The incrementalism that has characterized business and government responses to date is failing, and the climate crisis is tightening its grip on economies and communities everywhere. We saw in the response to COVID-19 what an emergency response looks like. How did we muster a “yes” to fighting the pandemic but haven’t been able to do so for global warming? Those dragging their heels on fighting the climate emergency have many reasons to say “no.” But none of them pass muster.

“No, it doesn’t need to be done.”

Denial of the science remains an obstacle, including simple rejection of the evidence as well as a failure to accept the urgency of the crisis we are facing.  As concluded by the 28th UN climate summit, COP28, mitigating climate requires an accelerated transition away from fossil fuels in our energy systems, and soon. Yes, we need to do it.

“It needs to be done, but no, it is impossible.”

The key solutions to the problem are both possible and being realized. They include smart grids with renewable electricity and multidirectional flows of information and energy; more efficient and electrified transport; automated, zero-emission buildings; a circular economy with materials recycling and products that are designed for durability and repair; a shift to decarbonized protein for feeding a world of eight billion people; and regenerative forestry and farming that puts a premium on ecosystem health and high value-added production.

These solutions are also growing faster than the problem. From 2019 to 2022, clean energy investment grew 29% per year, while fossil fuel investment languished. The fossil fuel system has a 150-year head start, but the growing momentum of new technologies will trump the inertia of the old way of doing things.

Yes, it is possible to build a prosperous civilization while phasing out fossil fuels; it’s the economy that comes with continued fossil fuel combustion and increased global warming that looks impossible.

“It is possible, but no, it’s not worth the expense.”

This is a common excuse for inaction, but it makes no sense. The once future and abstract costs of a changing climate are here now. They are bearing down with multibillion-dollar ferocity on households, communities, companies and governments from Linton to Lahaina, and they will come to your community too. At the same time, the costs of the solutions have been falling at unprecedented rates, and the companies that are providing the products and services we need for the transition are emerging as drivers of the 21st-century economy.

Yes, we need to phase out fossil fuels. Yes, it is possible and yes, it is worth doing.

To reset our efforts to align with a “yes” to stopping climate change, we need to heed the advice of Dwight Eisenhower: “Whenever I run into a problem I can’t solve, I always make it bigger. I can never solve it by trying to make it smaller, but if I make it big enough, I can begin to see the outlines of a solution.”

We too often focus on incremental business strategies and public policies that can narrow the gap between current emissions and zero emissions, rather than on the business ideas and policies that could close the gap altogether. The cost of putting Canada on a path to zero emissions is in the range of $125 billion per year, including public and private investment, three to five times more than we are spending.

Corporate Knights is launching a major new project – Climate Dollars – to address what needs to be done to close the gap between what we are doing and what must be done to put the economy on a sustainable footing. We will compare, sector by sector, the investments needed to get to zero emissions with the current level of investment, and we will engage leaders in business, government and civil society in developing and implementing strategies for closing the gap.

Are you ready to have that conversation? If you say “yes” to the need, the possibility, the urgency and the benefits of a zero-emission future, and are ready to move beyond incrementalism, we would like to hear from you.

The post Climate dollars: A roadmap to a post-fossil fuel future appeared first on Corporate Knights.

As my career progressed, I saw firsthand the stark contrasts that underpin our global economy. In resource-rich countries, I observed how enduring colonial legacies continue to influence lives and local economies, often resulting in widespread poverty. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where local populations have little access to the wealth generated beneath their feet, I led a community investment plan tied to a mining project. I was fully aware that despite the mining project’s scale, the benefit to the communities would be marginal. In India and Nepal, I worked with governments to determine how to modernize forest-management practices that were rooted in a history of cutting down trees to benefit the colonial regime, with little benefit to local economies or consideration of local knowledge, needs and trade objectives.

Again and again, I saw variations of the same story, which left me thinking, “What does it take to create companies that genuinely foster sustainable and equitable development?”

Last year, I concluded that advising companies on environmental, social and governance issues and equity, diversity and inclusion wasn’t sufficient to “raise our wounded world into a wondrous one,” as American poet and activist Amanda Gorman put it. It was time to leverage my expertise to show that it was possible to do more. I established No Women No Spice, a direct trade, certified organic spice company that sources from farmers in Zanzibar, an archipelago off Tanzania.

I had travelled to Tanzania and the island province of Zanzibar many times for work and to visit family and was acutely aware of the region’s innovative approaches to climate change, equity and agriculture. At the same time, I witnessed the lingering impacts of colonialism. These experiences were instrumental in shaping my company’s mission to “reboot the spice route.”

Zanzibar is unique because of its diverse array of crops originating from the African continent and from more distant regions, including India and the Mediterranean. On a single farm, it’s not uncommon to find more than a dozen varieties of fresh spices, including cardamom, black pepper and cinnamon. Despite Zanzibar’s agricultural richness, barriers such as lack of access to markets, destructive climate change and inadequate infrastructure have stymied its potential, reducing “Spice Island” to a mere moniker.

