Held on June 5, 2025, at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, the “Net Zero Meets Trade Disruption” workshop brought together leading voices from government, academia, and industry to address the complex intersection of trade policy, economic modeling, and Canada’s energy transition. The workshop was co-convened by the  and Professor Daniel Rosenbloom.

From insightful presentations to dynamic breakout sessions, this event showcased the value of bringing diverse perspectives together to inform smarter, more resilient energy and economic policy.

The day opened with welcome remarks from Associate Vice-President Sandra Crocker and Dean Brenda O’Neill, setting the tone for a collaborative and solutions-driven dialogue. Keynote presentations by Professors James Meadowcroft and Kristen Schell framed the urgency and complexity of aligning trade, energy, and climate strategies in the face of accelerating global disruptions.

Structured around a progressive synthesis format, the workshop featured:

• Morning breakout sessions identifying key trade-related disruption scenarios and the corresponding modeling questions.
• Afternoon sessions diving into how to model these scenarios effectively, with focused discussions on tools, data, and policy relevance.

The event emphasized collaboration, scenario-based planning, and the need for integrated, adaptive modeling frameworks to navigate Canada’s evolving economic and energy future. It marks a significant step forward in equipping policy-makers with the tools and insights needed to respond proactively to a shifting global landscape.

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Net-zero transitions are accelerating, with multiple sectors now experiencing the rapid diffusion of carbon neutral technologies. Alongside a team of leading transition and innovation scholars, professors James Meadowcroft and Daniel Rosenbloom examine the many facets of acceleration in their latest publication in Energy Research & Social Science. Acceleration is not only a process (by which the pace of change intensifies) but also an imperative (an ambition to realize positive change more quickly), a transition phase (one that many sectors are now reaching), and multi-system phenomenon (as electrification leads to cascading effects). What role can policy play in deepening these trends? Let’s talk.

Check the link!

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Few credible experts see how the world will reach net-zero emissions without actively removing carbon dioxide out of the air, perhaps through direct air capture technologies. This has become an active research area over the past two decades, but most existing work doesn’t consider how ambient environmental conditions—temperature, humidity, pressure, and carbon dioxide concentration—affect these engineered systems, which need to process massive amounts of atmospheric air to remove the carbon dioxide. Faculty and students affiliated with the Sustainable Energy program recently —the first to model how these plants would actually perform across the globe, considering different weather conditions, different emissions from electric power systems worldwide (some of which are dirtier than others), and different emissions from natural gas systems (some of which are leakier than others).

The work is intended to stimulate serious discussion of the role of direct air capture technologies in nationally determined contributions submitted to UNFCCC. For nations that are making large bets on carbon dioxide removal despite having poor or fair conditions for the deployment of direct air capture, the research should stimulate discussion of cross-border carbon accounting mechanisms that would allow these nations to subsidize deployment in regions with more appropriate climatic conditions.

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Direct air capture (DAC) is touted as a potential contributor to climate change mitigation and the achievement of net-zero emission targets, including in nations like Canada. Recent research by faculty affiliated with ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University’s Sustainable Energy program shows the extent to which ambient environmental conditions, including temperature, pressure, carbon dioxide concentration, and relative humidity, influence the capacity factor, water losses, and cost of these plants in Canada.

The open-access research, , shows that a DAC plant constructed in Ottawa would be expected to capture only 55% of the carbon dioxide that its nameplate capacity would suggest. Plants in colder climates, like Alberta, which is betting on carbon dioxide removal as its key climate strategy, fare even worse, with a plant in Calgary capturing 45% of its expected capture. Colder climates necessitate the shut down and restart of these large, complex, and tightly integrated plants, further damaging capture performance. Plants in warmer climates perform well, but the water losses in those locations are extremely highly.

The findings in this study can be used to calibrate policy maker expectations, investment decisions, and policy support for DAC. They can also be used by engineers as they refine and optimize plant design to maximize capture.

