Ottawa U: New report from Positive Energy

March 27, 2019

In a new report, uOttawa’s Monica Gattinger and Michael Cleland are asking crucial questions with regards to Canada’s energy future in a time where everyone is talking about climate change.

The report aims to unpack the core challenges and opportunities when it comes to building confidence in public authorities making decisions on our country’s energy future. It also provides an analysis of how Canada’s political and economic context relative to other countries is fundamental to the course of its energy future, and why it is vital that energy and climate decision-making be undertaken with that full context in mind.

Some of the questions that Gattinger and Cleland ask touch on very important issues such as:

• How can Canada effectively overcome polarization on energy issues?
• What are the respective roles and responsibilities between policymakers, regulators and the courts when it comes to energy decision-making?
• What are the models of and limits to the consensus building on energy decisions?

The authors also provide five drivers that Canada’s decision makers need to consider in order to move the country’s energy economy forward in a fast-changing world.

According to Monica Gattinger, Director of the Institute for Science, Society and Policy at the University of Ottawa, Canada needs to overcome polarization, partisanship and parochialism to effectively chart its energy future in an age of climate change. Debates on energy and climate are becoming increasingly polarized and partisan, and it prevents meaningful progress on both energy and climate objectives. Everyone is losing – no matter what their position on energy and climate issues.

To read the full report.

 

For more information:
Karyne Vienneau
Media Relations Officer
Cell: 613-762-2908
Karyne.Vienneau@uOttawa.ca

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