Slavery, women and spice

The quest for spices in the 15th century propelled European explorers to distant shores, spurring the rise of colonial empires. Spice production became a colonial monopoly, marked by severe labour exploitation and the marginalization of local economies. In Zanzibar, the spice trade and the slave trade were deeply intertwined, with Indigenous Africans forced into servitude on Portuguese-, German- and British-owned plantations.

Today’s farmers in Zanzibar face new challenges. They are grappling with climate change through prolonged dry periods, unpredictable rainfall and extreme weather, making crop cultivation increasingly challenging; rising sea levels have led to saltwater intrusion into low-lying fields. Though once a leading spice-trading hub, Zanzibar’s environmental and economic strains have driven many farmers to unsustainable mono-crop agriculture. Despite these shifts, traditional spice knowledge remains vibrant among local farmers. Initiatives like those by Community Forests International are helping communities revive “edible forests” by integrating reforestation efforts.

The spice industry is experiencing a revival driven by consumers’ demand for transparency about spice origins and methods of production. OpenText’s 2021 survey found that 88% of global consumers want to buy goods that are responsibly and sustainably produced; 83% would pay more for goods that are ethically produced. The trend is reshaping the global organic spice market, which is expected to grow from US$10.9 billion in 2023 to US$17 billion in 2033.

In the nascent days of corporate social responsibility, I saw firsthand that the focus was on corporate image with minimal benefit to communities.

Women Who Farm Africa, a social enterprise that provides programs to rural women, reports that women produce approximately 70% of Africa’s food but own less than 20% of the land. In Tanzania, agriculture is a cornerstone of the economy, providing more than two-thirds of employment and nearly one-third of the gross domestic product. The UN Development Programme reports that 67% of female workers in Tanzania are employed in agriculture, primarily as smallholder farmers. However, women remain vulnerable to economic and environmental shifts due to a lack of financial independence. Research suggests that if women had equal access to productive resources, such as financial services, training and land, farm yields could increase by 20% to 30% and reduce hunger by up to 17%. Moreover, women typically reinvest their profits into their households, which alleviates poverty from the bottom up.

In East Africa and South Asia, I’ve witnessed how education on modern farming techniques and access to high-quality seeds and land can significantly improve outcomes for female farmers, paving the way for their financial independence. Higher yields lead to surplus crops and increased incomes, which, in turn, “allows women to invest in their children’s education, improve living standards and further develop their farms,” explains Amina, a cinnamon farmer in Zanzibar.

The demand for spices, coupled with their high value relative to other crops, presents an economic incentive for spice cultivation, but farmers currently lack strong links to more profitable export markets. Sekela Mboya, a Tanzanian agronomist who works with farmers to develop agroforestry plans, stresses that “farmers also need assistance in improving agricultural production and accessing value-add enterprises.” At No Women No Spice, our goal is to increase access to stable and fair income sources for female farmers while supporting regenerative agriculture and agroforestry efforts to combat climate change.

Rebooting the spice trade

The spice industry is at a crossroads, facing the destructive impacts of global warming, growing awareness of unfair compensation for farmers, and increasing consumer demand for organic products. Climate change is already affecting spice yields and quality; forecasts predict a potential reduction in yields globally of up to 23% by 2050. This ancient trade must evolve to align with contemporary ethical and environmental standards.

Many might find it surprising that Tanzania has the sixth-highest number of certified organic farmers globally and is third in Africa. Historically, in an effort to modernize Tanzania’s agriculture sector, there was heavy reliance on chemical pesticides to increase yields of key cash crops: coffee, cotton and tea. In recent years, however, there has been a notable pivot influenced by global environmental movements and a deepening understanding of the long-term consequences of pesticide usage.

Tanzania is now witnessing a paradigm shift characterized by a steady movement toward integrated pest management, organic farming and biopesticides. Remarkably to me, but not Tanzanians, many farmers now practise organic or near-organic farming even without formal certification because it requires minimal external inputs, uses locally available materials and promotes a holistic, diverse and stress-resistant approach to farming. For the smallholder farmer, organic farming is the only viable option.

Tanzania’s organic agriculture sector has also been buttressed by systems and institutions that make sustainable farming more accessible. A network of organic farmers, civil society organizations and businesses further energizes this sector from within. The rise of organic farming in Tanzania represents an opportunity for entrepreneurs, groups and investors to contribute to the nation’s green economy by producing safe, sustainable food.

Grind the gap

Historically, a tiny fraction of a spice product’s final retail value went to the farmer, with the Fairtrade Foundation estimating this at 5% to 7%. This imbalance is even more acute for women, who form a substantial part of the agricultural workforce but typically receive lower wages and have restricted access to resources and land.

While established multinational spice companies have made progress in addressing these disparities, significant gaps persist. Despite a growing focus on sustainability and fair trade, the reality often does not align with corporate sustainability reports. Challenges include opaque supply chains, lack of transparency, and a lack of genuine empowerment of local communities. To cut through the mud, I’ve found that establishing direct relationships with Zanzibar’s sustainable farmers has been the most effective way of ensuring fair pricing that enables farmers to invest in their communities, improve living standards and foster economic independence.

Having spent my entire career working within companies to advance sustainability and equity, my hope is now that the triumphs of one small company can serve as a case study that inspires broader change.

