G7 Information Centre G20 Information Centre

Scholarly Publications and Papers

Canada's Global Leadership as a Clean Energy Superpower

John Kirton, director, G7 and G20 Research Groups

Closing keynote address at the inaugural Future of Energy Global Summit, Kinnear Centre for Innovation and Creativity, Banff, Alberta, September 23, 2023. Edited version of September 28, 2023

Introduction

In 2006, in London, England, and then in New York City, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper declared that Canada was an emerging energy superpower in the world.

A year later in Australia, and the year after in London, he then upgraded Canada, proclaiming that it had now become a clean energy superpower in the world.

In both cases, most instinctively modest Canadians, seeing their country as a mere middle power at best, doubted these novel, seemingly incredible claims.

But the evidence shows that Harper's claims were right then.

And they are still right today.

They are just when the world needs Canada to lead the clean energy revolution, to control and conquer the now existential threat of climate change.

To do so, at least four things must be done, to start.

First, end the development, production, then use of unabated thermal coal.

Second, radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the production and use of oil.

Third, minimize methane from the production, distribution and use of natural gas.

And fourth, ramp up the production and use of renewables, including all the many reliable ones.

These four things, Canada can do. So can the world, if Canada leads, using Alberta's advantages at the core.

To see how, let's look in turn at:

1. The global need for the clean energy transition
2. Global energy governance through the United Nations, G7 and G20
3. Canada's capabilities, Alberta's advantages and Canadian leadership, and
4. The actions needed when Canada hosts the G7 in 2025, two years from now.

1. The Global Need for the Clean Energy Transition

First, the global need for a fast, full clean energy transition is now strikingly clear.

This summer was the hottest ever recorded, around the world, in the air, in the sea and on land.

It came with unprecedented extreme weather events, from wildfires and hurricanes in Canada, wildfires and drought in the mainland United States, and floods in Europe, Brazil, Libya and elsewhere.

In several places, the combined heat and humidity exceeded the so-called "wet bulb" temperature, beyond which the human body cannot survive.

This climate emergency is caused by climate change, from relentlessly rising greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations and emissions.

They are certain to get worse, without major changes now.

Two thirds of those GHG emissions come from burning fossil fuels.

Thus, we cannot control the climate crisis without reducing fossil fuel use for energy and replacing it with clean energy, with renewables at the core.

This is a fully global phenomenon and problem.

Fossil fuel emissions go up anywhere, heat the world and cause death and damage everywhere, and will for decades and even centuries to come.

The solutions are also global. Reducing the sources of GHG emissions and reinforcing the sinks that suck them out anywhere, benefit everyone, everywhere, for generations to come.

So all countries and communities must play their part.

The greatest climate polluter at present is China, with about 28% of global GHG emissions. It is followed far behind by the United States with about 12%, India with about 7%, the European Union (27 members) with almost 7% and Russia with over 5%. Together, these top five emitters account for almost 59% – well over half.

Cold, dark Canada, with its vast distances and dispersed population, ranks 11th with 1.5% of global GHG emissions. Its oil and gas sector contributes only 0.3% of the global total.

But as an old country, with a small population, and abundant fossil fuels, Canada's cumulative and per capita GHG emissions put it in the global top tier. Indeed, among G20 members, Canada ranks second in its per capita emissions, after only Saudi Arabia and ahead of the United States and Russia, and then Iran.

Thus, many of today's major climate polluters say they will do little until Canada does more to reduce its emissions now.

This often leads to deadlock in the rarified realm of global governance for energy, climate change and the environment. It still does now, when much more must be done to control the climate crisis.

So just how is the needed clean energy revolution being governed there?

2. The Global Governance of Energy

The multilateral global governance of energy is incomplete, fragmented, fragile and failing. But the annual summits of the Group of Seven major democratic powers and even the broader Group of G20 systemically significant states, are making the clean energy commitments that do and can count.

A. The Missing Multilaterals

At the fully multilateral level, much is missing from the galaxy of intergovernmental institutions in the world.

There is no World Energy Organization.

Coal and natural gas have no intergovernmental institution.

Oil has the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), for the largely non-democratic producers restrict supply and increase prices. It also has the International Energy Agency, formed in 1974 to protect consumers in democratic countries by maintaining and managing strategic petroleum reserves.

