Archive for April, 2009

WINNIPEG-April 29, 2009-Canadian government subsidies for biofuels have introduced market distortions that make it difficult for other more cost effective and sustainable energy alternatives to enter the market, according to a report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Geneva-based Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI).

Biofuels – At what cost? Government support for ethanol and biodiesel in Canada is the latest in a series of reports addressing subsidies for biofuels in Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, Indonesia, Malaysia, Switzerland and the United States. The report provides the most comprehensive quantification to date of the amount of public money being spent to support ethanol and biodiesel, as well as analysis on whether it presents good value for Canadian taxpayers.

“Public subsidies for biofuels have been justified on their environmental merits, as well as the economic boost they provide to rural economies,” said IISD associate Stephan Barg. “However, our research shows that these policies are an extremely expensive and inefficient way to conserve fossil fuels and reduce GHG emissions.”

The comprehensive study found a growing array of subsidy programs at the federal, provincial, and even municipal levels that support nearly every stage of the biofuels supply chain, from research and development, business planning, through construction of plants, production of biofuels, marketing and purchase of vehicles capable of using the fuels.

In the three-year period ended 2008, total transfers to biofuels approached $1 billion, with an average of around $300 million per year. The subsidies accounted for 20 to 70 per cent of the retail market prices for the biofuels.

While transfer payments are levelling off, ethanol from corn (maize), the most common product in Canada, requires subsidies of between $0.50 and $0.70 a litre to replace an equivalent litre of fossil energy-enough to purchase the displaced fuels with the subsidy alone.

“Subsidizing biofuel production is clearly an expensive way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To remove one tonne of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere via corn- or wheat-based ethanol costs between $200 and $400. By comparison, one tonne of CO2 reductions cost $4.25 on the Chicago Climate Exchange or $33.85 on the European Climate Exchange,” Barg said.

“Therefore, the Canadian government could remove up to 100 times more carbon from the atmosphere simply by purchasing emission reductions on the market. The numbers are similar for biodiesel, with subsidies costing between 6 and 137 times more to reduce a tonne of CO2 then purchasing carbon offsets.”

The report was written by Tara Laan, Todd Alexander Litman, Ron Steenblik

The City of Winnipeg is preparing a new official plan entitled ‘A Sustainable Winnipeg’ to serve as a ‘25-year blueprint for the city’s future’. The first in a series of public consultations will be held this Saturday, April 25^th and will focus on the theme ‘a Sustainable Winnipeg.’

IISD will participate in this first consultation by providing our perspective on sustainability. We feel that a sustainable Winnipeg requires four key elements:

• City leadership guided by a vision and values articulated by an engaged citizenry
• City administrative capacity for integrated and forward-looking planning with accountable and transparent action
• Public-private sector partnerships guided by triple-bottom line performance
• Coordinated city action with citizen groups, businesses and the Province of Manitoba.

The city is struggling in these respects, while other Canadian cities are progressing. Now is the time for action. Some examples of innovative sustainability initiatives in communities across Canada include: Whistler 2020; Victoria’s Dockside Green; and Newfoundland and Labrador’s Community Accounts.

The list of social, economic and environmental problems on our community’s balance sheet is growing faster than our ability to deal with them. Our current path is not sustainable. A successful city plan and planning process is paramount for navigating a sustainable path to the future.

The Sustainable Cities PLUS Network is a group of 30 cities around the world that are pursuing integrated long-term planning for urban sustainability. The PLUS Planning Cycle was created by this network of cities and proposes six stages: (1) awareness and scoping; (2) visioning; (3) establishing baselines and exploring options; (4) developing strategies; (5) implementing; and (6) monitoring, reporting, celebrating and adapting.

In the context of Winnipeg, some critical areas for improvement relating to the Sustainable Cities PLUS Planning Cycle are:

1. Awareness and scoping

• Understanding lessons from the previous Plan Winnipeg (Was it followed? If not, why?)

2. Visioning

• Creating a values/principles statement that is owned by ‘the community’ reflecting economic, social and environmental well-being. This can be refined periodically.
• A long-term vision spanning at least two generations based on the values and principles statement.

