Thank you very much, Chair Duncan, for this invitation.
I'm joining you from the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, otherwise known as Vancouver.
It's an honour to be in such distinguished company today. In truth, I'm not entirely certain why you invited me. I'm not a scientist or an engineer, although I am indeed interested in the speedy mass deployment of research and technology. I'm a public policy researcher and writer. For 22 years, I was the founding B.C. director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. More recently, I'm the author of a 2020 book that I believe some of you are familiar with, entitled A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. I believe it's the ideas in this book that prompted this invitation.
When it comes to the climate crisis, and to borrow an apt phrase, “Houston, we have a problem.” I am not the first person to equate the urgent need for dramatic action on the climate emergency with the moon shot. David Suzuki has frequently done so. Just last week, a Guardian editorial directed at the world leaders gathered at the COP meetings in Egypt, running in 30 media organizations across 20 countries, stated the following:
Time is running out. Rather than getting out of fossil fuels and into clean energy, many wealthy nations are reinvesting in oil and gas, failing to cut emissions fast enough and haggling over the aid they are prepared to send to poor countries. All this while the planet hurtles towards the point of no return—where climate chaos becomes irreversible.
Then, they wrote this:
Solving the crisis is the moonshot of our times. Getting to the moon succeeded within a decade because huge resources were devoted to it. A similar commitment is needed now.
Let me speak specifically to the Canadian context.
As a country, for the last 20 years, and despite all our climate pledges and commitments, the best we have managed to do is plateau our emissions at a historic high. We have failed to actually bend the curve. The last year for which we have GHG data is 2020, and we did see a notable decline that year. However, recall this was the year of lockdown, with so much travel and economic activity suspended. Most analysts predict we will see an increase again in 2021, when data becomes available.
The federal government is now taking climate action, but that action is nowhere close to the speed and scale the crisis demands. I think we will, in coming years, see a slow bending of the curve of our carbon pollution, but not nearly at the pitch and pace the science demands. The federal government's climate policies will be modestly successful, but not moon shot successful. There's no comfort in that. As the great climate writer Bill McKibben said, to win slowly on climate is to lose.
Why have we seen so little progress on this task? One of the key reasons, I contend, is this: If you survey our federal and provincial climate policies to date, what they almost all have in common is that they are voluntary. We remain stuck trying to incentivize our way to victory. We encourage change, offering price signals, rebates, tax cuts and credits, but we do not require change and are not driving change through direct government investments.
The government's flagship climate policy remains the escalating carbon price, which, it hopes, will cajole private investment in the right direction. To be clear, I support carbon pricing. However, as a focal point, it is a strategy that will see us condemn our children and grandchildren to lives of profound disruption and catastrophe. This is no way to prosecute a battle for our lives.
My book seeks to excavate a historic story from another time, when we faced a civilizational threat: the transformation of Canadian society and the wholesale retooling of our economy, in order to prosecute the Second World War.
I want to quickly share some lessons from that precursor moon shot with you. When I'm giving talks and interviews, I'm invariably asked, “How do you know when a government gets the emergency?” In reflecting on our wartime experience, and now also on our pandemic experience, I've distilled my answer to what I call “the six markers of emergency”. These are the markers that indicate—or when you know—that a government has shifted into genuine emergency mode.
First, it spends what it takes to win. Second, it creates new economic institutions to get the job done. Third, it shifts from voluntary and incentive-based policies to mandatory measures. Fourth, it tells the truth about the severity of the crisis and communicates a sense of urgency about the measures necessary to combat it. Fifth, it commits to leaving no one behind, and sixth, it centres indigenous leadership rights and title, as these, too, are vital to success in our context.
During the Second World War, the Canadian government hit the first five markers big time. Likewise during the first year of the pandemic emergency response, our government for the most part passed the first four markers, but with respect to the climate emergency, so far at least, our governments are failing on all six counts.
I welcome any questions. I'm happy to elaborate on any of these emergency markers.
Thank you.