Nuclear energy is overseen by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but only to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation and promote peaceful uses, rather than promote emissions-free production from reactors big or small.

Renewables have only the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Formed in January 2009 and now having 75 states and headquarters in the United Arab Emirates, it is largely devoted to research.

And the International Solar Alliance, created by India and France in New Delhi in 2015, is tiny in its membership, resources, actions and impact.

The most promising multilateral step was the agreement of all countries in 2015 on the UN's 2030 Agenda's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. They include SDG 7 on achieving affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. But as we move past the half-way point to achieve them, none of the energy targets is on track to be reached by the 2030 due date.

Indeed, the share of renewable energy sources in final energy consumption globally rose only to 19% by 2020.

B. The Potent Plurilateral G7

Effective global energy governance has thus been led by the G7. It was formed in 1975 in response to OPEC's first oil shock in 1973, to foster energy conservation in many ways.

It did so most successfully in response to the second oil shock of 1979. At its Tokyo Summit that year, thanks in part to Canadian prime minister Joe Clark, the G7 created the most ambitious and effective regime to control climate change and to stop OPEC's oil shocks that the world has ever seen.

Since 1975, G7 summits have devoted an average of 9% of their communiqués to energy. They peaked at 62% in 1979, 38% in 2009 and then 22% in 2022 due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

From 1975 to 2022, G7 summits made 388 commitments on energy. These include 43 in 1979, 78 in 2006 and 49 in 2022.

But do our political leaders keep their promises, both when their home alone and when their together abroad?

In the case of G7 energy governance, yes, they do.

G7 members' compliance with their leaders' energy commitments the year after they were made averaged a high 82%. Most recently, compliance with those from their 2022 summit reached a perfect 100%.

Since the start, compliance has been led by the European Union at 94%, the United States at 92%, the United Kingdom at 90% and Germany at 86%. Canada at 84% also comes above the 82% average. But below come France at 80%, Japan at 78% and Italy at 68%.

How can we raise the compliance of all members, and especially the lagging ones?

Several steps stand out. Complete compliance of 100% comes when commitments invoke G7 ministerial meetings on energy, use highly binding language and create official-level energy bodies. Commitments with references to public-private partnerships have 95% compliance, to timetables for actionable outcomes 94% and to regulatory frameworks 89%.

Most recently, in Hiroshima, Japan, in May 2023, G7 leaders made 83 commitments on energy, the most on any subject (see Appendix A). Over half of them – 47 – dealt with clean energy, and a further eight with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

By specific energy source, coal had three commitments, oil two, natural gas three and fossil fuels two. Nuclear had three, renewables three and critical minerals five.

Most notably, G7 leaders reaffirmed their "commitment to the elimination of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 or sooner."

They also committed, "in the context of a global effort, to accelerate the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels so as to achieve net zero in energy systems by 2050 at the latest in line with the trajectories required to limit global average temperatures to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels."

In all, the G7 is clearly where Canada's global leadership in clean energy should start.

C. The G20

The bigger, broader, newer G20 can then help a lot.

Its members account for almost 85% of the world's economy and electricity demand, 93% of the world's operating coal generation plants and nine of the world's top 10 carbon emitters.

The G20 thus contains a commanding weight and influence in international energy governance and plays a critical role in driving and delivering a clean energy future.

To "keep 1.5 alive" by limiting post-industrial warming to only 1.5°C, the G20's rich countries must have 100% clean energy by 2035 and its other, poorer members by 2040.

Here G20 progress has slowed.

Since their start in 2008, G20 leaders have addressed energy in all their communiqués. At Pittsburgh in 2009 they devoted 14% of them and at Bali in 2022 11% again.

They made 180 commitments, placing energy fourth among all subjects.

G20 leaders made 16 energy commitments at Pittsburgh in 2009, a peak of 42 at Hamburg in 2017 and 11 at Bali last year.

Members' compliance with them averaged only 71%, far below the G7's 82%. The highest compliers were Korea and France with 85% each, the United Kingdom with 81%, then Mexico and Brazil both with 79%.

Canada's compliance was just below the overall average at 70%.

Most recently, compliance with the 2022 energy commitments was 80% – a strong performance, but still far behind the G7's 100% for that year.

