Canada should invest $16 billion a year for five years to create a million new jobs while meeting its climate commitments, Polaris Institute President Tony Clarke and Canadian Labour Congress President Hassan Yussuff argued late last month in the Winnipeg Free Press.
The CLC originally presented its Million Climate Jobs plan during the United Nations climate summit in Paris, at a community session co-hosted by Climate Action Network-Canada.
The investment, representing roughly 5.5% of 2015-16 federal expenditures, Canada “could create 1,052,600 new jobs and at the same time reduce the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by one-third of its current yearly mark,” they write. Clarke and Yussuff call for active policies in three strategic areas: a national renewable energy investment program, a strategy for greening Canada’s building stock; and a national transit and public transportation plan.
“By investing $23.3 billion in public renewable and clean energy (eg. solar, wind, geothermal power) over five years,” the two write, “Canada could create 290,000 jobs while reducing the country’s overall annual greenhouse gas emissions between 44 million and 110 million tonnes.
“By investing $30 billion to increase the energy efficiency of Canada’s building stock (eg. residential, commercial, public) over five years, another 438,000 jobs could be generated, which, at the same time, would reduce the country’s overall greenhouse gas emissions between 32 Mt and 126 Mt annually.”
A further $17.6 billion to expand urban public transit and $10 billion to stimulate the construction of “higher-speed public rail” between urban corridors would create another 324,600 jobs, and further reduce greenhouse gases by between 12 Mt and 25 Mt., they conclude.
Were those strategies to achieve their maximum potential reductions, they would cut 261 megatonnes, or 36%, from Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions levels of 726 Mt in 2013. That would handily achieve the country’s current emission goals—set at Copenhagen in 2009 by Prime Minister Stephen Harper—of 622 Mt by 2020, and 524 Mt by 2030. Canada is not expected to meet those goals on its present trajectory.
