Green Giving: Climate Philanthropy

Ed chats with four movers & shakers in Canadian climate philanthropy.

On Nov. 13, 2024, nine prominent Canadian family foundations, including EvC's David Keith’s, announced a combined pledge of $405 million, all dedicated to accelerating Canada’s shift to a low-carbon economy. They touch on: 

• Why this financial commitment occurred and why now 
• The challenges facing climate advocacy today and in the near future
• What needs to succeed in the next 3-5 years 
• How philanthropy should respond when governments start to roll back key pieces of climate and environmental legislation - just like what we’re seeing already happening in the US post-inauguration.

About Our Guests:

(01:23) Claire Seaborn is an expert advisor to the Clean Economy Fund, former Chief of Staff to Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, and now a lawyer practicing at Torys LLP.

(08:39) Devika Shah is the Executive Director of Environment Funders Canada, an umbrella organization for environmental foundations.

(15:17) Bruce Lourie is President of the Ivey Foundation, one of the largest climate funders in the country.

(20:55) Eric St-Pierre is the Executive Director of the Trottier Family Foundation, also one of Canada’s largest climate funders.

Detailed show notes on episode page...

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Transcript

Ed Whittingham: Hi, I'm Ed Whittingham, and you're listening to Energy vs. Climate, the show where my co host David Keith, Sara Hastings-Simon, and I debate today's climate and energy challenges. In today's special episode, we'll dive into a historic moment in Canada's response to the climate change challenge. On November 13, 2024, nine prominent Canadian family foundations announced a combined pledge of 405 million.

All of it for accelerating Canada's shift to a low carbon economy. By Canadian standards, it's unprecedented and a pretty big deal. I was lucky enough to be part of the announcement in Toronto that night, and I brought my trusty digital audio recorder along with me. What you'll hear on today's episode are four interviews with movers and shakers in Canadian climate philanthropy.

My first conversation was with Claire Seaborn. Claire is an expert advisor to the Clean Economy Fund, a former Chief of Staff to Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, and now a lawyer practicing at Tories LLP. We covered a few things, including the importance of acting on climate change now, the strategic reasons for avoiding the term climate, and we even talked about the quantum of money that's being donated and announced during that evening.

So a bunch of Canadian family foundations have just stepped up, nine in total, and they've committed a bunch of new money to spend on climate. So, what's the rationale for it? Why is that important right now? 

Claire Seaborn: What we heard from those family foundations today is that the rationale is primarily their kids.

Climate is an extremely pressing issue, arguably the most pressing issue of our time. And for so many of these family foundations, they are seeking the input of the young people in their families. And those young people are saying, we got to solve the climate crisis. And to solve that, uh, crisis is an all hands on deck situation.

That means fabricants, industry, and of course, charitable organizations too. 

Ed Whittingham: So there are many headwinds right now facing climate policy, advocacy, and the climate movement generally. So what do you see? Uh, from your vantage point as an expert advisor to the Clean Economy Fund, what are the big challenges that climate philanthropy faces right now in trying to counter those headwinds?

Claire Seaborn: To me, one of the big challenges in climate advocacy is calling it climate advocacy. I think we are entering an era when the best way to get things done on climate, whether that's reducing greenhouse gas emissions or making our world more resilient to climate, is by not always talking about climate. If you want to convince people to Get a heat pump instead of, uh, oil heating for their homes.

Talk about reducing energy bills. If you want to get a company to, uh, invest in an offshore wind project, talk about competitiveness and returns. Not every climate related initiative needs to have climate front and centre. Uh, think about the Inflation Reduction Act, doesn't even have the word climate in it.

And I think that the climate environmental community has a challenge ahead of them. Cells to become, I would say, a little more incognito and to get a bit smarter, uh, about the initiatives that they're taking on no less impact. In fact, try to have even more impact, but it doesn't mean that the communications or even the pitch needs to be centered on climate.

Um, so I think that's one of the really big challenges facing climate advocates at this moment because they care so much. But unfortunately, Climate's not at the very top of the agenda in most polling for most people. 

Ed Whittingham: Can you double click a bit on incognito for works that, groups that work on climate or governments thinking of your past?

