Why would municipalities want to take action on climate change? Most coastal cities will be impacted, and some more than others (like New York). In 2017 it was predicted that a 3 degree rise would lead to many cites being drowned, however, more recent information shows that considerably less warming could do the same thing. We’re currently at about 1 degree warming and Greenland ice sheets are already melting four times faster than they were, and we’ve possibly already reached a tipping point on their loss.  This is fuelling a risk of serious sea level rise in just the next twenty years – up to 5 meters even if we stay below 2 degrees..

And sea level rise flooding isn’t the only risk, other towns and cities may burn to the ground, such as Paradise, California, Fort McMurray, Alberta, or simply run out of water, such as Cape Town, South Africa.

Considering the risks, and the fact that federal and provincial/state governments that seem to be stuck in 1972, municipalities may wish to do something about it. It’s also a way that individuals can take effective climate action – by running for local municipal office and getting your municipality to take action. Or convincing your municipality to take action.

There are quite a few things towns and cities can do about climate change. Here are a few:

1. Make public transportation free

Making public transportation free doesn’t just cut down on people’s expenses, it is a strong incentive to use public transit instead of your own vehicle. That can represent a huge reduction in emissions. Luxembourg has done so, as a way to deal with climate change.

2. Buy electric buses 

Every five weeks China is building enough electric buses to be London’s fleet. A few years ago this was viewed as a joke, but now is taken much more seriously. Of course it would be most effective to combine this with the point above – by making your electric buses free to the public.

3. Buy electric vehicles and install charging stations.

The IPCC report  has called the transition to electric vehicles a “powerful measure to decarbonize short-distance vehicles.” Austin, Texas, is planning to change their 330-car fleet to electric over the next three years. Pittsburgh is doing the same, and also installing solar-powered charging stations.

Many cities have charging stations, but Kingston Ontario may be leading the way in Canada with a commitment to the electrification of transportation in the city.

4. Go renewable and set goal of being carbon-neutral

On this front a republican mayor in Texas has led the charge, and gotten a lot of attention, for running completely on renewables, wind and solar. Dale Ross, the mayor, says, “[i]n Georgetown, we make our decisions based on the facts.” The decision to go with renewables was made purely on the basis of economic reasoning.

Bristol and Manchester, UK, have set goals of being carbon neutral in 2030, and 2038, respectively. London has set a similar goal as part of their climate emergency declaration. This follows similar steps by several US cities.

Another great way to reduce a city’s carbon footprint, from Portland OR, is to generate its own power through city water pipes. This may also take the prize for innovation.

5. Divest

Divestment from fossil fuel investments is a powerful tool that many cities have used to some degree. A group called C40 Cities has brought cities together to deal with climate change, and many of those listed in this article are part of it. As part of that C40 Cities has sought to accelerate fossil fuel divestment.

New York and London Mayors have put out a public call for divestment, and many cities have answered that call. As part of that London has committed to divesting pension funds from fossil fuels.

More to come in Part 2..

In order to deal with the climate change crisis we will need significant projects. Those will likely include power projects such as huge solar power grids, tidal power, wind power, and more. But it will also include things which may not be profitable or power-generating, such as carbon sequestration, massive-scale tree planting, seeding the oceans, or who-knows-what-else.

To date little has happened on the scale required. Although it really hasn’t been a big part of public discourse, the underlying assumption which has led to a lack of discussion seems to be that it’s “not possible” for governments to invest in “things that business should do,” like power projects, etc.

A neo-liberal worldview has gotten in our way, at a very inconvenient time. In its simpler form is a presumption that government cannot spend 4.5 billion dollars on something as fanciful as a wind farm. And another 4.5 billion on solar panels all over southern Alberta (built and maintained by former oil-patch workers), and another 4.5 billion on planting trees (trees which are wind firm, as fire and drought resistant as possible, and supply some food).

