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The Current Transcript for June 11, 2018

Host: Connie Walker

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: He gets up in an airplane and leaves and then Trudeau starts blasting then in a domestic news conference. I'm sorry, that is a betrayal. That is a double cross.

CONNIE WALKER: The war of words between Canada and our neighbors to the south is hotter than it's ever been. That's one of Donald Trump's top advisers, Larry Kudlow, defending the American president's biting remarks against Justin Trudeau yesterday. After the end of the G7 summit, Trump took to Twitter to lash out at the Prime Minister for refusing to back down on retaliatory measures to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, calling him "dishonest and weak." How serious is this shift in tone between allies. That's where we begin today. Then, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, it's a problem that unfortunately knows no borders. And today we're hearing from Indigenous Americans who are giving it the attention it deserves in the United States.

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VOICE: We're starting to see and hear more people use their voices and share their stories saying, my cousin was killed or my neighbor or my friend.

CW: Plus, the promise of carbon capture technology.

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VOICE: It'll be great if we can have some way to just dump the stuff back into the ground. If you could do that, yea, burn away! If you can bury it, but we're not there yet.

CW: Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson may believe we still have a ways to go in perfecting the technology, but in an hour I'll speak with the co-founder of a British Columbia company, who says they are there. I'm Connie Walker, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

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Rift between Trump and Trudeau could be first step towards a recession, warns former foreign affairs

Guests: Peter MacKay, Christopher Sands

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VOICE: Yeah, a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door. And that's what bad faith, Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference. That's what weak, dishonest Justin Trudeau did. And that comes right from Air Force One and I'll tell you this, to my friends in Canada, that was one of the worst political miscalculations of a Canadian leader in modern Canadian history.

CW: Those comments from U.S. President Donald Trump's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, during an interview with Fox News Sunday, sent shock waves through political circles. Many observers agreed that kind of language from one ally to another is unprecedented. All could have drastic consequences for the escalating trade war between the two countries as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement. Navarro's comments come one day after President Trump got on a plane to take him from Quebec, where the G-7 summit was wrapping up, to Singapore for his meeting with North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. While on route, President Trump took to Twitter to say the U.S. would not endorse a G7 communique because of "false statements" Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made during his closing news conference. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland was asked for her response to the barbs yesterday and here's some of what she said.

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VOICE 1: Canada does not believe that ad hominem attacks are a particularly appropriate or useful way to conduct our relations with other countries. Having said all of that, let me be extremely clear to Canadians and let me say, as the prime minister and I said on the day that the U.S. announced it's illegal and unjustified imposition of tariffs against our steel and aluminium industries, the government of Canada is absolutely committed to standing strong to defending our workers and our industry and our retaliatory tariffs will come into effect perfectly reciprocal, perfectly measured, a dollar for dollar response on July 1st.

VOICE 2: Peter Navarro said today that "there is a special place in hell for the prime minister. This is an escalation of sort of normal discourse even for this administration. Where does that leave you?

VOICE 1: Canada does not conduct its diplomacy through ad hominem attacks and perhaps we refrain particularly from ad hominem attacks when it comes to our relationship with our allies.

CW: That's Foreign Affairs Minister, Chrystia Freeland. To discuss this, I'm joined by Peter MacKay. He was a member of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet, serving as his Minister of Foreign Affairs, between 2006 and 2007. He's currently a partner at the law firm, Baker McKenzie and Peter MacKay is in Toronto today. Hello.

PETER MACKAY: Good morning Connie.

CW: Good morning. Judging by those exchanges, how bad would you say the relationship is between the United States and Canada right now?

PM: Well, I don't view it as a bad relationship between the United States and Canada, I view it as government to government at a very troubling level to be sure, how mercurial and inconsistent the president can be. And the United States surely needs allies more than enemies right now. That is obvious. This certainly hits new lows, but look we have seen deteriorations in the relationship before. I remind you of Nixon and Trudeau Sr. Kennedy did not like Mr. Diefenbaker. There have been lulls in the relationship, let's say. And we'll get past it, as we will get past this particular bridge that seems to have been breached, but you know we have to look at this with clear eyes. I think the prime minister, the foreign minister are staying calm and carrying on and getting back to facts and getting back to the important discussion around trade and tariffs and how we move forward in a productive way for both countries and for Mexico, with respect to NAFTA.

CW: I definitely want to hear about how you think they're handling this, but first I want to know how do you explain this explosiveness that we're seeing from President Trump?

PM: Well I don't think there is any explaining it. I think this is a product of his combative personality. He prides himself on driving a hard bargain. But look to be clear, targeting your closest allies, your biggest trading partner, your most like-minded, shared-valued country, defies reason. This is not something that you can analyze and come up with any clear answer. There seems to be almost a schizophrenic nature when it comes to what he says one minute and what he says the next. He left the conference in Quebec, as you know, not on an entirely positive tone, but there were certain signals that came from him, most notably that he was going to sign the communique. That the bilateral discussion that he had with our Prime Minister seemed to go not badly and yet upon getting on Air Force One and getting in the air to Singapore, he seemed to react almost with a volcanic furor at what the prime minister had said in the closing press conference, which to be fair was nothing he hadn't said before, with perhaps a few phrases such as Canada won't be pushed around. But his aides as you showed at the start of the show, piled on and added even more rhetoric to the discussion. Now thankfully, one thing I would point out is that Robert Lighthizer, who's been doing most of the negotiations around NAFTA and his his commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, did not add any further fuel to the fire, if you will. And those are two important individuals when it comes to the issues that are most pressing for Canada-US.

CW: And I think that we've reported that he actually had a conversation with Minister Freeland yesterday as well. I'm curious about you know, just given the way that Trump and his allies have been talking since the summit, how worried are you about the future of the Canada-U.S. relationship?

PM: Well I think we have to be worried, we certainly have to be concerned and continue down the path that we have before of reaching not around, but at least reaching out to other important colleagues in the United States. Whether they be Congressional colleagues, whether they be heads of certain industrial sectors, military to military, the important chambers of commerce, particularly along our border, these are all critical allies in our effort to normalize relations. And let's hope it doesn't go further. I am very concerned about the ominous threatening words of the president when it comes to autos. If this goes to and he has followed through on his threats before, so there's reason for concern. This would have a catastrophic impact, I think was the word that former Quebec premier Jean Charest used to describe it.

CW: So you're referring to his tweet about possible tariffs on "automobiles flooding the U.S. market" and how that would impact Canada's auto industry?