Shilpa Tiwari is the founder and CEO of No Women No Spice and Isenzo Group, an ESG strategy and communications firm.

The post What starting a spice company in Tanzania taught me about sustainability and equity appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The founders of Gravitricity, an Edinburgh start-up, hope their energy-balancing system will become standard in decommissioned coal mine shafts in Europe, South Africa and the U.S., turning depleted assets into productive ones while accelerating the transition to 100% renewable energy. Around the world, innovators are developing new energy-storage solutions that shore up growth in renewables against criticism that the sector can’t deliver power 24/7 (see Zero). According to BloombergNEF, total energy-storage capacity hit 46 gigawatts at the end of 2023. By the end of 2030, Bloomberg expects total cumulative energy-storage capacity will reach 650 gigawatts. And that total is 58% higher than Bloomberg’s year-earlier forecast.

The range of solutions being explored today is mind-bending. Beyond more efficient battery technologies such as sodium ion, aluminum air and solid-state batteries, researchers are working on mechanical systems such as pumped hydroelectric storage, compressed-air energy storage, and falling weights/flywheel storage (such as Gravitricity’s model) and chemical systems such as hydrogen storage and superconducting magnetic energy storage. Also promising: thermal systems that store heat energy, such as latent heat storage, which converts heat into reversible chemical bonds.

The revolution has already begun, led by storage projects that use conventional lithium-ion battery packs. By the end of 2023, Enfinite Corp., a privately owned Calgary energy-storage firm, was scheduled to switch on its 60-megawatt-hour (MWh) battery plant near Grande Prairie, Alberta. Powered by Tesla-made batteries, the plant will boost the firm’s energy-storage capacity by 50%, to 180 MWh. Meanwhile, Toronto-based energy independent Northland Power has just begun building “Jurassic Solar,” a 220-MW solar generating plant in eastern Alberta that will include 160 MWh of battery storage. Also on Northland’s plate is the Oneida Energy Storage Project in Ontario, a utility-scale project being built with the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation that will be the largest energy-storage project in Canada to date.

South of the border, the world’s biggest lithium-ion energy-storage system got even bigger in 2023, with Vistra Corp.’s Moss Landing facility in California now delivering three gigawatts of capacity. “As we navigate this energy transition to cleaner fuel sources,” Vistra president and CEO Jim Burke said in a press release, “the ability to balance that shift with both reliability and affordability is paramount.”

The post Hero: The energy-storage pioneers creating mind-bending solutions appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“Your hot water, computer, washer and dryer, electric car, TV, lights, mobile phone, stove, your heat in minus 30. The things Canadians count on won’t work when needed,” warned the radio, television, web and social media ads, which targeted Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. “The cost of achieving a net-zero grid by 2035 will leave our power grid dependent on intermittent and unreliable sources like solar and wind.”

“No one wants to freeze in the dark,” read mobile-truck-borne billboards circling Parliament Hill in Ottawa in late September.

The Alberta government wants to push Ottawa’s net-zero target date for decarbonizing its grid from 2035 to 2050, arguing that Ottawa’s haste will triple or quadruple electricity rates. The five-week, $8-million “Tell the Feds” campaign urged Canadians to protest the federal proposals during a public comment period on net-zero rules.

Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta government may be determined to drag out its hydrocarbon economy as long as it can, but sowing misinformation across Canada is a new kind of crude. The ads reflect the premier’s paranoia about decarbonizing – and ignore new technologies, such as more efficient power systems, heat pumps and energy-storage innovations (see Hero) that will significantly reduce electrical utilities’ dependence on oil and gas without intermittency issues.

Environmental researchers Sara Hastings-Simon and Jason Dion wrote a piece in the Edmonton Journal arguing that the campaign’s central claims don’t stand up to scrutiny: “The regulations would allow newer gas plants to continue serving the grid for a period well beyond 2035 without constraint.” University of Calgary law professor Martin Olszynski called the campaign “a thinly disguised attempt to enlist ordinary Canadians in Alberta’s unyielding service to the fossil fuel industry.”

The public also pushed back. So many complained about the ads that one Toronto radio station, JAZZ.FM91, pulled them off the air.

Alberta’s PR blitz may just have been setting the stage for Smith’s next act. In late November, she challenged the proposed federal standards by invoking the Alberta Sovereignty Act – the first piece of legislation her government passed, in December 2022. The move allows Alberta legislators to review the constitutionality of the federal rules, and then possibly set them aside. But experts say Alberta’s new law itself could be unconstitutional – news that no one needs to tell the feds.

The post Zero: Alberta’s fearmongering media blitz to try to delay federal climate action appeared first on Corporate Knights.

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The announcement came as many countries (Canada included) are looking to build new LNG export terminals and expand natural gas exports all while pledging to reduce emissions from the sector.

Natural gas is often billed as a bridge or transition fuel for economies looking to shift away from polluting coal. But hundreds of studies have found that methane emissions from the oil and gas sector are up to 70% higher than the levels reported. Leaks from the well to the burner tip remain elusive. Here are five ways methane escapes en route.

