Transportation

The Big Picture

The Pathway

To be truly resilient, we must move all goods and people without gasoline or diesel.

To do this, we must reduce the need for transportation.

The most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation is to reduce the amount of travelling we do and the amount of goods that travel long distances.

City Planning

The need to travel by motor vehicle is reduced if people start off
closer to their destination. This requires policymakers, developers,
and consumers working together.

Electrification

The ultimate fuel for vehicle transportation is electricity. Batteries are continuously improving in capacity and longevity at the same time as their costs come down. Mining and refining of battery materials has an environmental impact but lithium and other inputs can be recycled into new batteries. (If Manitoba developed a system to do so.) There is no recycling fossil fuels. The approach to refuelling will change. Instead of depending solely upon refuelling stations, recharging can be done wherever the vehicle is parked. Hydro needs to plan and build infrastructure to accommodate this coming reality.

Public Transit

Embracing public transit can result in a number of benefits in addition to greenhouse gas reduction. For each full bus, we could take approximately 40 cars off the road, lessening traffic, and reducing the strain on our roads.

Active Transportation

A transportation mode with no direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

No More Free Parking

Free parking isn’t free. Because “free” parking encourages people to use their cars, the city needs to spend money on roadway construction, expansion, and maintenance. Big parking lots are also very unfriendly to pedestrians - they discourage people from walking or taking a bus.

Carshare / Rideshare

Many people don’t need to own vehicles. With carshare programs like Peg City Car Co-op, people only pay for the time and distance they use the vehicle for. The limitation is the distance from where you are to the closest Peg City Car Co-op car.

Self-Driving Vehicles

The imminent arrival of self-driving vehicles will be a truly disruptive technology. There will be less reason to own a vehicle. We will look upon our vehicles less as a manifestation of our ego and more as a utility that is just something to get us (and stuff) moved from A to B. It will also have a profound impact on transportation jobs - we will need fewer drivers.

Air Travel / Remote Communities

Many remote communities in Manitoba do not have all-season road access. They depend upon the annual construction of the 24,000 km winter road network. These roads depend upon frozen muskeg, streams, and lakes. Climate change is shortening the average number of days these are open each year and making them less reliable. In the not-to-distant future, there will be a year when some or all of the network can’t be built. What will happen to communities that rely on those roads for their heating fuel, construction material, and food supplies?

Off-Road Vehicles

Metrics / Key Performance Indicators

Food & Agriculture

The Big Picture

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) 2018 Emissions Gap Report calls for a 45% reduction in total annual emissions from 2010 levels by 2030, and net zero emissions worldwide by 2050. Figure 1 shows Manitoba’s historic emissions from its agriculture sector, and how this must change to meet the UNEP 2030 and 2050 goals.

The Pathway

Consumption

Alternative fertilizers

The main source of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture is from the application of fossil fuel fertilizers. Anhydrous ammonia is a rich source of nitrogen which has been a big contributor to the record yields producers have enjoyed in the last few decades. However, depending upon when it is applied, it may release nitrous oxides (300x CO2 as a greenhouse gas) and its production uses a lot of energy and requires hydrogen for its chemistry. There is a 4R program (Right product, Right time, Right place, Right Rate.) required in the application of any fertilizer. We also need alternatives.

Production

Policy & Regulations suggestions

Metrics / Key Performance Indicators

Energy & Electricity

The Big Picture

More Energy and Power

As we electrify transportation and space heating, we will need to maximize our electrical generation capability and maximize the efficiency of our use of this resource.

For context, the 2019-2020 Manitoba Hydro annual report says electricity consumption in Manitoba was 22,002 million kWh and that Hydro exported 9,629 million kWh to customers outside the province for a total of 31,631 million kWh (Energy). Meanwhile, Hydro’s total electrical capacity is 5,615 megawatts or MW (Power).

