“Liberal democracies appear to feel particularly overwhelmed,” the report said with a view to the MSC’s Security Index based on polls conducted in different countries, warning that this development is “highly dangerous” and could “turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy” as apathy takes over. Extreme weather events, such as the floods in Germany and other western European countries in the summer of 2021, wildfires in the U.S. and Brazil or droughts and heatwaves elsewhere, “have driven home the message that the effects are already here – and will increase for decades,” the report said, adding that the responses given by governments worldwide are generally perceived as inadequate and “too little, too late” given the dire outlook and urgent calls for action by scientific analyses like the UN’s IPCC report.

The Munich Security Report pointed to surveys in Germany finding that over half of the people believe or even are completely sure that international efforts to curb global warming are bound to fail, while only a tiny fraction is truly optimistic. The level of scepticism was also high in other countries surveyed, such as Italy, Brazil, France or Japan, and generally has grown with respect to last year’s index, with the perception of a “seeming inevitability of climate change” gaining ground. The erosion of trust in people’s own governments and that of the international community to deliver meaningful action is contributing to “the greatest collective-action challenge we have ever faced,” the MSC concluded.

But the report stated that there is also reason for optimism: “As the response to the pandemic has shown, the world’s democracies can still muster enormous resources if need be – so we can surely do the same for addressing climate change as well.” Scientists continue to believe there are ways to keep global warming in check and “while democracies need broad support in this regard, they can still lead the way in this fight.” Risks from climate change and environmental degradation more broadly dominated the index and ranked high in each country surveyed. A majority in most countries agreed to the statement that binding climate neutrality targets are needed for every country in the world.

The MSC’s findings chime with the results of a study by the German science platform for climate action, WPKS, which analysed the potential for encouraging citizens and businesses to focus on the opportunities and attainable goals of climate action. „It’s important to understand that the euphoria about change that many supporters of climate policy feel strongly is increasingly met with scepticism,” said Fritz Reusswig from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), one of the study’s authors.

Growing parts of society could rather be characterised as “tired of change” or even feel anxious about the idea, he said. A possible way to get more people on board regarding the chances and feasibility of emissions reduction, especially municipalities and smaller businesses could play an important role in communicating what can be achieved through climate action, the study found.

Via Clean Energy Wire

Licensed under a “Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0)” .

When the federal government released the budget in April 2021, it proposed creating a new tax credit for private firms that make investments in carbon capture, utilization and sequestration projects.

But in January, shortly after the consultation period closed, more than 400 Canadian climate scientists, academics and energy system modellers urged the government to cancel its plan. The letter attracted significant media attention, including pointed responses in favour of the tax credit from business journalists as well as industry representatives and lobbyists.

As a climate policy scholar and one of the many academics opposed to this new tax credit, I’m concerned by the misleading arguments made by the tax credit’s supporters. The credit would divert millions of dollars from cheaper and safer climate solutions, and into fossil fuels. It’s time to clear the air about the reality — and the risks — of carbon capture as a means of climate policy.

Carbon capture demystified

Carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) comes in two main types. The first seeks to capture the concentrated carbon dioxide in smokestacks from hard-to-decarbonize industries like oil and gas, steel and concrete before it is emitted to the atmosphere. The second seeks to capture dilute carbon from the air — called direct air capture — after it has been emitted.

Both types bury captured carbon underground, and both types require enormous amounts of additional energy to do so. Historically, the “energy penalty” of CCUS — the additional energy required to operate CCUS per unit of energy generated by a power plant for basic consumption — was assumed to be 25 per cent, but recent data suggest it could be as high as 49 per cent.

The purpose of CCUS is to keep carbon dioxide out of the air to slow global warming. Presently, however, over 80 per cent of CCUS is actually used for a process called enhanced oil recovery, where the captured carbon is used to extract additional oil and gas from reserves that are otherwise impossible to mine.

For both types of capture to achieve their stated purpose, the additional energy used must not emit any carbon — it must come from renewable energy sources. If it weren’t being used here, this zero-carbon energy could otherwise be used to directly meet our energy needs, making carbon capture technology inefficient and highly expensive.

Prolonged fossil fuel production

The letter to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland emphasized three points:

1. Carbon capture doesn’t work at the scale required.

2. It’s prohibitively expensive compared to non-polluting renewable energy.

3. Government subsidies to support CCUS will only lock-in the production of fossil fuels in Canada and further delay the transition to decarbonization.