Does that mean kind of scrubbing the word climate from our lexicon? 

Claire Seaborn: I don't think it means scrubbing. I think it means not necessarily leading with it. And thinking about the co benefits of climate policy and what is going to resonate best with people, with industry, with, uh, foreign governments. Like, for example, uh, the president recently elected to our south, um, there may be different co benefits to these policies that don't always lead with climate, and I really think that's okay.

We still need to be measuring those climate outcomes, no question, uh, but like I said, that the communications and the pitch might not always be climate focused, and I, I think that's, that's a really interesting challenge right now that we're facing. 

Ed Whittingham: So climate didn't really factor into the U. S. election, but in many ways you can look at it as a repudiation of what progressive governments have stood for, including your former government, the Democrats, on climate policy.

So that's its own headwind. Thinking of that, like what needs to absolutely succeed in the next few years here in Canada given this big honking, flashing neon sign that is the U. S. election? 

Claire Seaborn: Getting projects built. I think it's as simple as that. We all know that to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we need sources of non emitting.

electricity, uh, and energy. And we're in a lot of it, uh, in Canada and all around the world. And these projects can take a long time to get approved. And I think we've got to focus on getting projects built. And that means investments, uh, it means regulatory processes, and it means, uh, again, not necessarily always talking about.

Climate, we can be talking about building solar farm or a nuclear facility in order to, um, make sure we've got energy security, uh, and affordable energy bills. I think one, one thing we may see out of the U. S. government is finally, um, some permitting reform in the United States, which is something You know, Joe Manchin's been trying, the Democrats have been trying to do in the United States for quite a long time and unfortunately they just haven't had the alignment of, um, Congress and the Senate, uh, to be able to make those reforms.

If there is progress in the United States in speeding up reforms for all kinds of projects. Uh, every, every kind of project under the sun, that's going to also put pressure on other jurisdictions, pressure that may actually be really helpful for climate action. 

Ed Whittingham: So last question, because I have to ask, you've worked on both sides of regulatory processes, both as a regulator and chief of staff to the minister who was in charge of the, uh, the Canadian electricity regulator.

And now in your current work, you're dealing with regulatory processes. So, just think, can you give us a tangible example of one change that if you were Energy Czar in Canada that you think would benefit the, you know, clean energy and clean growth movement? 

Claire Seaborn: The reason that project permitting is so challenging in Canada is because of our constitution.

We have the most decentralized federation in the world when it comes to approving, uh, projects. And it is extremely challenging to harmonize federal and provincial systems, especially when there's politics at play. Uh, I've seen that from the perspective of government, and I've seen that from the perspective of, of someone in industry.

The number one thing, though, I would do if I was in, in the government continuing to work on this issue, uh, is actually something that has happened under the Biden administration, which is, uh, a permitting action council. It's something the federal government in Canada has just started doing, and it basically just improves communication between federal government departments.

It sounds simple, uh, and it seems like a no brainer, but a lot of people outside government think when they're talking to the Government of Canada or a regulator that they are coordinating with all of the other 10 plus different federal departments that are regulators, and they're not. Um, and we need better coordination within the federal government.

Uh, in order to improve these processes for industry, for provinces, for indigenous people, um, and for anyone else. So, that's what I'd say. Harmonization, um, and coordination within the federal government.

Ed Whittingham: Next, I spoke to Devika Shah. Devika is an old colleague from her time together at the Pembina Institute. She is now The executive director of Environment Funders Canada, which is an umbrella organization for environmental foundations in the country. We talked a bit about the rationale for these donations and then double clicked on equity issues and politics.

Devika Shah: So climate change, in my mind, is the greatest equity issue of all. There's no greater contributor to inequity than climate change. And yet, when you look at total philanthropic dollars, assigned to not only the greatest equity issue, but the biggest existential crisis our species has ever faced. Uh, the numbers that we released actually very recently show that from 2000 to 2021, that number hasn't budged from 2%.

