Federal Science and Technology: The Pursuit of Excellence

1.3 Canada’s Technology and Innovation Investment in Climate Change

Global climate change is a prime example of the types of science-based issues facing governments today: the effects are global and pervasive; they have impacts on all facets of the environment, economy and society; responding to them requires expertise from across many disciplines; and the science underpinning the issue is controversial.

Canada has been investing in climate-change S&T; for a number of years. On August 12, 2003, the Government of Canada announced details of the investment of $1 billion toward the implementation of the Climate Change Plan for Canada. Included in this spending was a total investment of $500 million in S&T;, of which $250 million was allocated to Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), with the remainder to the Climate Change Technology and Innovation Initiative (CCTII). These investments were part of the Budget 2003 allocation.

SDTC was granted an initial endowment of $100 million in Budget 2000 and opened for business in April 2002. A second endowment was announced in Budget 2003, bringing the total funding for the SDTC to $350 million. The SDTC believes that, for clean technologies to be successful in the marketplace, effective, goal-oriented partnerships must be established early on. For that reason, it maintains a national database of organizations active in the clean-technology market, and uses that resource to help link entrepreneurs with complementary technologies and potential consortium members.

The purpose of the CCTII is to reduce emissions over the long term, and to position industry to maximize economic opportunities in new technology development. To achieve these goals, it is investing in transformative technologies — that is, technologies that would completely change or eliminate current methods. It implies a paradigm shift rather than just improving the technologies and methods that already exist, thus impacting society and the economy.

In the case of climate change, these technologies will help us decouple greenhouse gas emissions from economic growth. Consequently, considerable investment in research, development, demonstration and commercialization will be required over many years. With this initiative, the government reduces the risks faced by industry and consumers in the development and adoption of such technologies.

The CCTII is focusing on five key technology areas:

• Technologies for cleaner fossil fuel production, conversion and combustion.

• Energy-efficient technology that can be used in the industrial, commercial, community and transportation sectors.

• Technologies that allow for greater use of locally available energy resources and renewable sources of energy, such as wind, solar, and landfill gas.

• A range of technologies, including bio-mass and waste conversions; cellulosic ethanol from biomass and other biofuels; bio processes; biomass pro-duction, harvesting and transportation; and energy from biomass.

• Fuel cells and other technologies of the emerging hydrogen economy.

The diversity of technologies required to address climate change is so great that only a collaborative approach at an international scale can hope to succeed. By drawing upon its ongoing investment in energy S&T; and CCTII funding, the federal government will be able to strengthen its engagement with domestic and international S&T; climate-change players.