PM: That's correct. And the auto parts as well. This is an enormous part of the economy in Ontario, but it has a ripple effect right across the country. If he turns his sights to energy, again this is a massive, massive blow to the Canadian economy, were that to occur. And then and not to sound alarmist, I mean this is the type of thing over time that could lead to a recession and in the meantime the United States economy, against all odds, one would expect given the volatility of the president and the relationships that are in jeopardy around the world, their economy is humming along. Their unemployment at record lows, their regulatory red tape is in decline and they're becoming energy independent. He is overturning apple carts and draining swamps and this may come back to haunt him, but in the meantime the U.S. economy is doing quite well, which causes domestic support for the president and his policies to at least stabilize if not go up.

CW: So obviously it could have a chilling impact on business, but I'm wondering what you think about whether or not this could also affect the security ties between the two countries.

PM: Well thankfully we have an extremely strong security relationship with the United States that is military to military. Our intelligence services, our justice systems works very well. And speaking personally, knowing some of the individuals, even some of those who have been tapped for positions within this government, I'm talking now of his chief of staff Kelly, his defense secretary Mattis, formerly McMaster H.R. McMaster, these are extremely capable, smart and clear thinking individuals. They know how integral Canada is to the North American security relationship through NORAD. They also understand our historic contributions and they understand that it's in everyone's best interest that we continue to share intelligence. Now ironically as the president heads to North Korea, this was an extremely proud contribution that Canada made with regard to that conflict. Afghanistan, as the Prime Minister noted, in two previous world wars, but Canada has a very, very strong military to military relationship with the United States and I don't think that this will shake it to any degree, but over time and on orders of the president, the military will obviously react to their commander in chief.

CW: I want to talk about what's happening on this side of the border. There's been a lot of bipartisan support for Prime Minister Trudeau as this war of words has played out. Yesterday Green Party Leader, Elizabeth May tweeted, "All Canadian leaders need to support Trudeau. Trump's outburst tariffs amount to bullying. Trudeau is handling it as best as anyone could." And former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper also had this to say when he joined Fox News's Sunday Morning Futures yesterday.

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VOICE: I don't understand the obsession with trade relations with Canada. Not only is the deficit, trade deficit with Canada small, the United States runs a current account surplus with Canada. Canada is the biggest single purchaser of U.S. goods and services in the world. It's not China, it's not Mexico, it's not Britain, it's not Germany, it's Canada. So you know it just seems to me this is the wrong target and you know, from what I understand of American public opinion, I don't think even Trump supporters think the Canadian trade relationship is a problem.

CW: What do you think? How well would you say Prime Minister Trudeau and his government is handling this and what is the way forward here?

PM: Well I think, as the former prime minister pointed out, we need to get back to pointing out the obvious. Even the U.S. Commerce Department will acknowledge that the United States enjoys a 3 billion dollar surplus with our country. So that's both goods and services to the advantage of the United States. We need to also enlist, as I said earlier, the support of friends in the United States, including senators like John McCain, who unfortunately is suffering a severe health issue. But there are others in the Congress who are very clearly on Canada's side because they know that being on Canada's side, when it comes to NAFTA, is on their side. I mean for America to be great again, NAFTA has to be great again. So getting back to the negotiating table or staying at the negotiating table is critical to this. I'd say there are three issues Connie. There are the NAFTA negotiations that we're hopeful will continue, now are going to be prolonged, but heading off if we can the auto tariffs and getting back to the important discussions around how we remove the existing steel and aluminum tariffs and avoid others. Because this will have a ripple effect not only in the Canadian economy and I think this is the point that has to be registered time and time again, but any harm that comes to our economy is going to ultimately harm the United States economy as well. And cool off what is a very hot economy.

CW: All right, well thank you very much Peter. We'll have to leave it there.

PM: Very good thank you.

CW: Peter MacKay served as foreign affairs minister, under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He's currently a partner at the law firm, Baker McKenzie. He was in Toronto. My next guest has been watching closely as Trump-Trudeau tensions have mounted. Christopher Sands is Director of the Center for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University. And we've reached him in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside of Washington. Good morning.

CHRISTOPHER SANDS: Good morning.

CW: Christopher, what do you make of the comments coming from President Trump and his advisers over the weekend?

CS: You know it's really very unfortunate and as Peter MacKay said, you know there's a lot at stake in the relationship, what's interesting to me is the personalization. We've definitely had presidents and prime ministers who fought before, but in a way it was behind the scenes and certainly not something we had to watch as a public spectacle. Larry Kudlow, the president's economic adviser, said last week that he thought it was a bit of a family feud. But it's more like a reality TV, Kardashian family feud going on now with everything hanging out in the open. And for markets, but also for ordinary citizens, it's quite disturbing.

CW: Were you shocked to see this unfold, like at the close of the G7 summit or did you see this coming?

CS: No I didn't see it coming. It clearly was something that came out of the way in which the discussion unfolded in Charlevoix. I thought it was possible that Donald Trump would skip the summit. He skipped the Summit of the Americas earlier in the year, sending his vice president, Mike Pence. So I thought maybe that would happen because it looked like with the U.S. attacking all of the G7 countries with steel and aluminium tariffs just at the outset, the mood would not be very welcoming for Donald Trump and I thought he might dodge the conversation entirely. But he didn't. He went and from what we can tell, everyone conveyed their unhappiness with U.S. trade policy, looking for a rationale why the U.S. would treat allies as national security threats, as opposed to you know focusing on China, which I think most of the G7 agree that China does cheat a bit on intellectual property and other issues. So there's a great consensus behind some of Trump's trade policy, but I think people were baffled as to why this particular measure is being used with this particular group of countries and no one found an adequate explanation. We agreed to disagree apparently at the end of the summit. And then there was this sharp reaction as Trump looked carefully to see what was said at the final press conference.

CW: How are other U.S. lawmakers reacting to President Trump's position towards Canada?

