Kyoto from the Canadian youth perspective

For the past decade, the Canadian government has stated its commitment to implementing the Kyoto Protocol. However, over the years the lack of significant greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions has become a cause for great concern, as European countries have already reduced GHG below their Kyoto target,

Canada's new government led by Conservative Prime Minister Steven Harper who hails from the oil-wealthy province of Alberta, recently announced that Canada would not be able to meet its Kyoto commitments. This announcement drew international condemnation, as the previous government had been instrumental in negotiating an extension to the protocol only last year in the face of strong US resistance.

Compounding Canada's international mis-steps on this issue, the government, while continuing in its role as President of the climate change negotiating body, recently announced that Canada was scrapping its National Climate Change plan, and with it a host of climate change funding. It would instead come up with 'Made-in-Canada' solution for reducing greenhouse gases.

Thus far, this approach has meant slashing key climate change programs and research, an energy efficient retrofit subsidy program for homes and Canada's only national climate change public education program.

Part of this funding was redirected to modest tax breaks for monthly transit pass users which, due to their distributed nature, seemed designed more to win votes rather than build infrastructure.

Policy decisions such as these from a government with such a clear conflict of interest (because of its political base in an oil-producing region), is a cause for great cynicism among Canadian youth. It instills doubt that Canada is going to do anything significant to tackle one of, if not the most, pressing environmental and moral issue we face today.

However, despite this aura of cynicism and having limited funding and support, Canadian youth are busy in local communities educating their family, peers, the business community, and local governments on the issues of climate change, and offering some of the solutions that Canadians can implement even in the absence of supportive government policy.

The Biodiesel project

Though Canada lags behind the US and Europe in biofuels production, Environmental Youth Alliance (EYA) youth have been working hard over the past four years to raise awareness of the potential of Biodiesel to reduce greenhouse gases in vehicle fleets. Years before Biodiesel was a well-known alternative fuel, EYA worked to raise awareness of its potential to save GHGs in already existing vehicle fleets. Not receiving any support for its initiative, the project was shelved until EYA manager Karun Koernig met two university students who were making Biodiesel as an eco-friendly way to get to their favourite rock-climbing locations. Upon recognising their mutual goals, a partnership was formed with the University of British Columbia Campus Sustainability Office and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. The initial goal was to produce Biodiesel to supply the university's plant operations vehicles using waste cooking oil from campus restaurants.

Once it was realised that no commercially available small-scale production facilities existed, the goals of the project changed to design, build and test an affordable, financially self-sustainable, community-scale processing facility, supplying Biodiesel at a competitive price.

The goal was to research and test a model for affordable community-scale Biodiesel production which could be shared with and replicated in small communities locally and around the world. During the four years of work, the project has become a centre of information dissemination, holding countless tours, and answering hundreds of phone and email questions from fleet operators, interested communities, researchers and eco-entrepreneurs.

An interesting aspect of the project is that it is entirely youth-run, involving and employing dozens of youth interns, volunteers and university students in the research and production, giving them real-world experience in the alternative fuel sector. This includes involvement in tasks such as waste oil collection, experimentation with various production optimizations, as well as advanced research on novel production methods. Perhaps the most exciting outcome are the youth who have been involved in the project, which we hope will be inspired to seek employment in the emerging alternative energy sector.

However, the benefits are not only limited to the youth participating in the research and production. EYA-led Biodiesel feasibility studies conducted by emerging young environmental professionals have resulted in two communities and businesses moving forward with their own small-scale Biodiesel production plans. As well, EYA has even led an international feasibility study which is supported the development of Biodiesel production outside our borders.

EYA is often asked how our vision of community scale production interfaces with the large-scale industrial production planned and under way in Canada and globally. From a business perspective, there is room for both, albeit at different phases of market penetration. Our research indicates that unless fossil fuel prices are high enough and markets for the end product are secured, it may be hard to justify the large capital investment necessary for large-scale production. A small scale modular facility may be a necessary first step in familiarising the local market, regulators, and the general public with the fuel, while exposing investors to lower risks.

