A Citizens’ Guide to a Climate Change Plan by Lynn McDonald, 28 February 2007 for JustEarth: A Coalition for Environmental Justice

Now that Canada’s political parties all agree that global heating is a grievous threat to the world’s health and well-being, we ask them to support a serious, comprehensive plan to deal with it.

Vision: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” We need a plan that puts the interests of all the earth’s inhabitants, and especially future generations, ahead of consumer convenience and oil company profits.

Fossil fuels are non renewable: Better to make the switch to renewable energy now, before we do more damage by carbon emissions.

Canada’s inaction? We reject the excuse that, since our population is low, we add less to the world’s emissions than many other countries.
Our per capita emissions are among the worst in the world.

Targets and Dates

1. Serious targets for greenhouse gas reductions must be agreed on, with dates, based on the best science available. The federal government must work with governments provincial, territorial, municipal and First Nations; all must work with industry, media, faith communities, and leaders in such sectors as health, education, arts, sports and recreation.

All-party support is needed for any plan. Otherwise any measures instituted might be reversed at the next change of government.

How much? Doubtless the reduction needed is well above Kyoto’s 6%.
Whether it is as high as the 90-94% argued in George Monbiot’s Heat:
How to Keep the Planet from Burning, is not clear. The goal should be set in consultation with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Targets would then be set for the different sectors of the economy, with specifics by home, commercial, government, military, etc.
Measures to meet them would then be worked out:

* heating (home, commercial, etc.)
* transportation (car, truck, bus, train, airplane, ship;
* electricity (lighting, air conditioning)
* manufacturing, retail sales
* forestry, agriculture, fisheries (potentially sustainable
industries)
* oil & gas extraction, mining (non-sustainable resources)

2. A concerted plan to replace the use of fossil fuels with sustainable, carbon-free or low carbon alternatives must be developed.
Solar, wind, tide and increased efficiency are key components. Burying or “sequestration” of carbon from fossil fuels is a potential method.
Mechanisms to get alternatives into place should be developed in tandem with the reduction plan itself, to include:

* legislation and regulation, e.g., energy efficiency in building codes, fuel efficiency standards in cars;
* taxes, such as a carbon tax--no potential measure should be rejected on principle; the end of tax subsidies for fossil fuel extraction; tax subsidies possibly for alternative energy; compensation where appropriate;
* government procurement policies;
* emissions trading (scrutinized to ensure they work).

3. Moratoria on particular high carbon emission practices should be considered. Former Premier Peter Lougheed recommended a moratorium on the Alberta tar sands (where we are increasing emissions). Monbiot recommends a moratorium on airport runways (airplane flights being a serious source of carbon emissions). Why not highway construction?
cheap flights and frequent flyer plans?

4. Adaptation. Because global heating and storms have already begun, and will continue even with strenuous emissions reductions, measures for adaptation (to mitigate the damage) are called for. However, these should not be an excuse for inaction on the causes.

5. Basic Political and Social Change. Transition as to a low-carbon society will require basic changes in our political, social and economic systems.

Electoral reform (proportional representation) would help. Sustainable business practices must be found as well. But the climate change plan should not wait for these broader changes.

What we do is shaped by how we think, and the concepts and images we use are in turn shaped by our own family upbringing, and later by educational institutions, the media, etc. Familiar concepts have to be re-examined in the light of global heating, notably to distinguish the sustainable from the unsustainable, the renewable from the non-renewable.

In times of war people accept all kinds of sacrifices. If we agree that the climate crisis could cause at least as much damage, we will find and make the needed changes.

Starting the Process: Town Hall Meetings

The Parliament of Canada and equivalent provincial, territorial and municipal bodies could start a process of consultation by holding “town hall meetings.”
Broadcasters could do the equivalent in their media. Universities, colleges, professional associations, faith communities, First Nations, broadcasters, community centres, parents’ groups, students and youth, not to complete the list, could all contribute.
Periods of social change require thinking about radically different alternatives (e.g. the salons of the 18th century Enlightenment, teach-ins and consciousness raising in the late 20th centuries). So must we meet, think and revision in the 21st century with our crisis.

Justice? According to the World Health Organization, deaths from global heating in Africa have already begun. There are environmental refugees from rising waters in Bay of Bengal. In the Canadian north polar bears are in decline, and the livelihood of traditional Inuit hunters who depend upon them threatened. Higher temperatures in southern Canada also have already caused damage by insect infestations in forests. But the damage is expected to be worse and occur sooner in the countries that have caused the least greenhouse gases. We in Canada, a major carbon emitter, are relatively sheltered from the damage.

The ozone crisis a model: The world acted in time to meet the warnings about ozone depletion--Canada playing a key role in promoting international measures, with the Montreal Protocol. The climate crisis poses even more of a challenge, requiring greater changes in our economy, politics and life in general than that required to address ozone layer depletion. Let’s get on with it.

References: George Monbiot, Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, Canadian edition 2006. For further material on this proposal see Backgrounder, A Citizens’ Guide to a Climate Change Plan, on the JustEarth website, where also there are links to other relevant
sources: www.justearth.net