We were sure it would have budged. It has changed in other countries. It's gone up in the States. It's gone up in the UK. It's gone up in Australia. Our number hasn't budged. So the fact that these foundations are stepping up with increased levels of ambition, I mean, the need is so greatly there and the gap between what's available for this incredible challenge and what uh, has been committed so far is so great that they're stepping in to fill a massive, massive gap and there's way more that's needed to actually completely fill the gap.

Ed Whittingham: Why has that number not budged when, sounds like people like yourself and others expected it to budge. 

Devika Shah: I think the number has not budged because, uh, people can't wrap their heads around what the solutions look like. And, you know, unlike other philanthropic causes where you can put names on buildings, and you can see tangible results, like a hospital wing now exists, or a university chair now exists, with climate it's really hard to see the impact of what you've actually done.

And the reality is, people feel like it's a drop in the ocean. And it is a drop in the ocean, but we need many, many drops. And quite frankly, it's not actually different than philanthropic contributions to other sectors that are also drops. It's just that they're tangible. So I think, you know, the biggest challenge is that.

But I also think that the solutions on climate are not easy solutions. They're solutions that involve, uh, changing the economic underpinnings of society. They're solutions that involve changes in how wealth is distributed. They involve changes, actual practical changes in the way we live our lives and the way our energy systems are created.

We have such a small bucket to begin with that we don't have the additional capital in our philanthropic sector to take on more complex challenges as they do south of the border where there's There's so much philanthropy that they can try to cover all the bases. 

Ed Whittingham: So maybe we need like one of those skywriting planes to write the names of, you know, new donors in the sky saying the climate thanks you.

So, 405 million dollars of new money for climate, how do you think at least some of that money should be spent? 

Devika Shah: You know, somebody made a point earlier today that, yes, we do need more money, but what's most important is that that money is spent as strategically as possible. We spent a long time listening to all the solutions and all the possibilities.

We've known those solutions for a really, really, really long time. And yet, we haven't really been able to, to move the needle far enough, fast enough. And so I think what we need to do Is actually take a step back and ask ourselves what have been the barriers to progress and direct our funding to the barriers as opposed to only directing our funding to the solutions.

I think historically in the climate world, we have gone straight for what the solutions are with the theory of change that if we just highlight the solutions and we explain to everyone how smart those solutions are and what all the benefits are, they will just happen, but we have ignored for decades now what the barriers are to implementing those solutions.

And that really has very much to do with, with issues that we don't really understand very well with, with human psychology, with polarization, with quite frankly, intersecting issues such as economic inequity and how that influences political systems. political dynamics, those are the areas where if we don't do that in parallel, we don't address those barriers in parallel to just championing solutions, we won't really move the needle no matter how much money we have.

Ed Whittingham: Now, do you think the U. S. election is a great big flashing neon sign toward, like, a subset of those barriers? 

Devika Shah: 100%. And, you know, I've, I've heard in many spaces, including in the room today, that, uh, activism is something that we shouldn't fund because In fact, it's polarizing and it actually pushes us back.

And I think that, you know, we have to be really careful with things like that because I think the flavor of activism has been incorrect and it has been isolating. But if activism wasn't important, then Kamala Harris would have won the election instead of Donald Trump. Right? Because she took the very Straight and narrow, middle of the road, even, you know, right leaning approach.

And if that theory of change was correct, then she would have won, not him. So there's something that we're clearly, clearly missing, and I don't think we should be dismissing activism. I think we need to call for a much more sophisticated and diverse activism than the traditional activism of the environmental movement.

Ed Whittingham: So our current federal government has been much more closely aligned with the Democrats in the U. S. Our likely future federal government will be much more closely aligned with Republican presidents and House and Senate. That just got elected in the U. S. In Canada, here, thinking ahead to a conservative government that may have great antipathy toward the climate, then what is the role of new climate philanthropy around that particular challenge?

Devika Shah: You know, as we've seen in Ontario with the Ford government, whichever government is in power, they may have different preferences, but they can only go so far to the left or so far to the right, as the people will allow them to go. Canadian public opinion and the will of the electorate will keep politicians in a certain box and they will, they are inherently limited by what they can and cannot do.