3. Establishing baselines and exploring options

• A major issues scan and statement (including review of other city approaches). Should be redone every 5 years or so and owned by the community.
• Setting of priorities, outcome indicators for economic, social and environmental issues, and setting of time-bound targets. These are usually set based on election cycles (3-4 years)

4. Developing strategies

• A governance statement for how the city will organize and manage itself to address the major issues
• Integrated land-use and transportation plans (50-year outlook) with 20-year physical plan

5. Implementing

• Supporting three-year action plans – coordinated with broader community

6. Monitoring, reporting, celebrating and adapting

• Annual progress report by leadership, and accountability to outcome-based targets. Information used to celebrate success and adapt action plans as necessary.

We hope our contribution to this first public consultation will help the City advance towards a robust sustainability plan.

Earth Day, like many other notable days on our calendar, means different things to different people. It’s both celebrated and ignored widely. Many embraced it wholeheartedly while others discount Earth Day entirely because they feel its message has been subverted by corporate interests. Thirty-nine years ago Earth Day was a simple, but effective call to action reminding us that industrial activity was imperilling our planet.

Like many (see Grist.org) I’ve started to ask myself if Earth Day is enough. Does it matter? Does it really do what it should or what we need it to do? Does it give politicians pause? Or does it create a legacy of well-intentioned eco-resolutions that are quickly forgotten only to be guiltily revisited the following year?

That’s where I think the challenge lies, living more sustainably shouldn’t be an either or process or guilt induced. And maybe it isn’t, perhaps the last 39 Earth Days have pushed North American society in new subtle directions. Maybe its been an important trigger in our evolution to sustainability.

The problem is we don’t need any more triggers, any more discrete messages or gentle nudges. We have the capacity, the technology, the tools and understand why conserving resources, reducing pollution and living with less stress, conflict and less stuff is positive and healthy for us.

While Earth Day is a reminder that I can always do more, it is also reassures me that I am going in the right direction with a lot of other likeminded people.

My simple wish is that Earth Day continues to create positive change around the world and is part of the legacy I leave behind for my children and their children and beyond.

What does Earth Day mean to you?

http://www.csin-rcid.ca/learning_events.aspx

Proceedings from the 29th CSIN Learning Event, Data Visualization, which took place on April 2, 2009 with Brian Eddy, Greg Tucker, Douglas May, Alton Hollett and Conrad Power on are now available online!

Manitoba is experiencing the second worst flood in a hundred years, second only to the devastating flood of 1997–the Flood of the Century. Several communities in Manitoba have declared states of emergency as a result of ice jams and overland flooding from snow melt. And the flow of water from the United States hasn’t even arrived yet. The Red River is expected to crest in Winnipeg for a third time in the next few days, a combination of spring rainfall and floodwaters from south of the border. This is an unusual event since the river typically crests only once during the spring melt.

The unusually cold spring this year has caused unprecedented and unpredictable conditions, as the province describes it, on a level never before experienced in Manitoba. Ice jams have wreaked havoc in several Manitoba communities, where ice has blocked the tremendous flow of water causing water to backup and dramatically increase river water levels and spill over their banks. The flooding in Manitoba is not simply a problem restricted to the Red River Valley either. Communities all across Manitoba are experiencing flood problems as rivers and tributaries swell beyond their capacity spilling over their banks, occurring from the Interlake region to areas all along the Souris, Pembina, Assiniboine, and Fisher rivers.

Could wetlands have helped with any of this? Could those depressions and sponges on the landscape have lessened the severity of the spring 2009 flooding? Perhaps to some degree they could have. Wetlands lessen the impacts of flooding by temporarily storing and holding back spring melt water and storm water runoff, and slowly releasing it over a longer period of time. Rather than the massive surge of water entering rivers and tributaries as everything melts. According to Ducks Unlimited Canada, over 70% of the wetlands have been lost or degraded across Canada, something that has dramatically changed the way water flows across the landscape. The prairie region has been converted to flat expanses of land crisscrossed with ditches, large culverts, and systems of drains to get the water flowing off the land and amalgamated as quickly as possible, and it does just that, in some cases too well. With many wetland basins removed and filled in, when the snow melts there is no where for the water to go, except overland. A landscape dotted with small wetlands and depressions provides some protection from overland flooding, at least providing a place for the water to collect. Without these sponges on the landscape, the water flows across this vast parking lot, turning houses and farm sites into islands in a vast sea of melt water.

