Energy efficiency is an essential part of the solution for the 20% of Canadian households now living in energy poverty—but the country’s major news outlets have yet to factor that reality into their coverage, Efficiency Canada argues in a recent blog post.
Energy poverty in Canada is typically defined as a family needing to spend 6% of its household income on energy, excluding transportation, a figure that is twice the national average, writes policy analyst Madeleine Chauvin. By that measure, roughly one-fifth of Canadian households are currently energy poor.
Anxious to “better understand the energy poverty conversation in Canada,” Chauvin recently conducted a thematic analysis of how the Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Vancouver Sun, the Toronto Star, and the Halifax Chronicle Herald discussed energy poverty between 2006 and 2020.
Analyzing 86 articles, Chauvin found that roughly 44% “identified energy price increases as the main cause of energy poverty, with renewable energy (22%) and carbon pricing (25%) identified as the main causes.”
Notably, she found this narrative across the political spectrum, put forward in the Toronto Star and the National Post as reasons not to pursue renewable energy projects.
Largely absent from the stories was any commentary on what experts actually identifies as the factors saddling households with high energy burdens: energy inefficiency, and lack of access to the grid.
And rather than offering actual solutions to the problem of energy poverty, “such as efficiency programs, income supports, or emergency debt relief” (all “prominently discussed in the academic and public policy literature,” says Chauvin), the articles merely recommended cancelling renewable energy or carbon pricing initiatives.
“It was more common for regional papers to provide concrete solutions to energy poverty,” Chauvin writes, citing the Chronicle Herald as the paper that did the best job of presenting those ideas to its readers.
Citing Efficiency Canada’s own provincial scorecard, she adds that Nova Scotia “has some of the highest low-income program spending per household.”
To fill in the gap in the energy efficiency narrative, Chauvin stresses “the importance of regional newspapers expanding awareness of services available in local jurisdictions.” That, of course, means such services need to be well in place.
Observing that Canada “is likely to embark on a new debate about carbon pricing, with a new climate plan raising the price to C$170 per tonne,” she adds that “the federal government would be wise to prioritize funding a robust and well-designed low-income energy efficiency program” as part of a strategy to reduce energy poverty. Other components could include “sustainable energy strategies for off-grid communities, reducing income inequality, increasing affordable housing, and helping consumers manage high debt levels.”
Nice article focusing on the realities of energy efficiencies and their link to energy poverty and impact on the lives of many Canadians. Energy inefficiencies exist everywhere, where one is well off or struggling to make ends meet. Reducing those inefficiencies across the board will have an effect to lowering energy costs for all while also maintaining Canadians’ commitment to reducing carbon emissions and advancing renewable energy sources. One of the biggest challenges to solving issues with Climate Change is that individuals find it hard to see what they can personally do about it. The narratives about making individual commitments to make a positive changes have been presented in a negative way, basically stating individuals have to sacrifice much of their behaviors and make dramatic changes in lifestyle. Clearly, collectively we are an over-consuming society where dramatic changes are needed. When one is told in order to reduce their energy load and electric bill, they shouldn’t wash their dishes or clothes during the hours which are most convenient for them, they tend to view carbon credit programs and renewables as the culprits behind this situation. We need to think differently about our energy policies, especially electric power. How we generate it, transmit it, store it, and use it. Since its inception, 150 years of electric power has been a viewed in a centralized top-down large-scale framework. Let’s update that framework and work back from the consumer usage level, how their devices get and use power. By viewing energy efficiencies from this perspective we could reduce inefficiencies by 6-10%. With a little more blending of energy storage at the consumer device level, we could add to those percentages. We could give consumers the ability to wash their clothes and dishes when they like to, while simultaneously lowering their electric bills and contribute to the overall utility-scale balance of daily power generation and distribution. It time for us to Think Differently!