Supporters of subsidizing carbon capture responded by arguing:

1. Carbon capture is necessary to reduce emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector.

2. The transition to cleaner technology won’t happen overnight.

3. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), every scenario that keeps the planet from exceeding 1.5 C requires large-scale removal of carbon from the atmosphere.

These responses are misleading. Global fossil fuel production must start declining immediately and steeply to limit long-term warming to 1.5 C, according to a recent report from the UN Environment Program. Investing in unproven and expensive carbon capture technology creates a “moral hazard” that risks prolonging fossil fuel production, not reducing it.

The risks and costs of carbon capture

Investing even more public funding into carbon capture is throwing good money after bad. Canadian oil and gas companies are already receiving federal and provincial subsidies for carbon capture technology, including $329 million in the 2021 federal budget. Most of Canada’s existing carbon capture pilot projects have largely been funded by governments, including $865 million from Canada and Alberta for Shell’s Quest project, which emits more carbon than it captures.

Carbon capture technology is but one carbon dioxide removal option, and because of its risks and costs, it’s not the preferred option either, according to the IPCC’s Special Report on 1.5 C or in the broader academic literature on climate policy.

Because large-scale carbon dioxide removal faces multiple feasibility constraints, the IPCC recommends “significant near-term emissions reductions and measures to lower energy and land demand.” One of its pathways to limiting global warming to 1.5 C shows that afforestation — planting trees where there were previously none — is the only carbon dioxide removal option required. Under this precautionary scenario, carbon capture and sequestration of fossil-fuel emissions isn’t necessary.

Safe and sustainable emissions reductions

This approach of prioritizing emissions reductions and relying as little as possible on emissions removals has broad support from academics who study climate policy. Drastically scaling down and phasing out fossil-fuel use, coupled with enhancing forest management and land-use planning, avoids the moral hazard of entrenching a business-as-usual approach to fossil-fuel use.

It also entails fewer trade-offs and offers multiple co-benefits, such as restoring a wide range of habitats across different landscapes, conserving biodiversity and protecting against forest fires and flooding. Canada has room to improve on this front. Land use and forestry have historically been a sink for carbon emissions, but they have been a source of carbon emissions since 2015.

These lessons are especially relevant to Canadian climate policy. Climate Action Tracker, an independent think tank based in Germany, rates Canada’s climate policy as “highly insufficient overall,” with its current policies in line with a destructive 4 C of global warming. It notes that “for every step forward, Canada also seems to take two steps back.”

As Canada creates its first emissions reduction plan under the Canadian Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act, an important first step toward aligning its policies with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 C temperature limit, Canada cannot afford to take another two steps back by further investing in an unproven “magical technology” and risk further entrenching carbon lock-in.

Jason MacLean, Assistant Professor of Law, University of New Brunswick

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Most people now recognize the energy savings benefits of green buildings. These buildings use less water, energy and other natural resources. In some cases, they can increase biodiversity, produce their own energy and reduce the urban heat island effect.

Recent research shows that green buildings can also improve the health and productivity of those who live or work inside them. In some cases, green buildings can have the same benefits as spending time in nature, which can benefit people living in cold climates.

Green buildings cost five to 10 per cent more than a conventional buildings. Some planners might worry about the added design and construction costs of a green building. But detailed analyses show that the small increase in building costs has noticeable benefits on the health and wellness of those working or living inside the building — or nearby.

Energy savings

Buildings with green roofs, green walls, green interior decoration or those surrounded by green infrastructure are all considered to be green buildings. These buildings usually contain algae, grass, herbs, vegetables or other leafy green or micro-green plants on their interior or exterior surfaces.

Covering the roof of an uninsulated building with plants reduces the amount of energy used in heating by up to five per cent in the winter, and the cooling energy by as much as 33 per cent in summer, which saves money. It also reduces daytime indoor temperature fluctuations in the absence of air conditioning.

Cities often have warmer air temperatures than the rural areas around them because their dark surfaces absorb the sun’s rays and radiate the heat. Green buildings can help reduce this urban heat island effect.

Computer modelling has shown that summer temperatures can be reduced by 2 C if seven per cent of an urban rooftop is green. Even in relatively colder cities like Toronto or New York, covering 50 per cent of the roof with plants could reduce the local temperature by about 1 C in the summer.