1. Oil and gas wells

There are nearly one million active oil and gas wells in the U.S. and more than 460,000 in Alberta alone, including 90,000 abandoned wells. Methane is leaked during drilling and hydraulic fracturing, escaping from both active and orphaned oil and gas wells. More escapes from pneumatic pumps and other equipment. It’s also routinely vented and flared in oil fields where producers have no access to gas pipelines.

2. Processing

After natural gas is extracted, it’s processed to remove liquids such as propane and butane. Thanks to faulty seals, methane often leaks from holding tanks and processing equipment. Producers have great incentive to reduce leaks to minimize loss of product; the amount of leakage varies greatly among companies and jurisdictions. The same is true for LNG plants.

3. Transportation

Methane escapes from the pipelines that carry the gas from production fields to processors to distributors and finally consumers. The U.S. EPA estimates losses of close to 1% from transportation and distribution systems. Losses also occur in ocean tankers when LNG evaporates or “boils off” from storage tanks, particularly on older ships.

4. Power plants and factories

Roughly half of natural gas is sold to large power plants and factories in the U.S. (in Canada, a third), where methane escapes from leaky processing equipment. Gas-fired power accounts for 3% of total global methane emissions, according to gas-fuelled turbine maker GE.

5. Residential end use

Buildings account for 25% of natural gas demand, and in homes methane leaks from every natural-gas-fired appliance: furnaces, water heaters, stoves and fireplaces. Natural gas stoves emit up to 1.3% of the gas they use as unburned methane. Even when they are not running, gas stoves in the U.S. put out an amount of methane equivalent to 2.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, according to one study.

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In 2006, David Cameron, then leader of the Conservative Opposition, travelled to the Arctic to be photographed “hugging a husky.” The image was carried in every U.K. newspaper and was part of the party’s attempt to “detoxify” after years in opposition. There was a growing recognition that a serious party needed to be seen to care about tackling environmental problems, and shortly after Cameron promised voters he would lead the country’s “greenest ever” government.

Seven years later, as prime minister, Cameron was overheard demanding that his ministers “cut the green crap.” The United Kingdom had hit a turbulent economic patch, and despite years of telling the world that it was in the green transition that jobs, growth and opportunities were to be found (a claim borne out since by experience), Cameron had abandoned ship at the first bump.

Although his record in office on the environment wasn’t exactly glowing, his apparent U-turn dashed in an instant the credibility the Conservative Party had steadily rebuilt after years of neglect, and it took years of heavy lifting to regain it. 

Theresa May’s stint was brief, but cross-party pressure did result in a world first: a legal commitment to achieving net-zero emissions in the U.K. by 2050. 

It was Boris Johnson, whose 2019 manifesto placed “climate leadership” as a top international priority, who turned the U.K. into a recognized world leader on climate and the environment. As his environment minister, I was put in a position where I could do more for the environment than I thought possible in a lifetime.

At the COP26 climate summit, hosted by the U.K. in 2021, we secured commitments from world leaders that if delivered would turn the tide on deforestation. We played a defining role in securing agreement for a new global treaty on plastic pollution, and at the biodiversity summit in Montreal, U.K. leadership led directly to a new global agreement to protect 30% of the world’s land and oceans by the end of this decade. With our international aid, we committed to doubling nature and climate finance spending to £11.6 billion over five years.

Domestically, the government introduced perhaps the toughest environmental legislation in the developed world, not least through the landmark Environment Act, which I had the privilege of taking through Parliament. We saw stronger laws on pollution, more funding for nature, more protected areas, and a radical overhaul of farming subsidies to protect the environment. The U.K. remains one of the only countries in the world with legal targets to reverse biodiversity loss. 

But in the months since Johnson left office, all of this has changed. The shift began after a close by-election result in the seat of Uxbridge, where, against the odds, the Conservatives managed to win. This was credited to the party having taken a stand against a London-wide “ultra low emissions zone,” which involved new costs for drivers of polluting vehicles. 

Green has been a thread that runs through Conservative history.

Extrapolating from the result, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calculated that if voters oppose one environmental policy, there might be political mileage in dropping the others. So in his own version of Cameron’s “cut the green crap” moment, Sunak promised to “max out” the remaining North Sea oil fields. His ministers, meanwhile, were sent out on the airwaves to denounce “eco fanatics” and the opposition’s “dangerous plans.”

It was the end of nearly two decades of broad consensus on the need for action (albeit with disagreements over the best ways to deliver it). Sunak had chosen as his election strategy to make the environment into a U.S.-style political wedge issue.

As it happens, the party went on to lose two previously safe seats just a short while later and currently languishes at record lows in the polls. So the strategy hasn’t worked. But the question is why? Who was Sunak trying to appeal to?

The answer offered by the left is that he was throwing “red meat” to right wingers, and that is undoubtedly what he thought he was doing. But the evidence suggests both he and the left have miscalculated. 

Sunak was appealing to a certain type of conservative: people convinced the environmental agenda is a Trojan horse for socialism and who therefore latch onto any available theory that debunks any element of climate science. They, like some climate campaigners too, have reduced the “environment” down to mere carbon, and they do not dwell on the damage being done to natural systems like forests that we depend on. 