So you know, in the case of Ontario, you might want to carve up the green belt, but there are some key constituencies that won't let you. When you do something like that, it, it, it creates the conditions that it doesn't matter which government is in power because there's enough. of there are enough key constituencies holding them within a certain boundary.

So I think that that way of working is going to be just as important if the government changes, but I think even with the government, if the government weren't to change, it would still matter.

Ed Whittingham: My third conversation was with Bruce Lorry, who is the president of the Ivy Foundation. The Ivy Foundation is one of the largest climate funders in the country. In fact, it accounts for a hundred million dollars. of that 405 million that was announced that evening. So we talked about why 100 million is needed today, and also about the lack of resources that NGOs and climate foundations are generally facing.

We talked about infrastructure that helps energy transition, and then we also segued into dealing with right of center governments, as is happening in the U. S., and what is certain to happen in Canada in 2025. 

Bruce Lourie: I think where philanthropy really plays a role is We can fund things that governments won't fund.

We can fund things the private sector won't fund. And basically act as the glue or the catalyst to attract even more money. The money, like the private money, the capital that we actually need for what is really a retooling of the global economy. I'm a big fan of trying to get the people who are responsible for the energy transition activated to make it happen.

So, that could be anything from helping HVAC installers get properly trained to install heat pumps, right? We know we need to replace all fossil fuel with almost, you know, one for one with electricity. And so that means we need to install heat pumps. We also need to build out electricity infrastructure.

So how do we get more stuff built quickly? You know, it's, uh, people are talking about it as a climate crisis, which certainly it is, but really it's a massive investment opportunity, and we need to think about it in that way. And so anything that we can do as a foundation to accelerate the activities on the ground that are both, you know, building infrastructure, getting things installed, and solving climate change, uh, that's where the focus needs to be.

Ed Whittingham: In the U. S. election, frankly, climate wasn't much of a factor, so the result wasn't a repudiation of climate, but in some ways it was a repudiation of elites. What lesson here in Canada should climate philanthropy draw from the U. S. election result and looking ahead to a almost certain change of 

Bruce Lourie: government in Canada?

So, I'm quite convinced, if we're dealing with a conservative government, that they will be More than happy to talk about how to get workers trained to do more work. How to attract investment to this country. How to make sure that we're still exporting products into the global marketplace. The challenge that I think the, you know, climate movement has is trying to make everything about a movement.

And make it all about activists and have protests. And, you know, it's great. Those things are very important. I'm not dismissing it and we've done our fair share of funding those things. But even if you talk today to our current environment minister, Stephen Gilboe, who I'm a huge fan of, he will tell you that he doesn't really need more activists in the street convincing him that climate change is a problem.

He needs people that can help design industrial carbon pricing systems, and understand trade, and understand how to get more people, you know, working. So, we basically need to think about this issue not in terms of what does it mean as a climate crisis, But what does it mean as a, you know, an opportunity to get people working and, and make your house, um, you know, safer, healthier, cleaner, getting rid of natural gas in your house is going to be a great thing for everybody.

Ed Whittingham: In the last 10 years, it's astounding the capital that we've seen move toward the clean economy. And now the, the world is spending close to a couple trillion dollars on the clean economy. If you had told perhaps us that 10 years ago, we would be doing back clips for joy. But now we're seeing, and perhaps the U.

S. election result is one indicator, a resistance, a growing resistance to the increasing cost of decarbonization. What do we need to do to break through in a cost of living, in an era where people are really resistant to cost of living increases, to that increasing cost of decarbonization? We 

Bruce Lourie: need to be honest, first and foremost, about what it means in terms of costs.

And this is the challenge with a lot of environmental things. There will be larger upfront costs. For many of the things that we need to do, but over the long term, I think society will be better off and I think it'll be more cost effective. And that's the role really, I think, of governments and clever financing programs to try to reduce that upfront cost burden for people and, and number one, and this is, this often I think gets missed in things.

So if you look at, you know, governments that have got experience, a lot of experience in the electricity sector, and people complain about electricity bills going up. And so you'll get a government, it seems it doesn't matter what the political stripe is of the government, their solution is, oh, well we'll give everyone 10 percent off, or oh, we'll write everyone a check for 500.