To improve its members' compliance with their energy commitments, the G20 should make fewer commitments but with stronger, politically binding language.

At their New Delhi Summit on September 9–10, 2023, G20 leaders made 13 energy commitments (see Appendix B).

But the predicted compliance with them a year from now is only 51%.

Moreover, none of the commitments was an ambitious advance on the Bali ones. And none was nearly ambitious enough to contain the climate emergency we face, and that the leaders highlighted themselves in their declaration.

The G20 leaders' new promise on renewable energy read only "We … will pursue and encourage efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally through existing targets and policies … by 2030." This is a long seven years from now. They included several of the standard escape clauses. And they did not promise to actually reach this goal.

On fossil fuel subsidies they merely repeated their commitment, for the 15th time, to "increase our efforts to implement the commitment made in 2009 in Pittsburgh to phase-out and rationalize, over the medium term, inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption and commit to achieve this objective." They were silent on how they would finally keep this long overdue promise. If they keep it, the International Monetary Fund says they would save the world the $7 trillion every year needed to contain climate change.

But a year from now G20 members will likely comply with this commitment at only 60%.

On coal, New Delhi's G20 leaders did not repeat or revise their commitment from Bali to curtail it in any way.

3. Canada as a Natural Clean Energy Superpower

These great gaps compellingly call for stronger Canadian leadership at the G20, the only international institution of consequence that Canada conceived and then co-created with the United States among finance ministers in 1999.

And Canada has an enormous potential for G20 and global clean energy leadership, for it is a natural clean energy superpower in the world.

A. Canada's Capabilities

Sources

Canada's clean energy capabilities begin with the many sources of the renewable energy needed now.

In its oceanic coastlines, Canada ranks number one by far. They produce the renewables of offshore wind, and the reliable renewables of wave and tidal power. Indeed, the Bay of Fundy is number one in the world in the depth of the daily tide that rushes in and out. The large cities of Vancouver and Victoria in the west and Halifax and St. John's in the east are conveniently located right on coasts. And they have long been connected by basic infrastructure from east to west, where most of Canada's people live, right next to the United States to the south.

In freshwater, Canada is number one in the world in the number of freshwater lakes it has and thus the ability to generate hydroelectricity from dams or pumped storage. Its rivers are in the top ranks too, adding run-of-river hydro to the mix. Both are needed to help cool the nuclear reactors that can generate electricity around the clock, with virtually no GHG emissions.

In the uranium that fuels these reactors, Canada ranks second in the world.

In the number of civilian nuclear reactors that generate electricity, Canada ranks highly too, with 19 operable ones.

Sinks

In the sinks that suck GHGs out of the air, Canada is a natural superpower too.

Its boreal forests rank first in the world, and effectively sequester carbon, produce shade and reduce heat.

Its peatlands rank second, just behind Russia and far ahead of third-ranked Indonesia. Peatlands sequester carbon seven times more effectively than forests do.

B. Canada's Alberta Advantage

Alberta's advantages are key contributors to Canada's clean energy capabilities. Alberta is the sunniest, windiest place in Canada, with hydroelectricity and geothermal power able to enrich this clean energy cornucopia in the coming years.

Calgary and Edmonton are the sunniest cities in Canada, followed by Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. Southern Alberta and Saskatchewan form Canada's sunbelt.

Alberta also has abundant winds. Southern Alberta is one of the windiest regions in Canada, second only to coastal St. John's, Newfoundland. Lethbridge has more days with strong winds than any city in Canada, and Calgary, thanks to its iconic chinooks, is the windiest large city in Canada.

Alberta is also blessed with great potential in hydroelectricity from the Rocky Mountains and nearby British Columbia, even if hydro currently provides only 3% to 5% of Alberta's generation capacity from its 22 dams, with small rivers having a large share.

And Alberta's potential for geothermal energy is seen in Banff's iconic upper hot springs.

Alberta's powerful natural potential has already produced a strong renewables performance. In 2022. Alberta's solar power was three times as much as its coal power was. Wind power surpassed coal power for almost 110 days that year.

Alberta is also on track to phase out coal power for good.

C. Canada's Proven Global Leadership

With these capabilities, Canada has long been an effective global leader in the clean energy transition, by reducing the sources of GHG emissions, reinforcing the sinks that suck them out, and containing the concentrations that produce the heat and its intensified extreme weather events. Here Canadian governments have been backed by a supportive public that in its priorities almost always puts the natural environment first.

