The following is a re-print of the March 2024 edition of Shift Storm, the CCPA’s monthly newsletter which focuses on the intersection of work and climate change. Click here to subscribe to Shift Storm and get the latest updates straight to your inbox as soon as they come out
Five years after it was first promised and a year after the federal government first tabled the legislation, the Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act is finally law.
Kudos to the government for getting the act across the finish line in the face of cynical political obstructionism. And kudos to the environmental and labour advocates who won important improvements to the text of the bill.
Over the past year I have written a lot about the act in this newsletter, much of it critical. I am still concerned that the Sustainable Jobs Act amounts to a “plan to make a plan” that is still years away. The act itself does not offer any direct, tangible support to workers or communities across the country. And its definition of a “net-zero” economy leaves the door open to false climate solutions.
But the act is nevertheless a real political achievement that lays the groundwork for an effective just transition policy framework. In the coming months, the government will need to move quickly to establish the Sustainable Jobs Partnership Council mandated by the act, which will include Indigenous, labour and environmental representatives and help to shape Canada’s sustainable jobs agenda moving forward.
With the act secured, advocates for a just transition can now turn their attention toward the first Sustainable Jobs Action Plan, which must be published by December 31, 2025. It is a frustratingly long time away, but that plan will be the next major opportunity—barring any election-related shenanigans—for driving this issue forward at the federal policy level.
In the meantime, we can continue to press the government on the related issues of decarbonization and green industrialization, which are two sides of the same coin. Without either one, any attempt at a just transition will ultimately fall flat.
There’s lots more to discuss this month, so let’s get into it!
Storm surge: this month’s key reads
An oil and gas emissions cap would decrease production levels? Good!
The federal government first promised a cap on oil and gas sector emissions back in 2021. It finally released a policy framework last December, but we’re still waiting for draft regulations. The oil industry and oil-captured provincial governments have unsurprisingly dug in their heels and dragged the process out.
The latest salvo from the government of Alberta is a new report, Potential economic impact of the proposed federal oil and gas emissions cap, which finds that oil companies would be better off cutting production levels to comply with the proposed cap instead of investing in carbon capture technologies to reduce upstream greenhouse gas emissions. They expect the cap to lead to a decline in oil and gas production of around 10-15 per cent by 2030 compared to a business-as-usual scenario.
The findings are being framed by the provincial government and oil industry as a criticism of the emissions cap. On the contrary, it illustrates precisely why the cap is such a necessary policy.
First, the hard limits of an emissions cap expose carbon capture technology for the economically unviable sham that it is. It is simply too expensive to capture carbon at scale, even for the most profitable oil companies. Governments and industry alike need to stop entertaining the fantasy that CCUS will save fossil fuel production.
Second, reducing the absolute supply of fossil fuels is precisely what climate policy must achieve. Governments and industry prefer to focus on relative metrics such as emissions intensity, but from a planetary perspective efficiency is irrelevant. We simply must stop producing emissions from fossil fuels.
We shouldn’t trivialize the economic consequences of even a 10 per cent decline in production. For example, the Alberta report forecasts a net loss of 55,000 jobs in that province by 2040 due to the cap. The solution, however, is not to double down on a dying industry, but rather to invest in job-creating alternatives. The window is shrinking and Alberta is failing to prepare for the inevitable.
Canada passes environmental racism law
While the Sustainable Jobs Act has received the most attention, it is not the only piece of justice related legislation that became law this month. Bill C-226, the National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Act, also received royal assent, thanks in large part to the efforts of advocates such as the Canadian Coalition for Environmental and Climate Justice.
Environmental racism refers to the disproportionate negative consequences of pollution and environmental degradation on Black, Indigenous and other racialized communities. As a report from the Canadian Human Rights Commission warns, racialized communities are also shouldering an unfair share of the impacts of climate change, which is exacerbating existing inequities.
Unfortunately, the Environmental Justice Strategy Act, as some are calling it, is yet another “plan to make a plan.” It merely requires the environment minister to develop a national strategy within the next two years and every five years thereafter. That process could lead to new policies and even compensation for marginalized groups, but the act, as written, does not guarantee any particular outcome.
Research radar: the latest developments in work and climate
Provincial governments not pulling their weight on climate spending. I tend to focus on the need for greater federal leadership when it comes to climate action, but as a new report from Clean Energy Canada, Making the Grade, points out, the provinces are lagging even further behind. Of all the public money spent on climate action since 2016, the feds have put up 80 per cent of the total. Quebec is the only province that scores an “A” grade in the report. CEC is hosting a webinar on July 9 to discuss their findings.
Advisory council lays out framework for electrifying the Canadian economy. The Canada Electricity Advisory Council was set up last year to advise the Minister of Natural Resources on electricity policy. The body’s final report, Powering Canada, makes 28 recommendations covering everything from regulatory frameworks to energy efficiency. It’s a comprehensive report, but I would have liked to see more specifics around, for example, where an additional $1.4 trillion in capital investment is supposed to come from.