Like, that's a ridiculous way to go about this. The way you really look at it is, there are people in, you know, parts of Canada that are vulnerable to increases in cost, and you need to look after those people. So my example in Ontario, where I think it was a liberal government that gave everyone 250 bucks for their electricity bills, if they had basically looked at who are the, instead of the 10 million people that got 200 bucks, who are the 2, 000 people that really required a significant, uh, support for their higher electricity rates, we'd be way better off.

So we, we need to do a better job of understanding who the most vulnerable populations are, and we have to look after them in this transition. And that's, I think that's critical.

Ed Whittingham: Lastly, I spoke with Eric St. Pierre, Executive Director of the Trottier Family Foundation. If you thought that the Ivy Foundation's donation was big, Well, Trottier Family Foundation's donation is even bigger at 150 million of that 405 million announced that evening. We dove into why has philanthropy towards climate been limited to 1 percent of total giving and the fact that we need more.

We also talked about collaborating with governments of all political stripes and industries. And then lastly with Eric, we talked about the metaphor of running. He's an avid runner and that's a way of learning about the country. And what that means for his climate advocacy work. 

Éric St-Pierre: This is a massive commitment.

So if you look at climate philanthropy currently, about 1 percent of all philanthropic dollars goes towards a climate crisis. So what we're doing today is we're increasing that substantially. And we're trying to send a message that we can go even further. So I think this is a really important message to the Canadian climate community that foundations, wealthy families, high net worth individuals are ready to step up.

And we're hoping that other families will consider joining as well. So, 

Ed Whittingham: obviously many people want to budge or nudge that number up to 1%. Why has it been only 

Éric St-Pierre: 1%? Different foundations have their different priorities. Climate, I think it's acknowledged as being a really important issue. But we haven't seen those dollars necessarily flow.

So we're actually committing new philanthropic funding. The Trotsky Foundation's committing 150 years. We've got foundations like the Gilgin Foundation committing 100 million over 10 years. We've got new philanthropic funders like the Rodeberg Foundation from BC committing 18 million over eight years.

We're just getting started, but we need to increase this. We need to increase the ambition. 

Ed Whittingham: Climate is kind of facing Headwinds right now. So maybe you can comment just a bit on on the timing of this and then the challenges that we face and actually how all those foundations going to spend that 

Éric St-Pierre: money politically, the times are changing.

But let's remain optimistic. You know, if you look at E. V. Car sales in China recently was 50 percent of new cars in China are electric vehicles, If you look at the cost of solar and wind over the last decade, it's just completely plummeted. We're seeing massive movements across the world. We're seeing a lot of leadership in Europe.

We see political cycles come and go, but we can't lose sight of the fact that, you know, we need to remain under 1. 5 Celsius scenario. or the next five or so years, and we definitely need to stay below two Celsius over the long term. So we still have an opportunity to act, 

Ed Whittingham: you know, thinking of trying to keep the planet below that 1.

5 C temperature threshold at a time when it's pretty, it's almost clear that we've exceeded it. The World Meteorological Association said last year we were 1. 45 C above pre industrial. We're probably going to go above and that then just makes carbon removal technologies more important because that's actually a way of helping to cool the planet, but those technology is still very nascent.

You run one of the few foundations in Canada that is funding carbon removal. Many foundations aren't. They see it more as sort of a distraction. Now obviously your foundation has a balanced portfolio, but maybe just talk a little bit about the rationale as to why Trottier has stepped up and, and is dedicating a portion of its funding to carbon 

Éric St-Pierre: removal.

There's still time, right? There's still a solid, uh, six or more years till 2030. So there's still time to drastically reduce emissions. So we're first committed to that. Let's reduce emissions in, uh, the transportation sector. Let's electrify the economy. Let's electrify grids. Let's Let's, uh, decarbonize our buildings, let's accelerate heat pumps, uh, let's get some electric school buses out there.