These conservatives exist, of course, but they are by no means the majority – at least in the U.K., where the Conservative Environment Network boasts roughly 150 active members of Parliament.

Nor are they representative. Indeed, no matter how the question is phrased, the answers in every poll are the same: people want more nature and climate leadership. In one recent study, for example, 77% of 2019 Conservative voters in the U.K. agreed that “improving nature in your local area” is very or somewhat important – more than in any other group.

The core of Tory philosophy and the case for protecting the environment are the same.

 

– Margaret Thatcher in 1988

And this isn’t a new phenomenon. Green has been a thread that runs through Conservative history. It was Conservative administrations that introduced the Clean Air Act (1956), the Landfill Tax (1996), the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981). Conservatives introduced the first disposable plastic levies (2021), legally binding biodiversity recovery targets (2021), a net-zero target (2019) and the most recent Environment Act (2021). Further back, it was Robert Peel who passed the Mines Act and Factory Act (1842/44) and Benjamin Disraeli who passed the Public Health Act (1875).

When today’s conservatives in the U.K., U.S. and Canada dismiss the environment as “wokery,” it is worth considering that it was Margaret Thatcher who not only intervened to strengthen the Montreal Protocol to limit ozone-depleting chemicals; she was also the first leader of a developed nation to sound the alarm on climate. She told her party in 1988: “The core of Tory philosophy and the case for protecting the environment are the same. No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy – with a full repairing lease. This government intends to meet the terms of that lease in full.”

It was President Theodore Roosevelt who used executive orders to establish 150 million acres of protected land in the U.S. “The time has come,” he said, “to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone . . . when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.”

It wasn’t despite being conservatives that Thatcher and Roosevelt took this approach; it was because they were conservatives. They understood that stewardship, looking out for future generations, living within natural limits, valuing critical natural systems, making the polluter pay – these are core conservative values.

Edmund Burke, often described as the father of conservative philosophy, wrote, “Society is a contract . . . a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” The late conservative intellectual Roger Scruton added that if environmental damage is treated as a mere “externality,” unpayable costs are inevitably heaped upon future generations.

Somewhere along the line, modern-day conservatives confused problems with solutions. They dislike the approach of the left to problem-solving, but rather than develop alternatives, they have chosen simply to ignore the problem. 

But the challenges we face today cannot simply be wished away. Whatever the arguments over the precise trajectory of our changing climate, there is no disputing the near-suicidal levels of ecosystem and biodiversity loss we are witnessing today. There is no technological substitute for the great biomes like the Amazon or Congo, which regulate the world’s climate and produce the rainfall that makes agriculture possible. 

We face our greatest challenge, and there’s nothing conservative about turning our backs to it. A conservative who is not also an environmentalist is, in fact, no conservative at all.

Zac Goldsmith was the U.K. minister for the international environment, climate, forests, ocean under Boris Johnson.

The post There’s nothing conservative about turning our backs on nature appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Political movements are ironic, indeterminate, inspiring and infuriating. Conservatism and environmentalism exemplify how movements’ identities and relationship to each other evolve, often dramatically. A century ago, the two intersected regularly. Over the past decade, both movements have strayed from their roots and each other. Yet the underlying political and economic conditions in the United States clamour for reunion, where conservatives seize the opportunity to lead on environmental issues.

Republicans have a proud environmental legacy, epitomized by Theodore Roosevelt’s commitment to land and wildlife conservation in the early 1900s. Conservative scholars, such as those at the Property and Environment Research Center, were at the forefront of market-based solutions to fishery depletion, biodiversity loss, land degradation, water scarcity and pollution. President Ronald Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol to resolve ozone layer depletion, which former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan called “perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date.”

The initial climate movement worked with prominent Republicans like John McCain toward sensible policy, such as emissions pricing to reduce carbon 80% by 2050. A decade later, the American environmental agenda was calling for full decarbonization in the 2030s using aggressive technology mandates, risky bans and massive public spending. Contemporary environmentalism became synonymous with one word: sacrifice. Sacrifice is, quite literally, the antithesis of conservative nomenclature. As Republican pollster Frank Luntz notes, green activists message on fear, but conservatives respond to opportunity. Unsurprisingly, the modern environmental movement alienated conservatives, who viewed it as a threat to opportunity.

Conservatism, for its part, has waded into a protectionist mindset, diluted its fiscal responsibility swagger, and descended into the culture-war trap. This posture rallied a populist subset of the conservative base and benefited some Republicans in primary elections. But it is leaving a wake of economic regret, alienating the rest of the electorate and costing Republicans dearly in general elections.

Fortunately, a growing wave of eco-Republicans championing the idea of “green liberty” may be forging a new path forward.

The accidental environmentalists

When American conservatives think of environmental policy today, they picture draconian fossil fuel bans, heavy-handed regulations and fiscal recklessness. It is hard to blame them. Whether you watch Fox News or read The Economist, the climate agenda has one unequivocal association: big government. The crown jewel of Democrats’ climate agenda, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2023, primarily raises taxes to subsidize what the private sector intends to build already. Remarkably, a single category of regulatory reform – electric transmission – would achieve greater emission reductions than the IRA and actually benefit the economy.

