outline the policy decision you propose to examine, its significance from an energy and environmental policy viewpoint, and the framework you intend to employ to evaluate the decision.
Envs 3130 (Energy and the environment in Canada)
A Term Paper of 15-20 pages, double spaced typed pages is required. Your paper should reflect substantial research, examining whether a specific recent energy policy decision made by a Canadian government contributes to environmental sustainability. The specific decision to be examined in the paper will be identified by the student and described in a 2-3 page proposal to your tutorial leader, and approved by your tutorial leader(proposal already done by me). Proposals must be submitted no later than October 26, 2018 Students are encouraged to submit their proposals prior to this date, for early approval.
Your paper proposal should outline the policy decision you propose to examine, its significance from an energy and environmental policy viewpoint, and the framework you intend to employ to evaluate the decision. Your proposal must include a preliminary table of contents for your paper, outlining the major headings that your paper will be structured around, and a preliminary bibliography.
The deadline for submission of the Term Paper is the last class of the course (November 28, 2018). The Paper must be submitted in hardcopy. No electronic submissions are permitted.
The Term Paper is NOT to be a description of an energy technology or a summary of the status of a particular issue. Rather, it should critically analyse a recent Canadian energy policy decision (e.g. federal approval of pipelines, carbon pricing, Ontario nuclear refurbishments) in terms of its contribution to energy sustainability. Your paper should summarize the decision you are examining and provide a background description of the major environmental, political and economic issues involved. The paper should then apply a framework for defining sustainable energy drawing from those discussed in the course (e.g. those provided by Mark Jaccard and/or Robert Gibson in the course readings) to the decision you are examining. You paper must assess the decision against the sustainability criteria you develop and provide a conclusion regarding whether the decision will advance energy sustainability.
You can also consider what other choices the government involved could have made and whether those choices would have been more effective in advancing an environmentally and economically sustainable energy path for Canada. You may make recommendations regarding alternative paths that could have been taken by the government involved based on your analysis.
The energy policy decision that will be the point of focus is the Federal carbon pricing scheme/system of Canada and it’s contribution to energy sustainability.
Mark Jaccard course reading: M.Jaccard, “What is Energy Sustainability” in M.Jaccard, Sustainable Fossil Fuels (New York: Cambridge UP, 2005), pp.1-30.