So there's, there's still a lot of opportunities to really, really, really drive down emissions, but we know the IPCC report is clear that at some point we also need to remove emissions. Uh, nature based solutions are a very good solution, but maybe not, uh, enough to really get us there. So we need to look at other negative carbon removal options, uh, so part of our portfolio has It's been focused on carbon removal, so we've, we've helped, uh, co fund or co establish the Carbon Removal Canada, uh, which is trying to work with policymakers, trying to work on, uh, carbon removal targets, uh, but it's one piece of the puzzle, and the puzzle is 

Ed Whittingham: very complicated.

So your foundation, you're innovative and you like to have fun, so I think of, you, Commissioned a whole bunch of caps that have on the, above the brim, emissions. So, emissions cap. And this is, you know, a very visual way of just sort of talking about the emissions cap on oil and gas. Uh, that the federal government, they just, uh, uh, released the framework for it.

So I love that. I wear mine all the time and people look at it, either they know right away or they don't. It, it's also drawn some attention to you in foundation. You popped up in a government of Alberta viral video where the Minister of Environment there was talking about your cap, you know, and, and as part of the opposition of the oil and gas industry, does that concern you?

And I say that because we've got a government waiting in the Conservative party of Canada. And they could take a page out of the Trump book that we expect to play out, which is we're going to roll back environmental legislation, but we're also going to go after our toughest critics. So you're a tall poppy now.

What 

Éric St-Pierre: do you think of that? So as a philanthropic funder, we believe in collaboration and we've been nonpartisan in our approach. We've been working, uh, at the municipal level, for example, uh, across the aisle. Uh, we've been working in Quebec, for example, uh, with, with diverse parties. We don't take a political, partisan perspective.

You've outlined the emissions cap. You know, we thought it was, it was an interesting statement to, you know, have a little bit of humor with the, with the baseball cap. But essentially, you know, we have to look at the emissions sector in Canada. We know that 30 or 31 percent of emissions are coming from the oil and gas sector.

So we, we have to be, we have to have an adult conversation of what does this mean in Canada? You know, we're not talking about production. But we're talking about how do we reduce the emissions. Uh, the Pathways Alliance, a lot of industry has been very supportive of reducing emissions in the oil and gas sector.

So what we're actually saying is, let's work together. You're a long distance 

Ed Whittingham: runner. And in fact, I aided and abetted, I aided and abetted you in joining a young fellow who was running across the country to raise awareness for cancer. I drove you out to a desolate portion of the TransCanada so you could join him.

You're in costume. As a lumberjack, that probably requires more explanation than we can get into in this podcast. But you talked about country and continue kind of talking about sports. What have you learned about this country from running across 

Éric St-Pierre: sections of it now? I do appreciate the support and thanks for personally supporting me on some of these, uh, rather ambitious runs.

Um, look, I, I, I, I, I see ultra marathon running a bit like the equivalent of how we address climate change. You know, we've got this problem that's not going to be solved with a short little sprint. You know, a kilometer from now, we're not going to get this done. It's going to require a hundred kilometer race.

So we require some stamina. We got to stay strong, mentally fit. We've got to think about like that mental fortitude of just being able to continue and continue until we solve this problem. So, you know, for me, like, running across Canada or running with, with other folks, uh, that are ambitious and running across the country, it kind of grounds me, uh, it kind of grounds me to meet other Canadians.

Listen to their concerns. You know, running and the opportunity you afforded me and, and supporting me in that run in Alberta, uh, just really grounded me. And, uh, meeting other great Canadians is, uh, is a great opportunity. And that's 

Ed Whittingham: it for our special episode on Climate Philanthropy in Canada. Thanks for listening.

Energy vs. Climate is created by David Keith, Sara Hastings-Simon, and me, Ed Whittingham, and produced by Amit Tandon. With help from Crystal Hickey, Vinuki Arachchi, and Haris Ahmed. Our title in show music is The Windup by Brian Lips. This season of Energy vs. Climate is produced with support from the University of Calgary's Office of the Vice President, Research, and the University's Global Research Initiative.

Further support comes from the Troche Family Foundation, the North Family Foundation, the Palmer Family Foundation, and our generous listeners. Sign up for updates and exclusive webinar access at energyvsclimate. com. Review and rate us on your favorite podcast platform. This helps new listeners to find the show.

We'll be back with another special show of energy versus climate in February, 2025. See you then.