Canada Isn’t Cleaning Up on Green Technology Exports

(Globe and Mail Online – Danielle Goldfarb, Conference Board of Canada)

The country’s weak climate-friendly trade performance stands in contrast with exploding global opportunities

Around the world, trade and investment in technologies that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions – such as solar power, energy efficient appliances and hybrid cars – is growing rapidly. Unfortunately, Canadian businesses are largely failing to take advantage of these global opportunities.

Canada’s exports of “climate-friendly technologies” did not grow at all between 2002 and 2008, according to new Conference Board of Canada research. Worse, when we account for inflation, this country’s climate-friendly exports fell by 2% annually on average. In short, Canadian businesses have failed to seize new – or even maintain existing – opportunities to sell such technologies globally. Our businesses and individuals have also been relatively slow to import and adopt world-leading technologies from others.

Our weak climate-friendly trade performance stands in contrast with exploding global opportunities. While Canadian exports stagnated between 2002 and 2008, and imports grew only slowly, world trade in climate-friendly technologies grew by a massive 10% on average each year. Read more here.