Canadian just transition policies lack transformational potential. An interesting report from the UK-based Just Transition Finance Lab, Mapping justice in national climate action, attempts to categorize the transition-related policies of various countries. Nearly all of Canada’s policies fall under the category of “managerial reform”, which is a polite way of saying “tinkering around the edges.” In contrast, countries like Spain and Uganda are taking transformative approaches that address historical and systemic injustices.
Petrostates’ climate plans fail to reckon with fossil fuel production. A new report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development, How the Transition Away From Fossil Fuel Production Can Be Included in New Climate Commitments and Plans, calls out Canada (and most other major oil producers) for its hypocritical commitment to continue fossil fuel production as part of its climate plans. Among the world’s 20 largest fossil fuel producers, only Germany and Poland even acknowledge the necessity of reducing fossil fuel production in their nationally-determined contributions (NDCs). The IISD calls on all fossil fuel producing countries to be more transparent in their 2025 NDCs.
The case for a global norm against new fossil fuel projects. An article in the journal Science, “No new fossil fuel projects,” argues that it is more pragmatic for advocates and governments to focus on banning new fossil fuel projects instead of pursuing a phase-out of existing fossil fuel infrastructure. I don’t agree, but a “no new fossil norm” would still be a helpful step in the right direction.
UK’s Labour Party bets big on green industrial strategy. Labour’s manifesto for next week’s general election puts a big emphasis on a mission-driven green industrial strategy, including a commitment to create a new, publicly-owned corporation with an £8.3 billion budget to accelerate clean energy development. The party promises to create 650,000 jobs in the process, which is the kind of number you only ever see in an election platform. Still, it’s an important recognition of the importance of state leadership at this juncture and a stark contrast from the ruling Conservatives.
Scottish trade unions fight proposed oil expansion ban. The Labour manifesto also promises to end licenses for new offshore oil and gas infrastructure. The Scottish union Unite promptly launched a campaign, “No ban without a plan,” that opposes the proposed ban. Instead, the union wants major investments in creating alternative green jobs. I agree with the latter point, but there’s no reason that a ban on *new* fossil fuel infrastructure threatens existing jobs. This doesn’t feel like the right fight for Scottish unions.
UK’s untapped wind potential a huge economic opportunity. Speaking of alternative green jobs, a report from the UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research, A Second Wind, argues that the country will only be able to maximize its enormous potential for wind power generation with an aggressive expansion of domestic manufacturing capacity. That would create tens of thousands of jobs, and investments could be targeted in the communities that currently depend on offshore oil and gas.
Norwegian trade unions dragging their feet on climate action. On the other side of the North Sea, an article in the journal Energy Research & Social Science, “Anchoring a just transition,” finds that Norway’s trade unions are saying all the right things on climate but are generally resistant to efforts to actually tackle fossil fuel production. As in Canada, the dominant narrative in Norway is that the fossil fuel industry can “transition within” by reducing upstream emissions rather than “transition away” from fossil fuels entirely. Unlike Canada, Norway has a highly institutionalized system of social dialogue that gives unions a greater say in the direction of public policy. That means the labour movement could yet play a much bigger role in decarbonizing the country.
Affordability needs to be a priority in energy policy design. Climate justice advocates have been saying it for a long time, but a new report from the International Energy Agency, Strategies for Affordable and Fair Clean Energy Transitions, concludes that lower-income energy consumers are most at risk of hardship due to the decarbonization of the energy system. Fortunately, clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels over the long-term, so policy can generally afford to focus on alleviating the shorter-term costs of transition.
Public companies better protect workers in Chinese energy transitions. Harvard’s Belfer Center and the Institute for Climate Change and Sustainable Development at Tsinghua University have co-published A Just Transition for Coal Regions, which draws lessons from two case studies of coal transitions in China. One of my key takeaways is that, while both public and private companies were able to navigate the transition away from coal, the workers at public companies were far less likely to lose their jobs or to do so without a support package.
San Diego mulls public takeover of private utility. Grist magazine has an interesting story, “Power to the People,” about the campaign to take public control of one of San Diego’s private power companies. The movement seems unlikely to succeed in the short term, but public skepticism of profit-seeking utilities is growing in many jurisdictions. Public utilities offer a range of benefits, including lower rates and the ability to better manage a net-zero transition (as in China, see above).
Climate is but one of many large, long-term threats to Canada. Have you heard of Policy Horizons Canada? I was admittedly unaware of the federal government’s strategic foresight centre before they released their latest report, Disruptions on the Horizon, which outlines the most consequential long-term challenges facing the country. Climate impacts feature heavily, unsurprisingly, but there are many other risks we need to prepare for, such as mass disinformation and spiraling social mobility. It’s a fascinating read and a sober reminder that we all need to take the long-term perspective more often.
