Q&A with the experts: Implications and opportunities for an energy transition

The global response to COVID-19 has resulted in reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improved air quality. Do you think there will be any significant, lasting impacts from these changes?

Inhabitants of some of the world’s most polluted cities have noted that they are now graced with clear-blue skies, day after day – one of the few wonderful outcomes of a crisis that has had such a terrible impact on so many lives. Some members of the public, journalists, environmentalists, and even some researchers have speculated that the decrease in economic activity, travel, and industrial production (to name just a few of primary causes of GHG emissions) that has accompanied the response to Covid-19 may indeed have long-lasting effects.

I’m less certain of this, as are most researchers. We always need to remember that climate change is a consequence of overall levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Even if there may have been a small reduction in the production of CO₂, estimates are that CO₂ levels will still increase this year. This shows us just how challenging the environmental problems we face are. The current decrease is one of those instances when blue skies might in fact not make things clearer; instead, they might get in the way of a full view of the picture.

What do you think will happen when life returns to near normal?

A return to ‘normal’ muddies our view even more. Normal – a term loaded with presumptions about what counts as the ways things should properly be – would suggest that even the small gains that have been made during the coronavirus crisis would be eliminated; measured decreases of GHG between 8% and 11% would disappear. Indeed, GHGs may even increase over previous levels if consumers and producers try to make up for months of shutdown by engaging in even higher levels of CO₂ production then we saw at the end of 2019.

Any lasting impacts will depend on the degree to which we undertake significant changes to human economic and social practices. If we want the blue skies above our cities to stay there, we will have to avoid returning to normal.

Do you think the discussion around an energy transition is changing as a result of COVID-19? What are the implications for future energy use?

I’m usually cautious about making big claims (or indeed any claims) about developments still in process. And yet, after so much foot dragging over an energy transition, it does appear to be the case that the pandemic has led governments, businesses, and institutions around the world to commit to an energy transition with new and renewed vigor.

There are many more commitments than I can fit into a short response – which is itself a mark of just how much is changing. Banks and investment groups (including biggies such as Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo) have announced a shift away from investments in fossil fuels and a new commitment to green projects; the wholesale abandonment of funding for Arctic oil is just one example of this shift.

Two of the most prominent universities in the world have made new commitments to an energy transition, too. Harvard announced plans to make its endowment GHG neutral, while Oxford has made the decision to eliminate all investments in fossil fuels in its endowment. Even oil companies are joining in on the rush to renewables. Shell has promised to cut the carbon intensity of its products by 30% by 2035 and 65% by 2050. Decisions like this are no doubt linked to a reports (such as a recent one by the International Energy Agency) that the pandemic will severely impact demand for fossil fuels, and will do so forever (a similar claim has been made recently in The Economist). Even for those cautious and cynical about the possibility of change, it’s hard not to be excited by the race to renewables across so many sectors in so many countries.

This is not to say that the road to renewables is completely smooth. Governments around the world (including Canada’s) have offered the fossil fuel industry (and related industries, such as airlines) significant financial support in the wake of COVID-19. The push back against an energy transition in Canada has been among the strongest in the world.  As for those supposedly newly-green companies like Shell? In the midst of the pandemic and their commitments to carbon reduction, they’ve also announced new fossil fuel extraction projects. Even so, on balance I think it’s safe to say that change is afoot.

Have you adjusted any of your research as a result of the pandemic?

For anyone interested in studying processes and practices of energy transition, this pandemic has offered a fascinating example of the possibility of individuals, communities, and businesses to undergo rapid change – just the kind of change that would help ameliorate climate change. As a researcher of environmental communication, it fascinates me how and why responses to COVID-19 have so quickly been linked to environmental changes. I would love to engage in research to understand this link, and to see if individuals and communities can imagine themselves undertaking similar rapid changes in response to climate change.

I would be curious, too, to understand the coronavirus as a vector of communication. It is, of course, first and foremost a virus that the expertise of epidemiologists helps us understand. But COVID-19 also communicates to us, telling us what it is safe to do and what is dangerous, what the future holds, and how we might have to change what we do. Socially, we make sense of the coronavirus not at the microscopic level, but in terms of how we insert its impact and significance into existing ways of living and being. In these terms, I’d like to better understand how the coronavirus communicates differently to different groups of people, and why.

What opportunities do you think the COVID-19 crisis presents to Canada in terms of mitigating climate change?

There have now been multiple inducements to governments by experts and green organizations to take advantage of this moment to invest in green initiatives. It hasn’t happened – at least not at the speed and scale required.

The hesitation of Canadian governments is unwarranted. A recent Ipsos poll showed incredibly strong support by Canadians for a green recovery plan. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is urging governments to use the emergency loans it is handing out on initiatives that would address climate change and delink countries from using fossil fuels.

Canada should set itself the goal of coming out of this pandemic in a far better position in relation to the commitments it has made under the Paris Agreement than in the past – that past we refer to as ‘normal’. The single biggest opportunity would be to devote significant resources to help green the economy. Such programs can take many forms: retraining opportunities for workers; commitments to greening any and all new infrastructure; subsidy programs to individuals and businesses to green their lives and work; strong policy initiatives to reduce CO₂ emissions; and real plans to work towards a fossil fuel free economy, in a realistic (if aggressive) fashion. To point to one small aspect of this, I think now is the time for Canadian cities to reshape themselves in far greener ways.

Whether this will happen remains to be seen. I must admit to being pessimistic as to whether this country will take up the energy transition opportunity that the pandemic has provided. I hope that developments over coming months will prove me wrong!