In the Buildings chapter we refer to Hydro’s estimate that we would require an additional 7,000 MW of generation to electrically heat the buildings that are currently heated with natural gas. This power must be “dependable”. This means it must be available upon demand. In other words, 7,000 MW of “nameplate” solar photovoltaic (PV) would not contribute to meeting the demand at 9 PM on a cold January day. Solar PV has a “dependable” capacity of zero. This is a very important detail when considering potential “peak” capacity challenges resulting from electrification. “Existing Wind” has a peak dependable capacity of 52 MW. This is 20% of the 258 “nameplate MW” of wind reported for Manitoba’s St. Leon and St. Joseph Wind Farms.

The Pathway

How can we use our electricity resource efficiently, effectively, and affordably to meet the needs of the preceding three chapters?

Limit Natural Gas Distribution

Efficiency Manitoba

Vehicle Electrification

The electric vehicle (EV) revolution is well underway and accelerating. Manitoba will need to plan for and implement an energy distribution network to meet this new and growing demand. This transformation is much more advanced in some other parts of the world (e.g. Norway, Quebec). In those areas, most of the passenger vehicle charging takes place at people’s homes and where they work. A trans-Canada network of charging stations was completed by Tesla and Petro-Canada in late 2019. This network allows for coast-to-coast EV motoring. An important deficit may be the numbers of charging stations in multi-family residential buildings.

Another unique aspect of electric vehicles is that they can also be a source of energy storage in an electrical distribution system. When a vehicle is charged and plugged in, they can provide electricity to the grid to meet peak demand times.

Most passenger vehicle recharging will occur at night. So, additional grid infrastructure may not be needed, especially in the next decade.

Electric heat for buildings

Electricity is “high quality energy”. This means it is portable and can be used for a lot of purposes – some of which can’t be provided for by any energy other than electricity. So, we need to be very prudent with how we use our electric resource.

One of the least efficient ways to heat is with electric baseboards. Electric furnaces are better but still not ideal on their own. However, the efficiency of electricity for heating can be substantially improved by use of heat pumps (See “Buildings” Chapter).

District Heating

Heating is a “low quality use” – heat can be provided by a variety of sources. District heating is a system of pipes that share heat between buildings. This is usually between a central heat plant and residences or businesses. Additionally, operations that produce heat can share heat with operations that require heat. (See “Buildings” Chapter)

Diesel Communities

There are four communities in Manitoba whose electricity is generated from diesel fuel. These are the remote northern First Nations of Northlands Dënesųłiné First Nation (Lac Brochet), Barren Lands First Nation (Brochet), Sayisi Dene First Nation (Tadoule Lake), and Shamattawa First Nation. Due to their remote locations, these communities are not connected to the Manitoba Hydro distribution grid. They depend upon the annual construction of winter roads in order to receive the fuel they need for electrical generation and for heat.

Northlands Dënesųłiné First Nation (Lac Brochet) now uses sustainably sourced burnt wood to supply about 30% of the heat demand for the community. The fuel source is trees within 15 km of the community that were killed by forest fire but which still have unburnt wooden cores. These are harvested by local labour. The logs are transported by sled or barge to a log yard in the community. They are chipped and fed into a boiler plant that heats water and glycol that is distributed by an underground district heating system to the school and a few other nearby buildings.

Metrics / Key Performance Indicators

Human Impacts

Climate Injustice

There are inequities related to who has caused the climate crisis and who will suffer most.

In many cases, people that are least responsible for causing climate change are the ones suffering first and worst from its effects. On a global scale, the vast majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are driving climate change were contributed by industrialized countries, mostly in the Global North. Meanwhile, people in countries of the Global South with very low carbon footprints are bearing the brunt of the consequences of those emissions. These disproportionate impacts exist globally, but also within our own country and our own province.

In this light, climate change can be understood as a “threat multiplier” because it exacerbates existing inequalities. The following sections discuss the disparities of climate impacts along the lines of class, gender, race, generational differences, and ability. These areas overlap and intersect in ways that can further compound impacts.

