I join my fellow Canadians in urging our federal government to enact stronger global warming laws and policies.
Press Room
Tzeporah Berman Remarks to Green Energy Conference
Power Up Canada -
Tzeporah Berman
Opening Remarks
Green Economy Conference April 7, 2009
Welcome to PowerUP Canada's first in what we plan to be a series of Green Economy Dialogues in locations across the country. My name is Tzeporah Berman and I am the Executive Director of PowerUP Canada. For those of you who don't know us PowerUP Canada is a non-profit citizens' initiative working to support a green economy in Canada and ensure stronger laws to address global warming. We launched last September with a statement on the urgency of addressing climate change signed by hundreds of prominent Canadians including five of Canada's former Prime Ministers. I hope that if you haven't already you will join our ranks and engage in the dialogue we are creating on these issues on the blog we host zerocarboncanada.
For all of my adult life, I have been involved in campaigns to protect nature - especially in British Columbia. Campaigns from Clayoquot Sound to the Great Bear Rainforests, protecting spirit bears on the coast and caribou in the interior. All of these campaigns ultimately culminate in having to find solutions -- working with First Nations, non-native communities, logging companies, environmentalists and government to build more sustainable economic development - what we now call a "green economy"
Some years ago, most of us traditional environmentalists realized the climate scientists were deadly serious - that if we do not stop global warming from tripping into runaway climate change, that huge tracts of the planet's biodiversity and great swaths of human civilization are at risk. Global warming is not the only problem we face, but if we can't solve it, and its food and water implications, and solve it quickly, nothing else will matter. And so most of us have reoriented our work to be about eliminating carbon emissions. The reason things are so urgent is the enormous lag times in the climate system - the dying forests and melting polar ice we see today are the result of carbon emissions from decades ago. Much greater impacts are already inevitable. So staving off the worst means taking action long before we see and feel the impacts.
I have been focused on national and international climate policy and solutions. Canada, as you probably know, has one of the worst records of any country in the industrialized world. In fact worse than many emerging economies as well. It has been a bizarre experience to contrast what is going on locally in BC with the international scene. Around the world, many jurisdictions are making great progress in building green economies. Nowadays, President Obama is showing real leadership But North America has not been much of a leader at all in recent years and BC (along with California and Quebec) had been a bright spot on the continent. BC's climate action plan may not be ambitious enough to eliminate fossil fuel emissions but it certainly broke with the intransigence we have seen from Ottawa for the past decades. And so it is bizarre that we have come to a point where in BC an environmentalist speaking out in support of the expansion of renewable power in this Province would be something controversial.
To be clear, I want to save BC's rivers and in fact I have spent most of my adult life fighting for the protection of British Columbia's rivers and intact valleys. I want to save BC's rivers and that's why I am supporting the expansion of responsible and well designed renewable power in this province to help us continue to lead the fight against global warming. Because here is the key point for BC: only 20% of our energy comes from clean hydroelectricity - only 20%!! People often talk about BC energy being green but they are confusing electricity with total energy -- ignoring the gasoline and diesel and natural gas and coal that run our cars, factories, heat our buildings. To eliminate all these fossil fuel emissions is an enormous task - even in a place like BC with electricity from hydro dams. Remember that little 20% next time you hear someone saying we don't need more clean energy or that we should slow things down.
A little under two years ago I stood at the United Nations Climate Negotiations in Bali and listened to the Secretary General of the United Nations tell the world that unless we make a strong agreement to reduce fossil fuel emissions quickly "we are dooming humanity to oblivion". "Dooming humanity to oblivion"? For someone who has been called everything from an eco-lunatic to a "whacked out nature worshipper who prays to the moon" for saying far less...this statement by Secretary General Ban Ki Moon came as a bit of shock.
In the face of this looming environmental and economic disaster it is simply not okay that Canada is one of the top 10 global warming emitters in the world and that Canada ahs some of the weakest green economy and climate laws in the world - weaker than almost every other developed country - weaker on many fronts than China and India!
The good news is that we are seeing a new recognition that the solution to our economic crisis is tied to our capacity to lead in the fight against global warming. We are seeing green jobs booming in Germany, Japan and the Untied States. Germany alone has created 250,000 jobs in renewables in the last few years. Utility bills have risen less than $2.20 (CAD) per month for a typical home. On a land mass smaller than Newfoundland and Labrador, Germany already has more than 20 times the installed wind power of Canada.
In British Columbia we have an opportunity to continue to lead the way in the fight against global warming and to carve a new path forward by supporting the expansion of a green economy. We have the resources, the intellectual capital and a relatively stable political system. We can become a hub for clean-tech manufacturing, renewable energy, green architecture, clean vehicle technologies. Many companies are already here. Start ups are filing their paperwork. It's all within our grasp. But keeping up with the Americans, Germans, and others will require all of us to work together, across party lines to address this crisis. The United Kingdom has committed to committed to ensuring that all new homes are zero carbon by 2016. China has stronger vehicle efficiency regulations than Canada. The U.S. is putting 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015. Israel (pop. 7 million) has committed to an all-electric car infrastructure. By end-2011 they plan to have electric cars in mass production and half a million charging stations. Over 100 countries, cities and other jurisdictions have joined the United Nations Climate Neutral Network and are implementing zero carbon plans. Countries as varied as Norway, New Zealand and Costa Rica have committed to become carbon neutral. Sweden has committed to build an "oil-free society." Sweden has already reduced oil for residential and commercial heating by 70% over the last 30 years.
I have worked on environmental issues in British Columbia and beyond for my entire adult life and if there is one thing that I have learned it is that is easier to be outraged than it is to support solutions. It is far easier to stand on our moral high ground and to be critics -because all solutions are imperfect and in and of themselves no one strategy, project, development or policy is a silver bullet. That's why the work that we need to do to develop green jobs, to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels and to create a viable green economy requires us to work together. Remember how big the task before us is - that only 20% of our energy is hydroelectricity. And so we need to build alliances, to create conversations and to identify ways that we can simultaneously support the solutions like the expansion of renewable energy while putting in place the policy and market mechanisms that drive the reduction in global warming emissions. Thank you for coming today, for joining the dialogue and for all the work you are doing to ensure that British Columbia remains a leader in creating a green economy.