This dip in temperature comes with numerous benefits. Studies show people working or living in areas with high proportions of green roofs have better mental health, heal more quickly after an illness and are more productive at work.

Improved air quality

Indoor air pollution is one of the top five environmental risks to public health, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. High levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, PM10 (particulate matter with a diameter of 10 microns or less) and airborne microbes can contribute to serious respiratory illness.

A 20 per cent increase in the surface area of green roofs and walls in downtown Toronto could meaningfully reduce the air levels of nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide and PM10, and generate a savings of US$190,000 annually in terms of pollution removal.

One study showed that there were fewer mould spores and microbes in a room where houseplants covered one-third of the floor space compared to a room with no house plants. Plants also increase indoor humidity levels in dry climates, reducing the likelihood of dry eyes, itchy or scratchy throat or chapped lips.

Faster recoveries

Recent research has also shown that plants can help hospitalized patients heal faster.

A report by the Green Building Council of Australia found that hospitals with green infrastructure, such as an ornamental green wall, plants on every balcony and large trees around the building, reduced average hospital stays by 8.5 per cent, sped up recovery time by 15 per cent, reduced the rate of secondary infections by 11 per cent and lowered the need of pain medication by 22 per cent.

Not only do buildings with plants help patients heal faster, but they also energize the doctors, nurses and other staff who work there, and provide esthetic, acoustic and air quality benefits.

Lower emissions

Interior spaces with green walls, vertical gardens or potted plants can reduce noise levels, which helps occupants concentrate on their work. Outdoor permeable surfaces, such as soil, rock wool and vermiculite, and plants on buildings’ roofs and courtyards reduce echos.

Green workplaces meet all the criteria of the “triple bottom line,” summarized as “people, planet and profit.” These improve the health and well-being of people, improve energy efficiency and boost productivity.

Green infrastructure has clear climate benefits too. A study by the Green Building Council of Australia found that by adding green walls, roofs and other low-energy interventions, such as using LED lights, adding more windows to increase the amount of daylight and modifying ventilation systems to recover heat rather than expelling it outside, a green certified building produces 62 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than an average Australian building.

It’s high time green buildings became the norm to improve well-being, air quality and carbon emissions.

Md Sazan Rahman, PhD Candidate, Bioresource Engineering, McGill University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

( Clean Energy Wire) – The majority of Germans (74%) are prepared to make changes to their lifestyle to prevent global warming, a survey among 1,000 consumers commissioned by heating technology company Stiebel Eltron shows.

Seventy-nine percent of participants said the climate change warnings by scientists are correct, and 83 percent said the goal of the energy transition to drastically reduce CO2 emissions is “important or very important”.

However, when it comes to actual changes in their lifestyle decisions, such as flying, switching from combustion engine cars to e-cars, or exchanging old oil heating systems for new climate-friendly alternatives, only 13 percent said they had acted according to climate action demands.

Sixty-four percent are in favour of a CO2 price that makes burning oil and gas more expensive in the heating sector, while 63 percent want to ban new oil heating systems and 53 percent are in favour of banning new gas heating systems.

The German public increasingly puts climate action at the top of its policy priorities and remains strongly in support of the transition to a low-carbon and nuclear-free economy. Nevertheless, opposition against energy transition and renewable infrastructure is a concern, and has led to a slow-down in the expansion of wind turbines and delays in the expansion of the power grid.

Via Clean Energy Wire

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

Sky News: “Climate activist who helped change the law in Germany”

Despite the pandemic, global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) increased by 43% in 2020. Total EV sales in China were 1.3 million, an increase of 8% compared to 2019, and 41% of all EVs sold worldwide. Though Europe sold more than China for the first time since 2015, China is still the world’s biggest national market for EVs.

The best-selling EV in China is not Tesla’s Model 3, but the tiny Hongguang Mini EV, produced by SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile, a joint venture between China’s state-owned SAIC Motor, US carmaker General Motors and another Chinese company, Wuling Motors.

The conglomerate positions the car as “the People’s Commuting Tool” in its advertising, with a starting price of 28,800 yuan (about US$4,485, or £3,200) and a fully charged driving range of 120km. Since its debut in July 2020, the Hongguang Mini EV has sold over 270,000 units and was the best-selling EV worldwide in January 2021.

