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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
"The effects of climate change are happening faster in the Arctic than elsewhere in the world," stated Environment Minister Michael Miltenberger in his introduction to the NWT's 2011 State of the Environment report.

Weledeh MLA, biologist and environmentalist Bob Bromley outside his Old Town home. Bromley believes the government should impose regulations on the "big emitters" such as large mining companies and the transportation sector. - Galit Rodan/NNSL photo

During the past 50 years, the climate in the NWT has warmed at a rate four to five times faster than the global average, according to the GNWT's 2011-2015 Greenhouse Gas Strategy.

A report released in April by the David Suzuki Foundation rates the GNWT's climate change policy as "fair" - better than the policies of the Yukon and Nunavut, Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta and Saskatchewan, but poorer than the policies of Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The foundation said the GNWT's climate change policy had actually improved since 2008, thanks to its commitment to increase the use of renewable energy and its consideration of a carbon tax.

The transportation sector is responsible for the largest percentage of the NWT's greenhouse gas emissions at 29 per cent, followed by mining and oil and gas extraction at 27 per cent, according to the foundation's report.

The GNWT's latest greenhouse gas policy outlines some of the "unique challenges" the NWT must confront in its attempts to reduce emissions, namely the problem of delivering fuels, food and other amenities to isolated communities and the resource-based nature of the economy.

"Mining, oil and gas sectors contributed 34 per cent of territorial Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Most mines are located in remote areas, with established energy systems based on fossil fuels. While technology for these systems is well understood and reliable, emissions are significant and their activity largely defines emissions trends in the NWT," according to the GNWT document.

While environmental consciousness and economic growth and prosperity are often portrayed as being at odds with each other, some of the NWT's foremost environmentalists say this is a false dichotomy.

Yellowknifer spoke with Arctic Energy Alliance's executive director, Louie Azzolini, Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley and environmentalist Doug Ritchie about how the NWT can curb its emissions without bankrupting its citizens.

Louie Azzolini

Though industry is sometimes viewed as the enemy of environmentalism, Azzolini said mining companies are actually taking the lead on curbing emissions, rather than being pushed by government.

"Each of the mining companies is incrementally, every year, saving energy in the form of reducing diesel consumption," he said. "Every dollar that they save on diesel is a dollar added in profit. So what's happened is that the mining sector is actually ahead of the curve because they are driven heavily by profit motive."

Rather than force industry to change by creating a system that penalizes emissions and burdens companies, the government should provide industry with positive incentives that encourage the use of cleaner energy.

"Let's develop really efficient hydroelectric resources and let's invite mining companies that are at the leading edge of mining using low intensity energy. Make it attractive for them," he said.

Azzolini also spoke about utilizing the NWT's particular assets - such as cold temperatures and hydroelectricity potential - to diversify the economy while reducing emissions. Data storage is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, he said, and it requires a capacity for cooling.

"What better place to have a data storage system than in a remote, safe, isolated place in the middle of nowhere where it's cold 95 per cent of the time ... So let's diversify our economy and bring in technologies and industries which will help us to reduce our energy impacts," he said.

If Northerners built data warehouses in Fort Smith, for example, the Taltson hydroelectric dam could supply the warehouses with the electricity they need. And although expansion of the Taltson was halted over a year ago, Azzolini thinks the project is still viable.

"Rather than subsidizing energy consumption why don't we subsidize the development of assets which have long-term potential for return," he said.

Azzolini believes devolution will be a major step forward in the process of becoming a more sustainable territory.

He refers to the NWT as a resource-rich, cash-poor jurisdiction with too little control over its own assets.

In terms of funding infrastructure projects, for the time being the government's pockets aren't deep enough, he said.

"We have no tax base to speak of because almost all the royalties from the mines are flowing back to Ottawa. So what we are is a society that I would think is being wrung dry by the politicians in Ottawa who are using it as a cash cow.

"When we begin to work together, power resources in the Taltson might feed mines in the Tli Cho area. The diamond resources and mining resources that exist up there might provide the money that's necessary to build that dam.

The wood resources in the Fort Liard area might provide the chips that are necessary to heat buildings in Tuktoyaktuk. Let's begin to look at the Northwest Territories as a part in an economic partnership rather than fighting over scraps that Ottawa leaves us."

Doug Ritchie

Doug Ritchie has been one of the strongest proponents of introducing carbon pricing to the NWT as a means of encouraging Northerners to curb their fossil-fuel consumption.

"We feel the easiest way of doing that would be through a revenue-neutral carbon tax like the one that was very successfully implemented in B.C.," he said.

A carbon tax would be applied to fuels based on their carbon content and would apply to a broader range of fuels than the current fuel tax, which would remain in place.

Ritchie, the past director of non-profit organization Ecology North, said the group would advocate for, at a minimum, an initial tax rate of $10 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent, to be raised to $30 per tonne CO2 equivalent over three years.

Under a revenue neutral tax, "the revenue received through a carbon tax could flow back to NWT residents and businesses through income tax reductions and credits," according to a GNWT discussion paper released in October 2010.

There is also the option of using the additional revenue raised by a carbon tax, which could "flow into a pool of funds which would be available to communities, businesses and individuals to take measures to reduce their energy use," said Ritchie.

Ritchie said he would encourage the GNWT to look "thoroughly" at both approaches.

He also spoke to the importance of being proactive about switching to cleaner sources of energy in the face of the rising cost of fossil fuels.

"As soon as we introduced carbon prices, the evaluations of alternative energy projects would improve greatly and so I think there's a real chance that we can actually increase employment while we're decreasing our dependency on fossil fuel.

"If we're constantly in reactive mode we're not going to adapt well to climate change. We're not going to adapt well to a world with higher energy prices. So it behooves us right now to take action that's basically in our interest."

Bob Bromley

Aside from echoing Ritchie's calls for a carbon tax, Bromley proposed a number of measures for reducing territorial emissions.

Bromley believes the government should impose regulations on industry and focus on the "big emitters" - the large mines, oil and gas companies, the transportation industry and diesel-generating and large communities. To expect industry to self-regulate would be unrealistic, he believes.

An example of such regulation, Bromley said, would be requiring new developers to have a renewable energy portfolio.

"Any new mineral development, or whatever, must meet a standard in terms of providing renewable energy to meet their energy requirements. We might set that at five per cent or 25 per cent or whatever and it would likely be an incremental increase over time," he said.

Bromley has also been calling for comprehensive building standards to be implemented across the NWT, such that all new houses must conform to the EnerGuide 80 standard of energy efficiency.

Currently, only new units built by the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation as well as new residential and commercial buildings in Yellowknife are required to meet the standard.

In its most recent report, the David Suzuki Foundation criticized the territorial government for making little progress on a territory-wide building code for energy efficiency. Bromley said the building standard makes sound fiscal sense.

"It's well demonstrated that when you pay for both a mortgage and a cost of operation, despite the greater mortgage needed to make it EnerGuide 80, your total of mortgage payments and operation are less the very first month in the building. So you're saving money," he said.

Bromley, like Ritchie and Azzolini, said the switch to renewable energy is inevitable - it is only a matter of how long the transition takes and whether the NWT takes a proactive or reactive stance.

"Fossil fuel is only getting more expensive and will continue to do so. We know that ... Right now it's a culture of fear put out by the oil and gas companies and the federal Conservative government that is causing people to shy away from what they know is needed," he said.

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