Project
Energy Future Forum
What will it take for Canada, as a global leader in energy, to retain a leading position while managing change?
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About the project
Launched in 2019, the Energy Future Forum (EFF) is a multi-year, pan-Canadian initiative working to address climate action and our energy future. Its mission is to:
- Develop practical measures that help Canada meet or exceed our emissions targets;
- Maximize our energy advantage;
- Deepen shared prosperity; and
- Enhance national unity and Indigenous reconciliation.
EFF includes leaders from business and government, along with academic, environmental and Indigenous organizations, consisting of participants from five regions. EFF is determined to see this collaborative effort map out an ambitious set of actions that are environmentally sound, economically beneficial and publicly acceptable.
EFF 2.0
The task of effecting a successful energy transition is not moving with sufficient alacrity. Speeding things along is the focus of EFF’s recent pivot, which we’re calling “Getting to and Past Final Investment Decision: What’s required to advance Canada’s economic growth and environmental sustainability goals.”
Key focus areas
PPF has developed a strategic framework as a systematic assessment tool to study the four major obstacles ahead of unlocking investments and major projects in Canada, while moving rapidly toward and past the Final Investment Decision.
These are:
- 1. Project financing – Alignment and co-ordination: Designing and aligning effective, predictable financing instruments to enable project financing in a world where industrial policies are competing for capital. This theme will be responsive to the uniqueness of financing complexities and challenges that different energy sub-sectors face (e.g., market versus non-market structures)
- 2. Enabling energy infrastructure systems: Ensuring necessary policy co-ordination to enable projects to connect smoothly with suppliers and customers, becoming functional at the lowest cost and emissions possible.
- 3. Environmental and economic regulatory approvals and permitting: Transitioning from ‘ragging the puck’ to a ‘hurry-up offense’ through measures like firming up timelines, establishing a projects management organization office, and creating energy corridors.
- 4. Indigenous economic participation: Facilitating Indigenous ownership and other forms of participation through improved, more flexible and accelerated access to capital, as well as minimum procurement commitments. EFF 1.0 focused on making the case for aggressive decarbonization of incumbent energy systems, alongside accelerating the pace of implementing a larger and even cleaner electricity sector. We put forth strategic recommendations around carbon management, Canada’s high ESG gas proposition, Indigenous ownership, regulatory reform, a real electricity transition, emissions trading and carbon markets, a low carbon export sector and much more.
Reports
Build Big Things
For too long, Canada has been content to muddle in the slow lane when what is needed — now more than ever — is a breathtaking build out. Here’s how to do it.
A Hurry-up Offense for Energy Transition and Clean Growth Projects
Energy Future Forum Policy Memo
How to Have it All
Federal and provincial governments, Indigenous communities and industry can leverage LNG development for a clean energy future. Here’s how
The Missing Article
Since 2021, 65 bilateral agreements involving 45 countries have been reached under Article 6 of the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change. Canada is not among them.
Project of the Century
Electricity demand is forecast to double by 2050. To meet it, supply will have to grow an astounding two to three times today’s volume. Here’s a roadmap for how to meet this urgent nation-building goal.
The $100 Billion Difference
Relative costs of two net zero approaches
The Strength of Green Steel
Boosting competitiveness, decarbonizing supply chains, seizing geopolitical advantage
A Leadership Blueprint for Canada’s High-ESG Gas
Serving the public and global good
Do We Really Want to Make Canadians Poorer?
What shutting down its oil and gas sector would cost Canada
Capturing a Carbon Opportunity
If the climate challenge confronting Canada is evident, so too is the economic opportunity out there to be captured. The twin objectives are clear and measurable: We must meet our 2030 GHG emission reduction targets on the way to a net-zero future by 2050, and we must do it in a manner that ensures jobs, growth and a strong economy. The good news is that a sightline to that future – one where a national carbon management strategy is critical to meeting our objectives – is coming into clear focus.
We Want Real Partnership
In April 2020, the Energy Future Forum convened a plenary session on the critical importance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and full Indigenous participation and ownership in Canada’s energy development. The following is a blended transcript edited for clarity and conciseness of Indigenous economic leaders Alicia Dubois, Tabatha Bull, Mark Podlasly, J.P. Gladu and Kim Baird. These leaders spoke about their vision for economic reconciliation, the challenge of access to capital and the opportunity UNDRIP presents to catalyze economic development by making real partnership a prerequisite for any project to move forward in Canada.
A Keystone of Carbon Could be Our 21st-century Auto Pact
Canada desperately needs to matter more in the United States. After a run-up in the decade after NAFTA, our share of U.S. imports has fallen from roughly 16 per cent to 12 per cent since the Great Recession, leaving us behind both China and Mexico. Auto production, which for decades held fast well above the level guaranteed in the 1965 Auto Pact, was part of the descent.
Nature-based Solutions: Some of the Answers to Climate Change Come Naturally
There is a broadly based consensus in Canada that includes governments, Indigenous peoples, environmental groups, industry and other stakeholders that nature-based solutions will play a crucial role as Canada works to meet its climate change objectives. The Energy Future Forum (EFF) believes the agreement presents a rare and unique opportunity – one that Canada must seize as part of its climate change suite of policies.
The Solution Set: Carbon Capture & Direct Air Capture
Carbon capture has a powerful allure. If there's too much CO2 in the atmosphere, why not remove the excess, and store it deep underground or use it in manufacturing other products? It sounds like a considerable solution on the way to a net zero carbon economy by 2050.
Articles
Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage — The Time is Now
This paper reflects a strong consensus within the Energy Future Forum that any achievable pathway to national climate and economic objectives must include a significant contribution from carbon capture technologies and from utilization and storage. In any post-COVID, “green stimulus” planning, support for CCUS expansion is even more pivotal than before.
Opinion: How Canada could strike a grand bargain on climate and energy
OPINION: Needed: A grand bargain on climate and energy. How: The Energy Future Forum brings together the players — from oil and gas producers to environmentalists, governments, bankers, utilities, academics and Indigenous leaders. The Mission: To find ways Canada can meet or exceed its targets under the Paris climate agreement on the way to a net-zero future, while strengthening the economy and enhancing national unity. When: Now.
Groups from Across Canada Join Initiative to Get Climate and Energy Policy Working Together
The Energy Future Forum (EFF), a new pan-Canadian initiative to develop policy answers that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen the economy, was officially launched on Dec. 16 at a meeting in Toronto. It's an "unprecedented effort to find common cause in addressing Canada’s climate and energy challenges,” said PPF's Edward Greenspon.
Podcasts
David Eby on building a new economy
On this episode of PPF’s WONK podcast, host Amanda Lang talks to the B.C. premier about global trade, LNG and the need to ‘grin and bear it.’
Danielle Smith on pipeline optimism and provincial relations
On this episode of WONK, host Amanda Lang talks to the Alberta premier about her hopes for a pipeline deal with Ottawa, dealing with separatist sentiment and working with B.C.
The biggest issues in the upcoming federal budget
On this episode of WONK, host Amanda Lang talks to Armine Yalnizyan and Sean Speer about huge budget pressures, tariff fallout and how to fortify the economy
What does major projects success look like?
On PPF’s podcast WONK, host Amanda Lang talks to Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tim Hodgson about Canada’s new energy ambitions and the challenges ahead.
