The Progressive Economics Forum

Back in December, during the Copenhagen negotiations, a group of environmentalists provided BC Premier Gordon Campbell with an award for climate leadership. Based primarily on the creation of a BC carbon tax two years ago, the Premier has gotten a lot of brownie points from the greens – in spite of the fact that there [...]

I’m still coming out of my malaise following the Copenhagen climate conference in December. It’s easy to think that the stupid political brinksmanship is never going to end, and the focus of attention will shift to adaptive measures. But what is more likely is a few more Katrina scale disasters that will serve to spur [...]

In October, Canada’s inflation-adjusted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded by 0.16%, which rounds up to 0.2%. While a second consecutive month of growth is unambiguously good news, we should be concerned about the amount and type of growth.
Amount of Growth
Real GDP (in chained 2002 dollars) dropped from a peak of $1,241 billion in July 2008 [...]

So what does a sustainable economy really look like, and how do we get there? Climate change essentially means a huge mitigation effort on greenhouse gases culminating in something close to zero emissions by mid-century at the latest. This means phasing out fossil fuels entirely; or minimally, if it comes out of the ground emissions [...]

The BC government recently announced a new climate action of some consequence: the phasing out of the Burrard Thermal plant in Metro Vancouver. The unit was used largely for back-up purposes, producing electricity for BC Hydro to supplement hydropower during times of high demand. But at a large GHG cost per unit of energy — [...]

Depending on who you talk to, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is either the face of climate salvation or the height of delusional behaviour associated with our favourite hallucinogenic drug, fossil fuels. I have read both cases and suspect that the truth is somewhere in between, but I’m not an engineer either so it has [...]

Back in my home province, a legislative committee has begun a public inquiry on meeting future electricity demand. Written submissions and video of oral presentations are available online.
Saskatchewan’s traditional reliance on coal-fired electricity is challenged by concerns about climate change and the prospect of federal charges for carbon emissions. The debate has recently been polarized [...]

As someone deeply focused on climate change and the vast potential for bad things to happen in the future, the idea of peak oil strikes me a blessing. For the most part I have paid little attention to the nuances of peak oil arguments on the grounds that there is still so much of the [...]

I’ve been thinking a lot about energy efficiency in buildings lately (in the BC context, anyway). About 11% of BC’s greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to residential and commercial buildings, so obviously efficiency has to come under the microscope as part of any GHG mitigation plan. Part of my reticence to look at this topic [...]

Michael  Masters’ recent testimony before the US Congress is being widely cited in support of the proposition  that speculation is having a big impact on upward and downward movements in commodity prices. As a long-standing futures market insider, he argues  quite persuasively that institutional investors such as hedge funds have entered commodities futures markets in [...]

Higher oil and natural gas prices are here to stay and that may be a good thing in terms of helping us move to a more energy-efficient economy and averting catastrophic climate change. But we need a plan to safeguard jobs and the living standards of working families in the transition.
Rather than leave it all [...]

The 2008 OECD Survey of Canada incorporates a long and surprisingly critical overview of developments in the energy sector, with a major focus on the tar sands. (Chapter 4). It is, in many respects, far closer to the views of the Pembina Institute and the Parkland Institute in Alberta than to those of the Alberta [...]

Marc Lee’s most excellent paper to the PEF session on carbon pricing at the CEA meetings in Vancouver got me thinking.  (That whole session was awesome, by the way — including Lars Osberg’s provocative analysis that the vast majority of Canadians, whose real consumption has not grown in recent years, have already met their personal [...]

I want to encourage folks to look through the CAW’s detailed submission to the federal government’s panel on competition policy (headed by Red Wilson).  Here is the link:
http://www.caw.ca/whoweare/CAWpoliciesandstatements/pdfs/CompetitionInvestmentPanel.pdf
I think it’s a major statement about the structural transformation occurring in
Canada’s economy as a result of the global commodity boom.  Basic summary: high global commodity prices have [...]

September 25, 2007 - The NEB decision: 17 jobs in hand and 18,000 in the bush
Wed, 09/26/2007 - 09:40 — Fred Wilson
 
(Full post can be found at http://blogs.cep.ca/en/node/53 

Readers of this column have by now seen the reports of the National Energy Board decision to approve the Keystone pipeline. CEP has received extensive [...]

Today, Statistics Canada released a very interesting study on the economic demand that is driving greenhouse-gas emissions. Between 1990 and 2002, exports outstripped Canadians’ personal expenditure as the leading source of Canada’s industrial emissions. Indeed, exports accounted for essentially all of the increase in these emissions.
Canadian Industrial Emissions (in megatons)

Final-Demand Category

1990

2002

Exports

176.4

264.4

Personal Expenditure

196.2

209.8

Other Internal Demand

112.1

99.7

Total

484.6

573.8

Of course, [...]

CIBC World Market recently put out quite an interesting report on the future of world oil supply and demand and the implications for Canada. ( OPEC’s Growing Call on Itself.) http://research.cibcwm.com/economic_public/download/occrept62.pdf
The major point is that OPEC countries plus other major oil producing countries such as Russia and Mexico are consuming a fast-rising share of their [...]

What follows is a revised and extended version of the comments I made at a panel on the Canadian economy organized by the Bank of Canada and the IMF at the recent Canadian Economics Association meetings.
An Update on Canada’s Two Economies - Implications for Workers and for Monetary Policy
Andrew Jackson
Chief Economist
Canadian Labour Congress
The Hidden Jobs [...]

The National Energy Board is holding hearings into the proposal to ship Alberta tar sands bitumen to the US for further refining - something of a reductio ad absurdum in terms of resource-led development. Fred Wilson from CEP is writing  a daily blog from the hearings where his union, the Parkland Institute and other Alberta [...]