Canada’s clean energy activity improved from 12th to seventh place among G20 countries in 2013, with cumulative investments of $25 billion over the last five years, according to a first annual survey published yesterday by Clean Energy Canada (CEC).
But CEC Senior Policy Advisor Clare Demerse says that’s with only “small thanks” to a federal government that has shown scant interest in clean energy technologies that already create more direct employment than the tar sands/oil sands.
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“We like to put it this way: If you think fossil fuels are big business, then I guess you think clean energy is big business, too,” Demerse writes in an iPolitics commentary.
“That growth in jobs and investment is translating into more clean power on our electricity grids. Canada’s capacity to generate power from wind, solar, run-of-river hydro power, and biomass has nearly doubled in the past five years,” with large hydro maintaining its position as “the foundation of our electricity system.”
The bad news is that the federal government of Stephen Harper “can claim little credit for Canada’s clean energy progress,” Demerse notes. “Instead, we found clean energy leadership in some provincial capitals — most notably Ontario and Quebec, where premiers have just agreed to increase electricity trade and take stronger climate action — and among energy innovators across the country.”