Impacts on People with Disabilities

People living with disabilities are also affected differently by climate change. Disabilities make the general health threats posed by climate events, as well as social, economic, and demographic impacts, worse. A disability is any condition that leads to long-term diminishment, usually lasting at least six months, of a person’s capacity to perform activities that a person without any of those conditions could do independently and with minimal trouble. These conditions often manifest as vision, hearing, physical, intellectual, developmental, learning, mental health, speech, or chronic pain challenges. About 175,000 Manitobans—close to a seventh of the population—have one or more disabilities. Manitobans with disabilities have higher poverty rates than the provincial average, at 12.4 per cent in 2017.

Climate-related literature has a general blind spot in its treatment of disability issues and climate. One widely acknowledged exception is to how people with disabilities die at higher rates than people without disabilities during extreme weather events, which climate change will exacerbate. Unfortunately, the sustainable planning measures political authorities implement often exclude concerned people with disabilities, as do recovery efforts after extreme events, and the social movements that advocate for disability and environmental justice are often separate.

Many people with disabilities have practical experience in fields such as risk management, problem-solving, and overcoming barriers that they can offer society due to their lived experiences of scarcity, discrimination, and appreciation of living interdependently. All these insights can help build sustainability and community resilience. Winnipeg’s 2018 climate strategy gestures towards this when it mention enhanced public transit, which is a relatively climate-friendly mode of transportation, as a means to improve mobility for people who face barriers to transportation.

Health Impacts

Climate change is projected to cause ill health effects for most people. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared, “Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.” This includes both physical and mental health. Mental health impacts can make physical health impacts even worse. There has been growing evidence of climate-related health impacts around the world for some time, and Canada is no exception. Health risks, however, may inspire a paradoxical good for us, as some research suggests that people think more about how to mitigate and adapt to climate change when communicators appeal to their interest in averting damages to their health.

Impacts for Indigenous Communities and Reconciliation

In Canada, and here in Manitoba, we must understand climate change and impacts in the context of the histories and ongoing institutions of colonialism. Given that the Canadian economy relies on extracting resources including oil and gas from Indigenous lands, and the burning of those resources is driving climate change impacts upon Indigenous communities, the movement for Indigenous self-determination is linked to the movement for action on climate change.

Reconciliation is a very large, complex, and necessary task between the state and Indigenous Peoples, which thus far has been promised by Canadian governments with little action. Continuing to engage in a patriarchal manner with Indigenous Peoples, Canada still fails to meet its global obligation to ratify the United Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and fails to adequately approach and honour its moral and ethical obligation to Indigenous Peoples of this land. At the same time, the government contends that Canada is a panacea of multiculturalism engaging in reconciliation. ‘Multiculturalism’ as a proud banner of Canadian identity has successfully made invisible not only the violence and role of settlers, but also Black People, Indigenous People, and People of Colour, and their role in strengthening social and political commitments to climate change.

Setting an agenda for Nation-to-Nation relationships between Crown and First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Governments, fulfilling national obligations and commitments to the recognition and implementation of Indigenous Peoples rights must be part of our response to climate change.

Potential Positive Impacts of Climate Change

While the negative certainly outweighs the positive when it comes to the human impacts of climate change, the crisis does present some opportunities.

Explicit advantages for Manitoba may affect sectors such as agriculture and energy. As global temperatures rise, the tropical jet stream increasingly moves and merges northward over Manitoba’s clay-rich soil, increasing the length of our growing season. A changing growing season may also allow for different crops to be grown in Manitoba, though this will be challenged by increasing drought and flooding. A decline in the number of very cold days (below -30ºC) in winters in the future may also provide certain benefits with respect to infrastructure, transportation, and health and safety. With the transition to renewable energy, the Prairie provinces also provide ample opportunity for corporate and community driven green energy production.

Mitigating the Human Impacts of Climate Change

This brief overview of the human impacts of climate change has illustrated the critical need for both adaptation and for mitigation to lessen future impacts. A climate justice approach to how we think about human impacts of climate change broadens our ability to conceptualize necessary supports and focus within our communities, rather than exclusively at the international level.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the inequality of the systems in our society, and in some ways has elevated community reaction to human impacts of climate change. The pandemic and resulting recession has also created an opportunity for government investment and stimulus spending to be directed towards renewable energies and climate adaptation. As a country that has benefited from industrialization and contributes disproportionately to the causes of climate change, we must ask ourselves: are we holding ourselves, our communities, and our representatives accountable to human impacts of climate change?