CS: It depends. I think there's always this sort of caution because you never know whether this is just a bad mood, something that will pass or whether it becomes something more entrenched. There's also, I think something that we're testing right now, which is the limit to which an American president can beat up on Canada. The American public has some attention to foreign affairs. There are certain issues they pay more attention to, usually you know countries that are threatening. They're paying attention to Iran and North Korea. They're worried about Russia and China, but Canada for most Americans, is not really a foreign relationship, it's a familiar one. They've got friends and family on both sides, business partners et cetera. They interact with Canada on a daily basis far more than they do with any other country. And over the years politicians have tended in the United States to be very cautious with regard to Canada. Not that we don't disagree on things like softwood lumber, dairy, we do have trade disputes. But politicians have been very careful to make those very issue-specific criticisms, without criticizing Canada at large or attacking Canadian politicians in public. So will this strategy work? I've seen Donald Trump turn 180 degrees around before, he may decide that this doesn't poll well and he'll shift gears and focus everyone's attention on North Korea and China and so forth. But if he persists with this, I think many in Congress will have to part company with the president, not comfortable with this degree of bellicosity between the two countries.

CW: So of course all of this is happening in the context of Canada's efforts to save NAFTA. How much hope do you see for the Liberals being able to strike a deal with the Trump White House?

CS: Well and I think, if you don't mind my saying, I think this is what is lying behind this recent escalation, not only that Donald Trump is frustrated with where the NAFTA talks have gotten after little more than a year of conversation, I think the other side of it is, is in the Trudeau government itself. The prime minister did a remarkable job on the change in the U.S. administration, obviously Prime Minister Trudeau got on great with Barack Obama, but with the emergence of Donald Trump, he exercised great message discipline. His strategy was to be civil, try to develop a relationship and try to keep Canada-US relations on track, even when there were challenging things coming out of the Trump administration. He and his team, including most provincial premiers, were engaging with governors, etc. It was a very broad spectrum engagement with the United States. But after all that time, where's the payoff? Canada is still getting hit was steel and aluminum tariffs. There's talk about auto tariffs. NAFTA talks aren't going well. There's talk about splitting. The talks that you have a bilateral with Canada and bilateral with Mexico, there really doesn't seem to be much reward for having been nice to Donald Trump. And I think politically, the Prime Minister is losing room to continue to play Mr. Nice Guy. It isn't producing results. And I think a lot of Canadians are worried that the prime minister looks like a chump for Trump, he's not actually you know, he's being played. So I think that's led the prime minister to feel that he needs to be a bit more forthright and push back, but that pushback is being met with this furious reaction from Donald Trump. So I don't know where we go from here. I wouldn't expect Justin Trudeau to retreat, but Donald Trump isn't retreating either. And so it's a very frustrating moment.

CW: Well this is something we'll continue to watch and we thank you for joining us this morning, Christopher.

CS: Absolutely. Thank you very much Connie.

CW: Christopher Sands is Director of the Center for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He was in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside Washington D.C. The CBC News is next. Then missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. It's an issue most Canadians are aware of today and that recognition is what's required to bring about change. But south of the border, the same problem has not attracted the same level of attention. I'll speak with two American Indigenous women, who have been touched by the problem and are working today to spread awareness. I'm Connie Walker sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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U.S. activists inspired by Canada's inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women

Guests: Carolyn DeFord, Roxanne White, Virginia Lomax

CW: Hello. I'm Connie Walker sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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CW: Still to come. We know that carbon emissions are the driver behind global warming. Despite efforts to curb them, the world just keeps belching tons of carbon into the atmosphere. If only there were a way to suck the carbon back out of the air. Carbon capture technology has been a dream for years, but it's always been trailed by worries about its cost effectiveness. In half an hour, I'll speak with the co-founder of a B.C. company who says they've found a solution, turning the captured carbon into fuel. But first, a heartbreaking problem that knows no borders.

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Scene from film, "Wind River."

CW: A scene from the 2017 film, Wind River. Its story about the murder of a young Indigenous woman on a Wyoming reservation, resonated with one viewer in particular. Gina Mosbrucker is a Washington state politician, who was so moved by the film, she sponsored legislation this year aimed at tallying exactly how many Indigenous women are missing in the state. Stories of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls have become familiar to Canadians, but it's been a different story in the United States, where the epidemic is just as serious, but has remained largely in the shadows. That's starting to change thanks to grassroots activists and politicians like Gina Mosbrucker. We'll speak with her in a few minutes, but first two Native American women who have lost loved ones. Carolyn DeFord's mother, Leona, disappeared more than 18 years ago and Roxanne White's aunt, Karen, was murdered in 1996. Both have become leaders in the growing MMIW movement in Washington state. They join us from Seattle. And a warning that some of what we'll be talking about may be difficult for some listeners. Hello to both of you.

CAROLYN DEFORD: Good morning.

ROXANNE WHITE: Morning.

CW: First off, I just want to say to both of you that I'm sorry for your loss. Carolyn can we start with you. Can you walk us through your mother Leona's disappearance?

CD: My mom disappeared in 1999. She had made arrangements to meet a close friend, a girlfriend, later that evening. And she told her friend she was going to go meet another guy friend at the store and she'd be over immediately after. And when she never showed up to her friend's house, her friend became concerned and waited and waited and then the next day called me to say you know she was worried about my mother, that she was supposed to come over and she didn't and it wasn't like her and she was worried and could I reach out to her, was she here, have I heard from her? And I wasn't too concerned. You know cause my mom was very, very independent. So to be out of contact for her, with her for 24 hours wasn't uncommon.

CW: When did you start to get concerned?

CD: I called her all that evening and she didn't answer. The next morning I called and I said that it was an emergency, the kids were sick and we were at the hospital and I was just trying to think of something that would get her attention. I left her a message on her pager and she didn't answer. She never responded and I knew then, you know, anytime that there was a need or an emergency, she really rose to the occasion to be a support for me. So that was my my first red flag. And then my mom's friend who said you know I'll go check her house and see if everything's OK at the house and when her friend arrived, the dog was locked inside and there's no way, there was no way my mom would have left the dog in the house overnight.

CW: So you contacted the police. How did they respond to your concerns?

CD: I remember that I felt like the dispatcher was treating me like a little kid, like are you sure she's not, she's not coming home, you know. Are you sure? Like she made me feel like that I was just a little kid that had been you know left home alone or was just worried. And I was trying to reassure, you know tell her, I was trying to convince her, no my mom is missing. I need to make a missing persons report. And it was just kind of discredited like I didn't need to make one, there wasn't anything really to worry about.

CW: How did the investigation go? Did they have any leads on her case? Was there any development?

