Chamber of Commerce chapters know that innovative ideas can come out of a think tank. That is, after all, one of the main reasons they organize.

On September 18, the Niverville Chamber of Commerce invited representatives from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in Winnipeg to administrate a think tank on a topic that should be on everyone’s minds: climate change.

The goal of the afternoon meeting was to provide an opportunity for local entrepreneurs to talk about the impact they can make, individually and collectively, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build a more sustainable future.

IISD Associate Director Darren Swanson, as well as Senior Project Manager Daniella Echeverría, have been visiting Chamber groups around Manitoba to encourage the conversation. Small and medium-size businesses, Swanson says, make up 95 percent of Manitoba’s commercial sector and have the potential to start a wave of change that can ripple out to the rest of the world. 

The Greenhouse Gas Effect 

Echeverría, who works in climate change adaptation and mitigation in Canada and globally, opened with a brief overview on greenhouse gases and their historical effects on the climate.

The greenhouse gas effect happens when gases such as carbon dioxide and methane are released into the atmosphere. Acting like a greenhouse, the gases trap the sun’s heat close to the earth, causing temperatures to rise above normal. According to scientific studies, the earth’s temperatures have been rising steadily since the 1880s.

This warming trend, Echeverría says, is even more observable in northern climates.

By analyzing historical data, scientists are now working on projections of what this might mean for the future of the planet—and mankind.

High carbons in the atmosphere will affect more than just temperatures, they say. They can lead to extreme weather such as extended droughts and heatwaves, flooding and snowstorms.

They’ve also determined that the human impact behind climate change is significant.

“It matters,” says Echeverría. “Our choices matter and our policies matter in terms of what our future is going to look like.” 

Local Effects of Climate Change 

While the topic is of global concern, Swanson and Echeverría’s focus stayed closer to home. According to analysts, Canada’s average temperature is expected to increase at a rate double that of the rest of the world.

“By the 2050s, they are projecting that Manitoba’s climates will look a lot like South Dakota and Nebraska,” Swanson told those gathered. “By the 2080s, the southern Manitoba climate could be looking more like Kansas and the northern parts of Texas.”

Admittedly, warmer temperatures in Manitoba could be an inviting prospect for some, and they could conceivably provide opportunities to farmers in terms of longer growing seasons and access to northern trade routes in terms of extended shipping periods.

But it’s also expected to create some big challenges as weather patterns become less predictable. Extended droughts and heavy rains will affect local crops. Lower-lying areas will be impacted by rising sea levels.

“There are parts of the world that will be severely stressed by these changes,” says Swanson. “Some [communities] are even anticipating having to relocate entirely and are looking at immigration deals with other countries.” 

Global Action 

After the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, leaders from around the world set targets to lower greenhouse gas emissions within their home countries. At that time, the Canadian government made a plan to decrease its emissions by 30 percent by the year 2030.

“We need to bend the curve,” Swanson says of the current temperature trends. “The challenge is that carbon dioxide is so inherently comingled with our economy that bending the curve is no simple task.”

One ton of carbon, he says, is created by driving a vehicle 4,000 kilometres, or by heating a non-energy efficient home with natural gas for four months. The amount of trash created in one household per year also equates to a ton of carbon. Landfills, too, emit a huge amount of greenhouse gases as methane escapes into the atmosphere.

Canada’s goal is to eliminate 200 million tons of carbon in just better than ten years.

According to Swanson, Canada is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita out of the 20 countries belonging to the G20.

Options for reducing our greenhouse gas impact include producing less carbon as well as finding ways to store more carbon. Currently, innovative technology is in the works for carbon capturing. But it can also happen naturally through better farming practices, since healthy soil stores carbon. As well, trees soak up carbon, which is one reason why cities with lots of trees traditionally have cooler climates compared to those that don’t.

To encourage Canadians to tackle the problem on a corporate and personal level, the federal government recently introduced a carbon tax as well as Climate Action Incentive funding to assist entrepreneurs and homeowners in introducing energy-efficient systems into their businesses and homes.