Conservatives seldom consider that policies compatible with their economic philosophy would achieve better environmental outcomes.

Ironically, conservative policy is to thank for the bulk of U.S. carbon reductions. Even climate-skeptic conservatives have become accidental environmentalists. Climate progress actually blossomed under President Donald Trump, who was wrong on the science but right to let the private sector lead. Despite the rhetoric, markets replaced more coal with clean energy under Trump than under any preceding administration.

By the end of 2020, primarily market forces, in addition to the pandemic and policy factors, drove emissions from energy consumption 24% below 2005 levels, exceeding the target of the 2009 Waxman-Markey bill, the most comprehensive climate package to pass either congressional chamber. The power industry outpaced the target of the most ambitious federal regulation, President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Competitive power-sector reforms – a product of the George W. Bush era – induced clean energy expansion that displaced polluting legacy plants. Similar conservative deregulation of the transportation sector and free trade policies helped propel cleaner industrial practices in America than what would have occurred abroad.

In the 2010s, market forces pivoted from incidentally to intentionally lowering emissions. Corporate clean energy purchasing led the way, with volumes rising 658% from 2016 to 2021. The greening of corporations went beyond conventional cost and risk management, signifying a profound shift in business milieus driving markets toward environmental improvement without government coercion.

This greening of the invisible hand warrants rethinking the environmental role of government to empower private markets rather than control them. To achieve future emissions cuts, markets need better information and less red tape. Consider that regulatory approvals to build new power plants, if they ever happen, take more than a decade in most regions. The exception is Texas, the freest energy system in the country, where plants develop in two to three years. Texas now leads the country in clean energy investment.

This leads to one simple truth: policies compatible with a conservative ethos are the climate imperative.

The deliberate environmentalists

For conservatives to become explicit environmental leaders again, the issue must be a winner at the ballot box. Fortunately, it is becoming just that. Since 2015, the electorate increasingly rewards candidates with strong environmental reputations and punishes those without. The importance of climate change to independent voters, who decide general elections, was a strong predictor of how they voted in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections.

This broad sentiment fomented a new conservative ecosystem known as the “eco-right.” In one decade, this subset went from niche groups like republicEn and ConservAmerica to boasting advocacy powerhouses like the ClearPath Foundation, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, Conservative Energy Network and the American Conservation Coalition.

The free-market R Street Institute was founded in 2012 over a disagreement on climate change with the Heartland Institute. Similarly, ex-Heritage Foundation staffers started the Conservative Coalition for Climate Solutions. These new think tanks, plus the long-standing American Action Forum, have been driving research on the nexus of environmental improvement and economic freedom.

Beginning in 2016, the eco-right ushered in a slew of bills on energy innovation and nature-based climate solutions. Pro-climate legislation, including the Energy Act of 2020 and the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, was signed into law by climate-skeptic Trump because of appealing economics and conservative credibility. Conversely, eco-right members stopped Trump’s coal bailout by showcasing how conservative energy policy should reduce regulation and encourage competition, not subsidize the past.

Even climate skeptic conservatives have become accidental environmentalists.

By 2021, the eco-right spearheaded the rise of the House Conservative Climate Caucus to champion uniquely conservative climate solutions. At 81 members, it has become one of the largest Republican caucuses. Under President Joe Biden, eco-right engagement elevated permitting reform to a top-tier congressional Republican priority. This bore fruit in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. Eco-right research and organizing also propelled bipartisan regulatory reforms to expedite power-plant-grid interconnection, the largest barrier to clean energy in many regions.

The eco-right also secured various state legislative wins, including pro-market Texas laws to reduce gas flaring and unleash geothermal, as well as climate resilience improvements to insurance, water and natural infrastructure policy in Florida.

The secret sauce is not so secret: pair good economic policy with positive environmental outcomes.

Conservative environmentalism reverses environmentalism’s economic stigma. It accentuates economic and environmental responsibility, not harming one more than it benefits the other. It thrives where business is viewed as friend, not foe. It excels when progress is measured by environmental results, not public spending. It appeals to voters when billed as opportunity, not rooted in fear. In other words, conservative environmentalism reunites the lost core of conservatism and environmentalism under the banner of green liberty.

Conservative environmentalism

The road to redemption will be bumpy. Environmentalism and conservatism have, in many regards, lost their way.

The environmental movement is ripe for bifurcation between symbolists and pragmatists. The litmus test is permitting. New progressive groups like the Institute for Progress and pragmatists like the Breakthrough Institute are leading reform.

And if Republicans are to reclaim the lost art of winning, they seem more likely to do so behind climate-concerned economic champions, who lead Biden in the polls by a wider margin than Trump. After last November’s Republican thumping, Senator Mitt Romney restated conservatives’ winning issue: the economy, not divisive social issues. Given the electorate’s growing environmental preferences and the mainstay of economic concerns, the path to conservatives reclaiming leadership requires a return to freer and greener market principles.

