By Leah Levac, Jane Stinson, Leah M. Fusco

Canada’s recent federal election was regularly dubbed one of the most consequential of the last 50 years. Economic and sovereignty threats from United States President Donald Trump were key issues in the campaign. In response, pledges about energy infrastructure and resource development played an important role in party platforms.

We have been studying impact assessments, the uneven consequences of resource development and sustainable energy transitions for over 15 years. We’re concerned about what and who may be overlooked as the government moves to become “an energy superpower,” in part by getting projects “done faster and better.”

We’re also interested in how the newly elected Liberal government can support more just energy transitions — that is, moving toward low carbon energy and economies that prioritize equity for workers and communities.

Read more: How to ensure Alberta’s oil and gas workers have jobs during the energy transition

Challenges with Liberal promises

The Liberal Party platform includes renewed attention to an east-west energy corridor. It also promises to speed up and streamline the review of major resource projects and “get big projects built quickly” by “shifting the focus of project review from ‘why’ to ‘how.’”

The platform also promises more support for Indigenous participation in major projects and commits to using Gender-Based Analysis Plus — or GBA Plus — in policies and programs. GBA Plus is a method for assessing how diverse groups of people experience policies, programs and initiatives.

Through our research, we have advocated strongly for applying GBA Plus in the resource sector, including by centring community knowledge in impact assessments and proposing strategies for improving how Indigenous women’s experiences and knowledge are considered in impact assessments.

Over the last year, we also produced — along with our colleague Deborah Stienstra — two major research reports for the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. Both were on the application of GBA Plus in regional assessments for offshore wind in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Regional assessments are a planning tool used before specific projects are proposed. They help identify important issues to consider if specific project assessments — for instance, for critical mineral mines, offshore wind projects or other resource developments — are conducted. If done well, regional assessments can help with more equitable and efficient project planning and development in the long run.

What do the findings from our work in this area suggest in terms of how the Liberal government should proceed with its energy vision?

Duty to consult

The 2019 Impact Assessment Act requires meaningful execution of the duty to consult with Indigenous people affected by a major economic development.

The Liberal Party made important promises to advance Indigenous participation in major projects and to double capacity support so more Indigenous communities can take an active role in project decisions at various stages.

But what the Liberal platform overlooks is Indigenous Peoples’ right to resist and refuse developments in their territories, or how specifically to ensure that Indigenous women and gender-diverse people are meaningfully engaged.

Moving forward, the Liberals must meet their constitutional duty to consult with Indigenous Peoples, while being guided by the United Nations’ principle of free, prior and informed consent per legislation that confirms Canada’s commitment to the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

GBA Plus

During the campaign, the Liberal Party reiterated its support for GBA Plus by listing it as one of six key themes in its Make Canada Strong vision.

The Liberals seemingly recognize that GBA Plus is an important tool for advancing equity for women, gender-diverse people, people with disabilities and racialized people by:

“Identifying direct and indirect benefits of programs (e.g. job opportunities, access to programs and services) … and considering how these benefits will be distributed across diverse groups.”

The Liberal platform does not explicitly raise GBA Plus in relation to becoming an “energy superpower.” But GBA Plus has been gaining attention in the resource sector — particularly in relation to the development of specific projects — since the requirement to consider “the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors” was included in the 2019 Impact Assessment Act.

GBA Plus needs to be applied in project-specific assessments (for specific developments, such as mines and hydroelectric dams) and in planning assessments (like regional assessments).

In our work on the regional assessments for offshore wind in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, we demonstrate the value of applying GBA Plus throughout all impact assessment processes.

Doing so helps strengthen community engagement efforts, identify potential effects early, determine the data sources required for monitoring those effects, fill data gaps and highlight barriers that prevent diverse groups of people from benefiting from energy projects.

For example, without adequate child-care options, many women cannot access the high-paying jobs that sometimes accompany resource projects. The Liberal government’s support for GBA Plus must therefore be explicitly incorporated into its energy proposals.

What and who is lost with fast tracking

A just energy transition is one concerned not only with planetary survival, but also with the effects of the transition on people who will be most affected.

The Liberal party’s vision for becoming an energy superpower includes “conventional energy resources” (like oil) as well as clean and renewable energy (like solar and hydro) and critical minerals needed to support decarbonization and energy transitions.

We disagree with the Liberal Party’s commitment to “shifting the focus of project review from ‘why’ to ‘how.’”