CD: No, I didn't feel like there was a development. I didn't see an investigation. You know you make your missing persons report, they give you a number, we talked on the phone, that was it. That was it. Nobody told me what was next or what they were doing or I was just blind and I felt that the only information that the police had or got was information that my family and my mom's friends were providing. And I like to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were doing work and can't say for sake of the investigation, but there really needs to be more transparency for families just to feel some empowerment in that situation. And we didn't see any investigation being had or done beyond what we put in their hands.

CW: Roxanne, what happened to your aunt, Karen White?

RW: In 1996, her daughter, her oldest daughter took her life. My cousin, she shot her point blank in the face and received like I think like a manslaughter. She did like, the maximum time was like something like 55 months or something. And I wanted justice for my aunt because at the time I was really young and I was really angry and I couldn't understand what just happened. And because intergenerational trauma was a leading factor into her being murdered.

CW: What do you mean by playing intergenerational trauma? How did that factor into your aunt's murder?

RW: My grandmother was a victim and a survivor of boarding school. And you know, just that breakdown of like loss of culture and you know, she was taught at an early age that you know that it was much easier, that they encouraged native Americans to take their children to missions, send them off to boarding school as well. And so there was a lot of separation. And so, I think there was a lot of disconnect in my family and in her and it led to you know the use of drugs and alcohol in my family. And you know and I see it on my reservation, the epidemic of depression, oppression, drug and alcohol use, poverty, domestic violence, sexual abuse, you name it. You know, we have it on the reservations. And I was essentially born into it and so was my aunt. Her daughter definitely suffer from all those things as well.

CW: We have a similar legacy of boarding schools or residential schools in Canada and certainly their role in this issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls is part of the work that's being done by the national inquiry right now. But initially when your aunt was killed, how did you view it initially when it happened?

RW: At the time, I was really young. I knew nothing about missing and murdered Indigenous women. And I kind of just stored it away cause I didn't know how to deal with it. And when I was in standing rock and some sisters from Canada, First Nations sisters, came over and they spoke several different times. Different groups would come in and speak to missing and murdered Indigenous women and violence against Indigenous women and it was really profound for me because I could see my own life. That could have very easily been me my cousin shot. She pointed the gun at me. You know, I was kidnapped at the age of four and raped and I say this to say that my life was a series of traumatic events and I kept surviving. And when I heard these women speak, it was like the more that I heard other women talk about the violence and the missing murdered Indigenous women, it's like something in my spirit said, you know you're here, use your voice. Speak for the ones that don't have a voice.

CW: I want to ask both of you because you now are both very involved in advocacy and raising awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the United States and in Washington state in particular, how aware do you find people are there about the issue? Carolyn?

CD: They're becoming aware, but many people have never heard of it. Or they may have heard the acronym or the phrase, but have no idea of the immensity or the effect that it's had, like widespread effect that it has had on the Indigenous community. But they're starting to hear about it and realize how much this is affecting people where it's been, so ingrained in our communities for so long that it's just the way it is. But we're starting to see and hear more people use their voices and share their stories and the fact that this is not the way it's meant to be. And this isn't who we are, it's what's happened to us.

CW: And more people are learning about this. I'd like to bring someone else into the conversation. Republican State Representative, Gina Mosbrucker, sponsored a bill earlier this year, aimed at tallying the number of Indigenous women who have gone missing in Washington state. She joins me this morning from the Dalles, Oregon. Hello.

GINA MOSBRUCKER: Good morning.

CW: Gina what do you think when you hear the stories that Roxanne and Caroline just said about the issue of violence and how it's impacted so many Indigenous women in your state?

GM: I think it's heartbreaking. I think it's something that should have been talked about decades ago and it's an honour and privilege to help these amazing brave women push this legislation forward and to tell the story, so we can stop what's happening.

CW: So when did you actually learn of this issue? Was it the first time that you saw that movie, Wind River?

GM: It is. Actually the ending of the movie was haunting. It was a Hollywood movie, but it was based on a true story and it didn't make sense at the end when they said there was no national database, which counted this Native American population, who are missing and murdered. And so after further research then we were able to get to the fact that Washington state is one of those states that doesn't have a number.

CW: What does the bill that you sponsored do exactly?

GM: Well the goal of the bill was to do two things: one is to, in the state of Washington, get a number. I mean how many are we talking about, are we talking about 10 or 5000. So the goal is to reach out to 29 tribes or any Native American missing women and groups and try to figure out what that number is for our own state. The second goal is to make sure that systems, such as Amber Alert or Silver Alert, reach in and across reservation lines. I mean my goal with this entire thing is to make sure that when somebody is missing, no matter who it is in the state of Washington, we're reaching from corner to corner in the state, to try to find them. We're not stopping at the reservation line and not maybe not including Native American missing women, which I'm afraid is a very large number.

CW: So I just want to clarify, you're speaking specifically about missing Indigenous women, not necessarily those who have been murdered.

GM: I think that was the fascinating part. We started just having this conversation about missing women and I had no idea honestly, about how many of these women we're finding were murdered. And so I'm hoping that this bill encompasses any new findings that we have, in order to protect everyone in the state of Washington. So I'm hoping that I mean, it's going to come up because those that were missing, sadly often ended up murdered. And so we're running into those cases on reservations across the state. So I'm hoping that it encompasses both of these.

CW: So Gina, how is the bill going to determine who is Indigenous. I mean what about the Indigenous women, who aren't necessarily registered with a tribe in Washington?

GM: Well we've tasked that with the group, the work group, who are actually about to convene. We have the governor's office, we have Attorney General's Office, we have local law enforcement as well as the tribal police. FBI, we're going to pull in and then of course Washington State Patrol facilitating it, just so I can keep track of how it's going and make sure that we follow through and get that number. But it's like opening Pandora's box, once we start talking about missing women locally and in the state of Washington, then we have to have the conversation about those that were murdered. We have to have the conversation about you know, how this historical trauma plays a role and I think we have. This is just the beginning of a lot of important work.

CW: Will you ensure that there is a role or a space for grassroots activists who have personal connections like Roxanne and Carolyn? I know that that has been a huge part of the movement here in Canada.

GM: Absolutely. I think that's key to any success. You know people telling their real life stories in order and being brave enough to tell those stories and they're basically being re-traumatized, I'm sure every time they tell it, but having the strength to push forward and make sure that where they're key. We have to have the stories of brave women who have you know encountered this horrific incident to say what could we do as a state to do a better job and then hopefully as a nation to do a better job.

CW: Gina, I'm curious what kind of response you've gotten from your fellow state representatives. Are they in support of the work that you're hoping to do?

