March 26, 2019

Webcast: The Transition to Clean Energy Is a Technological Problem with Political Solutions

contributor: Jatin Nathwani, Rob Goodier

Climate change is a problem with technological solutions, but new policy may be required to raise capital to build the infrastructure needed. In a 30-minute webcast debate embedded below, Engineering for Change’s Contributing Editor Dr. Jatin Nathwani argues that cap-and-trade schemes and carbon taxes have not worked and are not the solution. At least not entirely. Instead, the burden of paying for climate change solutions and the transition to clean energy should be shared fairly across the entire economy, Dr. Nathwani says.  To that end, a tax on consumption would fairly distribute the cost to everyone. The solution may have another merit given that carbon emissions are embedded in every aspect of the things we buy.

Dr. Nathwani is the Founding Executive Director at the University of Waterloo’s Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE) in Waterloo, ON (Canada). He discusses his climate change mitigation ideas with Julia McElgunn, a geologist who has worked in the oil industry and Yonatan Strauch, a PhD candidate researching renewable energy at the University of Waterloo.

The audio recording of their debate was first published online at opencanada.org as Canada and the World, Ep. 31: Oil, jobs and the energy transition debate, and is now available below.

tags : Affordable and Clean Energy, Canada, SDG7, urban policies