We need to ask how — and even whether — an energy project contributes to a just transition. Answering questions about whether projects will meet climate commitments and help advance equity for workers and communities is critical. These questions are best asked early, during planning phases and as part of regional assessments, before specific projects are proposed.

The duty to consult, GBA Plus and just energy transitions are interconnected and necessary commitments for sustainable energy production.

Together, they can contribute to a relationship with Indigenous Peoples that recognizes their sovereignty and to a more equitable and sustainable future. But these commitments cannot be meaningfully realized when fast-tracking development, because they require time and relationship-building.

Prioritizing fast-tracking — thereby falling short on these priorities and legal commitments — will backfire. It will lead to delays rather than more efficient processes, and will worsen existing inequities.

The post Opinion: Mark Carney wants to make Canada an energy superpower — but what will be sacrificed for that goal? appeared first on Thoughtful Journalism About Energy's Future.

By Michael Sambasivam 

As Canada’s greatest ally has decided to break our trust and bare its teeth, Canadians have made clear a desire to reduce our reliance on the United States as a trading partner. One result of this turning point has been increased support for accelerating and expanding Canada’s liquified natural gas industry, and cashing in on it as a potentially high-value export.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called for the development of LNG infrastructure to deliver the energy resource to European buyers, while Liberal Leader Mark Carney more broadly stated a need for Canada to “draw… on [its] vast resources of conventional and clean energy.”

This political push for LNG expansion is timely marketing, given Canadians’ growing fear that the country is economically shackled to a U.S. political entity prone to erratic decision-making. Support for LNG appeals to the popular reasoning that Canada’s economic strength is contingent upon its conventional energy industry, and it also fits within the climate lens, with proponents of the sector framing LNG expansion as an emissions reduction opportunity.

But all of these premises are fundamentally flawed.

Developing direct access to global gas markets might decrease our dependence on American buyers, but it would further concentrate Canada’s reliance on the stability of fossil fuel prices at a time when the global LNG market is becoming oversupplied. This shift would also divert capital – both political and monetary – away from sectors that are more clearly aligned with a transition economy.

And there’s one more significant factor: It is becoming increasingly clear that LNG’s reputation as a “transition fuel” is unfounded, with the potential for LNG to displace coal emissions unsupported both economically and scientifically.

Making LNG a key part of Canada’s energy exports is a long-term process that will lock in our role in a world where energy demand patterns are shifting rapidly. While backing LNG expansion may look tempting in the face of newfound American aggression, it would also increase the risk of our economy getting to the station after the LNG train has already left. 

Canada is poorly positioned to compete in an LNG glut

Canadian oil and gas companies have been pushing to expand LNG exports for the last decade. LNG Canada’s new $40-billion shipping port at Kitimat, B.C., which just opened this spring, is Canada’s first major LNG export project; six others are in varying stages of development. These would cumulatively add over 12 per cent to the existing global LNG supply, aligning with a boom that is expected to show 40-per-cent growth in LNG availability between 2024 and 2028.

It has been over a decade since the International Energy Agency (IEA) anticipated a “golden age of gas,” and while suppliers have responded to the call, demand has faltered among Canada’s potential buyers. The war in Ukraine spiked world gas prices, disincentivizing South and Southeast Asian markets from expanding their LNG intake capacity. And while European nations expanded their LNG usage in order to decrease reliance on Russian pipeline gas, the EU’s energy regulator predicts that Europe’s LNG demand has peaked and will steadily decline over the back half of the 2020s.

China has introduced extensive policies promoting domestic procurement of gas, to be potentially topped off by a massive new pipeline from Russia. Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea are planning to expand nuclear capacity in order to reduce fossil fuel use for power generation.

It all means that, globally, LNG suppliers will compete fiercely for customers, even in circumstances where the world does not quickly decarbonize. Projections for supply far outpace those for demand, even under the IEA’s least climate-ambitious scenario.

Given that context, Canada’s high break-even prices spell risk. Our analysis found that Canadian LNG projects have infrastructure costs that far exceed industry norms, and break-even costs that are above the projected price of viability.

All told, Canada is late to the game and its LNG production and delivery costs leave it poorly positioned to compete for market share. A politically driven fever to counter U.S. trade aggression with LNG expansion may well backfire, creating billions of dollars of stranded asset risk while wasting resources and valuable time.

The post Opinion: Banking on LNG exports is a high-risk gamble for Canada’s future growth appeared first on Thoughtful Journalism About Energy's Future.