GM: Well I think they were surprised at first. I think that this bill came last minute and probably shouldn't have got through the system, but we were right at the deadlines and there's some higher power that pushed this bill through, I think. Hopefully state of Washington will be a role model for the other states. We'll be able to fix this horrible problem.

CW: OK, thank you very much for joining us Gina.

GM: Of course.

CW: Gina Mosbrucker is a state representative in Washington state. She joined us from the Dalles, Oregon. Roxanne what do you think of the work that Gina Mosbrucker is attempting to do on this issue?

RW: Oh I think it's great. I am so appreciative and grateful for you know her heeding to the call. You know and just accepting it. And I think she's been very open and I'm really grateful that she spoke to the Yakama nation because I'm Yakama. And so you know I grew up on the Yakama reservation and you know a lot of like what I grew up hearing was, oh we have a serial killer and I think that's the place where I think our voices are important also, like within our own community. It's a conversation that we need to have on the reservations and within Indian country, within Native American people that it's not the bogeyman. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's an absolute complete stranger to our community, but there are times where like it's native on native violence or it's somebody living in our community. And there's just so many different areas that we need to look into and that we also need to be talking about.

CW: Carolyn, what do you think of Gina Mosbrucker and the bill that she's proposed in Washington?

CD: One of my concerns and I'm glad that you brought it up, was how do you assure that are our non-registered, you know people who are identifying as Indigenous are are counted in that. You know if you're not registered. Where's your protection. And also with our first nations relatives who are crossing the border, you know we have many family members in our community here that are First Nations. And the bill, I'm concerned that it wouldn't count them or protect them. I think also like, how do we count cases of murder, where women have gone missing and been found later murdered and making sure that those are included in it. Because you know one of the examples was in Wind River, where the character, her cause of death was deemed exposure or asphyxiation and so it wasn't, they didn't count that as as murder. So there's many cases like that too, where if somebody is found in the water, their cause of death may be drowning, but that may be.

CW: That might not be the full story.

CD: Exactly.

CW: So Canada is right in the midst of a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women. What do you both think can be learned from how the issue is being tackled here in Canada? Roxanne?

RW: You know, I watched my First Nations sisters from a grassroots lens and I had the most respect for them and for their work and they have inspired me completely. I think we can learn from them and we can learn from each other. I believe that we need to be at the forefront.

CW: OK. Thank you very much to you both for joining me this morning and for sharing some of your stories with us.

CD: Thank you.

RW: Thank you for having us. Thank you for honoring our voices and the voices of all the missing and the murdered.

CW: Carolyn DeFord's mother, Leona went missing, more than 18 years ago. And Roxanne White's aunt, Karen, was shot to death in 1996. Both have become leaders in the MMIW movement in Washington state. They joined us from Seattle. Virginia Lomax has been listening to our conversation. She's a lawyer with the Native Women's Association of Canada and she's been closely watching the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. She joins us from Orleans, Ontario. Hello.

VIRGINIA LOMAX: Good morning.

CW: So you work with the Native Women's Association of Canada. I'm sure you've heard many difficult stories like those from Roxanne and Carolyn. How important are their voices and their stories?

VL: Vitally important. I don't think it would be possible to have a successful inquiry that does not take its direction from those with lived experience in the issues.

CW: What do you think of the efforts in the United States like Gina Mosbrucker's MMIW bill in Washington state?

VL: It's certainly an important place to start to identify the scope of the issue that they're dealing with and it's good to see those sorts of initiatives coming inspired by the grassroots and working their way up through legislation. It's really important to see change coming from that level, instead of a top down initiative. The importance of that can't be understated.

CW: So let's talk, turn our attention to the national inquiry that's ongoing here in Canada. What exactly is the mandate? What's your understanding of the mandate of the inquiry and is that mandate being met?

VL: Well it's certainly a very broad mandate in Canada. There's the truth gathering process, which is of course listening to the truths and the stories from families and survivors, but the inquiry is also tasked with identifying the systemic causes of the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women and girls, as well as the Two-spirit LGBTQ plus community and gender diverse folks. The mandate there moves to providing recommendations to the government in order to begin to address these systemic issues in an attempt to solve and end this epidemic of violence.

CW: And what is your assessment on whether or not the progress they're making to fulfill those mandates?

VL: It was certainly disappointing for us to hear that the inquiry would only be extended for another six months. When you consider and I think that's really important to bring this back to a term that Roxanne was using and that's the intergenerational trauma. In Canada the history of that is more than 150 years of colonialism and violence and a devaluing of Indigenous women. And so the idea that all of that can be addressed in two and a half years, it's a pretty tall order to fill.

CW: Let's talk about what they have been able to do. Your organization, the Native Women's Association of Canada, has been grading the national inquiry in terms of the work that they're doing. What are they doing well?

VL: Something that we have identified that's an important thing to be seeing, is honouring and commemorating missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. And we've seen some really positive steps towards honouring and commemoration. Honouring and commemoration is not just about memorializing people so to speak, but also about inspiring greater and more widespread empathy for this extremely troubling epidemic of violence among the greater public. And I have seen on the ground, a wider understanding of the issues, a wider acceptance of the issues and I think that of course that's not just coming from the inquiry, it's coming from families. It's coming from survivors and it's coming from the grassroots. But the inquiry is helping bring attention to that and the public I believe is starting to come through.

CW: What in your view is the inquiry's greatest failure and why do you think that that has happened?

VL: I'm not sure if I can comment as to why it's happened, but I think that communication with families and with survivors and with grassroots organizations has a great way to go to be improved. If any other jurisdiction out there is considering an inquiry like Canada's, communication that is proactive and supportive and reaching out to communities and to families and to survivors and to grassroots organizations constantly, with the offer of not just taking stories from these people, but offering them support going forward. That level of communication hasn't unfortunately in a lot of circumstances, not been present and I would absolutely encourage that being a priority for any other jurisdiction moving forward.

CW: How does that reconcile with your disappointment that the government has only granted a six month extension. I mean you know how confident are you that these issues can be addressed in the time they have left?

VL: I would be lying if I said that I wasn't concerned that there are going to be important aspects of the inquiry's success that may now be missed.

CW: Well, thank you very much for joining us today, Virginia.

VL: Thank you very much for this opportunity.

