An appeal to the climate movement – we urgently need a new approach

[The following piece was originally published in Canada’s National Observer here.]

Dear climate movement friends,

As we return from another hot and smoke-filled summer of unnatural disasters, let us admit that we are in our own form of denial. This piece may upset some friends and colleagues, including people I greatly admire. But perhaps it is time to concede that, in the face of an escalating catastrophe, we are stuck in a rinse-and-repeat cycle that is simply not working.

The chart above shows Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions going back to the start of the century, with a little hat tip to Greta Thunberg’s apt description of climate promises to date as so much “blah, blah, blah.”  

Let this chart sink in.

There are little ups and downs. Below the surface there are modest wins in some sectors and provinces, offset by continued escalating emissions from the oil and gas sector. But overall, it is basically a flat line; our GHG emissions plateaued at a historic high.

Emissions in 2022 (the last year for which we have data) were down a mere five per cent from when the Liberals won federal government in 2015. We have failed to truly bend the curve at the pitch and pace that science and justice demands.

To keep on with our current approach and expect a different result epitomizes Einstein’s definition of insanity. In short, we are not on a path to stave off a horrific future for our kids and future generations – the people and places we love. We have run out the clock with distracting debates about incremental changes. And where it matters most – actual GHG reductions – we have accomplished precious little.

Now here we are, staring down this harrowing gap between what the science says we must urgently do and what our politics seems willing or capable of entertaining. And more foreboding still, facing the likely prospect of a majority Conservative government that, if elected, will throw out virtually the entire package of climate policies enacted to date. Somehow, we have to kick-start something new.

For years, the climate movement has heeded the counsel of friendly political leaders (federal and provincial) who warned that if we push too fast, we risk a populist right-wing backlash. And so we have accepted incremental policies that seek to “bring people along” and avoid confrontation. 

Yet how has that worked out? We are left with the worst of all outcomes – with milquetoast climate policies and a right-wing populist backlash nonetheless, such that even the modest advances of the last decade are at imminent risk of being tossed out the window.

We urgently need to shift gears or we are done.

Rinse and repeat

In private, I hear most of my climate movement colleagues sharing a similar critique to what I outline above. But then we nevertheless default to the familiar script we know:

The government issues a consultation paper or holds hearings on some topic, and we dutifully spend time and resources making submissions that may or may not result in some modest revision.

The government tables draft legislation, we spend months mobilizing our members to lobby for improvements to the bill, we extract a few amendments… and claim the win. It’s deep in the weeds, and it’s all on their agenda and timeline. 

We have spent huge resources winning legislation – the Sustainable Jobs Act, the Climate Accountability Act – that, while positive, are ultimately of little climate or political consequence, and unknown to the public. But when we applaud incremental progress, we are slowing down the change we need. When we devote our resources to securing modest reforms to inadequate measures, those resources are diverted from the bigger tasks at hand. 

We have a federal government that is in the process of regulating changes to the building code, zero-emission vehicle sales, oil and gas emissions, and the electricity system, but the implementation timelines are anathema to the emergency we face and so far into the future as to render them politically imaginary. 

And we have long ago lost the public to esoteric and technical climate policy debates that are, for ordinary people, impenetrable. 

Meanwhile, the federal Liberals, NDP and Greens all appear to be sleepwalking us to a Conservative majority. 

A challenging context 

I don’t wish to demoralize. I know all too well the very difficult context in which we operate, and how hard so many of you are working. We are all wrestling with climate grief, yet feel the public to be suffering from climate fatigue. This September marks the fifth anniversary of the historic 2019 youth-led climate strikes, and we are all struggling to recapture the energy and enthusiasm that peaked at that time, especially after COVID took so much wind out of our sails.

Nor do I mean to be too critical. Our movement is a big mix of organizations, large and small, employing a wide range of strategies against an array of targets. I recognize and appreciate that many groups, especially smaller ones, are focused rightly on grassroots organizing.

Climate mobilizing suffers from a paradox of time. The curse of the climate crisis is that it moves in slow motion (except, of course, when it expresses itself in violent extreme weather events, but never everywhere at once), inviting political leaders to kick the can down the road to a future mandate, and the public to prioritize more immediate challenges – housing, affordability, war, the many oppressions of now. Yet the solutions to the climate crisis require transformative solutions in the immediate term, and every year in which we fail to ramp down emissions comes at great cost. 

Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry has been brutally effective at slowing progress, keeping us in defense mode and re-prosecuting fights that should be a distant memory. 

And when I say we have been too stuck in esoteric policy discussion, I’m looking in the mirror; heck, I spent 22 years leading a public policy shop, so I’m as guilty as anyone of losing people in the arcane weeds.