Economy & Green Jobs

The Effort Required

This is what is required in order to mount what increasingly looks like a last-ditch, all-out effort to keep global average temperature increase below 1.5 degrees. We could have done this much more gradually, and with much less disruption to our lives and economies had we started on the path decades ago, when the warnings first became urgent. A variety of corporate actors and their allies in government worked diligently and effectively to prevent this, concealing internal scientific research that connected the burning of fossil fuels to atmospheric warming, and casting doubt on the increasing scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. As a result, they have put us in a situation where small-scale, moderate reform will unquestionably fail. The scale of the problem is too large, and the timelines too short.

Analysis of what it will take on a global level, just to move to net zero emissions by 2050 as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) instructs that we must, suggests a massive but manageable scale, focusing on investments in clean, renewable energy, and energy efficiency. A recent study drawing primarily on data from the International Energy Agency reveals that clean energy and efficiency investments in 2018 were around US$570 billion—in the neighbourhood of 0.7% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The estimates indicate that in order to meet the IPCC’s target, we’ll need to collectively increase that to US$2.6 trillion per year in the first year, and then keep it at 2.5% of global GDP. Mobilizing $2.50 per hundred dollars of GDP every year, from both public and private sources, is not a lot in exchange for a livable planet. While the scale of infrastructural change that will be required is vast, building the green infrastructure required is not beyond our capabilities.

Addressing climate change is not only a question of taking what we are and what we have, and somehow removing the greenhouse gases - addressing climate change means rebuilding energy infrastructure, and reevaluating the ways in which we move, eat, and shelter. It also means re-thinking some questions, like where do we find meaning in life, to whom do we owe responsibility, how we satisfy need and desire, and who gets to set the conditions for our collective future? We live in a society that encourages certain answers to those questions, and those answers bear some responsibility for putting us on a path to climate disaster.

Green Jobs

There is plenty of scope to do so, since there is no shortage of work to do in building a sustainable, low-carbon economy. This work can be safe, secure, and provide a decent livelihood if we so choose. Targeted investments in building and transportation infrastructure would go a long way toward this. Since Manitoba starts from the enviable position of very low-carbon energy
generation via Manitoba Hydro, our first steps need to be on energy efficiency, and the CCPA Manitoba Alternative Provincial Budget 2020 shows some useful starting points. As previous chapters have shown, two of our biggest carbon problems are transportation, followed by buildings. Building safe, convenient, and fast public mass transit and active transportation infrastructure can be a foundation for hundreds of good new jobs in design, planning, materials development, and construction. Bringing our old housing and building stock in line with the dual demands of cold Manitoba winters and low carbon emissions is also a huge job generator. Upgrading and retrofitting the energy efficiency and the heating, cooling, and ventilation of homes, apartments, commercial, and public buildings is necessary to bring down our emissions, and can put thousands to work. The problem is not a lack of work.

Investing in the Future

Investments in alternative energy and for energy efficiency are not enough now, nor are they trending in a way that we can be confident they will be. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), investment in renewable power, and renewables for heat and transport totalled US$310 billion globally in 2019, down along with the rest of the energy sector from 2018. Meanwhile, $511 billion was ploughed into up-, mid-, and downstream oil and gas. As a share of total energy investment, renewables have been relatively constant at one-third, though the IEA also reports that 90% of new energy capacity installed in 2020 was in renewables, resulting in a small bump in that share in 2020. They anticipate a decline by 2022 as a number of key policy incentives sunset in that year. That flatness suggests that markets are not driving investment to renewables or to efficiencies, and out of fossil fuels, in anywhere near the required volumes. A concerted, publicly-driven, and integrated investment in energy transition is an absolute necessity.