On the greatest single energy source of GHG emissions, Prime Minister Harper acted within Canada first, to completely remove the use of unabated thermal coal. On April 26, 2007, in "Turning the Corner: Taking Action to Fight Climate Change," he promised to "bring in regulations that will effectively end the construction of dirty coal-fired plants, starting in 2012." It covered all industrial sectors, and required carbon capture and storage technologies to be used. His plan also reaffirmed the goal of reducing GHG emissions by 20% from 2006 levels by 2020 by "forcing industry to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions," by "setting up a carbon emissions trading market" and by "establishing a market price for carbon."

In 2009, the UK followed Harper's lead. Then, in 2012, Harper produced Canada's first federal regulations to phase out such coal.

Five years later, on September 18, 2017, Canada joined with the United Kingdom to launch the Powering Past Coal Alliance, to phase out coal-fired power. By 2022 its membership had grown to 168 countries, cities, regions and organizations, including the G7 members of Germany, France and Italy, and the G20's Mexico. Colombia and Panama joined four days ago. The Government of Alberta also belongs.

To contain GHG concentrations, in December 2015, at the UN summit that produced the Paris Agreement on climate change, Canada played a critical role in adding the target of a 1.5°C post-industrial temperature rise to the much weaker and more popular 2°C one. This was a highly prescient initiative, as the improving climate science soon confirmed.

To reinforce GHG sinks, Canada started in 1992, with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney pioneering the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity, and securing its biodiversity secretariat in Montreal. Last year, together with China, Canada in December 2022 produced the Kunming-Montreal Framework on biodiversity that made major advances in protecting and promoting nature.

Conclusion

To conclude, from this analysis, three main messages are clear.

• Producing the renewable energy revolution is an urgent necessity, given the climate emergency we now confront.
• The global governance institutions are still not doing nearly enough to meet the need.
• Canada and Alberta can and should lead the world to fill the gap and win the race to renewables, for themselves and the world.

So just what can and should they do to achieve this goal?

The next best opportunity arrives when Canada hosts the G7 in 2025. That year Canada's G20 and Commonwealth colleague South Africa hosts the G20 too.

Five steps stand out.

First, finally end all fossil fuel subsidies by then. This is the year by which the G7 has agreed to do so. If it complies with this commitment, the International Monetary Fund estimates that governments globally will save their hard-pressed treasuries and taxpayers $7 trillion a year – the sum needed to finance the full renewables revolution and clean energy transformation that we need.

Second, by 2025, get all G7 and EU members to join the Powering Past Coal Alliance. This means adding the US and Japan, and the G7 and EU countries sub-federal components to the club and then other G20 members too (see Appendix C).

Third, by 2025, finally keep all the accumulated promises due then that the G7 and G20 summits have made over the past several years (see Appendix D and Appendix E).

Fourth, 2025 is when a key target in the Kunming-Montreal Framework is due to be reached. It is to "identify by 2025, and eliminate, phase out or reform incentives, including subsidies, harmful for biodiversity … while substantially and progressively reducing them by at least $500 billion per year by 2030." We now need to speed up this phase-out, and to grow more trees, to replace those destroyed by the wildfires ravaging Canada, the US and Greece during the past four months.

Fifth, 2025 is the year that starts the final five-year period to reach the SDGs, including SDG 7 on energy. By then, let's get all of the SDG targets reached at least two thirds of the way.

[back to top]

Appendix A: 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit Commitments ↩

[back to top]

Appendix B: 2023 G20 New Delhi Summit Commitments ↩

Note: Identified and compiled by Brittaney Warren, September 10, 2023.

[back to top]

Appendix C: Coal Reliance, 2023 ↩

Note: G20 members in bold. G7 members in bold and italics. Source: World of Statistics.

[back to top]

Appendix D: G7 Commitments with 2025 Timeline, 1975–2023 ↩

Note: Compiled by Brittaney Warren, September 25, 2023.

[back to top]

Appendix E: G20 Commitments with a 2025 Timeline, 2008–2023 ↩

Note: Compiled by Brittaney Warren, September 28, 2023.

[back to top]

All contents copyright © 2023. University of Toronto unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved.