Workshop 1 - Environmental Politics (Presented by the Law And Public Policy Section)

W104 - Workshop 1 - Environmental Politics: Energy Transitions and Climate Delay

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 01:45pm to 03:15pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Julie MacArthur (Royal Roads University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Julie MacArthur (Royal Roads University)

The new politics of fossil fuel subsidies: Chloé Boutron (University of British Columbia), Kathryn Harrison (University of British Columbia)
Abstract: Canadian federal and provincial governments have largely ignored that Canada’s top export – oil and gas – faces an economic threat from global climate action. However, the coincidence of Canada’s more ambitious second Paris Agreement target, to reduce emissions to 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, with growing oil and gas extraction emissions has made it increasingly difficult to reconcile Canada’s own emissions targets with continued oil and gas exports. The solution that has emerged is to prop up Canada’s oil and gas industry with public subsidies, even as governments profess their commitment to end them. Federal and provincial governments are now attempting to bolster the Canadian industry’s competitiveness by paying a significant share of the costs of emissions reductions and (potentially) subsidizing Indigenous investment in fossil fuel infrastructure. In this paper, we will examine competing international definitions of fossil fuel subsidies and how those interact with political incentives. Against that backdrop, the paper will offer a case study of the federal government’s criteria for “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.”

The Next 'Beyond Oil and Gas' Canadian Government?: Assessing the Potential for Sub-National Advances to Keep Oil In the Ground, Following Québec: Sarah Greene (University of Waterloo), Angela Carter (Memorial University)
Abstract: To address climate change and close the growing emissions gap between climate commitments and actual emissions reductions, there is an urgent need to transition away from fossil fuel production and use, the leading source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. “Keep it in the ground” (KIIG) policy is central in advancing this burgeoning supply-side climate policy agenda. Via our current research programme, we have identified conditions enabling KIIG policies in three key national first-mover jurisdictions: Ireland, Denmark, and France. Now KIIG policies are being advanced by sub-national governments. Québec, in its new role as co-president of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA), is leading the effort to encourage other sub-national governments to follow its example of banning oil and gas exploration and extraction. Here we trace these developments and analyze the potential for KIIG policy in other Canadian provinces or territories. We assess "next-mover" feasibility using the theoretical framework of Carter and McKenzie (2020) to compare opportunities for, and barriers, to enacting KIIG policies. The analysis centres on comparing domestic energy and emissions profiles, the power of incumbent fossil fuel actors and social movements, as well as the depth of cultural affinity with oil and gas development.

Obstructing Decarbonization through Efficiency: Gas Utilities and Demand Side Management Politics in Canada: Laura Tozer (University of Toronto)
Abstract: Despite policy commitments to decarbonization, gas infrastructure expenditures continue to grow in the US and Canada with gas utilities reporting higher assets yearly. This trend raises concerns about carbon lock-in and fossil fuel obstruction continuing to influence the long-term trajectory of energy transitions. However, even fairly comprehensive accounts of fossil fuel obstruction do not investigate demand-side management. Efficiency and building retrofits are ostensibly climate-friendly tools, especially compared to natural gas extraction, and therefore have received less scrutiny to date. Our paper asks whether and how gas companies are using energy efficiency regulatory structures and decarbonization imperatives to entrench gas infrastructure. To understand how gas utilities navigate decarbonization regulatory structures, we conducted a discourse analysis of recent demand side management policy documents from 2021-2024 in BC and Ontario. These documents include annual and multi-year plans submitted by gas utilities to regulators, submissions made by intervenors (e.g. energy experts, not-for-profit organizations, industry associations etc.) in the regulatory process, and supporting documents. We argue that gas utilities in BC and Ontario use regulatory structures - particularly demand-side management - to entrench gas infrastructure by 1) taking advantage of uncertainty, particularly in future rates, 2) manufacturing specific options as ‘cost effective’ through various policy tools, and 3) constructing gas as a climate solution. We conclude by arguing that existing gas regulatory structures are inadequate for decarbonization or electrification. More broadly, we problematize the ways that transition mechanisms are often linked to utilities which provides further opportunities for gas infrastructure entrenchment.

Picking Up the Tab: Examining the Use of Ratepayer Funds in Just Transition Policies: Will Niver (Simon Fraser University), Andréanne Doyon (Simon Fraser University)
Abstract: The 2019 retirement of Navajo Generating Station (NGS), a coal-fired power plant within the Navajo Nation, is one illustration of the ongoing energy transition. Many environmentalists celebrated the plant closure, but for the hundreds of mostly Navajo and Hopi coal workers – and for the Hopi Tribe, which formerly drew 85 percent of its operating budget from coal royalty payments – NGS’s closure was devastating. That disruption – and pressure from community activists – prompted one electric utility, Arizona Public Service (APS), to agree to a $144.5 million just transition package (drawn from ratepayers and shareholders) to soften the blow to rural Arizona. Only a fraction of that sum was delivered, though, with regulators arguing that ratepayers are not responsible for easing coal communities’ economic hardship. This paper examines utilities’ use of ratepayer funds in just transition agreements following coal plant or mine closures. Regulators in three other U.S. states, for instance, have approved transition funding with ratepayer contributions, so this paper will also explore the political factors that led to successful funding proposals in those cases while Arizona’s stalled. In several of those states, including Arizona, public utility commissioners are elected rather than appointed, complicating just transition politics. The paper employs content and narrative analysis of public utility commission proceedings. A later phase of this project will complement that analysis with semi-structured interviews of stakeholders in the various just transition funding negotiations. This paper fills a gap in the literature by comparing utilities' use of ratepayer funds in supporting a just transition.

Consume Less to Grow More: The Curious Case of Sufficiency in Quebec’s Energy Transition: Anders Hayden (Dalhousie University)
Abstract: Advocates of post-growth economic approaches have long emphasized the concept of sufficiency. Sufficiency involves ensuring that essential needs are met while avoiding consumption considered to be excessive; among high-income consumers it implies limiting demand and reducing absolute levels of consumption. Sufficiency has faced considerable obstacles in the political mainstream, as governments and major political parties have favoured “green growth” emphasizing a shift to greener technologies and greater efficiency rather than less consumption. It is thus striking to see the Quebec government’s recent turn toward “sobriété” as a key element of its climate change and energy transition policies. (Following the IPCC, I translate “sobriété” as “sufficiency.”) Why has sufficiency emerged as a major theme in Quebec energy and climate policy? How does the emphasis on sufficiency relate to Quebec’s continued emphasis on green growth that links decarbonization to continued industrial expansion? What lessons can be learned from the Quebec experience about the opportunities, challenges, and contradictions related to mainstreaming the concept of sufficiency? These questions are answered through analysis of documents that indicate the government’s stated rationale and other factors behind the turn toward sufficiency, supplemented by semi-structured interviews with individuals with expertise relevant to understanding Quebec’s growing emphasis on sufficiency. Provisional results indicate that the main factor behind growing emphasis on sufficiency is Quebec’s recent shift from a position of energy surplus to energy deficit. The call for Quebecers to consume less energy is paradoxically driven largely by the need to free up electricity supply to enable further industrial growth.