Canadian climate groups see 'big reasons for optimism' at COP26

TORONTO -

As world leaders gather in Glasgow for the United Nations climate change conference, Canadian climate groups say more policies must be put in place to curb the use of coal and pivot to renewable energy.

The summit, taking place from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12, will see more than 190 world leaders gather together in an effort to tackle climate change and accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Rick Smith, president of the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, is headed to the conference himself. While he admits he is “very optimistic” about what COP26 will achieve, he says there is still need for progress.

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“One number matters more than anything else and that's 1.5 degrees, the warming from historic levels that scientists tell us our planet can take,” Smith told CTV News Channel on Sunday. “So what we need to see in Glasgow is the sum total of all these countries coming from around the world, upping their contributions to that carbon reduction target.”

In 2015, nearly 200 countries pledged to limit global warming to 1.5 C compared to pre-industrial levels with the signing of the Paris Agreement. But last month, the UN warned that policies promised by these parties will lead to a temperature rise of about 2.7 C by the end of this century. The organization has since released a report stating that recent announcements by dozens of countries to aim for net-zero emissions by 2050 could limit a global temperature rise to 2.2 C, a figure that still does not hit the 1.5 C target.

Despite the grim forecast, Rachel Samson, clean growth research director at the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, says these moves are still a step in the right direction.

“There are some big reasons for optimism at this point,” Samson told CTV News Channel on Saturday. “We're now in a position where countries representing over 70 per cent of global GDP have committed to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.”

There’s been conversation about countries not actively participating in COP26, such as Russia and China, but still leading in greenhouse gas emissions. But both Smith and Samson point to China’s commitment to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2060, and the indication that Russia will commit to a similar target. Smith also points to recent announcements made by countries like China to halt new coal projects.

“The pipeline of new coal plants now has diminished by 75 per cent in the last couple of years, so you're hard pressed to find investors anywhere now to put up a new coal plant,” said Smith. “That's a huge step forward.”

While Samson praises existing policies surrounding carbon pricing, she also points to other government commitments such as a cap on oil and gas emissions and moving to full zero-emission car sales by 2035.

“That's the tricky part, is to put in place those policies [and] continue to ramp them up," she said.

Nathan Gillett, a research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, points to the importance of phasing out coal to reach global targets.

“Coal is the fossil fuel that gives the biggest emissions of greenhouse gas for the amount of energy created,” he told CTV News Channel on Sunday. “So it's really the number one fossil fuel that we need to phase out if we're going to start reducing emissions.”

At the G20 Summit in Rome, leaders pledged to "put an end to the provision of international public finance for new unabated coal power generation abroad by the end of 2021." This refers to financial support for building coal plants abroad.

Gillett also urges investments in renewable energy as well as promoting electric vehicles and limiting carbon dioxide emissions. These are all things he says Canada must do to fulfill its promise of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

“Getting to net-zero means also developing technologies to actually remove carbon dioxide that's already in the atmosphere,” he said. “So there's lots of things that need to be done. I think the policies are being developed to move in that direction.”

With last week's cabinet shuffle resulting in two prominent environmental advocates in important positions – Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson – Smith says now could not be a better time for implementing meaningful change.

“I think everything's in place now, over the next few months, for the federal government in consultation with the provinces to come up with a country's first real 2030 Emission Reduction Act through a combination of electric vehicles and other things,” he said. “We need to make some rapid progress here, but I'm optimistic that everything is now set up to allow us to do that.”