Net-Zero / Climate Change

On December 12, 2015, at COP21 in Paris, 196 parties, including Canada, signed a legally binding international treaty on climate change to limit global warming to “well below 2° Celsius” – The Paris Agreement. One year later at COP22 in Marrakesh, Morocco, the parties came together to continue working towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. The Academy, in partnership with the Trottier Family Foundation and the Suzuki Foundation produced a report: The Trottier Energy Futures Project. This report analysed 11 different scenarios or pathways to reduce GHG emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by the year 2050.

Today, on the eve of COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, the goal has evolved to become the achievement of Net-zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by the year 2050. A key challenge is how to do this while maintaining economic growth and prosperity. To achieve this goal there will need to be a significant transformation of Canada’s energy, transportation, industrial and building sectors. Much of this change will require innovative approaches to engineering.

The Net-Zero / Climate Change program explores the various pathways to achieve Net-zero from the perspective of the engineering community that will be tasked with delivering it – on-time, on budget and to a required performance specification.

Climate change is a global challenge. It is not enough that countries like Canada achieve Net-zero. Other countries, many with less capacity for change, will require solutions for their economies providing a global market for innovative Net-zero solutions. The CAE is interested in exploring how Canada can be a global Cleantech leader.

Webinar #1 – Series on Net-Zero Emissions
Maintaining Canada’s Economic Prosperity while Achieving Net-Zero by 2050

Hosted by the Canadian Academy for Engineering, the 1^st  webinar in a series dedicated to net-zero emissions was held on January 28^th, 2021.  

Governments around the world are under pressure to undertake urgent and bold actions to deliver huge greenhouse gas emissions reductions to avoid the catastrophic effects of a warming climate. Many countries have committed to transition to a net-zero economy by 2050. In November 2020, Canada also made a commitment to achieve net-zero. The Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act was tabled to set rolling five-year binding emissions-reduction targets and chart pathways to net-zero by 2050.

A review on the history of climate change agreements, including strategies to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C, and technologies that are being promoted globally for displacing fossil fuels.

Panelists provided some alterative mitigation pathways for Canada towards achieving net-zero by 2050, while at the same time growing the economy and transforming Canada’s energy systems. This will include presentation of results of earlier studies, and potential impacts of recent promising Canadian technological developments and initiatives.

Click here to view the Video.

Panelists:

• Eddy Isaacs FCAE, former CEO of Alberta Innovates – Energy & Environment Solutions
• Oskar Sigvaldason FCAE, Director, Energy Council of Canada

Moderated by:  Soheil Asgarpour FCAE, President, Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada (PTAC)

Webinar #2 – Series on Net-Zero Emissions
Achieving net-zero by 2050: challenges and opportunities of electrification and electric cars

Held on March 3^rd, 2021 at 12:00 pm EST, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, in collaboration with National Engineering Month, hosted its second webinar dedicated to net-zero emissions. The focus of this seminar is to discuss the challenges and opportunities of electrification and electric cars.

Webinar: Role of Canada’s Forest Sector for Economic Development and Climate Change Mitigation

We are pleased to invite you to a Webinar on the Role of Canada’s Forest Sector for Economic Development and Climate Change Mitigation, to be held November 10, 2021 (from 1:00 – 2:15 EST or 10:00 – 11:15 PST).  This webinar is organized by the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE) and the Canadian Forest Service of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan – CFS), with support from FPInnovations.  The webinar builds on the CAE series of Net-Zero Webinars presented over the last year.

The webinar will feature presentations from three speakers with extensive forest sector experience and involvement:

Diane Nicholls
(Assistant Deputy Minister and British Columbia Chief Forester; Diane is an award-winning Registered Professional Forester with the mission of “Caring for BC’s Forests“)

Werner Kurz
(NRCan – CFS Senior Research Scientist, and leader of Canada’s National Forest Carbon Monitoring, Accounting and Reporting System, and the Wildfire and Carbon Project of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions; Werner has co-authored eight reports of the IPCC and published over 150 peer-reviewed scientific papers)

Warren Mabee
(Canada Research Chair in Renewable Energy Development and Implementation, Queen’s University, and Director of the Queen’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy; Warren’s specialty is in bioenergy technology and policy)

Details about the program can be found here.

Click here to view the video.

Webinar #4 – Series on Net-Zero Emissions
Role of hydrogen and methane emissions reduction in achieving net-zero by 2050

On Tuesday, November 23, 2021 the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE) hosted its fourth Net-Zero webinar, titled the Role of hydrogen and methan emissions reduction in achieving net-zero by 2050.

The following are some of the topics that were touched on in the webinar:

Role of methane detection and mitigation technologies in achieving Net-Zero by 2050

• Reducing methane emissions is the most efficient and cost-effective approach to reducing GHG emissions and creating a clean Canadian oil and gas brand.
• PTAC’s consortia, have helped developed the collective methane detection and mitigation technology capacity to significantly reduce the overall sector’s methane emissions. PTAC’s long-term goal is to increase methane detection and mitigation technology capacity to 90% by 2030 at a cost of less than $5/tCO2e.
• Dr. Asgarpour will discuss challenges that Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and technology providers have with respect to securing sites and funds to field test their technologies and how the formation and operations of major field and testing facilities, where 14 producers and 16 universities and research centers have dedicated over a billion dollars field testing facilities to PTAC, has addressed the challenges.

Hydrogen and the Transition to Net-Zero Emission Energy Systems

• Concerns about climate change has driven Canada and dozens of other nations to commit to net zero emission energy systems by 2050. This requires a transformational change away from traditional carbon-based energy carriers like gasoline, diesel and natural gas, to zero-emission energy carriers like electricity, hydrogen or ammonia made with minimal greenhouse gas emissions.
• Dr. Layzell talked about the challenge and opportunity that this provides to Canada, with a particular focus on the need to create a new hydrogen economy.

Click here to view the video.

Soheil Asgarpour presentation | David Layzell presentation