Canadian greenhouse gas emissions are projected to be 742 Mt in 2030. Although this represents an impressive improvement from the prior year’s forecast of 815 Mt, it far exceeds the 523 Mt Canada has committed to achieving. Simultaneous with these emissions reductions, Canada plans to transition to a strong, diverse and competitive economy; foster job creation, with new technologies and exports; and provide a healthy environment.
In support of these objectives, UAlberta’s Future Energy Systems (FES) mandate calls for:
“finding solutions to the critical challenges of today’s energy system”;
“developing technologies and practices that position Canada to thrive in a future, lower-carbon economy”;
“accelerat[ing] Canada’s transition toward more renewable sources of energy”; and
“developing new and sustainable energy systems in a just and equitable manner ”
The Communities and Aboriginal Peoples research theme aims to contribute to meeting these objectives by examining how Canada’s 35 million residents, living in some 4,400 communities, have been involved in driving this energy transition, and as a corollary, how Canada’s communities and Aboriginal Peoples might further contribute to achieving these objectives in the future. In formulating our research program, we identified a broad range of potential research opportunities:
- Indicators / metrics for tracking bottom-up community participation and success in sustainable energy innovations
- Identifying and scaling culturally appropriate energy solutions
- Local-global governance, policy and regulation
- Distribution of entrepreneurial, industry and market opportunities
- Measuring inequities in costs and benefits of different sustainable energy innovations
- Risk perceptions and local and traditional knowledge perspectives of current versus future sustainable energy innovations
- Multi-scale community resource management systems and innovations
- Public literacy and education opportunities / challenges related to new energy technologies.
Building on these opportunities, we envision an integrated and interdisciplinary research program that will document, analyze and facilitate local, distributed energy transitions that can enable Canada to meet its emissions reduction targets while growing the economy and improving environmental and social sustainability for all Canadians.