CW: Virginia Lomax is a lawyer with the Native Women's Association of Canada. She joined us from Orleans, Ontario. Coming up in our next half hour, could cost effective carbon capture finally be here? I'll hear from the co-founder of a B.C. company who says they've cracked the code. I'm Connie Walker sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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Canadian company says it can make cost-effective fuel by sucking carbon dioxide from the air

Guests: David Keith, Glen Peters, Mark Jaccard

CW: Hello. I'm Connie Walker sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current. Around the world, countries, corporations and individuals concerned about the fate of the planet are committing themselves to curbing their carbon emissions. But it's not easy, which is why the idea of carbon capture technology is so tantalizing. The technology has been described as a vacuum cleaner for the atmosphere, sucking up air and removing carbon dioxide from it. While a number of companies have been working on getting it to work, carbon capture still has its skeptics. One major concern about it has always been cost, which is why a Squamish, B.C. company's claim to have a cost-effective solution is attracting attention. The company called Carbon Engineering says the difference with their technology, is that the carbon it collects gets converted into fuel. David Keith is a co-founder of Carbon Engineering. He's also a scientist at Harvard University and we've reached him in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hello.

DAVID KEITH: Good morning. Great to be on the show.

CW: Thanks David. Can you tell me what exactly your company has developed?

DK: We've developed a technology for capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and purifying it and from our point of view, it's not a method of vacuum cleaning the whole atmosphere. Fundamentally our company is focused on using this technology to take solar or wind power, which are getting very cheap, but are intermittent and taking that energy from solar wind and making a fuel. A fuel that's compatible with heavy transport like ships or trucks or airplanes, as a way to basically take the energy from solar wind and put it in an airplane.

CW: So how, well first of all, what does it look like and how exactly does it run? What powers the plant itself?

DK: So it looks like a big industrial plant. I mean we're a green tech company, but we're building a big kind of honestly kind of ugly industrial plants that core of it really looks like a forced draft air cooling tower. These are industrial systems you see all around the world that are used to get rid of heat from power plants or buildings or what have you and we use that to draw air through and bring the air in contact with a solution, which is a strong base. And CO2 is a weak acid and the CO2, if you like, wants to be in the base and that's what takes it out and the plant is powered by a mixture of electricity and natural gas.

CW: How much carbon are you able to extract from the air with something like this?

DK: I don't think there's any simple limit to how much we're able to extract and in some ways I really don't think that's the right question. The right question is, is this an environmental useful technology that in the marketplace serves a real need and we think the answer is yes. So we think the world needs to decarbonise. It's really hard to squeeze carbon emissions out of the heavy end of the transportation sector and we think this is a way to take solar and wind power, which have got really cheap and make fuels which it can help decarbonise the transportation sector. We aim to bring to market a 2000 barrel a day plant, that would make fuels that were much lower lifecycle carbon than other fuels in the market and those fuels would be highly profitable, under existing regulations on a carbon intensive fuels, like California's low carbon fuel standard or like the emerging fuel standards in Canada.

CW: And how will this cost? I mean I know that cost has been a consideration in developing this technology. What are you finding in terms of the cost of this?

DK: Well we aim to bring fuels to market at roughly a dollar a liter. So you should compare that to the kind of current cost, forgetting about taxes, of fuels from the ground, fuels from oil they're about 60 cents a leader. So we're definitely higher than fuels in the ground. But we don't involve carbon emissions. We're doing something fundamentally different and our view is that there is absolutely a willingness to pay for that and that that might even be cheap compared to other ways we have to reduce emissions from transportation.

CW: Other companies are also developing carbon capture technology. A plant in Switzerland, which started last year, claims to be the world's first commercially operational plant capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. What makes your technology unique?

DK: Both US and that company, Climeworks, are developing technology for direct air capture. Our view is that our technology is much more industrially scalable. So if you want to remove a small amount of CO2 from the atmosphere, say a thousand tonnes a year, then Climeworks would beat us on cost. But if you want to remove a very large amount, say 100,000 tonnes or a million tonnes, which is what you need to really say make fuels, we think we can provide a lower cost solution.

CW: Where is the funding for this kind of technology coming from?

DK: Well for us, we've raised about 30 million dollars American and of that a little less than half has come from government sources, the Canadian government and the British Columbia government. We're also very proud that we won the only significant grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for direct air capture and that money went directly to a Canadian company, which is quite a big deal.

CW: Is this contingent on government money to make it worthwhile?

DK: No, it's not contingent on government money. But like all climate technology, it's fundamentally contingent on government putting a price on using the atmosphere as a free waste dump for carbon. So for us, what we care about most are low carbon fuel standards like the California standard. They don't put any government money on the table. They're a product standard that basically says you're not allowed to sell fuel in this region, unless it's average carbon intensity is less than such and such. Other than that, the market is free to figure out how to do it. Under that kind of standard we think we can really win.

CW: There was an article in Canadian business in 2016 that was profiling your company and said that you could "make a fortune out of thin air." As a business venture, how lucrative do you think this could be?

DK: If we succeed, we think this is easily a company valued at a billion dollars or more. But my interest frankly is fundamentally in making this business succeed environmentally and bring it to market in a way where we can find out if it's useful.

CW: So we've talked to you about one of your other projects through Harvard, doing solar geo-engineering to cool the atmosphere and that project as well as this one, faced criticisms about creating a so-called moral hazard. That if we focus on these technologies rather than reducing emissions, we're actually making it easier for people to continue using fossil fuels because there's a solution after the fact. What's your response to that?

DK: I think these technologies are really entirely different. So the concerns about what's often called the moral hazard, but really it's the political risk that these technologies will be exploited, are you against emissions cuts. I think that concern is really quite real for solar geo-engineering. I don't see it really as a concern here so much. From our point of view, we're a clean tech company that's developing yet another way to potentially reduce emissions, but we only succeed in a world where government puts pressure on reducing emissions. So if this somehow reduces the government force on emissions, our company goes out of business. We need government regulations that put a price on putting CO2 in the atmosphere.

CW: How close are we to expanding the use of this kind of direct air capture technology?

DK: So for Carbon Engineering, the next step is to build a small plant that is the first commercial plant to bring these fuels to the market. And we are raising funds to do that right now and we'd be ready to make the investment decision on a plant location at the end of this year and ready to produce fuels about two or two and a half years after that.

CW: So I mean just from help me understand, this seems to be you know being framed in some of the media coverage as a way to kind of capture the CO2 from the air, as a way to deal with climate change, but what you're really saying is that this is a way to capture that, but to create fuel that is also more environmentally friendly.