This was quite a surprise, as Chinese consumers have traditionally preferred larger models with internal combustion engines. But our recent research on consumer preferences in China reveals significant market opportunities for EVs in small cities and how innovative business models could encourage even more people to ditch their fossil-fuelled cars.

EVs in big and small cities

China aims to reach a peak in its carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Since 2009, the Chinese government has offered subsidies and tax waivers and built charging points to encourage EV buyers and manufacturers.

But those subsidies are now drying up. Finding out what Chinese motorists like in EVs could tell us what’s behind growth in the world’s largest national market, and whether it’s likely to continue or stall. This matters not only for China but the rest of the world. China has been the world’s largest emitter since 2006, and internal combustion engine cars are among the biggest sources of carbon emissions globally.

In a recent study, we found that most EV sales are made in China’s large cities – those with over five million residents, such as Shanghai and Beijing – largely due to the stronger policy incentives there. But consumers in small cities – each with fewer than a million residents – were the most keen to drive EVs.

In these small cities, drivers tend to enjoy shorter commutes and so have less pressure on their time and living costs. People there tend to care more about how well the vehicle works and the environmental benefits of EVs. Prior research revealed that these consumers are less likely to buy an EV if it’s the more expensive option. This might explain why Hongguang’s Mini EV – with its limited range and relatively cheap price – originated in Liuzhou of Guangxi province, a small city in the south-west of China.

Larger cities in China commonly implement car plate lotteries that limit the number of petrol cars licensed each year. The lottery winning rate is smaller than 1%, about 0.0039% in Beijing, so motorists here have no choice but to switch to EVs. Our findings suggest that the Chinese government’s focus on getting people to drive EVs in larger cities may be misplaced.

Smaller Chinese cities demonstrate a desire for cheap, electrified mobility that could be satisfied there and across the world, particularly the burgeoning towns and cities of the developing world. In short, the future of EVs may look very different to the luxury Tesla cars currently attracting the most attention.

Buy, lease or share EVs?

To get more people driving EVs, manufacturers have tried new business models in the Chinese market, such as battery leasing plans. The battery is one of the most expensive components of an EV and this scheme allows consumers to buy the vehicle’s body, then lease the battery on a monthly basis.

Our second study showed that the battery leasing model will probably broaden the appeal of EVs by appealing to people currently put off by the price.

Some EV companies which have introduced battery-leasing models have also offered a service where drivers can replace their empty batteries with a fully charged one at a service station – a much faster transaction than recharging.

We found that it didn’t matter to drivers whether they rented their battery or completely owned the car. Consumers were ready to accept the battery-leasing model because that and battery swapping services help remove two barriers to buying EVs simultaneously: the premium price and long charging wait times.

Separating EV bodies and batteries can even make driving them more sustainable. When the batteries can no longer sustain long-distance driving, they can be reconfigured for a second life in grid-connected storage and electrical tools. At the same time, the owners can continue using the EV bodies without needing to renew the batteries or scrap their vehicles.

Our research also looked at EV sharing schemes, such as EV-Card, in which people can just hop in a vacant EV and drive it if they join a membership scheme. They’re charged for using the EV by the minute. Low-income households were most likely to use this service, potentially making it an effective way of broadening their appeal.

Collectively, a picture emerges of promising ways to deliver the decarbonisation of urban mobility – in China and around the world. Rather than subsidising wealthier consumers in megacities to switch to an EV, a more promising strategy may be to focus on novel forms of access to EVs in China’s – and the world’s – smaller and less wealthy cities.

Youlin Huang, Assistant Professor in Marketing and Innovation, Zhejiang Gongshang University; David Tyfield, Professor in Sustainable Transitions and Political Economy, Lancaster University; Didier Soopramanien, Reader in Marketing, Loughborough University, and Lixian Qian, Associate Professor of Marketing & Innovation, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

CNBC: “Why China Is Beating The U.S. In Electric Vehicles”

( The Conversation ) – If you read the scientific literature, there seem to be countless pathways and scenarios that might lead us to global deep decarbonisation by 2050, allowing us to meet the 1.5°C target. “It’s still possible,” is the message, “if only we have the political will”.

But what is the extent of our political will, and more importantly, what are the deeper social dynamics driving it? Is it not only possible, but in fact plausible that we will reach deep decarbonisation by 2050 and meet the associated 1.5°C target? These are some of the questions that we asked ourselves in the recent inaugural Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook, a report compiled by more than 40 academics from across various disciplines including sociology, macroeconomics and the natural sciences.

