Dr. David Tindall, Associate Professor of Sociology, recently attended the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. The Faculty of Arts caught up with Dr. Tindall to ask him about his strongest impressions of the conference, how likely it is for Canada to meet carbon emission targets, and how British Columbia can reinstate itself as a climate leader in Canada.
What left the strongest impression for you at COP 21?
I was interested in the positivity of people in the environmental movement, which I found surprising for a few different reasons. I got the sense from a number of environmentalists that they were hesitant to be too critical of government, especially the US government but also the Canadian government to some extent. Environmental organization leaders talked about issues that needed to be dealt with, and they were really trying to be supportive or constructive as opposed to just playing the role of critic.
Another thing that left an impression on me was the profile of business. I went to something called The Day of Action where there were talks from prominent people all day long, and there were a number of business leaders from different sectors. More generally, at the conference, business people like Bill Gates, Richard Branson from Virgin, and companies like Facebook and Google, played significant roles. Business had a very big presence at this meeting, much more so than in the past.
The third thing that was interesting is that people were very enthusiastic about the Canadian government. The past 10 years, with the Conservative government in power, the Canadian government had been a barrier to progress. Most people I talked to – including people from other countries – were gushing about the prime minister and the environment minister.
And another thing that struck me – although this would be completely obvious to most political scientists – is how much politics in the United States shaped everything. In the United States, politicians within the Republican Party almost universally oppose action on climate change. And if the Obama administration had gone to Paris with the intention of agreeing to a legally binding agreement, my understanding is that would have constituted a treaty, and it would have had to be ratified through Congress. And there is absolutely no way Congress would have ratified it. So that is a major reason why the world has a non-binding treaty – because of American politics. And most people at the COP meeting understood that. So rather than beating up on the United States for not doing more, they recognized the constraints that Obama had to work with.
How can individual country commitments be enforced if temperature and emissions targets are not legally binding?
Environmental organizations and social movement organizations feel that there’s a real symbolic focus with the targets. And a number of people said that it’s time for us to “hold their feet to the fire”. So I think environmental organizations and other social movement organizations are going to do a number of things including protests, various kinds of publicity-type events, and perhaps becoming involved in elections. So at least from the social movement side of things, I think there’s going to be a lot of pressure.
What’s Canada’s biggest obstacle to achieving its emission and temperature targets?
The Trudeau government seems to be embracing a patchwork policy approach, where there are different things going on in different provinces. So that’s going to make it really challenging to live up to particular types of targets.
Also, the former federal government emphasized economic development as being organized around oil and gas development – as have a number of individual provinces — and that is a big barrier because those are the areas that need to reduce emissions the most.
What’s also very difficult for the Liberal government and for Trudeau is the historical legacy of when his father was prime minister. His father developed an energy policy that ended up alienating people in Alberta and the West. So I think the Liberal government really wants to avoid a repeat of that.
But right now on the energy front, the crash in oil prices in some ways is good, in that it’s slowing down production and development in the oil sector. But it’s also making it more difficult to encourage individual consumers to switch over to alternative sources of energy. Especially with motor vehicles, with gas so cheap, people don’t have the same sort of motivation to switch to electric cars and that sort of thing.
How likely is it for Canada to meet carbon emission targets when there is no federal policy?
If there is no federal policy, I think it’s extremely unlikely. Even if there is a federal policy, we’ve had soft targets all along and we’ve never come anywhere close to meeting our targets. For the most part the only time emissions have gone down is when there has been a big downturn in the economy.
It’s probably going to be a while before we can meet the kinds of targets that were talked about in Paris. The government was really pushing the 1.5 degree target at the meetings, and that would require an enormous effort. But at the same time, the status quo will result in island nations in the South Pacific being buried under water.
What’s needed for Canada to formulate a more concrete plan?
Ideally, it would be great if we could do things at a national level. But because of our political structure and our political culture, that seems difficult to achieve. Most environmentalists also say that we need to have national level carbon pricing, but it seems like the Trudeau government is trying to facilitate carbon pricing at the provincial level.
The other thing is I think it’s time for more conservative politicians to start supporting action on climate change. They’ve been very resistant. British Columbia provides an interesting exception in that former premier Gordon Campbell – even though officially his party is called the Liberal Party, was really a conservative party – brought in the first carbon tax in North America. He apparently was able to sell it because it was designed as a revenue-neutral carbon tax. I think it would be useful if revenues were invested in research and development, green technology and green jobs, but perhaps a revenue-neutral carbon tax is something that could be sold to more conservative people.
There are some Conservative politicians who in recent years have taken climate change very seriously. One very notable example is Preston Manning, who used to lead the Reform Party. He talks about needing to embrace policies to deal with climate change. But in terms of the federal Conservative Party, at the moment, I’m not aware of any champions for dealing with these issues.
How can the Canadian government handle resistance from Alberta?
Until there’s another election in Alberta, it’s not such a big problem because the present Alberta government is on board for taking action on climate change. But certainly in an electoral sense, there does seem to be a lot of resistance amongst the general public in Alberta. The NDP’s policies there are quite unpopular, even though they’re probably a step in the right direction. So after three or four years, they’re going to have to deal with resistance and maybe a bit of a pushback. But I think that they have a window of about two or three years to take positive action.
What can BC do to reinstate itself as a climate leader in Canada?
First of all, the price on the carbon tax we do have was supposed to go up over time. Christy Clark has put a freeze on the tax, and I think we need to change that.
The issue of LNG is also a big question mark. The provincial government here, again, has developed its strategy for economic growth around development of LNG. Many environmentalists think that that’s a bad idea because it does lead to significant greenhouse gas emissions in terms of things like methane. One of the responses that some people who support LNG say is that if we produce LNG it will ultimately reduce greenhouse gases because countries like China will use LNG rather than coal, which is cleaner. But that kind of argument seems hypocritical because at the same time as we’re trying to develop LNG, British Columbia is also actively participating in the export of coal to China.
So from my point of view, the two main things that the BC government could do would be to increase the carbon tax, and to reverse course on LNG production. Although I think that the second thing I’ve said is very unlikely for the government to do unless they feel that they need to do that for financial reasons.
I think members of the general public who are moderately interested in the outcome of the Paris COP Meetings – but aren’t really steeped in the details – are very positive about COP. But I think it will take some time to see to what extent this really marks progress.
French Ambassador Nicolas Chapuis will be at UBC to discuss the COP21 Paris agreement on Friday, March 4. Students, faculty, staff, and community members are welcome to attend. Find out more about the event here.