In addition to increasing investment, we need to make sure a transition serves the many, rather than the few. As Seth Klein, drawing on the lessons of past industrial transitions, put it: “There will be a transformation—a response to the climate crisis— and whether it occurs in a manner that is just and fair or unjust and repressive remains an open question. Past industrial revolutions have cared little for those whose lives were turned upside down by change.” That means ensuring that investments in green infrastructure come along with adequate funding for the “seven R’s” necessary to protect workers, distilled by the Labour Education Centre from their analysis of four previous energy transitions.

The “seven R’s” necessary to protect workers during this transformation:

1. Relocation of workers within the same employer.
2. Rehabilitation of the closed or abandoned worksites
3. Re-employment in local area jobs.
4. Re-training for a new Profession.
5. Retirement
6. Redundancy Payments
7. Reinvestment in Affected Communities

Natural Spaces / Wilderness

Carbon Cycle and Storage in Nature

Intact nature is a constant cycle of water, oxygen, nutrients, and carbon. From the water, to the air, to the soil, to the plants and to the animals, this highly interconnected web has provided a planet that supports human society. Intact nature can also be fragile, with disruptions altering the flow of water, nutrients and carbon.

Living things are made up of carbon. The storage of carbon occurs as plants draw in carbon during photosynthesis, and as decomposing organisms break down into carbon dioxide and methane, although a great deal of carbon remains locked in the ecosystem each year in soil and biomass. For this photosynthesis and decomposition cycle to occur we need tremendous amounts of intact nature.

Development without enough thought to the carbon balance has caused an overload in nature’s ability to absorb greenhouse gasses. Nature currently absorbs 26% of our emissions. Allowing nature to continue to function and draw down carbon is critical to climate action.

Degraded Nature and Carbon

Studies have shown that disrupting intact nature negatively affects an ecosystem’s ability to sequester and store carbon. Letting nature be is the simplest way to ensure we retain this vital tool to combat climate chaos. Protecting intact nature has to be part of a climate plan in Manitoba.

The Push for Protected Areas

Manitoba has incredible potential to be a global leader in climate action through the protection of nature. The recognition of our climate action is contingent upon intact wilderness being given legislated protection from disturbance. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the international standard for protected areas, and action in Manitoba must adhere to IUCN qualifications.

In 1990, a worldwide initiative to protect 12% of Earth’s lands and waters by 2000 was launched.

Manitoba signed on to this goal, aiming to preserve “enduring features,” however progress has been slow. Currently 11.1% of Manitoba is protected from development according to IUCN standards.

Subsequently, scientists recognized that the 12% protected area goal was insufficient to preserve plants, animals and our life support system. A global Sustainable Development goal spearheaded by the United Nations aimed to protect 17% of lands and waters by 2020. The federal government committed to the 17% protected area goal, however the provincial government has not.

The scientific support for protecting nature and wilderness in 1990 was much less prevalent. Instead, “enduring features” were to be protected. Since then an avalanche of scientific studies have driven home the great peril that nature is in while showing that plants and animals need protected habitat to survive. Human activity has altered 75% of the earth’s surface. Scientists are calling for protected areas to halt the alarming decline of biodiversity.

In January 2020 the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity released their draft plan calling for 30% of the planet to be protected by 2030.

Coupled with the essential need to preserve plants and animals on earth, the protection of intact nature is now doubly important and will be a major component of Manitoba’s climate action.

Indigenous Inclusion and Consent

Protection of intact wilderness is contingent upon free, prior,and informed consent of the Indigenous communities whose territory is involved, as is required under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Further, selfdetermination of Indigenous communities must be the starting point for movements to protect lands and waters. Finally, societal benefit must flow to Indigenous communities whose territories are being legally protected.

Where’s the Carbon Storage

When it comes to carbon storage and sequestration, not all lands are created equal. Intact nature and wilderness has evolved differently based upon vegetation, soil composition, temperature, and water. As a result, different ecosystems store and cycle carbon differently. Further, these characteristics also determine how different types of landscapes, and their carbon stocks, will react to climate changes. Efforts to combat the climate crisis will accomplish the most by protecting resilient carbon-rich lands and waters.

