.

Harper’s promise, recently reconfirmed, simply reflects the overwhelming scientific consensus that while any increase in average global temperatures from pre-industrial levels is dangerous, increases above 2 degrees Celsius will likely have cataclysmic effects for the ecosystems on which we depend. Yet human combustion of fossil fuels has already driven the temperature 1.2 degrees higher, and we are on a path of 4 degrees or more in this century alone, which will ultimately increase the sea level by tens of metres. This is why leaders of industrialized countries, like the U.S. and European Union, agreed to reduce emissions 80 per cent by 2050 and will work to require global emissions to start declining this decade.

A target 38 years hence might seem safely distant. But this is incorrect. All leading independent climate policy institutes concur that only with immediate action will we achieve a 65-80 per cent reduction in less than four decades. In the case of vehicles, this means the rapid deployment of near-zero-emission technologies which, thankfully, are already commercially available. These include hybrid vehicles using biofuels (ethanol or biodiesel), plug-in hybrid vehicles, and battery-electric vehicles. In contrast, our demand, and soon the global demand, for oil must contract, especially the demand for high-cost, high-emission tarsands.

Thus, for his promise not to be a lie, Harper cannot allow expansion of tarsands and associated pipelines, and he must require a growing market share of near-zero-emission vehicles. He knows this because his analysts are privy to the work of the world’s leading researchers. Canadians on all sides of the issue should read a 20-page report from MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change entitled Canada’s Bitumen Industry Under CO2 Constraints (found at http://globalchange.mit.edu). The report shows how and why the Canadian tarsands must contract as part of a global effort to prevent a 4 degree increase in temperatures and catastrophic climate change.

Why, then, would anyone argue for tarsands expansion and pipelines like Gateway? The reasons are obvious, as writers have known through the ages.

People who stand to get rich from tarsands development will delude themselves and try to delude others that the climate science is faulty or uncertain. As Upton Sinclair wrote, “it is hard to get a man to understand something when his income depends on his not understanding it.” And those who stand to gain from the tarsands indirectly (like politicians) will distract people from the obvious connection between tarsands expansion and climate catastrophe. “Tarsands are a small part of the problem.” “What about the Chinese?” “The tarsands will inevitably be developed.” “Low-emission vehicles and fuels are not ready yet.” And so on – all of it bogus. As H. L. Mencken wrote, “the truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.”

The oft-heard argument that B.C. needs the jobs and tax revenue is particularly galling. This is like arguing we need jobs making a toxin or nuclear weapons. We are not helping ourselves and our children by creating jobs that spew CO2 into the atmosphere. We are already creating jobs that propel our vehicles without CO2 emissions, and we can do so much more.

And where is the logic in the almost-complete focus on pipeline or oil tanker spills by environmentalists and first nations? If Enbridge is able to convince the hearing panel that these local threats are acceptable, then the project goes ahead. But since climate change will devastate all of the ecosystems potentially affected by the project, efforts to prevent local damage from spills are fruitless if they are not part of a concerted effort to stop CO2 emissions. Otherwise, it’s like trying to prevent a fuel leak on the Titanic as it steams toward the iceberg. We need to turn the ship.

The facts are simple. Our political leaders are lying to us if they aid and abet the expansion of tarsands while promising to take action to prevent the imminent climate catastrophe. If you love this planet and your children, and are humble and objective in considering the findings of science, you have no choice but to battle hard to stop Gateway and other tarsands pipelines. It is time to face up to this challenge with honesty and courage.