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In this seminar, Dr. Heike Brugger, an energy and AI expert from Germany, will deliver an insightful talk on energy efficient digitization and green IT. The keynote will provide valuable perspective in the field of AI (including the European AI Act) and its applications in the energy sector. Following the presentation, there will be an interactive Q&A session. The keynote speech and ensuing discussion will delve into the dual role of digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) in the clean energy transition. Dr. Brugger will elaborate on how these technologies serve as both enablers, offering innovative solutions to reduce energy consumption, and as challenges, presenting new demands and complexities in energy management. Special attention will be given to the energy demand side, exploring how AI and digital tools can optimize energy use, improve efficiency, and contribute to a more sustainable future. This seminar provides a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between advanced technologies and energy sustainability.

Please register for this event by Tuesday, October 8, 2024. 

Speaker Biography

Dr. Heike Brugger joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI in 2018. She works as a senior researcher and project manager at the Competence Center Energy Policy and Energy Markets. Since March 2021, Heike Brugger is Coordinator of the Business Unit Energy Policy.

Her research interests include the design and evaluation of energy and climate change policies, particularly in the field of energy efficiency, digitalisation and artificial intelligence as well as the modeling of the development of energy consumption in private households and the tertiary sector. An additional research interest lies in the analysis and consultation of local energy and climate policy and politics. Heike Brugger studied politics and public administration as well as mathematics and physics at the University of Konstanz, Germany. From 2014 to 2015 she was a visiting research scholar at the School of Governance and Public Policy at the University of Arizona (Tucson, USA). In 2017 she obtained her Phd from the University of Konstanz in the Department of Politics and Public Administration with her work focusing on the local energy transition in Germany and the relevance of policy networks therein. Heike Brugger is a member of the Advisory Board of the “Competence Center for Energy Efficiency Through Digitalisation”, a project by the German Energy Agency.

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Researchers associated with the Sustainable Energy Engineering and Policy programme at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University have , exploring the opportunities and challenges facing large-scale expansion of direct air capture (DAC) and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). The paper summarizes results of a structured, invitational, expert workshop conducted by the research team in Ottawa, Canada in May, 2023. Although the focus of the workshop was mainly on Canada, strategies for expanding the deployment of these technologies worldwide were also discussed.

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School of Public Policy and Administration Professor Stephan Schott discusses the role of students in research:

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Collaborative Effort to Address Environmental Challenges in India (July 2024 ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ International Newsletter)

Prof. Alexandra Mallet from the School of Public Policy & Administration has partnered with Prosanto Pal, a Senior Fellow with  (TERI) in New Delhi, to tackle the challenge of decarbonizing India’s industry sector, with a focus on iron and steel production.

With the  providing knowledge support, their research is designed to advance net zero goals.

Given the socio-economic impact of decarbonization, particularly in regions like the Steel Belt, Mallet and Pal, along with other members of their research team, have engaged with key informants, including workers, industry executives, government agency representatives, and non-profit organizations. These discussions centered on current activities and the potential implications of an energy transition in three communities across India.

This initiative got off the ground thanks to the International Research Seed Grant, an internal funding program that champions new global partnerships.

Having solidified the concept in collaboration with their Indian and Canadian partners, subsequent funding allowed Mallet and Pal to expand the original project to include a ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ student from India and joint fieldwork.

For the full July newsletter, please see this .

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ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University held convocation last week, June 12-16th, where twelve students from the MPP Policy (formally MA), and eleven from Engineering (MEng and MASc) walked the stage. We could not be more proud of these students accomplishments and are excited to hear about their future.

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Existing government rebate programs work “for middle- and upper-income Canadians who can pay up front for a retrofit and then receive a grant after the work is done,” said Brendan Haley, director of policy research at Efficiency Canada, a group based out of ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University in Ottawa that advocates for greater energy efficiency. “But the financial barriers are still too great for lower-income Canadians.”

Not only that, but about one-third of Canadians rent, according to Statistics Canada, and requiring a landlord’s approval limits your ability to cut household emissions.

“For folks that are renting, there are far fewer opportunities to make change where they are living,” said Salmon of Green Communities Canada.

Dowsett acknowledges this.

“Renters can’t touch their building envelope, they can’t touch their mechanical system. They just don’t have control of the levers they need. It is their building owners and operators that need to make changes,” he said. “We at Pocket Change are not really the model for them.”

Haley says that to meet its stated climate goals, Canada needs to establish more stringent policies that force building owners of all kinds to use more sustainable technologies. To effect deeper emissions cuts, “we need the government to step in and mandate things.”

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