On December 12th, Canada said it would become the first country to excuse itself from the Kyoto Protocol. What they really should have said is that Canada decided to double down on its investment in tar sands. According to the government of Alberta "Royalties from the oil sands ($1.9 billion in 2009-10) -- Albertans' share of the revenues from oil sands production - help fund many public programs and services, including infrastructure, health and education. According to CERI, Alberta can expect $184 billion in royalties over the next 25 years."
The announcement comes on the heels of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban which brought together representatives of the world's governments, international organizations and civil society.
Earlier this year, the U.S. government put out over $6 billion in loan guarantees to catalyze banks to fund renewable energy in the United States. The U.S. was buoyant about the investment and then worried after the Solyndra failure only to be redeemed by the by First Solar and Solar City financings without the loan guarantee.
So, what do these two have to do with each other?
One is a country making a short-term investment in energy in tar sands, another making a long term bet on renewable energy. But, each is a country making an investment in energy.
Back to Durban, where out of that conference, was a 194-party agreement to start negotiations on a new accord that would ensure that countries will be legally bound to carry out any pledges they make. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest. These pledges would be countries implementing policy -- not investments to manage the environment.
But, also revealed at Durban was that more than $1 trillion has been invested thus far in renewable energy by the private sector according to Bloomberg. So, nations are racing to get their policies ready to accept the next $1 trillion into clean energy solutions.
According to Bloomberg, $52 billion was invested in clean energy in 2004 and $243 billion was invested in 2010. At a 29 percent compound growth rate, the next trillion could be achieved in less than three years -- not a lot of time for Canada to change its mind.
Entrepreneurs are equipped and ready to take risk and grow the business models to deploy solutions to our global energy needs.
Nations like the U.S. and Canada are inept investors and entrepreneurs. But they do set the tone and attitude of their nation. In this case, the U.S. is looking towards the future while Canada is looking to its past. In the end, we need a level playing field upon which the best market driven solutions for energy can scale to meet the needs of our population -- providing comfort the next $1 trillion chasing climate change solutions.
But nations should stop picking winners -- it sells us short on meeting our energy demands in the face of climate change.