October 21, 2021
Principal Economist, Head of 440 Megatonnes
Dave Sawyer
Senior Research Associate, Canadian Institute for Climate Choices
Renaud Gignac
The latest IPCC report has again shed light on the risk to current and future prosperity posed by weather-related disasters and slow onset climate changes such as shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns. In Canada in the last five decades, the damage associated with weather-related storms alone has risen from tens of millions of dollars to billions of dollars annually. To reduce risks, Canada must do better at building resilience to the impacts of climate change. At the same time, Canada has made significant efforts to reduce carbon emissions to help stem future climate damage both at home and globally. Now, with a new emissions goal of net zero by 2050, Canada needs to better understand the many energy and technology pathways for achieving this goal. Clearly, the journey ahead is not straightforward and is fraught with uncertainty. Which policy options make sense from an economic and distributional perspective, and what are the trade-offs? Which sectors and regions are at risk, and what are the clean growth opportunities? Dave Sawyer and Renaud Gignac, both economists at the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, will discuss emerging learnings from the Institute’s mitigation, adaptation, and clean growth research.
Resources
Download the slides in PDF format: TABE Webinar – The Economics of Climate Change in Canada
Principal Economist, Head of 440 Megatonnes
Dave Sawyer
Dave Sawyer is a leading environmental economist with a 27-year track record in solving policy challenges for sustainable development in Canada and around the world. Sawyer operates EnviroEconomics as an advisor and supports the Canadian Climate Institute as its principal economist. He is an expert in the economics of reducing carbon pollution and the dangerous costs of climate change and his work is focused on revealing the economic implications of environmental policy, including the costs of environmental degradation and the benefits of remedial action.
Sawyer is a school fellow at Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration and has held positions with Environment Canada, Canada’s Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development, and other leading Canadian consultancies. He also previously served as vice-president of climate, energy and partnerships at the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
Land acknowledgement
“As we come together from across the country, I want to acknowledge that our meeting takes place on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of many Indigenous nations. I pay my respects to the ancestors and the Elders, both past and present, of the lands where we are all located, and I reaffirm our commitment to building respectful, reciprocal relationships with Indigenous Peoples.”
Senior Research Associate, Canadian Institute for Climate Choices
Renaud Gignac
Renaud Gignac is a climate policy expert with seven years of experience spanning across government, the private sector, academia and non-profit organizations. An economist and a lawyer by training, he previously worked as Climate Policy Advisor for the Quebec Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change, and is the author of Quebec’s first carbon budget in 2013. Renaud holds a Master’s degree in Economics and a Bachelor of Laws. He is a member of the Quebec Bar, of the Quebec Association of Economists, and of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics.
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