But the IISD’s mission is to give policymakers an additional push toward the goal. By talking to Manitoba entrepreneurs, they hope to inform the government on the barriers that still stand in the way of climate improvement. 

What Local Companies Are Doing 

At Wednesday’s meeting, Swanson invited three local guest panelists to share what their climate action strategies have looked like in the past as well as the barriers they still face.

The panelists included Paul Neufeld of Southern Comfort Mechanical Inc. in Niverville, Bruce Duggan of Providence College in Otterburne, and Gary McFarlane of Titan Environment Containment, a nationwide company with a location in Île-des-Chênes.

McFarlane’s company has been researching and introducing biomaterials for use in road construction, water and waste management, mining, the oil and gas sector, the hydroelectric sector, and agriculture. Their products and services are designed to help manage and protect the environment through sustainable solutions.

Some of these products, he says, have been around for 40 years but until recently there’s been little incentive to buy them. However, he’s beginning to see a bigger uptake as people become more environmentally conscious.

Neufeld’s company, too, has been working towards environmental stewardship by way of geothermal heating and energy-efficiency systems. On an internal level, Southern Comfort Mechanical has been working to make improvements to their own buildings and fleet vehicles for maximum energy and fuel efficiency.

Neufeld says he sees a kind of inertia within the construction industry due to long-held thinking that each contractor must work independently on a build.

“What’s most common is where [contractors]… decide what’s going to be installed and then they go out to get the cheapest price,” Neufeld says. “Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

He adds that when engineers and contractors put their heads together, oftentimes ingenuity and innovation come from those unions, benefiting the client and the environment.

Duggan says Providence College has been on a good track in the past 15 years, cutting emissions from their heating system by about 80 percent. This was managed by replacing their natural gas system with a biomass-fired boiler. As well, geothermal was installed in one of their newest buildings.

“It wasn’t done for green reasons,” says Duggan. “We weren’t trying to show off how environmentally friendly we were… The board looked at the lifecycle cost of the building… If you look at the long-term perspective, most energy-efficiency initiatives are cheap. They save you money… There are sustainability and green initiatives you could do as a business that will cost you money and there are things that you could save money on that aren’t all that green. What I’m interested in is where those two circles overlap.”

Duggan suggests that the creation of wealth, which has been climbing since the 1800s, is directly correlated with the creation of emissions, tying climate change directly to the economy.

“Until and unless we figure out how to disconnect them, we are either going to fail to hit those targets or we will make ourselves poor,” he says. “There are countries like Denmark who have figured out how to disconnect economic growth from carbon emission growth.”

As a result of that kind of thinking, Duggan, along with the Manitoba Trucking Association, have been actively involved in convincing different levels of government to provide a subsidy to companies for retrofitting their long-haul trucks for better efficiency. In June of this year, both federal and provincial governments began acting on that initiative.

“If the trucks in Manitoba truly go through this kind of retrofitting process… we will end up with one of the most efficient long-haul trucking fleets in North America,” Duggan says. “And what that means is the industry in Manitoba, which is already large, can grow because it can outcompete its competitors.”

The trucking industry, he says, is just one good example of disconnecting the economy from climate change. Trucking companies can build on the economy by paying installers to retrofit their vehicles. In turn, they are saving money over the long-term and passing the savings on to the consumer. At the same time, they are helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Similarly, the installation of energy-efficient systems is an act of consciously uncoupling the economy from carbon emissions.

As for governmental barriers to climate action, Duggan says that trying to get all levels of government together long enough to agree on something poses a problem. It can begin, though, with local municipal governments and Chambers of Commerce.

Other barriers include something he calls regulatory inertia: antiquated thinking in some current vehicle and building codes that make it difficult for businesses to move in a more positive direction.

Duggan adds that inertia, unfortunately, is one of the strongest forces in the universe. But inertia and momentum are in many ways similar.

“If you begin to get some movement, then real change and speeded change are possible,” Duggan concludes.