Destination Uncertain: Navigating Canada’s Energy Transition
Webinar with Warren Ali, Dr. James Meadowcroft and Merran Smith
Sponsored by:
“Energy transition” has been a popular term among elected officials and policy-makers over the last year, but what does it actually mean? Join the C.D. Howe Institute on February 26 to hear an expert panel discuss a new future for energy, from innovation in the oil industry to electric vehicle manufacturing, and a roadmap for transition.
C.D. Howe Institute events and webinars are open to members and their guests.
Please contact Tammy Trepanier, Senior Event Planner, to register: ttrepanier@cdhowe.org.
Warren Ali, Senior Vice President of Innovation, Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association
Warren Ali is the Senior Vice President of Innovation for the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association (APMA) based in Toronto, Canada. Warren’s primary responsibility is to manage the APMA’s Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Testing and Demonstration Zone as part of the Province of Ontario’s Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network (AVIN). He is Chair of the Digital Manufacturing Committee that is comprised of industry leaders from Global OEMs and Tier 1s along with SMEs and Global Leading Technology Startups. Warren’s venture capital and economic development experience in both the private sector and at the Federal and Provincial levels of government are key contributions to the APMA’s efforts to lead Canada’s auto sector towards the broader opportunities in Future Mobility. Warren has expanded the APMA’s reach and efforts beyond the automotive and auto tech sectors and is a member of the Board of Advisors to ventureLAB’s Hardware Catalyst Initiative as well as Canada’s Advanced Air Mobility Consortium. He has led Canadian trade missions and spoken at events around the world in leading mobility jurisdictions such as Germany, Japan, Singapore, the UK as well as across North America including Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Atlanta and Monterrey. Warren holds an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree in Statistics and Actuarial Science from the University of Toronto and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Schulich School of Business at York University.
Dr. James Meadowcroft, Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration and Department of Political Science, Carlton University
James Meadowcroft is a Professor in both the Department of Political Science and the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University. He holds a B.A. in political science from McGill and a D.Phil. in politics from Oxford University. He has also been awarded and honorary doctorate from the University of Tampere in Finland.
Meadowcroft is one of Canada’s leading experts on the sustainability transition. He is a research Director at the Transition Accelerator, and the lead author of a recent Transition Accelerator report Pathways to net zero: a decision support tool. Meadowcroft has written widely on environmental politics and policy, democratic participation and deliberative democracy, national sustainable development strategies, and socio- technical transitions. Recent work focuses on energy and the transition to a low carbon society, and includes publications on carbon capture and storage (CCS), smart grids, the development of Ontario's electricity system, the politics of socio-technical transitions, negative carbon emissions, and transition experiments. Meadowcroft's research has been funded by the UK ERSC, SSHRC, NSERC, and foundations in the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Canada.
Merran Smith, Executive Director, Clean Energy Canada
Merran Smith is a fellow at the Simon Fraser University Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, and the founder and executive director of Clean Energy Canada—a leading think tank advancing clean energy and climate solutions.
Merran serves as co-chair of the B.C. government’s Climate Solutions Council, a member of the independent Task Force for a Resilient Recovery, and a Canadian representative of the C3E International Ambassador Corps. Her 2018 work as co-chair of Natural Resources Canada’s Generation Energy Council helped ideas from a diverse group of stakeholders coalesce into recommendations that will shape Canada's energy future.
For most of her career, Merran has worked to unite industry, government, and civil society organizations to solve pressing social and ecological challenges. Her leadership in the landmark Great Bear Rainforest conservation agreement helped ensure the protection of thousands of kilometres of coastal ecosystem.
Merran has received numerous leadership distinctions, including being named to Vancouver Magazine's 2020 Power 50 List, winning the 2019 SFU President’s Social Media Newsmaker Award, Clean Energy BC's 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award, the Vancouver Board of Trade's 2016 Wendy McDonald Community Catalyst award, and the Clean 16 award in 2014 for leadership in clean capitalism.
to ET