Update to the Energy and Atmosphere Caucus of the Canadian Environmental Network on The Energy Sector Sustainability Table Meeting held on July 13, 2007 General Comments: The July 13th meeting was the first meeting of the Energy Sector Sustainability Table (ESST) since November of last year. In the interim work has been completed by the Energy Efficiency Working Group (EEWG) and by the government on certain portions of the ESST’s work. The purpose of the meeting was to review the work done to date and determine a path forward for the work of the table. At a variety of points in the day the group discussed the question of what the future role of the table would be. Some stakeholders expressed the opinion that the continued work of the ESST would only be worthwhile if there was a commitment on the part of the government to incorporate the input of the table into its policies. The government indicated a willingness to suggest areas where it might be interested in hearing the views of the table and taking these views into consideration in the policy development process. The government specifically identified a few priority areas where it felt that the input of this table would be valuable. These areas include: 1. Providing advice on the policy elements hat could be put in place to enable the government meet its 2020 target 2. Acting as a sounding board to talk about some of the elements of the governments clean air regulatory framework that are being developed and implemented in the short term. 3. Providing advice on how to encourage technology development in the future. The team decided that the government would further flesh out these ideas and present them to the group at a conference call on July 31st. The group also discussed three main areas of business; the work of the energy efficiency working group and the work done developing two different reports, an environmental scan, which is essentially a state of the environment report and an economic scan, which is similar but focuses on resource development and its economics. Work of the Energy Efficiency Working Group: The Energy Efficiency Working Group has focussed its efforts on developing a series of issue papers on energy efficiency as well as a foundation paper. The foundation paper looks at the status of energy efficiency in Canada and its potential. The issue papers have focussed on particular areas of interest, so far the EEWG has produced a number of papers including papers focussing on personal drivers, long-term potential in urban design, targets and energy efficiency decision making in the corporate sector. These issue papers will form the backbone of the EEWG’s final report, with each paper basically representing a chapter in the final report. The final report will also have a recommendations section which will provide the working groups proposed recommendations on energy efficiency to the government. The EEWG will now spend its time completing its work on the issue papers and making them publicly available so that they can inform the work of other groups. The group will then turn its attention to crafting recommendations for the government. The EEWG has completed four issue paper reports and a foundation paper and is seeking approval to release these reports to the public. The reports have as such been circulated to ESST members for review and approval. Comments on the reports are due in to the team by Aug. 7.
Environmental Scan: The Environmental Scan is in essence a state of the environment report that is being prepared for the ESST by Environment Canada. The report outlines the environmental impacts on air, climate change, water and land across the country. The report has already gone through an extensive review process and is in the final stages of completion. The report has been circulated to ESST members for review, comments should be sent in by Aug. 13, 2007. Economic Scan: Similarly an Economic Scan has been prepared that includes information on resource development in Canada and its contribution to the economy. This report is in a less advanced stage of the review process then the environmental scan but is none the less has been released for comment by the ESST, comments are due in by Aug. 13. Summary: I see value in the continued work of this team for several reasons. 1. There will potentially be opportunities to provide comment on the future design of the clean air regulatory framework, a framework that will likely form the backbone of the majority of the work of this government on environmental regulation in the energy sector. 2. There are opportunities to continue the work on energy efficiency, work that has the potential to impact energy efficiency policy in a broad range of sectors in Canada. 3. There are potential opportunities to effect the direction on future policy aimed at encouraging technology development in Canada. I see particular value in this area because this could include consideration of policies aimed at encouraging carbon capture and storage technology development as well as the development of new renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. Next Steps: Submissions: Comments on a series of reports (the EEWG foundation paper and four issue papers, the environmental scan and the economic scan) are needed. The reports are being sent out to the caucus for comment, theses reports have not been approved so it is important that caucus members not circulate the reports beyond their organizations at this time. If any member has comments to contribute please send them along to me. I will compile these comments along with my own and send the package of them out to the caucus for review before submitting them to the government and the working group. If members could get me their comments a few days before the deadlines for submissions mentioned above (Aug. 7 for the EEWG reports and Aug. 13 for the Environmental and Economic Scans), that would be appreciated. Up-coming ESST meetings: 1. A July 31st conference call on the federal government’s proposal for areas to be considered by the ESST 2. A September meeting. I will provide updates on both of these meetings through calls or by email depending on what the caucus prefers.