We took a new approach to the study of climate futures, one that goes beyond previous efforts by the IPCC, the International Energy Agency and others, which assessed futures that are merely possible or feasible. “Possible” simply describes an accordance with natural laws, while “feasible” means that there are no or few barriers to a particular future. For example, it is technologically and economically feasible (and clearly possible) that you sell your car and buy a bike. Bikes are a mature technology and cheaper to maintain than cars. But will you? It’s also feasible that 20% of the UK becomes vegetarian by next year. But will they?

Plausible, on the other hand, means that something has more than an outside chance of occurring – it has an appreciable probability. In the context of climate futures, this means that a scenario is not merely feasible, but also that there is enough societal momentum and political will to make that future materialise.

There is no hard, quantitative limit for “appreciable” probability or “enough” political will. But our assessment didn’t need to split hairs in this way. The evidence was overwhelming.

Assessing both social and physical plausibility

In our study, we first formed a picture from existing research of what is needed for deep decarbonisation by 2050. Negative emissions technologies like BECCS – burning biofuels for energy and capturing the resulting CO₂ – can help. But these technologies can’t be the whole solution, because there are feasibility barriers to deploying them at scale.

Deep decarbonisation requires that we reduce anthropogenic emissions in the first place. In fact, we need a year-on-year reduction in emissions from now until 2050, roughly equivalent to the 7% reductions seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since zero-carbon technologies can take decades to scale up and optimise, and lock-in effects commit us to the technologies we choose now for years to come, we also need to act fast.

To study the social dynamics needed for such a rapid transformation, we looked at ten social drivers of decarbonisation: United Nations climate governance, transnational initiatives, climate-related regulation, climate protests and social movements, climate litigation, corporate responses, fossil fuel divestment, consumption patterns, journalism, and knowledge production. We studied the drivers’ current trajectories, but also the enabling or constraining conditions that influence their future development.

We found, for example, that consumption will keep growing due to a lack of regulation and strong cultural habits of consumption, “green” or otherwise. While the way in which we consume changed rapidly during the pandemic, shifting online, what and how much we consume is anchored in cultural habits and attitudes.

We found that divestment – selling investments in fossil-fuel infrastructure – is occurring to some extent, but with unexpected negative spillover effects, such as when nation states divest at home but reinvest in fossil fuels abroad. And we found that social movements have a positive effect in some countries, but it remains uncertain how their political vision will mature after the pandemic, or in key countries like China, where protests do not usually have an influence on national politics.

None of the drivers show enough momentum to bring about deep decarbonisation by 2050, and two drivers, consumption patterns and corporate responses, actively inhibit it. Our final assessment: even if a partial decarbonisation is currently plausible, deep decarbonisation by the year 2050 is not.

We then combined our assessment of social plausibility with the latest set of socioeconomic future emissions scenarios and the latest physical science research on climate sensitivity – how much the climate will warm after a given amount of CO₂ emissions. This joint physical and social assessment evaluates warming lower than 1.7°C and warming higher than 4.9°C by the end of the century as currently not plausible.

Game over?

So, is this scientific proof that we should give up on the 1.5°C target? Absolutely not. We assessed the current state of evidence from the physical and social worlds, but the future is open. That’s why our climate futures outlook is designed to be an annual publication.

Deep decarbonisation could become more plausible, but this future would also require a good deal of tenacity. Rapid cuts in emissions may take a long time to show up in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and warming trends – perhaps decades. Not only will we need to implement radical changes, we will also need to remain committed to seeing those changes through, beyond the time frame of one election cycle.

Though the 1.5°C target might be possible, there are currently no grounds for optimism that we will meet it. But perhaps our findings will provide exactly the motivation we need to make it happen.

Christopher Hedemann, Postdoctoral Scientist in Climate Futures, University of Hamburg; Eduardo Gresse, Postdoctoral Scientist in Climate Futures, University of Hamburg, and Jan Petzold, Postdoctoral Scientist in Climate Futures, University of Hamburg

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Our hero is Michael Hester, who some years ago became the superintendent of the Batesville School district in Independence County, Arkansas. He faced the problem that his district was underfunded and the teacher pay was in the bottom quarter for the state. Teachers kept resigning because they could not live on the pay. The American custom of supporting local schools mainly with local taxes means that poor communities have poor schools, which is not right.