DK: So direct air capture is a industrial technology, which in principle has two uses. One use is you can do direct air capture plus carbon sequestration to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and the long run that might be very important, but my view is we should focus first on cutting emissions. Once emissions are really heading down towards zero, then I think we might want to talk about actually bringing global emissions negative and reducing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. But at least in my view, it doesn't make a lot of sense or it may be unhealthy to think about this immediately. What we need to do right now is show that we can get serious about cutting emissions. And from the point of view of Carbon Engineering, our primary focus with this technology is as a way to cut emissions. Making these synthetic fuels for very low carbon energy. And in that application, there's no net removal of carbon dioxide. We are simply using this to make an energy carrier, an energy carrier that has the high energy density you need to run things like airplanes and trucks, but you make it out of low carbon power like solar wind. And in that sense it competes with batteries or hydrogen power or biofuels and we think it can compete well, on both a financial and environmental basis.

CW: Thanks so much David for being with us today.

DK: Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.

CW: David Keith is the co-founder of the company, Carbon Engineering. He is also a professor at Harvard University. We reached him in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There are some scientists and environmentalists who are more skeptical about technologies like the ones being developed by Carbon Engineering. Glen Peters is the Director of Research at CICERO, the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research. He's been critical of carbon capture technologies in general and a paper published in the Journal Science, a couple of years ago. He went so far as to call them "an unjust and high stakes gamble." Glen Peters is in Oslo, Norway. Hello.

GLEN PETERS: Hello.

CW: Why do you think technologies like this are an unjust and high stakes gamble?

GP: So we're quite dependent on this technology in emissions scenario. So when we take our computer models of the energy system and the climate system and try and map out how we might stay below 2 degrees, most of these scenarios require removing huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which basically means we have already emitted too much. The risk is that because we're so dependent on this technology, which appears at huge scales in the future, the risk is that distracts from early deep mitigation. So if we can't deploy those technologies, so if this technology developed by Carbon Engineering can't scaled up and deployed at a very large level, then we have to reduce our emissions much faster in the short term. And this is where that sort of moral hazard argument comes in.

CW: So I mean in your view, how big of a role do you think carbon capture technologies should be playing in the fight against climate change?

GP: So that's a great question. I guess that's the question. So they're going to play some role, we just don't know how big a role. The very first thing we have to do is we have to do the easy things. We have to get emissions going down fast now and there's many ways that we can do that. Many relatively cheap ways that we can do that. But at the same time, we have to start to develop these technologies, see how far we can get within how cheap we can get them and that will start to give us some idea about how much we can use them in the future. But if we don't get our emissions going down in the short term, then it's all sort of in vain.

CW: So you mentioned the cost and it was believe that the cost of this kind of carbon capture technology was going to be very expensive, which maybe we have a better sense that it's maybe not as expensive as previously thought. But you know, how much of that gamble is reduced, if it is more affordable to capture this kind of carbon?

GP: So this sort of new paper by Carbon Engineering, it's quite important, it gives us a much better cost estimate on this technology. The previous cost estimates were around about 500 dollars a tonne. They brought it down to about 100 or 200 dollars a tonne. Though this is still very expensive in relative terms, compared to other technologies and sort of as David Keith mentioned, there are different ways you can use this technology. So they've developed a component, which can take carbon out of the atmosphere and then you just have if you like a barrel of carbon dioxide sitting there and you can do what you like with it. So one thing you can do is to put it back into the ground and so therefore you're literally removing carbon from the atmosphere or you could produce fuels with it as David was explaining and use it in for example aviation or heavy transport or something like that. So those two pathways have quite different functions, but either way they're quite high cost technologies. That doesn't mean we should not follow those pathways and the fuel pathway that Carbon Engineering is following is an important one. So we can for example decarbonise private transportation with electrical vehicles, we can't necessarily use electric drive chains for aviation for example. So we might need some of these fuels for the really hard to get to sectors. But then it's a competition between technologies. So there are different ways that you can produce fuels. You could you know as I said mentioned electricity, maybe be we figure out how to have aviation run by electricity or maybe we figure out how to use hydrogen. There's a variety of biofuel pathways of course like and have technological developments. Maybe you could use algal biomass feedstock, maybe you could use oil and offset the emissions with the technology that David's teams developed and instead of turning it into fuels, put that carbon back in the ground. So oil combined in some way, not in a physical sense, but in a in a virtual sense, by combining oil with a technology that removes those carbon emissions back from the atmosphere at a later date is also an option. So at the end of the day, which of these technologies will be cheapest. So that's where the question is, although to be clear we're talking about some of the harder to get and therefore more expensive mitigation options. So there's still many things we can do in the short term that would get the emissions going down.

CW: So obviously a company like Carbon Engineering has decided this is a worthwhile commercial venture and you could argue it's not really up to them to figure out the optimal strategies for fighting climate change that that is actually the role of governments. What role should governments play in deciding whether to prioritise this kind of technology?

GP: I think governments play a pretty pivotal role. The government essentially sets the framework conditions, if you like, and then within those conditions companies can compete. So essentially there needs to be some sort of price or policy on carbon that will incentivize companies like Carbon Engineering to develop these technologies and so on. Maybe they'll offer different sorts of support, such as in the research and innovation side and so on and so forth. But you know there's going to be private capital that's going to come into these companies and play an important function, but the government really must set the framework conditions. And those framework conditions will change over time. Maybe we would start with let's say a ideal policy where if you have a carbon price let's say maybe let's start with a low carbon price, which would not be sufficient to encourage technologies like Carbon Engineering. But then over time that carbon price might develop and go higher. Also companies will improve their technologies and so you know maybe sometime, a decade, several decades, you know I don't know when that time period is, but sometime in the future these technologies my become cost competitive. But you know, there's a lot of water to flow under the bridge, before we know when that may be and if we ever get there.

CW: Well thank you very much Glen. We appreciate your viewpoint.

GP: OK. Thanks a lot.

CW: Glen Peters is the Director of Research at CICERO, the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research. We reached him in Oslo, Norway. We started this look at carbon reduction by talking to David Keith of the Canadian company, Carbon Engineering. What sets it apart from other carbon capture projects is that rather than storing the captured carbon, it converts it to fuel. There are two other carbon capture projects underway in Canada at the moment, both of which capture and store emissions. One is SaskPower's Boundary Dam in Estevan, Saskatchewan and the other is Shell's Quest project, near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. Mark Jaccard is a professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University. And we've reached him on Gabriola Island, B.C. Hello.