All told, the history of environmentalism and conservatism is that of estranged siblings. They were close as kids, grew apart, but remain family. They squabble now, but as they mature, reconciliation is destiny.

Maturity hardly comes to mind in today’s culture war. But political necessity is an unstoppable force. Should conservatives recommit to economic liberty and equate it with the environment, conservative environmentalism may be reborn. Environmentalists, for their part, need to refocus on what matters: results. To regain their identities, environmentalism and conservatism need look no further than their family tree.

Devin Hartman is the director of energy and environmental policy at the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C.

The post A quest for ‘green liberty’: How America’s eco-republicans are trying to reclaim the right appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The climate crisis changed that. Somewhere between when the oil industry began sowing doubt about mounting climate science and when George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto Accord, a once non-partisan issue grew increasingly polarized. Today, climate action is too often mired in divisive politics, with climate solutions getting sucked into the culture wars. In both Canada and the U.S., right-wing politicians are now threatening to water down and repeal existing climate policies if elected, while U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has begun doing just that.

As Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre vows to axe the carbon tax, Republican front-runner Donald Trump appears set on dismantling President Joe Biden’s climate policies, in particular the Inflation Reduction Act. “The only global warming we should be thinking about and worrying about, because it could happen tomorrow, is nuclear global warming, not global warming,” Trump said at a Fox News town hall in December.

Meanwhile, scientists have been immeasurably clear that we don’t have time for backtracking. The latest Emissions Gap Report from the United Nations Environment Programme found that “current pledges under the Paris Agreement put the world on track for a 2.5–2.9°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels this century, pointing to the urgent need for increased climate action.” We can’t afford to set existing policies even further back every couple of terms.

Politics aside, surveys on both sides of the Atlantic say the majority of us care deeply about the environment. Canadians of all stripes expect government to act on climate change: 81% think a Conservative government should deal with climate change seriously, according to the latest Abacus Data polls. And while Trump recently said he wants to “drill, drill, drill,” fall 2023 polling from the Pew Research Center in the U.S. found that 79% of millennial and Gen Z Republicans think that government should prioritize the development of alternative energy sources – compared to 55% of boomers.

In fact, conservatives in all three countries have a history of leading on key environmental policy. In 2005, a Corporate Knights survey of a dozen prominent environmentalists named Brian Mulroney Canada’s greenest prime minister for his action on acid rain (a treaty signed with U.S. president George H.W. Bush). While we may agree to disagree on the saliency of some of their prescriptions (Corporate Knights doesn’t consider new nuclear or gas projects sustainable, and we don’t think markets alone can deliver a transition to sustainability, much less a just and equitable one), evidence of green conservatives abounds.

Getting more of today’s conservatives on board may be about how the message is crafted. Republican pollster Frank Luntz (who changed his tune on climate change after his house almost burned down in a California wildfire in 2017) recently asked voters in the U.S. and the U.K. what kind of language might make them consider backing green policies. As the Financial Times put it, “when asked whether they considered it more important to protect ‘the economy’ or ‘the environment,’ 75% of U.S. voters chose the former. But when the question was rephrased to offer the choice between ‘the economy’ and ‘a healthy, safe, clean environment,’ 55% chose the latter.” Abstract terms like “net-zero” and “greenhouse gases” don’t poll well with Republicans, who would be more likely to support climate action if it were framed in terms of “why it’s good for you, your family, your neighbourhood, your community, your country – in that order,” Luntz said, emphasizing opportunity over sacrifice.

If it’s done right, smart environmental policy can put money back in the pockets of people who need it most. A Corporate Knights analysis of household expenditures found that a family that swapped out its gas-powered car, furnace, stove and hot water heater for clean technologies could save up to $5,000 per year. Rebates to lower-income families could help families afford to trade up to these clean alternatives.

The European Central Bank has recently been extolling the anti-inflationary benefits of clean energy, with credible estimates indicating that electricity consumers in the EU expected to save an estimated €100 billion from 2021 to 2023 thanks to new low-cost wind and solar installations, which have displaced an estimated 230 terawatt-hours of expensive fossil fuel generation since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Globally, investment in clean energy reached US$1.1 trillion in 2022 – growing six times faster than the economy at large. This is where the opportunity lies now. And every dollar invested in adaptation (preparing our homes and infrastructure for climate change’s devastating impacts) can save $13 to $15 down the road – conserving resources while better preparing us for the future. Both conservative values.

In the quest for common ground, Corporate Knights reached out to conservatives in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. who are hoping to steer their parties toward a more sustainable future. We asked all three the same question: what is your prescription for green conservatives? As former Tory minister Zac Goldsmith has said, we may have disagreements about the means but not the end: preserving a healthy and safe environment.

READ MORE: 
The right thing to do: A prescription for Canada’s green conservatives

A quest for ‘green liberty’: How America’s eco-republicans are trying to reclaim the right

There’s nothing conservative about turning our backs on nature

The post Are green conservatives the key to solving the climate crisis? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

There is a habit among politicians, on all sides of the political spectrum, to judge a policy not on its merits but on its lineage. If an idea was born on one side of the aisle, it is unlikely to find support on the other side. In the last few decades this habit has metastasized into a psychosis, both in the United States and in Canada, especially among my conservative tribe, and especially in regard to the issue of climate change. We have wandered into a fever swamp, and our inability to find a way out may end up being one of Canada’s greatest tragedies in the 21st century.