The Climate Powerhouse in Manitoba

In the flat forest expanses of Manitoba we find the province’s ultimate climate action tool — peatlands. Peatlands cover three per cent of the world’s surface yet contain 30 percent of the world’s carbon, making them superstars of carbon storage. The peatlands are so extensive here they cover one-third of the province, more vast than nearly any other jurisdiction on the planet.

Peatlands are wetlands containing at least 40 cm of decaying vegetation, most often from sphagnum moss, preserved in the low oxygen and acidic waters they’re submerged in. They are natural filters providing and storing clean, clear, fresh water. Peatlands act as water sponges in the landscape, holding tightly to water to sustain flows during drought conditions, or
acting as a sink of water and slowing down flood responses during wet conditions. Peatlands also act as an important sponge for excess nutrients, preventing nitrogen and phosphorus from reaching downstream lakes, which would otherwise contribute to eutrophication.

Manitoba’s peatlands may not be much to look at: spindly trees, if any, dot these vast wetlands. However, they provide important habitat for moose and unique plant species like the carnivorous pitcher plant. But the most significant benefit of peatlands is they store vast amounts of carbon — almost half of the peat is made up of carbon.

The Wilderness Committee is calling for the government to commit to a new protected area goal of legal protection for two-thirds of the province’s peatlands by the year 2030. This must be done in accordance with the wishes of local Indigenous communities.

Ecozones in Manitoba

Across the planet, the variations in physiography, nutrients, and vegetation allow similar areas to be identified as ecozones. Ecozones are a good classification for examining the carbon processing capacity for nature in Manitoba. Further delineation into ecoregions will create even more nuanced policy for protecting nature’s climate change fighting capacity. The Manitoba government’s Protected Area Initiative work to preserve more of the province’s lands and waters, which was quietly eliminated last year under the current administration, was categorized by ecoregions.

Accounting for Disturbances in the Force

Protecting intact wilderness from disturbances is the best way to avoid skewing nature’s ability to draw down carbon. Disturbances in nature will continue in modern society, so in addition to a protected area timeline and goal, policies and regulations for operations in intact nature need to be enacted.

Impact to the land is referred to globally as Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF). On an international level, qualifying and quantifying emissions from LULUCF has been inconsistent and troublesome. Varying ecozones have varying carbon emission changes, seasonally and annually. Due to the complexity of this calculation, and the difficulty in reaching international agreement, LULUCF is not part of international commitments to emissions reductions.

The goal of the Climate Action Team in Manitoba is not to make nice for international agreements but rather saving human society by stopping climate chaos. Tackling the difficulty of regulating LULUCF in Manitoba is something we can and must do.

Policy and Regulations for Destruction of Nature’s Carbon Storage

In order for development opportunities to occur, proper policy and regulations need to be established in Manitoba to account for the loss of ecosystem services. The policies and regulations should be informed by the ecozone where development is occurring.

When intact nature is destroyed, the true cost of lost climate stabilization and carbon cycle disruption must be included. However, the commodification of nature—simply putting a dollar value on intrinsic and irreplaceable ecosystem functions—will not get us out of the ecological and climate crisis we have created.

Only a limited amount of intact nature can be distrubed on the planet if we are to preserve natural carbon cycles and follow the science-based path that keeps the world below 1.5 or 2 C warming.

Below is a list of some of the larger nature disruptors and recommendations for policy and regulations.

Adaptation and Resilience

Intact wilderness is far more complex than we imagine. Frank Edgar famously stated:

“Forests aren’t only more complex than we think, they’re more complex than we can think.”

As such, adapting nature is not something we are capable of doing, but rather something nature will do for itself. The adaptation may or may not be better for human society. We have little control over this.

Offering resilience to intact nature and wilderness occurs when we give nature and wilderness more space. Scientific thought on protected areas and species is that expanding protected areas, often to the north as temperatures increase, may allow species to adapt to the rapidly changing climate.

A policy of expanding existing protected areas, in addition to creating more protected areas, is the climate resilience needed in Manitoba.