Although the headlines from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Canada last month trumpeted a $350 million deal to buy Canadian uranium, the news overshadowed $1 billion in solar development agreements with AMP Solar Group and Canadian Solar Inc.
Clean Energy Canada’s Dan Woynillowicz notes that the two solar deals represented 63% of the joint economic activity announced during the state visit. “Missing from both the political and media discussion was the huge renewable energy opportunity in India, and how Canadian companies can play a role.”
Woynillowicz writes that the emphasis on the uranium deal “can’t help but reinforce how low a priority our federal government puts on climate change as an issue, and clean energy as an economic opportunity. For good or ill—and I’d argue the latter—the federal government remains locked in a model that predominantly sees opportunity tied to our non-renewable natural resources.” Canada’s mainstream media “seems similarly ambivalent about this opportunity.”
Canadian clean energy companies “are still succeeding despite this lack of attention or support,” he writes. But “you have to wonder just how much more Canada’s clean energy sector could achieve if it received the same attention and support that the global opportunities warrant.”