But that is all a lie. The Canadian federal government have graciously shown us, by spending 4.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to buy an outdated pipeline and a project which may never be built, that in fact they could do all of those things, and more.

The feds have shown us that government money can be used to buy businesses, or for major projects, which are in the public interest. What could be more in the public interest than the survival of our children? It could fit under a number of federal heads of Constitutional power, including “peace, order and good government.”

The fact is, we could easily use government money to transition to a low-carbon economy. There is no legal barrier to doing so.

A recent article in the Guardian posited, “What if Canada had spent $200bn on wind energy instead of oil?” The answer is, of course, that we would be much further along in addressing our climate change commitments and protecting our future. And that is just on those numbers alone, and not the spin-off industries which would inevitably result from the government spending 200 billion on wind energy.

The 200 billion figure on which the article is based is the amount of government money that has been invested in the Alberta oil sands since 1999. But instead of looking at the past, we should look at the future and ask,” what if we stopped oil and gas subsidies today, as the Trudeau liberals pledged, and put that money into renewable and natural carbon sequestration?”

On October 8, last year, the UN announced we had 12 years to get things on track with meaningful reductions in emissions. Or else face “climate catastrophe.”

What is Canada doing? Canada just bought a pipeline for 4.5 billion, and is using extreme force against aboriginal people trying to stop another one. But – is imposing a federal carbon tax on provinces that don’t have one, for what it’s worth. As of a week ago emissions continue to rise in British Columbia, a Canadian province with a supposedly good carbon tax.

The USA? Recently (2017) pulled out of the Paris Accord, is appointing climate deniers to top positions, the government is partially shut down, and it’s generally falling apart politically. On the upside there is Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.

The UK, one of the western nations with the best climate records, having passed the first real climate legislation, and cut emissions “by 43% below 1990 levels in 2017,” is in political free fall, with a confidence vote on the May government tomorrow after a stunning defeat of their poorly thought out Brexit plan.

France? Macron had to step back from his carbon gas tax after riots in the streets by the “yellow vests.” A motion which continues to grow, although it’s not clear if it’s gaining or losing momentum.

We now have 11 years. Although there are a few small glimmers of hope, it’s not looking good. This is where we are.

“Many people say that Sweden is a small country, and it doesn’t matter what we do. But I have learned that you are never too small to make a difference..”

– Greta Thunberg, 15, at COP24

The positive from COP24? Attendees worked hard and stayed into the weekend to get a deal. Thank you. The deal is a new “rulebook” for how the Paris Accord will be implemented. Considering the resistance from the USA and others, it is a monumental achievement to have come away with anything.

Another interesting positive is the idea that COP24 has shown that global climate-change treaties and efforts can survive the “anti-climate strongman.” However, one could say that if the result is not sufficient, and civilization does not survive.. then those who threw wrenches in the works were more victorious, for what it will matter.

But those positives don’t change the facts.

The deal is incomplete, with some of the most difficult and important issues put off until COP25 next year in Chile. Here are 3 main issues which have been avoided until next year:

1. Working out the mechanics of an emissions trading system;
2. Brazil, keeper of the world’s lungs, and now run by Jain Bolsonaro (a fan of Donald Trump) took issue with how forests as carbon sinks are accounted for, pushing for a mechanism which many say would allow double-counting.
3. Nothing has been done to speed up our nation’s responses to climate change, while climate change is been speeding up.

To put the last point in other words, and at the risk of oversimplification – we are getting farther behind. We now know, as of October 2018,  that we have twelve years to make extreme cuts to carbon emissions, and that the impacts of climate change are being felt, and worsening, much faster than we previously understood.

The Paris Accord was signed in 2015, and does not reflect that new reality. It wasn’t sufficient to deal with the old reality.

In the words of Daniel Mittler, political director of Greenpeace International,

“We should have had so much more… we’ve had a really terrible year of extreme weather events, of forest fires and of scientists telling the world that we are running out of time… In the face of that, this agreement is morally bankrupt, it is just not enough.”