Back in 2017, Hester was having to pay $600,000 a year in utility bills for heat and electricity generated by coal and gas, which generate 38% and 28% of the state’s power supply respectively. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, putting out enormous amounts of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide, which sits in the atmosphere and prevents the sun’s heat from radiating back out to space after it strikes the surface.

Hester told Climatewire that after he got an estimate on the savings from going solar, he suggested, “Let’s use that money to start pumping up teachers’ salaries . . . It’s the way we’re going to attract and retain staff. And it’s the way we’re going to attract and retain students in this day and age of school choice.”

So Hester in 2018 partnered with Entegrity, an Arkansas-based solar company, to put 1,500 solar panels on school land, which is plentiful, and well as above the bus stops and the entrance to the school. He also had the schools made more energy efficient. (Some 25% of buildings in the US don’t even have insulation.)

Jordan Howington of the THV-11 television news station in Little Rock, Arkansas did further reporting on the story in December.

Unlike coal, gas and nuclear, which use pricey fuels, solar panels convert free sunlight into electricity. Free fuel is free. Of course, you have to pay for the panels. But they get paid off pretty quickly, and then it is all gravy. I put up solar panels on my house and my summer electricity bill in Michigan has been as little as $14 a month (and some of that is natural gas for our oven). That’s with air conditioning. So, yes, it saves a lot of money along with the planet. Those who own their own home and plan to be in it for at least 10 years are actually costing themselves money by not putting up solar panels.

Since 2018, Hester’s project has saved the school $1 million in utilities costs.

What comes next is the kicker. Hester used the savings on his district’s utility bills to give the teachers bonuses, ranging from $3,000 to as much as $15,000 a year.

He says he no longer has the problem of teachers resigning because of poor pay, and applications to teach in his district have risen.

Climatewire says Hester was surprised by how welcoming the people of Batesville were to the idea. A huge dirty coal plant is just 30 miles away. But people say they know its days are numbered, and the cost savings of solar, and they way it could increase teacher pay, came as a pleasant surprise to them. It quotes Hester as saying, “People know that that coal plant has a limited life . . . It’s a loss of revenue; it’s a loss of jobs. There’s an anxiety about that . . . So when this started showing how there are ways to help offset [those losses] and move on in alternative ways … it became a very pleasant surprise,”

7,200 schools around the U.S. use solar panels to generate some or all of their electricity. There are 130,930 K-12 schools in the U.S., we just have 123,730 to go. It seems especially cruel to use the children’s parents’ tax money to buy them lumps of coal and vapors of natural gas at high prices, and then to burn them for the kids so as to make their future lives more difficult because of the climate emergency. Let’s give our children the gift of a less challenging life with fewer megastorms or wildfires, and solarize their schools.

The Biden administration will do what it can to promote this greening of America, from which we will all reap rewards.

On Tuesday, CBS this Morning picked up Howington’s story for national coverage.

This is a great segment, and lays out clearly, without using the term, what we progressives mean by a green new deal.

If we can transition quickly to renewables, we can give everyone in America, on average, a 6% raise.

Let me explain why I say this. In 2018, the US spent $1.3 trillion on energy, which was 6.2% of its gross domestic product.

Six percent is a nice chunk of change if we can recover it from the coal, gas and oil companies by using renewables instead. If someone is making $50,000 a year, that is a $3,000 a year raise, which is $30,000 over ten years.

Let’s give ourselves a raise and save the planet at the same time. What could be more satisfying?

Canada and the United States are suddenly steeped in policy proposals to aggressively cut carbon emissions. In the face of a climate emergency and on the heels of numerous climate disasters, this is welcome news indeed.

In the U.S., the newly minted Biden administration has unleashed a series of executive orders to tackle the climate crisis. Canada recently pledged to transition its economy to net-zero by 2050 and released an updated national climate plan.
Announcements are easy — now comes the hard work.

The recipe for making headway on this new climate agenda has two key ingredients. Defuse political opposition. Build political support. But it’s not so simple.

Unfortunately, some still believe they can gain politically by opposing climate action with misinformation. Take Texas, for example. The recent climate-related winter storm left millions without power and killed dozens.

