Reimagining energy in the Canadian boreal zone: policy needs to facilitate a successful transition to a low-carbon energy future¹

Abstract

Canada will be unable to meet its greenhouse gas pledges-of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30% over 2005 levels by 2030-without transitioning away from the current high-carbon economy. This transition will bring new challenges, especially to the Canadian boreal zone. The boreal zone continues to experience intensive natural resource activities including the extraction of forest, mining, oil and gas, and renewable energy products, which in combination with climate change, is placing the future sustainability of the boreal zone at risk. We explored policy options to reduce the risk to the future sustainability of the boreal zone in light of the inevitable energy transition to either a higher or a lower dependence on carbon and the uncertainty of society's capacity to adapt to change. Current policies are putting us on a path towards failure to achieve sustainability of the boreal zone. While current policies may be moving us towards a low-carbon future, they lack a shared vision of what the energy transition will be and engagement by those members of society most impacted; they are top-down, prescriptive, and fragmented, and they lack capacity, accountability, and enforcement. Together these limitations create barriers to society's capacity to adapt to the low-carbon future. Sustainability of the boreal zone will not only require a transition to a low-carbon economy but will require policies that overcome these barriers and create a higher capacity for society to adapt.

Atmospheric change as a driver of change in the Canadian boreal zone1

“…These scenarios stem from differential trends in atmospheric change, reflecting literature projections of ecosystem responses, as well as the variable levels of mitigation and adaptation measures undertaken by Canadian society and the rest of the world. The broad-scale postulated changes in ecosystem conditions, and those in other drivers of change, contribute to informing a scenario and risk management analysis (Serran et al 2018;Steenberg et al 2018). These analyses will be useful for guiding policy decisions to enhance boreal ecosystem and societal capacity to cope with, and adapt to, future atmospheric change.…”

Demand for provisioning ecosystem services as a driver of change in the Canadian boreal zone1

“…Finally, we use this information to develop three scenarios, a set of equally likely but diverging future stories for PrES for the boreal in the year 2050. These aforementioned driver papers were then used to identify the critical forces guiding future scenarios in the boreal zone (Steenberg et al in 2018) and policy options for guiding us to our desired future for the boreal zone (Serran et al 2018).…”

Alternative scenarios for the future of the Canadian boreal zone1

“…These drivers and their interactions help to shape the scenarios described in this paper. The drivers and scenario were then combined and used to conduct risk management analysis to develop policy recommendations for a sustainable boreal zone (Serran et al 2018). provide an introduction to the Boreal 2050 Project and its approach.…”