At the same time, here are some good things that have happened or been announced in the last few days:

The grassroots movement for a Green New Deal is growing in the USA and elsewhere.

In the USA the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia has pulled permits for an LNG pipeline to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail, and “slammed the U.S. Forest Service for granting the approvals in the first place.” To drive the point home the court quoted the Lorax, saying, “We trust the United States Forest Service to ‘speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.’”

India has cancelled plans for significant coal-fired power stations, as the price of solar continues to drop.

And another pipeline, Keystone XL, has also been stopped, at least temporarily. Vermont law professor Pat Parenteau summarized the Federal judge Brian Morris as having said, “the Trump administration completely disregarded the climate effects of building the Keystone pipeline.”

But the real “small” victory is the young people who are stepping up and calling us out for our failures. Greta Thunberg is one of those young leaders who is taking up the mantle of leadership, because it was just sitting there, unused. This 15-year old girl bravely continued at the UN (from the quote at the top):

…And if a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to.

But to do that, we have to speak clearly, no matter how uncomfortable that may be. You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like is. Even that burden you leave to us children. But I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living planet. Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.

At COP24 last weekend the United States sided with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in blocking progress by refusing to allow a UN commissioned report to be “welcomed.” The report was discussed a little in the last post, as it was the one which was a wake-up call to the world on October 8, 2018. It said, in part, that we are on track for 3 degrees warming and that 3 degrees will spell widespread disaster.

Things did not improve at COP24 as the week went on. On Tuesday Vanuatu accused the USA and other large emitters of intentionally obstructing progress. Today, Thursday, December 13^th, it seems hope is fading for any significant accomplishments at COP24.

Questions arise from this. In public and private discussions there is an underlying sense of “how can they do this?” and, “how can leaders just go there and not do anything, or worse yet, scuttle progress?” Or “don’t they know what this is going to do to our children?” They are not always asked, but the questions are often present under the surface.

We all wonder, “how can they just condemn the next generation to a nightmare future, to food shortages, droughts, fires, and resulting migration, war, disease and deaths?” There is an assumption that we can appeal to people’s basic goodness.

Saudi Arabia recently murdered an American journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in their embassy in Turkey. The assassins allegedly started chopping him up while he was still alive. Most people in the know seem to agree that the Saudi leadership had to have ordered it. The President of the United States then condoned it publicly.

It would be an oversimplification to say that, regarding climate change, there are four bad guys, and all other nations are good. It’s a spectrum, with few countries, if any, really qualifying as the “good guys.” In fact, the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2019, released a few days ago, clearly refutes any notion of there being true saviours here. Co-author Niklas Höhne said, “[t]here are bright spots in all categories, but no country performs well in all categories.” CCPI 2019 notes that global emissions are rising and there is a “lack of political will” to take the necessary steps to address climate change.

All that said, are there any further questions?

Reading the news and it sure looks bad
They won’t give peace a chance
That was just a dream some of us had         – Joni Mitchell

“Last week the UNEP warned that Canada is not doing enough on climate change, right now at #COP24 we should be talking about increasing climate ambition yet the debate in Canada due to pressure from oil is about the price crisis & more bailouts.” – Tzeporah Berman

“Negotiators at COP24 took time out Sunday to rest after the first week of talks ended on a sour note the previous night, when the United States sided with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in blocking endorsement of a landmark study on global warming.” – CBC news

Despite all the new revelations and dire news over the last year, it seems nothing has changed at the Conference of the Parties this year in Katowice, Poland.

As stated above, at COP24 last weekend the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked progress by refusing to allow a UN commissioned report to be “welcomed,” although those countries (and all other Party states) requested the Report three years ago. The Report is the one released in South Korea in early October which said that the world is far off track on reducing emissions, heading for 3 degrees by the end of the century, and that what is required are “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.”

