Dear Editor,

The Hub published a letter from Conservative Party Co-Campaign Manager Melanie Middlebro outlining that party’s approach to climate change – an attempt by our Conservative friends to weave coherent policy out of thin thread or no thread at all. To change metaphors, the Conservative approach to climate change is like dealing with a hurricane by giving subsidies to umbrella-makers. Over 97% of climate scientists across the world say climate change is occurring, much of it will hurt the planet, and it is largely caused by human activity. What has happened to our climate has turned out to be worse than cautious earlier predictions of these scientists. Findings of teams of scientists for the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tell us the world has a decade to limit average temperature rise to two degrees or less. Failure will lead to cascades of harmful climate effects beyond human control. This isn’t
science fiction. It’s hard science.

The Conservatives’ plan for climate change (a plan with no targets) has met with disdain from experienced analysts of our democratic political system and from climate scientists and economists. It assumes that persuasion and a free market will wish us out of a climate crisis. As Yukon writer Linda Leon puts it, the Conservative plan “contains 36 promises. Twenty-four are without teeth, containing words such as ‘encourage’, ‘voluntary’, ‘foster’ and ‘study’”. Political analyst and journalist Andrew Coyne, in a June 21 article in The Guardian, describes the Tory plan as “a work, essentially, of mischief — an intentionally pointless bit of misdirection… not intended to be a serious policy proposal. It is, essentially, a prop, a ‘plan’ the Conservative leader can wave about during the election campaign ...” Gary Mason, Globe and Mail national affairs columnist, in a June 25 column described the plan as “a sad joke”. In a July 11 article on Canada.com John Ivison, a political columnist for the National Post and former deputy editor of the Financial Post, says “Voters know there is no such thing as a free lunch — but that doesn’t stop them wanting one. Andrew Scheer’s climate plan plays on such grasping delusions — claiming to meet Canada’s Paris emissions targets at little or no cost.” Writing in Policy Options on October 7, Jennifer Ditchburn of the Institute for Research on Public Policy calls it “a plan that contains neither regulations nor carbon pricing, and even elements that would directly increase emissions — such as widening roads to allow more cars and alleviate commuter stress.”

More telling are the plan’s critics who are scientists or economists. In an October 3 Chatelaine article, Canadian climate scientist Catherine Hayhoe (named by the U.N. Environment Program as one of its Champions of the Earth) and environmental economist and Alberta School of Business professor Andrew Leach give the Conservative plan a mark of D for ambition and F for feasibility, saying “the plan has all the right buzzwords—it talks about green and clean technologies, and emphasizes innovation and protection from pollution. But its actual substance is vague. Very vague. There are some bold promises about how this plan gives Canada the ‘best chance’ at meeting the Paris targets, but there’s not much evidence to back that up… It increasingly seems as though conservative political parties have been captured by a free-spending petroleum industry that is in a fight for survival… Scheer, for instance, opposes the adoption of cleaner fuel standards in Canada, essentially taking Donald Trump’s side in a continent-wide struggle over how much pollution our cars produce.”

Cam Fenton, communications and strategy manager for the environmental organization 350 Canada, has described it as “a plan to expand fossil fuel production. It’s a plan to blow past climate targets... They’re talking about the idea of inventing our way out of this crisis without ever having to address the fact that we’re digging up and burning so many fossil fuels.”

Mark Jaccard, professor of sustainable energy in the School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, in an August 21 article in Policy Options, tackles the Conservatives’ obsession with abolishing the carbon tax – a climate policy that has been shown to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He describes the Tory plan as “a throwback to an earlier era in which climate-insincere politicians tried to trick climate-concerned citizens into believing that they were taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with information and subsidy programs alongside vague statements about greenhouse gas-reducing actions that somehow occur without carbon pricing and/or regulations. In reality, carbon prices must rise or regulations for technology and energy must become more stringent. There is no other way to significantly decarbonize the economy. The world’s leading independent experts all agree on this.” Jaccard shows that the Tory plan would lead to 100 more megatonnes of greenhouse gases by 2030 than the current Liberal government’s inadequate approach would add (a megatonne is one million tonnes).

So much for the Conservative plan that’s not a plan. What would a Green Party government do? First, we set the highest target of any party: A 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2030 – double the Liberal target and in line with what the IPCC says is needed to stabilize global temperature rise at 1.5 C. To do, it, the Green Party has a fully costed 20-step plan:

STEP 1: In June, Canada checked off the first step – it declared a climate emergency!
STEP 2: We will create an inner cabinet that includes all parties because the climate emergency needs all hands on deck. We are known as a party that is willing to cooperate.
STEP 3: Current science says we must increase our climate targets. We will set stringent targets to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
STEP 4: We will take a global leadership role for Canada in the climate crisis and foster global economic opportunities for Canadian green industries and innovations.
STEP 5: Our actions will be based on evidence, not ideology.
STEP 6: We will maintain carbon pricing and eliminate all subsidies to fossil fuels.
STEP 7: We will ban fracking. It destroys ecosystems, contaminates ground and surface water, endangers our health, and is a major source of greenhouse gases.
STEP 8 and 9: Power isn’t easily shared between provinces – the grids run north-south, not west-east. We will connect the electricity grid across Canada and remove all fossil fuel generation from this grid.
STEP 10: We will help Canada to replace all internal combustion engines with zero-emission vehicles by 2040 and work with car-makers to replace working vehicles for rural Canadians.
STEP 11: We will modernize and expand rail transportation and ensure connections to light rail and electric buses so no rural Canadian lacks efficient, affordable, safe public transit.
STEP 12: We will create millions of well-paying jobs retrofitting buildings to be energy-efficient.
STEP 13: We will stop using foreign oil and use Canadian oil while we move to green energy. This plan needs no new pipelines.
STEP 14: We will promote local, small-scale biodiesel production, and require a switch to biodiesel for agriculture, fishing and forestry.
STEP 15: We will ensure economic opportunities from renewable energy projects (for example, harnessing Alberta’s abandoned deep oil wells for geothermal energy).
STEP 16: We will engage every municipality, community organization, school and university to plant trees, install solar panels and heat pumps, and retrofit buildings for energy efficiency.
STEP 17: We will protect agriculture, fishing and forestry and review infrastructure investments, map flood plains, tornado corridors and all vulnerable areas and adjust land use plans.
STEP 18: We will replace F35 warplanes with fire bombers to combat forest fires.
STEP 19. We will address fossil fuel use that falls outside of the Paris Agreement, and curtail other greenhouse gas sources.
STEP 20: We will plant forests to restore “carbon sinks” (vegetation that absorbs the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Earlier in this letter I described Conservatives as our friends. I meant it. They are political opponents but they are not enemies. A Green government will work with them to overcome a crisis that effects everyone, no matter what their political stripe may be.

Sincerely

Wayne Shier
Campaign Manager for
Danielle Valiquette
BGOS Green Party Federal Candidate