Wedge Advisory Note – Section 7
Advice on a Long-term Strategy
on Energy and Climate Change
Section VII: Next Steps
for the NRTEE
As noted at the start of this document, this work constitutes
one of the first examinations of Canada’s long-term
approach to energy and climate change policies. As such,
the NRTEE sees this work as a first step towards helping
Canadian develop effective approaches as to how the climate
change challenge can be faced.
To further thinking on a long-term strategy for energy
and climate change, the NRTEE is planning two separate
but related activities:
Going
from the “What” to the “How”
(Program to be initiated in Summer 2006)
Wedge diagrams such as the one featured in this study provide
a good visual representation of which technologies and
actions can be combined to achieve a particular greenhouse
gas reduction target. They do not, however, describe
how these changes can be achieved. The NRTEE freely
admits that implementing the levels of change represented
by the wedges will be a huge challenge and success will
be contingent on the development of significant policies.
For this reason, the NRTEE plans further analysis to supplement
the Canadian “wedge analysis”. This analysis
will examine:
- The costs and benefits associated with technologies associated
with key wedges; - Policies to encourage the dissemination and adoption of these
technologies at the levels suggested in the current
analysis; and, - Practical, realistic, feasible ways to provide long-term policy
signals with respect to GHG reduction.
Outreach
strategy (To begin in Fall 2006)
The NRTEE wishes to initiate a national discussion on Canada’s
long-term response to energy and climate change. For
this reason it is planning a series of half-day seminars
for relatively small but influential groups of key players
in the business, provincial, municipal and non-governmental
organization (NGO) sectors.
These sessions will use the wedge analysis described in this
document as a starting point to discuss Canada’s
long-term approach to energy and climate change, and
to discuss the potential roles of government and non-governmental
players. In particular, this process will be designed
to engage key players in a constructive dialogue on
how the wedges in which they have an interest might
become a reality.
The input gained through these sessions will greatly assist
in the NRTEE’s policy work on deploying GHG reduction
technologies as described above. This input and any
subsequent analysis will be forwarded to the Minister
of the Environment.
These sessions will take place in eight to 10 major cities
across Canada between September 2006 and April 2007.
© 2013