“Welcoming” the Report would mean it would become the centerpiece of negotiations for the remainder of COP24. Now, theoretically, it is not. Although it may be that, like banning a book, this refusal will only put more of a spotlight on the Report and its role at COP24 and next year’s COP25.

At the same time, to add further challenges, Macron is under siege in Paris, and on Monday Trump promoted clean coal, and spoke in favour of the yellow vests on the basis that “[t]he Paris Agreement isn’t working out so well for Paris..”

The world has four days to make progress at Katowice. Failure will reinforce Greta Thunberg’s words that the rules are not working, and we need new rules. The longer we fail the more drastic that change will be when it comes.

Does criminal law apply to climate change? Do we need to draft new criminal laws to deal with climate change? What about laws on the books today?

This gets shockingly little academic or public discussion. It has had some, and it’s growing, but it’s still minimal and on the fringe. There is the Centre for Climate Crime Analysis, in the Hague, which chiefly work on matters which are crimes already and are simply not prosecuted. There is a  recent article by Jeffrey Sachs titled, “Trump’s failure to fight climate change is a crime against humanity.” Sachs opens the editorial with;

President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and others who oppose action to address human-induced climate change should be held accountable for climate crimes against humanity. They are the authors and agents of systematic policies that deny basic human rights to their own citizens and people around the world, including the rights to life, health, and property. These politicians have blood on their hands, and the death toll continues to rise.

There is a book called Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival, by Dr. Peter D. Carter and Elizabeth Woodworth. And there’s more out there, but still not that much.

Generally people seem to think that it would require new laws, and since it is a fundamental tenet of criminal law that it cannot be retroactive, it would not apply to acts done today or in the past.

First, let’s consider a few facts:

• emissions are actually continuing to rise
• oil companies and governments have known about climate change for decades
• oil companies (and governments?) have actively hidden what they knew for decades
• Despite an agreement which is a good start (Paris), and some effort by a few nations, not nearly enough has been done (as evidenced by point #1, and not meaning to belittle the amazing efforts of some people and countries)
• People are already dying of climate change effects

It’s safe to assume that there are people out there laying up awake at night thinking, “what will my child eat, will our home where we have lived for generations be underwater in 20 years, will my child be a climate refugee and potentially stopped at the border of the only safe haven and once there brutalised for needing shelter? Killed?” The terrifying scenarios are unlimited, and the fears are real and justified.

It seems only fair, if there are people out there thinking that – that there should also be people laying awake thinking, “what am I going to do when the law, and justice, comes to fetch me and hold me to account for the things I have done?”

Realistically, there is probably no-one lying awake thinking that. Yet. This is not vengefulness, or mean-spiritedness. It’s part of what undergirds our entire social structure. Criminal responsibility for acts which are harmful to society is an essential element of organized society. It has failed in regards to climate change. So far. 

In this context it’s helpful to consider the broader purposes of criminal law – why have it?  Around the world there are five objectives which are widely accepted as being the objectives of criminal law: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation and restoration.

The purposes of sentencing are also useful tools to reflect on the goals of criminal law, and are clearly laid out in Canadian law, in s. 718 of the Criminal Code. They are: denunciation, deterrence, separation from society, rehabilitation, reparations, encouraging responsibility in the offender, and acknowledging harm done to the community.

Regarding climate change, all of these things are lacking in the western world. Those in the world who are largely responsible for the coming deaths and displacement of millions have not been encouraged to have any sense of responsibility. There is no deterrence, because there’s no price to pay, as evidenced by the fact that no price has been paid by anyone, no-one has been held responsible (criminally).

But it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to ask, how many “Camp Fires” do we need before the public cries for justice? And not environmental justice, intergenerational justice, climate justice, or any other new term, just plain old justice. We will see.

