Energy Transition Resources

Assessing Political Pathways for Energy Transition seeks to identify how best to navigate democratic constraints on policy-making by developing an integrated assessment of how public and elite opinion shape policy decisions on energy innovation. This enables the generation of data-driven insights into the political risks associated with various energy transition paths and could help policy makers identify possible policy win-sets for other scholars engaged in CFREF projects.

In this study, the International Institute for Sustainable Development sought to identify how these groups define the just transition they are working toward, including what their goals and strategies are and key opportunities that could further just transition implementation and collaboration in Canada. To do so, IISD conducted surveys and semi-structured interviews with 48 organizations in Canada, including organized labour, environmental, Indigenous, and social organizations.

The Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific analysis that tracks government climate action and measures it against the globally agreed Paris Agreement aim of "holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C." CAT quantifies and evaluates climate change mitigation targets, policies and action. It also aggregates country action to the global level, determining likely temperature increases during the 21st century using the MAGICC climate model. CAT further develops sectoral analysis to illustrate required pathways for meeting the global temperature goals.

The Climate Career Portal is a digital platform that connects fossil fuel industry workers with career path opportunities in the net-zero economy, along with resources, opportunity maps, and connections to training opportunities to support their career pivot. Clearly shows which occupations from oil and gas are transferable and required in emerging climate solutions. The portal will also provide job growth forecasts for these climate solutions. Additional features include a comprehensive database of available training programs and financial support.

Communities’ Transition Pathways - Hinton, Alberta is a report that shares learnings after hosting a community conversation on the links between climate change, income security and community in Hinton, Alberta. This conversation brought together Hinton residents to discuss how the climate increasingly affects their daily lives and explore solutions to the challenges the community is facing. The report highlights the need to be proactive, to support workers in the transition, and that potential solutions should focus on diversifying local sources of income and must have economic, environmental, and social components.

The conversation and report are part of the Green Resilience Project, a Canada-wide series of conversations exploring the links between community resilience, income security and the shift to a low-carbon economy.

The Corporate Mapping Project shines a bright light on the fossil fuel industry by investigating the ways corporate power is organized and exercised. It is a research and public engagement project investigating the power of the fossil fuel industry in Western Canada.

Decolonizing Climate Policy in Canada - Report from Phase One outlines a path forward for developing policy solutions that center Indigenous voices, curb humans’ extractive relationship with the environment, and uphold Indigenous rights and sovereignty.

These recommendations provide leaders and decision-makers with tangible strategies to ensure women and gender-diverse people can participate and lead in Alberta’s energy transition.

Feminist Approaches to Climate Justice is a toolkit for building inclusive climate advocacy. This guide is designed to help climate activists, environmental not-for-profits and other civil society organizations in Canada adopt an intersectional, feminist approach to climate justice. It provides an overview of why hearing and responding to the diverse experiences of women and girls is essential to climate justice, and provides tools to support the intersectional analysis of policies and initiatives so as advance climate justice for all.

This blog post explores Just Transition in Alberta.

A global transition towards a low-carbon and sustainable economy presents several opportunities for achieving gender equality in the world of work that is critical for realizing the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. This publication highlights how a just transition with inclusive climate action can play a strong role in transforming gender norms and furthering gender equality, while ensuring women have the opportunity to participate as actors in combating climate change, building a green economy and generating green jobs.

These Guidelines are both a policy framework and a practical tool to help countries at all levels of development manage the transition to low-carbon economies and can also help them achieve their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

In this report, the Pembina Institute also documents key steps to take, and tools to utilize, to bring these principles to life. Key steps include setting ambitious, national and sectoral targets and budgets for each five-year milestone period from 2025 to 2050, separating emissions reduction from carbon removal targets, articulating plans to act on all available direct emissions reduction opportunities for each sector for each milestone period, and implementing policies that incentivize research and mobilize capital to make direct emissions reductions possible for future five-year targets.

“Implementing a Just Transition” was a special conference focused on the challenges and opportunities involved in implementing a transition to a clean energy economy that is fair to the workers and communities impacted. Recordings of the 5 conference panels explore: “Creating a People-Centred Clean Energy Future”, “Leading Global Practices for Just Transition”, “Engaging Impacted Communities in Transition”, “Transforming Canada's Energy Economy”, and “Workers Leading a Just Transition”.

Transitions to low-carbon energy systems are essential to meeting global commitments to climate change mitigation. Yet “greening” energy systems may not make them any fairer, inclusive or just. Academic literature is explored to understand the state of knowledge on how diffusion of low-carbon technologies impacts gender and social equity in intersectional ways. Findings indicate that renewable energy projects alone cannot achieve gender and social equity, as energy interventions do not automatically tackle the structural dynamics embedded within socio-cultural and socio-economic contexts. If existing power asymmetries related to access and resource distribution are not addressed early on, the same structural inequalities will simply be replicated and transferred over into new energy regimes.

This report reviews literature to analyze the degree to which existing skillsets in Canada’s fossil fuel labour force can be transferred to a net-zero–aligned economy and identifies the potential skills gaps that may exist. This report also examines the skills that will be required in Canada’s energy end-use sectors, including buildings and transportation. Finally, this report examines existing equity issues within Canada’s energy sector, particularly as they relate to Indigenous rights and reconciliation, as well as gender equity, and how those inequities may be addressed on the path to net-zero.

Party to the Transition explores how political parties and companies are responding to the energy transition in more than just platform promises.

Power to the People is a television documentary series exploring how Indigenous people, values and wisdom are guiding the way to a sustainable, clean energy future. In each episode you’ll visit an Indigenous community, explore the inspired energy initiatives they are developing, and see how they’re empowering themselves and their way of life.

Renewable Energy Training Providers is a digital platform that provides information about renewable energy training providers throughout Canada.

The Roadmap to a Canadian Just Transition Act is a report that takes the federal government’s commitment as its starting point and further explores the potential for a Just Transition Act to achieve a managed transition to a lower-carbon economy that minimizes the potential harms and maximizes the potential benefits for workers and their communities.

This brief investigates the actual state of employment in Canada’s fossil fuel industry. It explains why the clean economy transition is manageable for workers in fossil fuel industries and should start now and it provides ten principles that we should be following to make this transition fair and effective.

Supporting Workers and Communities in a Coal Phase-out report provides a history of Canada’s coal phase-out endeavours in the context of jobs and economic development and an overview of current and proposed worker- and community-focused policies at the provincial and federal levels. It summarizes key considerations for a successful just transition, which will entail access to sustainable jobs, community economic development, and strategic financial investments. The report concludes with recommendations for effective energy transition policymaking that can support the workers and communities that will be impacted most directly by the changes ahead. These policy recommendations can be applied to coal phase-out as well as other sectors where the workforce faces significant economic shifts as Canada transitions away from fossil fuels to reach its decarbonization targets.

The Possibility Panel is the result of gathering a group of leaders from various communities across Alberta, which set out to engage with Albertans to explore questions and themes critical to our future success as a province. After nine public engagement sessions, a resulting report entitled “It’s Possible Alberta” was compiled that explores attracting and retaining talent; truth, reconciliation, and Indigenous opportunity; energy and climate; economic diversification; the provincial budget; building an inclusive social fabric; and health and wellness.

The Women in Alberta's Energy Transition report identifies five key barriers to women’s participation and leadership in Alberta’s emerging and traditional energy sectors: lack of access to opportunity; lack of good jobs; an inability to advance; an income gap; and the broader industry culture.