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Mark Jaccard, a Simon Fraser University environmental economist whose work on sustainable energy and climate policy has garnered national and international acclaim – and protest – is the recipient of the 2010 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy.

The prize will be presented on Tuesday, Oct. 5, at 7pm at SFU’s Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue, preceding his Sterling Prize lecture, Climate Controversies: The Saga Continues.

For nearly two decades Jaccard has argued that our energy options should not be seen as a choice between good (renewable energy, energy efficiency) and evil (fossil fuels, nuclear power).

He says greenhouse gas emissions will not decline unless climate policies are dominated by strong emissions pricing (carbon tax, cap and trade) and regulations (vehicle standards, building codes, land-use zoning).

"Most governments have been unwilling to implement strong climate policies, although they talk a good line about ambitious targets and faking-it policies,” says Jaccard. “I am proud, as a British Columbian, to say that here our government has established policies that are a model for the world, but it has not been easy getting to this situation and there is much work ahead.”

Jaccard has provided evidence that subsidies are usually an ineffective policy and that energy efficiency is much more difficult to achieve than claimed by its advocates.

All of these positions have been controversial and unpopular – at various times - with key interest groups including politicians, industry, some leading environmental organizations and certain media.

As a result, Jaccard has frequently been the object of attacks, sometimes of a personal nature. Today, his research has found acceptance and acclaim with direct impacts on public policy.

A professor in SFU’s School of Resource and Environmental Management, Jaccard served as chair and CEO of the British Columbia Utilities Commission from 1992-97. He is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Jaccard has also penned books and countless opinion pieces. He is co-author of Hot Air: Meeting Canada’s Climate Change Challenge, with the Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson (2007), and in 2005, his book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels, won the Donner Prize for best policy book in Canada.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he was named Academic of the Year by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC in 2008.

In 1993 Nora and Ted Sterling established the prize at SFU to honour work which challenges complacency and provokes controversy or contributes to its understanding.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Seating is limited. Reservations advised, see: http://www.sfu.ca/reserve

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