And many questions flow from that, far more than can be analysed in a short blog post. Like – aren’t there defenses, and wouldn’t it be really difficult to prove charges like this beyond a reasonable doubt? Yes, of course, those are the hurdles of criminal justice. Not impossible, just challenging. A challenge which has been bravely tackled for hundreds of years.

But also questions like – does making decisions which will cost hundreds, thousands, millions, tens of millions of lives, and making those decisions dishonestly, and with knowledge of the coming harm, ground any specific criminal charge? Murder? Manslaughter? Criminal negligence causing death? 

Could it, should it? This blog will continue to examine these questions in our steeply changing times.

Past is prologue?

It’s happening. Or it is in the US, at least. Ok, there are signs that it might possibly happen…

Newly elected democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pushing the new democratic-run congress to draft concrete plans for a new Green New Deal. Not only did she make it part of her dynamic and youth-oriented election platform, but she is standing resolutely by the idea and getting in fights over it with senior democrats. 

Her winning those fights is critical to life on Earth.

What was the original New Deal? It was a series of economic reforms enacted in the USA to get out of the Great Depression, otherwise known as the “Dirty Thirties.” And it worked. Those reforms were largely focused on getting people back to work, and shifting the economy.

According to History.com;

On March 4, 1933, during the bleakest days of the Great Depression, newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his first inaugural address before 100,000 people on Washington’s Capitol Plaza.

“First of all,” he said, “let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

He promised that he would act swiftly to face the “dark realities of the moment” and assured Americans that he would “wage a war against the emergency” just as though “we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”

Sounds apt for this situation we are in regarding climate change. But we have not heard anything like this from many politicians until the last few months.

So, what is a green New Deal? According to Ocasio-Cortez’s website, it is a Plan to,

… transition of the United States economy to become carbon neutral and to significantly draw down and capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and oceans and to promote economic and environmental justice and equality.

This sounds promising. The idea is not new. Thomas Friedman takes credit for the idea in 2007, but it is certainly visible as early as 2006 in Plan B 2.0, by Lester R. Brown, where he calls for a “wartime mobilization.” But it is finally finding legs in a world that needs it. The recent UN climate Report, the one which has generated so much attention by saying that we have 12 years to change course (the topic of a post yet to come), has also called for a New Deal – complete economic reform and overhaul of the global economy.

It is the only real solution, although there are many possibilities for its specific form. 

What about Canada? Can we look forward to this? Well, let’s look at the past. Canada is generally less likely to make radical policy shifts. For instance – we never embraced the New Deal in the thirties. Instead it’s a sad and interesting history of tepid measures and too-late solutions. The conservative government in power, under Prime Minister Bennett, held the course economically until 1935, as they watched the nation suffer. This led to broad discontent, and the birth of a number of smaller start-up parties offering solutions.

Finally, in 1935, late in his term and leading up to what was predicted to be a disastrous election for Bennett, he announced a “New Deal” program for Canadians. He did try to implement some measures at the last minute, but they were found to be unconstitutional. The new parties took votes from Bennett, not the liberals, Bennett lost, and the liberal party filed his New Deal in the trashcan. Canada effectively stayed in a depression until entering WWII in 1939.

Where would a New Deal come from in Canada? We already had a young leader sweep an old party and the country on a progressive platform. He just bought a pipeline. Does it come from the NDP? Maybe. Does the Green Party sweep to power? A new climate party? Hm. 

Or does it come from a broad coalition of young and progressive candidates and members of all parties who simply want a future?

The fact is – people are sick of the lies re climate change. Saying it’s an issue but then doing nothing is the same as denying it, or worse. There is a huge sleeping electorate waiting for candidates who will do something, as Ocasio-Cortez has shown. 

Can we get it right this time?

Last night the results came in on the US mid-term elections, called by both sides “the most important election in a generation.”

Just to be clear – this blog doesn’t favour one party over another, just human survival. Trump and the republicans have pulled the USA out of the Paris Accord, which Obama and the democrats signed. But one can easily argue that the democrats did not do nearly enough when they had the chance.

