09 Oct Contrarian to the C.O.R.E.
The Offshore/Onshore Technologies Association of Nova Scotia (OTANS) invited Contrarian to chair the Regional Energy Strategy panel at its annual CORE (Canadian Offshore Resources Exhibition) Conference this week, and that give him an excuse to make a speech.
To anyone who has looked at the challenges climate change poses for our region, it’s obvious that one key is to improve our regional energy infrastructure. It’s also obvious that doing so will be an expensive venture, and it’s far from clear how much of the expense will be shouldered by government and its taxpayers, and how much by private corporations, their shareholders, and their customers.
Decisions about these matters will be made in an atmosphere of mild public concern about climate, great public resistance to increased costs, and little to no public or political understanding of risk assessment.
Full text after the jump.
Parker Donham’s talk to the Regional Energy Strategy panel of the 2009 OTANS CORE Conference
Nova Scotia is sometimes described as an energy island. We produce almost all the energy we use, albeit with imported fuels in most cases. We are connected to New Brunswick by only the slenderest of threads, a 300 Megawatt power line.
The Republic of Maldives is also an energy island. It 330,000 people occupy an archipelago of 1200 islands—atolls, really—in the Indian Ocean, about 450 miles southwest of Sri Lanka.
I see by the morning blogs that the Maldives cabinet will meet under six meters of water ten days from now. Cabinet ministers are taking scuba training in advance of the session—all except President Mohamed Nasheed, a former political prisoner who is an experienced diver. At the underwater session, Ministers will use hand signals and waterproof white boards to ratify a treaty calling on other countries to cut greenhouse emissions.
There is still lots of debate about climate change despite efforts in some quarters to declare the matter settled. Climatedebatedaily.com offers an excellent compendium of both sides. There is debate, but it’s one of those issues in which policy error has potentially catastrophic consequences.
No country has less margin for incautious error than the Maldives, 80 percent of which lies less than a meter above sea-level. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that a rise in sea levels of between 18 and 59 centimetres by 2100 would be enough to render the Maldives virtually uninhabitable.
Thus the underwater cabinet stunt, an attempt to impress world leaders with the urgency of the problem.
I have to say that, Maldives aside, world leaders in business and politics do not yet seem to be reacting as if we faced imminent, catastrophic risk.
Shockingly, to me at least, this is even true of environmentalists, many if not most of whom demand action on greenhouse gas emissions, yet oppose most of the available short and mid-term solutions.
The Canadian public seems to be convinced that government must address climate change, as long as it does so with measures that involve no actual inconvenience to voters. Stephane Dion discovered this to his evident chagrin.
Nova Scotia’s new government captured this ambivalent public mood perfectly with its $30 million carbon subsidy. This is a program that will provide homeowners with $30 million per year in rebates for using dirty, coal-fired electricity.
The carbon subsidy does not apply to electricity used for home heating in winter. Tax on that consumption is already rebated. The new program applies mainly to excess electricity used in summer – for air conditioning, hot tubs, etc.
For anyone who believes we face a real risk of catastrophic climate change, this is stupefyingly ill-advised policy-making. It also appears to be quite popular. The public loves a rebate, even one that imperils their planet.
To anyone who has looked at the challenges climate change poses for our region, it’s obvious that one key is to improve our regional energy infrastructure. It’s also obvious that doing so will be an expensive venture, and it’s far from clear how much of the expense will be shouldered by government and its taxpayers, and how much by private corporations and their customers.
Decisions about these matters will be made in an atmosphere of mild public concern about climate, great public resistance to increased costs, and little to no public or political understanding of risk assessment.
We have assembled a great panel today to discuss the technical, policy, and business challenges that face regional energy policy. As we consider their ideas, I ask that we also keep in mind the equally great challenge of persuading politicians and the public to accept some of the difficult choices that lie ahead.
7 October 2009