However, from a public policy perspective, perhaps the largest impact of this admittedly small-scale project has been to inspire public imagination as to the possibilities of wide scale distributed renewable energy production. Moreover, if local communities can take charge of their own energy production, they may move to reduce greenhouse gases ahead of large-scale projects by government or the private sector. And local action, as EYA has experienced, is a powerful antidote to apathy and cynicism among youth on such vexing issues such as climate change.

Supporting a green economy

The Green Workplace Program was designed by youth to help small and medium sized businesses (SME's) and institutions save money through environmental solutions that assist in placing sustainable products and practices into daily operations. At the beginning of the project four years ago, the small and medium sized business sector was fairly disengaged from environmental initiatives. This was largely due to SME's small individual impact on the environment, relative instability and low capitalisation. However, upon doing some research, EYA realised that the majority of Canadians work in SME and that the SME sector was leading job growth nationally. Clearly this was a sector that was worth engaging since collectively their environmental impact and GHG emissions would be significant.

The challenge EYA faced was that in Canada there was no overall regulatory framework compelling companies to reduce GHGs. Nor was there an environmental taxation or carbon tax scheme. Moreover, few incentives existed for capital intensive energy efficiency upgrades. At the time it seemed as though the government had largely abandoned these proven policy levers in favour of experimenting with a voluntary approach. This policy was in line with the business community's demands which largely opposed a regulatory approach.

Within that overall context, EYA embarked on the creation of the Green Workplace Program, which was designed to help small and mediumsized businesses and institutions reduce their environmental impact and greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge was that a voluntary approach required that all emissions reductions measures have a compelling business case. In most cases this meant financial savings, but more progressive businesses were interested in the benefits for their employees, public and employee perception as a green company, corporate social responsibility and marketing to their environmental consumer base. Ultimately however, the financial payback seemed to be the most compelling argument for improving the efficiency of their energy and material flows.

EYA youth recognised this reality and set out to scout out the businesses that would have the largest potential to save money through environmental purchasing decisions, employee training or energy efficiency upgrades. As a result, EYA has successfully supported over 250 businesses and institutions, to reduce GHG emissions.

The main service the program provides is information and analysis, as well as training for employees. This includes waste and water audits, paper purchasing assessments, employee training, and energy auditing. The training and employment of young people to do the audits keeps the costs of providing customised solutions to a minimum, as the cost of information is often a barrier to action for SME's. After each audit EYA seeks a commitment from each business to implement one or more recommendations, and they are followed up for several months, in some cases up to a year, to remind them of their commitments and to track their progress.

EYA also forged partnerships with the local public power utility demand management branch, BP Hydro Power Smart, to deliver free energy efficiency assessments to small and medium-sized businesses on their behalf. The assessments identified businesses who were eligible for incentives to reduce the cost of new lamps. Over 100 businesses have participated in this free program in the first three months of 2006 alone.

Another partnership was formed with Building and Owner's Management Association (BOMA), in which EYA provided low cost energy audits 20 buildings comprising over a million square feet of real estate. In order to reduce costs by 80 to 90 per cent for the building owners, we paired a recent mechanical engineering graduate with a professional engineer. This allowed us to reduce costs by having the youth do most of the work, while retaining the quality control check of the professional engineer at the end of each audit. We leveraged public funds for this project as well as BOMA resources since the program aligned with their agenda to promote environmental operating standards in buildings.

Ultimately the Green Workplace Program is voluntary, and there is no one size fits all formula to compel businesses to implement recommendations. Thus the implementation rate, at 10 to 20 per cent of businesses audited, was lower than it could be in the presence of regulation and incentives. However, there is also an educational benefit related to the program in that it increases public acceptance of the need for mandatory emissions caps, regulations and significant incentives.

Urban mobility program

For most young people, the word mobility is synonymous with the private automobile, and it is a sad fact that in our local region the private automobile is still the dominant mode of transport. One of the problems EYA identified is the lack of opportunities for youth to try alternatives to the private automobile prior to making a decision to purchase their first car. The vision was that youth could receive training on hiking, electric bikes, and low emissions gas scooters and then rent them at reasonable prices for short periods of time to evaluate whether they fit with their lifestyle. Through the Canadian government's One Tonne Challenge' program, EYA received funding to test the idea. While it is too early to tell how effective the program was, EYA continues to offer the service to interested youth.

