Post COVID19: 210 Clean50 Leaders call for a #CleanReset for Canada
On April 22, 2020, on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, they wrote:
An Open Letter to our Governments - Wednesday, April 22, 2020
As award-winning leaders in fighting climate change, protecting the environment, and championing social inclusion, drawn from every single sector and segment of the Canadian economy, and from every part of the country, we join together to ask our governments for
A Clean Reset for a Healthy, Just, and Prosperous Canada.
Today, the coronavirus is shaking the world, foreshadowing the overwhelming shocks and strains that the climate crisis will bring during our lifetimes. Never before have we faced such a challenge in peacetime. Families, communities, institutions and businesses are in urgent need, and governments are stepping forward to help, with a torrent of borrowed money.
In addition to struggling with the climate crisis, the biggest health, economic and environmental threat of the 21st century, we will collectively have to pay this money back for generations to come. The great news is that by working together, we can create a healthy, just and prosperous future for all, if we use today’s money well, and invest in a positive future that we can embrace together.
We commend the Federal Government for last week’s commitment to resist calls for cutbacks on environmental regulations, and for investing in both IRAP and oil well clean-up and methane emission reductions – strategies that will help workers get back to work and learn new skills while improving our environment. And there are many more win-win-win opportunities to invest in Canadians, the economy, and the environment.
Putting Health First
Canadians have a lot to gain from the sustainable economy of the future, beyond just a better economy. Putting Health First means cleaner air and water, more physical activity, and more protected natural areas than our old normal. It means clean communities with zero or low-emission vehicles, clean energy, and minimal fossil fuel use. Clean air, healthy food, and better mental and physical health will make us more resilient to this pandemic and to the other uncertainties that are ahead. Several studies show the health benefits alone will be worth twice what the transition costs.
Despite the tragic circumstances, and the personal sacrifices, we have also seen the direct and immediate benefits of recent “Work From Home” practices, including dramatically lower transportation emissions, significantly shorter commute times, greater productivity, and greater resilience against both weather and health events for individuals and businesses. These must be extended through policy and incentives for businesses to continue these practices, once daycares and workplaces reopen.
Canada’s innovative cleantech sector, working with municipalities, can help make this happen, while building tomorrow's economy. Major investments in the Green Municipal Fund and the federal Gas Tax
Fund, focussed with a strong climate lens, can preserve thousands of valuable clean-economy initiatives that would otherwise be lost in this year’s municipal budget crunch.
Jobs for Lasting Prosperity
Equally important, good-quality jobs for those who want them are key parts of a happy, healthy, and prosperous Canada.
We need to adopt Wayne Gretzky’s winning strategy of skating to where the puck is going, and skate to where the economy is going, not back to our “old normal”. Lasting prosperity depends on respecting the limits of the natural systems on which our lives depend, on building resilience for an unpredictable future, on normalizing sustainability in all decisions, and ensuring a just transition for all. The pandemic has shown us our vulnerability, and the overwhelming speed at which old certainties can evaporate when we don't respect global limits.
Fortunately, the clean economy offers us a $26 TRILLION business opportunity2, and millions of jobs globally in the next decade. That’s 17.5 times bigger than Canada’s entire 2018 GDP of $1.71 trillion. The CEO of the largest investment firm in the world, with over $6 trillion in assets, Larry Fink, of Blackrock, warns: “...because capital markets pull future risk forward, we will see changes in capital allocation more quickly than we see changes to the climate itself. In the near future – and sooner than 3 most anticipate – there will be a significant reallocation of capital” . Since Canada needs capital, we must accelerate towards the low-carbon economy now.
Before the COVID crisis, Canada’s cleantech community was well positioned to pursue that $26 trillion opportunity, translating to millions of potential jobs in Canada. However, many of our world-leading clean technology companies are young businesses, with limited reserves, that have suffered significant losses in revenue and expected investments. these companies, by immediately:
They need help urgently. We ask governments to support
Expanding funding to BDC, SDTC, EDC, and Western Economic Diversification and regional economic development programs with a mandate to ensure the funds will get deployed
Topping up existing cleantech venture funds to unlock the capital already invested
Tasking and enabling the CRA to accelerate processing of SRED claims
Unlocking private-sector investment as described by the Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance
Incentivizing Canadian public and private sector organizations to improve their productivity by
purchasing Canadian cleantech
Enabling Canadians to invest their RRSPs into cleantech ventures and funds
Invest in Adaptation: As documented by the UN’s IPCC, and reinforced in Canada’s Changing Climate 5
Report 2019, climate change is irreversible . Although national efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions are essential and must continue, a changing climate accompanied by floods, droughts, fires and other extreme events is in our immediate future. In response, to adapt to these new risks and limit the damage to our future economy, we urge support for municipalities and property owners across the country to hire workers to help limit the devastation, by building community-enhancing retaining walls, berms, diversion channels and holding ponds, and a range of protective measures for individual properties, that are needed now, in advance of the next disaster.
All taxation, procurement and investment decisions must be made with a clean-economy lens.
Yesterday’s industries have high costs, and release high amounts of GHGs, whilst leaving our economy, employment, and our currency (and therefore our non-oil trade) subject to prices set by Saudi Arabia and Russia. Non-fossil energy must become tomorrow as pervasive and mainstream as fossil fuels are today. Canada can and should turn to businesses that produce more jobs, and less pollution-per-dollar
invested than our “old normal”, and that can be sustained into a low-carbon, low-pollution future, no matter what unpredictable events occur.
Learn more: www.clean50.com
The plan is described in the PDF below. If you think it makes sense, please share it!
How you can help!
Email your MP: firstname.lastname.p9@parl.gc.ca
Tweet a link to www.clean50.com/cleanreset or www.clean50.com/plan-de-relance using hashtags #Clean50 and #CleanReset
