On Agency

I’ve been thinking a lot about agency lately. Some of this thinking may have been prompted by the escalation in the trade dispute between Canada and the US over the last week, but beyond that, I’m constantly thinking about the stall-out of moving forwards on building decarbonization projects (and especially clean fuel projects) due to “uncertainty”. A sad state, maybe, but I don’t think uncertainty is going to dissipate anytime soon. We need to continue to move forwards.
 
Much of the work I do is between lines - bringing people together from disparate parts of an ecosystem and enabling a good understanding of relevant technical and policy outlooks to accelerate the development of decarbonization projects.
 
Naturally, this work often crosses borders - and in Canada, that means working across our vast geography and interprovincial borders with what is today a relatively fragmented policy approach to decarbonization. Hopefully this is to be integrated through efforts over the next year shepherded by a Federal Provincial Territorial working group, announced in late July.
 
The borders I work across are beyond Canada as well. I’m continuing to keep tabs on relevant decarb policy and investment developments especially in the Asia Pacific region, and plan to spend some time in both Jakarta and Singapore early next year. Creating stronger links with our growing trade partners in the region is what I’m looking to do, through both policy and investment lenses.
 
And importantly, the US is still a partner in the conversations I’m having. Despite the acrimony of the last week, I’m looking forward to meetings in both New York City and Seattle over the next few months. The former, focused on policy efforts, and the latter, focused on investment in clean fuels in the Pacific.
 
In the vein of acting with agency, I’ve been working through the Vancouver Maritime Centre for Climate on answering the question of “how should BC participate in the maritime clean fuels ecosystem?” I’m grateful that colleagues in Seattle and further along the US West Coast want to align efforts, and the next event planned to help figure this out is in collaboration with UBC on Wednesday, September 16 (link here).
 
I don’t expect decision-making to be easy over the next while. But we still need to do it.