Fuel-efficient driver training

EYA had long identified transportation as one of the areas of significant opportunity when it came to greenhouse gas reductions. The problem was always that to achieve reductions, the business owner needed to upgrade their fleet to more modern or alternative fuel vehicles, a costly and unpopular proposition. Upon investigating alternatives EYA came across the European 'Eco-Driving' program, which uses in car lessons to teach drivers the skills to reduce fuel consumption in traffic.

EYA invited the trainers from the German Road Safety Council, the organisation empowered to manage 'Eco-Driving' in Germany, to come to Canada to train our staff as instructors. At the same time the Canadian Government was developing their own fuel efficiency package for driving instructors, which was more geared to in-class usage than on-road practice.

EYA saw an opportunity to pair both approaches and developed the Fuel-Efficient Driver Training program that is now delivered to both youth, and businesses. The main appeal of the program is that is assist drivers in reducing their fuel bill and greenhouse gas emissions by 10 to 20 per cent. The in-class sessions introduce fuel-efficient driving theory, practical tips on what vehicle to buy and transportation alternatives, while the on-road coaching session provides the opportunity to practice driving at lower revolutions per minute (RPM), maximising coasting distance, and anticipating traffic flow. Depending on the driver it can be radical change from their existing style or merely a refinement that ensures an even more relaxed and fuel-efficient ride.

To date, EYA has trained over 100 drivers: young drivers, fleet drivers, driving instructors, fleet managers, driver supervisors, corporate 'green' champions and college and university students, as well as other private drivers. The program has also trained four instructors and aims to train 12 more who will in turn train more drivers. Additionally EYA is undertaking fuel consumption studies in which trainees will drive a fuel monitored vehicle prior to and after training to quantify the changes in emissions which can be accomplished.

Inner city composting

EYA is situated in the poorest neighbourhood in Canada, the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Because of local food security challenges, charitable organisations receive large quantities of nonmarketable food products for food banks, community kitchens and other services. The nature of this food is such that much of it is unfit for consumption and must be trucked to the landfill. This causes the emissions of greenhouse gases from its transportation as well as from its anaerobic decomposition into methane.

EYA had long been involved in the effort to educate our community about composting, but when the opportunity presented itself to redirect a large waste stream out of the landfill to was hard to resist. EYA responded by partnering with a local community gardener's society to build the Inner City Community Composting Facility (IC3), a largescale community composting site. To date, the facility has processed roughly 275 tonnes of food waste, eliminating the need for 60 truckloads of waste and reducing GHG emissions by almost 300 tonnes. Working alongside community mentors, projects such as these offer youths both practical and meaningful employment experience in the area of alternative waste management as well as the environmental sector.

This pilot project showed that composting a large amount of waste could be done with relatively little money and manual labour. However the next step was to form a cooperative and lobby for money for a large commercial composter to serve the entire neighbourhood. It is too early to know how successful the project will eventually be.

On youth involvement

These examples are a few of the dozens of initiatives that youth at EYA and other Canadian youth have participated in over the past five years. In spite of the obvious shortcomings of the Canadian government's policies, youth continue to play an important role in demonstrating the importance of the issue of climate change.

This may be enough if we had all the time in the world, but climate change is rapidly becoming an urgent problem, with Canada's north feeling the impacts especially strongly. That is why demonstration projects, education and voluntary measures alone cannot help Canada achieve its Kyoto targets. If, and that is still being debated, Canada wants to live up to its international commitments through at least a modicum of domestic efficiency measures, it needs to adopt more aggressive policies as soon as possible. Canada needs to regulate greenhouse gases as an environmental pollutant, assign permits to large emitters, provide incentives for energy efficiency and renewables and implement stricter efficiency standards for vehicles, buildings and appliances, and so on. All these policy levers are proven methods of reducing greenhouse gases, but all would require significant expenditure of political capital.

Up to now Canadian politicians have thought the issue of climate change to be too abstract to motivate much support for such intrusive policies among Canadians. However, light may be at the end of the tunnel, as all three opposition parties, which together have enough seats to pass legislation without the government, are to table a bill that would require the government to draft a plan to reach the targets set out in the Kyoto protocol within 60 days. Perhaps there is hope for renewed Canadian leadership on this, one of the most vital environmental and moral issues of our time.