At first, we conservatives argued that climate change did not exist. Then, drowning in data, we retreated to “It exists, but it is not man-made.” After that, we fell back to “It may be man-made, but it is not necessarily harmful.” As global climate disasters increased, we retreated to “OK, it is bad, but there is nothing we can do about it.” This brings us to today, as the conservative movement takes one more futile step backward and declares, “Fine, something might be done, but it would be too expensive.”

It is possible that in the very near future we will finally reach the terminal phase of this debate and announce that “in the face of the catastrophic costs of not doing anything, we clearly could have afforded to do something, but now it is too late.”

That, however, is still a choice for us to make. Conservatives can stop this humiliating decades-long retreat. We can abandon the constant rearguard actions. We can lead again, as we once did on acid rain, and we can start by embracing the core principles of conservatism.

Of course, there are many flavours and camps and dogmas among the political right, and not all values are shared. So, allow me the indulgence of proposing that the vast majority of us can agree on a few items.

First, most conservatives believe that for societal or economic transformation, gradual evolution is usually better than radical change. Therefore, it should also be easy for the right to agree that the climate changes we are already witnessing, and which are predicted to accelerate, will be extraordinarily disruptive to our society.

We are already seeing the beginnings of rapid shifts in agriculture, threatening farming families in Canada and around the world. Unprecedented damage from storms and droughts is quickly creating an existential crisis for the insurance industry, which has underwritten more than a century of economic growth and stability. And rising sea levels, loss of livelihoods and resource scarcity are now driving increased global migration to levels previously unseen.

If conservatives value stability over revolution, then we must see climate change as the single greatest threat to our society. As such, doing something should be our highest priority, regardless of cost. And, if conservatives value our sovereignty and the right of Canadians to dictate their own laws, then we should be rushing to do more on climate action.

We conservatives often argue that Canada is not the problem in terms of global climate change – that we contribute only 1.6% of greenhouse gases. That may be true, but whether we agree or not, the issue is becoming one of the most pressing priorities of our allies and our trading partners. And, as Canada is the second-highest greenhouse gas emitter per capita among the top emitting countries, it is only a matter of time before those allies see Canada as a climate laggard.

If we continue to dither on climate action, those same allies will almost certainly impose harsh decarbonization measures on us through our bilateral trade and security relationships. This would be similar to the way the Western community imposed drastic economic reforms on Eastern Europe in the 1990s. The results were disastrous for those countries and could be similarly disruptive for Canada, regardless of which party is in government. That concern alone should be motivation enough for Canadian conservatives to stop retreating and start working energetically on climate action.

If the Canadian conservative movement can make that shift, to simply accept that the climate needs to be at the heart of all policy decisions, we can finally stop the decades of retreat and begin to lead again. Alas, at that point, we will have to grapple with the single most debilitating symptom of our partisan psychosis: the carbon tax.

Ironically, if partisans judge policy by its lineage, conservatives should be swooning over a carbon tax. It was originally championed by Republicans in the United States, such as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, George Shultz, and George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff, James Baker. They liked it because it is a market-based solution that gives consumers and businesses the economic freedom to make their own choices. It does not involve more regulations, and it does not require the government to pick winners and losers – something it is notoriously bad at.

Unfortunately, because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the bête noire of Canadian conservatives, made the carbon tax one of his central policy planks, the political right instinctively lined up against it and has spent most of the last decade telling voters it will not work and it will be too expensive.

Of course, as has been documented in numerous jurisdictions, it does work. In British Columbia, where a right-of-centre party adopted the tax in 2008, data show it has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 5% to 15%.

And, it is not too expensive. Economists of all political stripes have calculated that it is the most efficient means of reducing carbon, bar none. Canadians, particularly among the lower and middle classes, are realizing that the carbon-tax rebates are a significant assistance in the face of rising living costs.

A brave conservative leader would finally accept this, stop the retreat and lead by keeping the carbon tax and then finding ways to make it more efficient and effective, by closing loopholes that allow the largest emitters to pay the lowest rates, for example. But, this being Canada, political bravery does not run in our veins, regardless of ideological DNA.

So, let us assume the current leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada takes that off the table. The good news is that there are still many other policy options, albeit less effective and less efficient, that will help. Chief among these would be to accelerate the decarbonization of our energy sector by regulating reduced methane emissions, championing the use of nuclear and renewable energy, and replacing more carbon-intensive power sources such as coal. We can also spend more on new sequestration technologies and create new fuel standards.

Happily, these are already policies that the Conservative Party of Canada supports. If they made good on their existing promises, if they made climate action the centre of their political strategy, then there may still be time to find our way out of this partisan fever swamp. But, if this issue continues to be nothing more than a political game, it will be a tragedy for Canada. We will be left less prosperous, less stable and less independent. And that is a legacy no conservative would ever want.

The post The right thing to do: A prescription for Canada’s green conservatives appeared first on Corporate Knights.