Climate Change and the Political Levers of Change
Originally published in the Sudbury Star on Sept. 18, 2021
There’s a joke of sorts out there about smoking. “It’s easy to quit; I’ve done it many times!” It’s not easy though, because smoking is both an addiction to nicotine, and a powerful social habit. Despite the wide array of smoking cessation therapies available, would-be non-smokers relapse at a high rate. Nonetheless, smoking rates in Canada have plummeted, from 50 percent in 1965 to 13 percent in 2021.
This drastic decline was facilitated by the wise implementation of levers and forcing mechanisms. Pricing, for starters. Through targeted taxes, the price of a pack of cigarettes came to reflect not just manufacturing and retail costs, but also the additional expense of providing health care to smokers. Municipal regulations also made the frequent need for a smoke inconvenient and uncomfortable. There are just so few places a person can light up these days.
The Greek mathematician Archimedes once said, “Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.” Large scale change requires big levers and powerful forcing mechanisms, and large-scale change is exactly what’s required to address the climate emergency we’re facing.
Fossil fuels are a powerful societal and economic addiction. It is simply not enough for motivated individuals to switch to LED bulbs, recycle, eat less meat, drive a hybrid, or quit flying. Nor are Canada’s national emissions reduction targets anywhere near enough to keep global heating within a range that’s safe and healthy for humans. And let me be clear: when I use the word “enough”, I’m not referring to what environmentalists would prefer; I’m talking about what science and physics and human health demand.
Over the Labour Day weekend, more than 220 of the world’s medical journals simultaneously published an editorial entitled:
“Call for Emergency Action to Limit Global Temperature Increases,
Restore Biodiversity, and Protect Health”
The planet’s climate stability, its biodiversity, and the health and safety of its humans are in serious peril. We are desperately in need of powerful levers and forcing mechanisms to produce an urgent and massive transition in our societies and our economies, both nationally and globally.
Perhaps the greatest lever available to us is the pricing of greenhouse gas pollution. (aka carbon pricing, carbon tax, carbon fee and dividend, etc.) Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are causing expensive harm to the planet and to human health and safety. As with cigarettes, we can no longer ignore this reality. Prices must start to accurately reflect the true costs of our addiction. Here in Canada, we have managed (barely) to put a system of GHG pricing in place, complete with rebates. What we need now is policy persistence. We need to stick with the plan, consistently raise that price, and lobby hard for similar action at a global level. Meanwhile, we have options like border carbon adjustments, to protect our economy from unfair competition.
Back in 2008, the UK passed a law binding itself to constrain its GHG emissions. Three-year carbon budgets are proposed by an independent, science-based committee, and once agreed upon, they are legally binding. This is an example of a forcing mechanism, and thus far, it’s been quite effective.
Meanwhile, here in Canada, we pay lawyers to squabble over carbon taxes, and set far-too-meagre emissions reduction targets for years down the road. At least one of our political parties would regress those targets at a time when more ambition is what’s desperately needed.
Big change is hard. It took far too long to bring smoking rates down and give nonsmokers the right to clean, breathable air. It is taking way too many decades to end our destructive addiction to fossil fuels and ensure ourselves, and especially our youth, the right to a livable planet.
There’s an election on Monday. At this point in history, the climate action we need is political action.