The election yesterday was not a democratic-party “blue wave,” but there were some significant changes. The democrats took the House of Representatives (the “House”), but not the Senate. There is a good post by Mike Hosey on the impacts of the mid-terms, re climate change, here (https://medium.com/@thinksustainabilityblog/what-the-usa-midterms-mean-for-climate-change-fb6becf55647).

To sum up, the “House” cannot drive legislation through a hostile Senate and Presidential office, but they can block legislation from those bodies. Hosey boils it down as “… a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives only means that Trump’s ability to dismantle climate and environmental policy is held in check. Damage has already been done, and with a Republican-controlled Senate and President, nothing will be restored.”

But there’s more to it than that. On the down-side, if 2030 is a critical deadline to significantly roll back emissions in order to stop runaway climate change, this spells another two years where essentially nothing will happen from the world’s second-largest emitter. At least on a federal level.

On the upside, it opens the door to impeachment, or at the very least more “facts” (real facts) coming out regarding the Trump administration. For what that’s worth.

Another upside, for American politics and the world climate, is that there were also many small and local democratic victories, which will hopefully protect the democratic process, and the rule of law, leading into near future elections and crises.

“Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground, so we can’t save the world by playing by the rules because the rules have to change. Everything needs to change and it has to start today..”(1)

This is a quote from the 15-year-old Greta Thunberg, of Sweden, during an unexpectedly large climate march in Helsinki. Thunberg is hailed as a youth leader of the climate movement, and has brought new energy to it. And youth have the most credibility in any climate debate, because they have the most invested in it: their lives.

Thunberg started a student strike in September, ahead of a Swedish election, encouraging students to skip school in protest of their government’s lack of action. That protest was taken to the lawn of the Swedish Parliament. She said in Helsinki,

The climate is not going to collapse because some party got the most votes. The politics that’s needed to prevent the climate catastrophe—it doesn’t exist today. We need to change the system, as if we were in crisis, as if there were a war going on.(2)

The point, that our current system as it is cannot solve the climate crisis – is a good one. If it could we wouldn’t be galloping towards the precipice of societal collapse, as the UN recently highlighted (3).

In a more recent speech in London Thunberg said, regarding being encouraged to get back to school:

Some people say that I should be in school instead. Some people say that I should study to become a climate scientist so that I can ”solve the climate crisis”. But the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.

And why should I be studying for a future that soon will be no more, when no one is doing anything whatsoever to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts within the school system when the most important facts given by the finest science of that same school system clearly means nothing to our politicians and our society?

Indeed, what options have clear-eyed youth been left with? Thunberg’s statements beg some questions:

1. How do we give youth more power to determine their own fate?
2. What should the new rules be regarding the climate?

What are the current rules? Frankly, there aren’t a lot. I’m not slagging the Paris Accord, I understand that it was the best people could do in light of the recalcitrance at the highest levels of some governments. But it is not binding.

Nationally, regionally, and locally some governments have introduced carbon pricing or cap and trade programs. Some have been relatively effective. I say relatively because they have been effective relative to the status quo, but they have not been effective relative to where we need to go.

Canada is in the process of enacting a carbon pricing scheme nationally, to fill in the gaps where provinces haven’t already. At the same time the new Ontario provincial government is cancelling their two year old cap-and-trade program, the new Premier claiming that it was “killing jobs,” and vowing to fight the new federal scheme in court (4, 5).

Thunberg correctly points out that even if we adhered to the system under the Paris Accord it would not likely be enough to save us from runaway climate change. This is what we’ve got. It’s not enough, it’s not nearly enough.

All of this begs another question: can we hear it yet?

Hear what, you may ask. That rumble in the distance is the sound of what young people are going to do if we don’t listen, if we don’t change course. I don’t know what that is, and I’d rather not find out.

Which takes us back to the second question: what should the new rules be?