MARK JACCARD: Hello.

CW: Mark, let's start by talking about Carbon Engineering's version of carbon capture, which is quite different from the other two projects, I just mentioned. How encouraged are you by their new paper?

MJ: I'm encouraged in the sense that we need to be capturing carbon. And their new paper is simply pointing out that as they're further along in their development of the engineering and the processes that you know, we're getting into a cost range that can make us be a little more hopeful. The ways of capturing carbon diversity, as you mentioned, is that we're burning fossil fuels. It's pretty hard to capture the CO2 that comes out the tailpipe of your car, but in a large coal fired power plant or even a natural gas electricity plant or a steel plant, you have CO2 carbon dioxide in the flu gases going up the smokestack. And so often when we've talked about carbon capture, it's been to capture it from that exhaust stream, in the same way we do capture other pollutants like particulates and sulphur dioxide for example. So that's more what we've talked about, where as the Carbon Engineering project is direct air capture, actually capturing it right out of the atmosphere. And of course the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is far more diluted. Right, it's .04 per cent of the air around us right now. And so that's why direct air capture as they're talking about, is something that has sort of been further out there into the future until now.

CW: What do you think about what Glen Peters has to say, that the cost is still relatively high, but also that you know might not be as effective as we're hoping for a while.

MJ: I think that, I mean I agree with much of what Glen said, but some of the language when we think about sort of this, oh look we've got this opportunity to suck the CO2 out of the atmosphere and then maybe we can slow down. I mean that's not really the narrative that I hear among political leaders. If you hear a political leader like Donald Trump, it's no we don't need to do anything. If I hear other political leaders who are concerned, but are trying to act, let's say Prime Minister Trudeau, what you hear is we're going as fast as we can, but it's pretty difficult and our politicians have not been and are not acting with policies to get emissions down. And it isn't because of some possibility to capture carbon out of the atmosphere, that's not what they're using as an excuse for inaction, they're using other things like the difficulty of climate policy or the fact that they have other priorities like trade wars or so on. And so that's really the problem. Humans are not acting fast enough on climate change.

CW: Well, given the current political climate in Canada, where we're involved in very contentious debates about the future of our fossil fuels industry, how does a discussion about carbon capture fit in?

MJ: Well it fits into the discussion and I liked how David Keith talked about this, we are implementing some policies. The policies are not stringent enough, whether it's a price on carbon or regulation on the carbon intensity of fuels, but there are policies being implemented and so that starts to create a business opportunity. And so the Carbon Engineering process is to try to be ready with that technologies. I mean the people who are investing in it are people who are not necessarily trying to make money, right. It's Bill Gates and others like that who are, who as he's done in other philanthropic work, is saying I know that humanity needs this somewhere down the road and I know that sort of a typical private investor who's trying to make money in a reasonable timeframe, is not going to put money into this. So if I put money into this, perhaps governments will as well. And so really Carbon Engineering is thinking in a clever way in my view to say, is there a fuel we can produce so we can suck carbon and make diesel, but we need the policies to get more and more stringent for it to truly be a profitable commercial venture. But they're working to get their cost of production down and then the rest of us need to be working to get the policies more stringent and then the two things come together and that's when you get emissions down.

CW: How would you compare it, like the usefulness of this kind of technology that David is talking about, compared to what's happening in places like Saskatchewan and the way that they're capturing the carbon. So in Saskatchewan, it's a coal-fired power plant and they're capturing the carbon in that exhaust stream. So that carbon, although it's still carbon dioxide, is still at low concentrations. It's far, far higher concentrations than carbon dioxide is normally found in the atmosphere. So that should improve the economics. And you know I think so far our analysis shows that carbon capture from smokestacks, if you're still going to keep using coal, is something that we will do. It will increase the cost of electricity from that plant by 15 to 25 per cent, but you know that's still a model out there. We've got some prototype projects and the question is will we go further? But there are competitors for that because that's assuming you'd make electricity from coal. So if we keep, if we phase out coal plants, and Canada now has a policy to try to do that, as does Alberta, then you might say, well we won't even use that technology and instead we will make electricity from solar wind and so on. And then the Carbon Engineering project that David Keith describes says now we'll even use that solar and wind, the electricity from it, to run a process by which we can extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and make a high energy liquid fuel like diesel or jet fuel, for example.

CW: How important is that they're talking about taking the carbon and converting it into fuel for commercial purposes.

MJ: I think the important point here is that the energy system is complicated. So fossil fuels might be involved in making electricity, so then you look at who's competitive in making near-zero emission electricity, but then we're also saying, oh we have a transportation system and it's dependent on high energy off of liquid fuels or maybe compressed gaseous fuels, like hydrogen. And so you know, what's the cheapest way there? Well we can use some biofuels from that, we can grow crops. There are issues about land use when it comes to that and environmental impacts and so possibly you know using solar energy to make a liquid fuel, the way that Carbon Engineering is talking about, will be competitive for transportation, especially heavy freight transportation and long distance. So the message from this is that the energy system provides different services to us. It makes electricity heats our home, it moves us around and goods and so these are different markets. And so you're going to see a diversity of possibilities and that's kind of what you see with carbon capture from Carbon Engineering for liquid fuels versus carbon capture and a coal-fired power plant in Saskatchewan.

CW: Well this is definitely something we'll continue to watch. Thank you so much for joining us Mark.

MJ: It's been my pleasure.

CW: Mark Jaccard is a professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University. He spoke with us from Gabriola Island, British Columbia. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Tony award-winning Scottish actor and singer Alan Cumming joins Tom Power to talk about his new show, "Legal Immigrant." And remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. It's free from the App Store or Google Play. Finally, we began today talking about President Donald Trump's explosive end to the G7 summit. While both he and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have touched down in Singapore, ahead of their landmark meeting aimed at avoiding a nuclear crisis, which we'll be speaking about on tomorrow's show. To look ahead to that historic meeting, we'll end things off with some insights from the former pro basketball star Dennis Rodman, who's become an improbable friend of the North Korean leaders. Dennis Rodman also says he's on his way to Singapore to "give whatever support is needed to my friends, Donald Trump and Marshall Kim Jong-un." Well here is Rodman with TV host Stephen Colbert, speaking last year. I'm Connie Walker sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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June 11, 2018 episode transcript

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