Breezy Point, a community near the mouth of the Red River in Manitoba, experienced its worst flooding in well over 50 years as a result of a massive ice jam that caused river water to backup, washing over sandbag dykes, while ice blocks smashed some homes right off their foundations. With the unusual spring this year, ice breakup was still occurring on the river during the spring melt, causing ice jams all along the river, and consequently significant flooding. When you have an ice jam backing up water, the last thing that you really need is to dump large volumes of water into the already swollen river. That is like flushing the toilet when the sewer is backed up, it really can’t handle another big inundation of water coming down the pipe because it has nowhere to go, except up.

Wetlands can help lessen the impacts of flooding by providing a place for the melt water to go in the spring, and following severe rain events – to hold the water on the land longer, and release it slower. Wetlands also have other benefits, providing valuable wildlife habitat, replenishing the water table, carbon storage, and clean water. Wetlands collect and store sediments and nutrients essentially improving the quality of the water flowing through them before it drains into rivers and lakes. Rather than everything ending up downstream in one massive flush.

IISD’s Darren Swanson was a keynote speaker at a recent seminar to encourage businesses to think about the economics of going green.

Swanson talked about corporate social responsibility and the role of business in promoting and influencing change for a better world. These responsibilities extend beyond the environment to the wellbeing of employees, the community and civil society in general.

The focus of the seminar, hosted by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, was to:

• Encourage businesses to rethink their business operations. Learn about best practices, regulatory change and how to save money, build efficiencies and come out of economic instability on top.
• Provide role models for businesses looking to go green. Hear first-hand the ideas, creative solutions and experiences of other small and medium-sized businesses, along with what larger organizations are doing.
• Profile what municipal governments are doing to ensure a sustainable future.
• Showcase products, services and innovative ideas that will foster a greener tomorrow.

IISD Associate Alanna Mitchell’s new international best-selling book, Sea Sick: The Global Ocean in Crisis, is raising global awareness about the condition of the world’s oceans.

The book was launched in Australia late last year, with a speaking tour. Mitchell made a number of public appearances, and spoke at the Brisbane Writers Festival. “If everything on land were to die tomorrow, the ocean wouldn’t even notice, but if everything in the ocean were to die tomorrow, everything on land would also die,” she said. “We are actually changing the chemistry of the ocean.”

Sea Sick has recently been reviewed by a number of Canadian newspapers, including the Ottawa Citizen, The Winnipeg Free Press and The Province.

The book was launched in Europe earlier this month.

IISD’s Philip Gass was in Traverse City, Michigan last week and had the opportunity to tour Core Energy’s Carbon Capture and Storage for Enhanced Oil Recovery facilities.

The CCS/EOR process involves stripping CO₂ from natural gas recovered from five natural gas plants (to get the CO₂ levels in the gas down to an acceptable level for commercial use).

Once separated, the CO₂ is compressed at Core Energy’s facility and transported by pipeline to its distribution site, where it is pumped underground to one of several oil fields that Core operates.

By pumping the CO₂ into depleted oil fields, more oil can be recovered from sites that would otherwise have reached the end of their production life. After the oil is recovered, the CO₂ remains sealed underground, as opposed to simply being released into the atmosphere, as would be the case without the CCS/EOR facility.

The tour of the operation was organized through the Midwest Governors Association.

The Turtle Lake Gas Processing Plant, near Gaylord, Michigan

Inside the compression facility.

More inside the compression facility.

The pipeline to the distribution site.

Distribution site to the oil fields.

The intake for distribution to the pipelines.

The injection site to the oil field.

This handbook was developed to assist the First Nations communities of Saskatchewan, but it also appeals to a wider audience. It has recently been featured on a social networking blog of the Society for Applied Anthropology. http://sfaanet.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=649273%3ABlogPost%3A26104