Right-wing politicians falsely blamed renewable energy and the Green New Deal. Here’s a fact-check: The Green New Deal hasn’t been passed and freezing natural gas lines contributed most to the collapse of the electricity system.

As politics researchers, we are deeply concerned with the scale of action required to avoid climate collapse. A vital piece of a just transition to a low-carbon society will be to expand the number of people and sectors that see themselves as “winners” in this transition.

A just and socially accepted transition must protect society’s most vulnerable from climate change impacts while simultaneously shielding those whose livelihoods will be disrupted by transformation. A just transition must also diffuse rather than consolidate economic power in the midst of climate action.

Four guiding principles can help build the political support needed to meet North America’s new-found climate ambition.

1. Policy integration

Political opposition to climate action often pits economics against the environment. This false dichotomy ignores how our economic future fundamentally depends on the health of our environment.

But proponents of climate action too often feed into this narrative, engaging in what Jennie C. Stephens, a sustainability science and policy researcher at Northeastern University, calls climate isolationism. They rely on overly narrow, technology-centric solutions.

These approaches often fail to resonate. They don’t connect climate action with the issues that matter the most in peoples’ day-to-day lives: socio-economic well-being, equitable employment opportunities, racial justice, access to safe and secure shelter, child care, improved health, food systems, and transportation.

Enduring, transformative climate action requires integrating social, economic and environmental policies holistically, so that institutions can better serve their citizens. Copenhagen, Denmark, is a model city with a climate plan that integrates climate action, urban investment and job growth to create a liveable sustainable city. This model views climate transformation as a necessary opportunity to improve the lives of Copenhagen residents in multiple ways.

2. Institutional integration

Policy integration means thinking differently about how governments are structured. The Biden administration is starting to orient the U.S. federal government cohesively around climate action. The U.S. now has both domestic and international climate “czars” and is integrating climate change across departments.

Given the scale of transformation necessary to meet the Paris agreement’s goals and commitments, climate action is inherently implicated across government files. It may be better to mainstream climate action throughout the government.

Canada’s recent ministerial mandate letters are an improvement. But furthering comprehensive action means orienting more, if not all, ministries to a just transition. Crucially, the ministries of Indigenous Services, Middle Class and Prosperity and Diversity and Inclusion and Youth lack clear mandates around climate action. Provincial and municipal governments must also adapt to this new policy-making environment.

All policy is climate policy in our climate-constrained world.

3. Beyond technology

Technology and technological innovation will certainly play a sizeable role in the unfolding transformation. But technologies, like carbon capture, biofuels, renewable energy, electric vehicles and smart neighbourhoods are not silver bullets.

Technological innovation must be pursued in ways that engage communities and are geared towards social goals. This can enhance the support necessary for sustaining climate action beyond the introduction of a technology.

One only has to look as far as the Sidewalk Labs debacle in Toronto to see the pitfalls of a strategy that put technology ahead of community needs. This project failed to prioritize community well-being and civic engagement. Instead, Sidewalk Labs proposed corporate control over 190 acres of Toronto’s waterfront and did not plan to adequately protect personal data.

Effectively implementing the new aggressive climate agendas in North America means integrating technological innovation with democratic, inclusive social engagement.

4. Centre justice and equity

Durable climate action fosters comprehensive security and equity for citizens. It allows people to embrace changing and sometimes unpredictable conditions.

COVID-19 has exacerbated socio-economic disparities according to income, gender, race and geography. Canada has joined a number of countries in pledging to “build back better” and support marginalized and underrepresented groups in the context of COVID-19.

This pledge needs to go beyond rhetoric. Policy-makers should acknowledge and address anxieties towards change transparently. The communities that will be most severely affected by climate impacts or from climate action must be supported with concrete resources.

This includes stimulus for low-income families, anti-racism measures, investment in public projects and decent work for those whose livelihoods are most threatened by climate change or transition policies.

Climate ambition in North America is long overdue and welcome. Now, let’s turn that ambition into transformative action. These guidelines can help build the broad-based political support necessary in a climate emergency. That support will flow from individuals and communities imagining and experiencing improved lives through this transition to a low-carbon world.

Sarah Sharma, PhD Candidate, International Relations, Queen’s University, Ontario and Matthew Hoffmann, Professor of Political Science and Co-Director Environmental Governance Lab, University of Toronto

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

NBC Bay Area: “How More Americans Are Becoming ‘Refugees’ Because of Climate Change”