The 2017 Updates and Insights event on February 6, 2017 examined the theme "Reducing Emissions from Energy Use: Policies, New Initiatives, What’s Needed". The use of energy in the transportation, buildings, industrial and agricultural sectors accounts for over 50% of Canada’s GHG emissions (55%), significantly more that the share of emissions from the upstream oil and gas and electricity sectors combined (37%). Finding ways to reduce GHG emissions from the use of energy in these sectors and from the use of energy commodities used as feedstocks in the petrochemical sector and in manufacturing processes is of central importance to climate policy making.
In spite of the essential role of GHG mitigation from end-use applications, their role is often under-represented in discussions of climate change policy. This event profiled the role that the major end-use sectors play in GHG mitigation, and what policy configuration is most effective in making this happen.