A fateful year ahead: we need a new script

But take heart! It is far too early to throw in the towel or to let defeatism take root. The next federal election is just over a year away. So much depends on our ability to shift the terrain over the next 12 months. But as the saying goes, that is a lifetime in politics. A Conservative majority can absolutely still be avoided. The new U.S. election dynamic offers a hopeful reminder of how quickly the political terrain and movement energy can shift, when we bring about the necessary  changes.

So, what’s the alternative to the default we know? We all struggle with this, of course. But a few thoughts:

First, as a movement, we need to move off the wonky policy debates and discussions – we are putting people to sleep with this gibberish! – and captivate the public with exciting and provocative ideas. I outlined a number of options – including a Youth Climate Corps, the fossil fuel ad ban, massive climate infrastructure investments, and a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies – in my recent column here. 

Second, we need to stop proposing incremental solutions, as the public is rightly dubious that these measures are up to the task, and thus these modest proposals undermine our credibility. Incrementalism is no match for the crises we face. That’s not just true for climate, but for all the other elements of the polycrisis upon which the populist right feeds – the housing crisis, the poison drug epidemic, inequality. When we respond to these crises with half measures, we can never get ahead of the curve. 

Third, relatedly, we need to excite people with big ideas that are congruent with the crisis, and that simultaneously speak to people’s deep economic and employment anxieties and the cost of living crisis.

• We need billions of dollars more spent on transformative climate infrastructure that will employ tens of thousands of people.

• Rather than trying to incentivize heat pumps with inadequate rebates, let’s just make them free! (As PEI does for households with incomes under $100,000.)

• Let’s talk about free public transit, and huge subsidies for e-bikes, to liberate people from punishing transportation expenses.

• And let’s propose paying for a chunk of all that with wealth and windfall profits taxes (a recent Abacus survey found increasing taxes on the richest 1% to be a massive vote-winner), and suing the corporations that got us into this mess (as California is doing).

These represent transformative policies that tackle multiple crises at once and bolster solidarity.

 Fourth, recognize that the public is looking for meaning. So many people, especially the young men upon whom the populist right preys, are waiting to be invited to join in a grand and purposeful project. So many are left cold and isolated by the hyper-consumerism and individualism that neoliberalism has to offer. But we – especially our more established and professionalized NGOs – are failing to ask these folks to do something big and audacious with us.  

Fifth, we need to be more aggressive in our fight with the fossil fuel companies and their financial institution enablers (something that, thankfully, the climate movement has started to do with more vigor). And we should challenge (peacefully, of course) the media outlets and pundits that run interference for the oil and gas industry, who currently do so without consequence.

Sixth, vitally at this juncture, many environmental NGOs need to shake off their distaste for the messy world of politics and dive in. Too much is at stake. We need to collectively roll up our sleeves and develop a strategy to avoid progressive vote-splitting (as thankfully occurred in the recent French elections, when they too faced the prospect of a hard-right electoral victory). Many NGOs (particularly in Canada) have historically been very reluctant to engage politically in this way, especially those that feel constrained by their charitable status. But let’s be clear – a Poilievre government is coming after your charitable status. Many more of us are going to have to throw caution to the wind.

We have to reveal to Canadians who the Poilievre Conservatives truly are, and what a Conservative majority government will mean for the things we hold dear – there is no appeasement to be had with them. We need to devote more organizational resources to on-the-ground organizing – deep canvassing and sectoral organizing, as more environmental groups are thankfully doing – particularly with communities that haven’t historically seen themselves as part of the environmental movement (finding common cause with the massive climate upheavals facing so many around the world). And we need to urgently recruit and cajole climate justice champions to run for office – people who will excite the electorate, especially younger voters, with a progressive populist message.  

Finally, I think it’s time more of us consider undertaking peaceful civil disobedience. There are thousands of people, including our own supporters, who feel the disconnect between the crisis we face and the solutions on offer. I think many are ready to be asked to do something big, like we saw in the U.S. with the Keystone XL fight, and at Standing Rock, and which we’ve seen in Canada historically but at a smaller scale. Earlier this year, our U.S. allies planned to do this again in Washington D.C., and it seems the very threat of that action pushed the Biden administration to announce a freeze on new LNG approvals. This strategy won’t work, however, if it is merely one or two groups issuing the invitation; it has to be a collective movement call, with some clear and compelling strategic targets. 

But one way or another, we need to take this up a notch. We’ve been telling people it’s an emergency, after all. So now, we need to act accordingly, like our lives and those we love depend on it – because they do.