Little gap for parties on climate

Surveys find solutions only sticking point

Politics has always leaned heavily on social psychology but never more so than in these days of rabid polarization, where there is little interconnection between political tribes.

Research published this month revealed the importance of what other people think when it comes to climate change policy differences between Republicans and Democrats. Those findings have profound implications for the debate in Canada.

Social psychologists Leaf Van Boven and David Sherman conducted two surveys of more than 2,000 respondents across the United States on the issue of climate change. Their research, published in early July in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science and promoted in a New York Times op-ed last weekend, found that Republicans believed climate change is happening, threatens humans and is caused by human activity — and that reducing carbon emissions would help alleviate the problem. The findings suggested Republicans were in basic agreement with Democrats on the issue — but not on the policy solutions, which were viewed as being specific to the Democratic Party. “This tribalism leads to political fights over differences between the parties that either do not exist or are vastly exaggerated,” Van Boven and Sherman concluded. “This implies that if the tables were turned — if Republican politicians proposed a climate policy — Republican voters might support it. In our research, this is exactly what we have found.”

The authors say they were not totally surprised. A fundamental lesson of social psychology is that people are profoundly affected by what other people think.

But it does suggest political polarization on climate change is less than might have been supposed — and that political parties in the U.S. and Canada are exaggerating the problem for their own gain, a classic case of the narcissism of small differences at work.

According to a study last year by Abacus Data, only two per cent of Canadians dispute the climate is changing, and 68 per cent of people attribute that change to human and industrial causes. More than 85 per cent agree that the consequences of taking no action will be severe, very severe or catastrophic.

Half of Canadians won’t contemplate voting for a party that doesn’t have a climate change plan and only six per cent prefer a party or candidate that ignores the issue. A sizable number — 44 per cent — are concerned but would consider a party that didn’t “emphasize” the issue. Even they are looking for a plan to make inroads on CO2 emissions.

The Abacus poll arrives at a similar conclusion as did Van Boven and Sherman — 85 per cent of Conservatives feel there is a moral responsibility to act; 67 per cent see a looming financial disaster if more is not done.

All of this suggests the Conservative Party is in urgent need of a climate plan.

Andrew Scheer and his front-bench team have made it clear they would love to fight an election on the question of Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax. The Liberal plan is on the ropes, as provincial governments in Saskatchewan, Ontario and even New Brunswick howl about the cost. Judging by the polls, they’ll be joined by a Jason Kenney-led Alberta before the next federal election.

Will the federal government really impose the threatened backstop against the wishes of half the provincial governments in the country? (The federal government has said it will introduce a $10-per-tonne levy this year, rising to $50 per tonne by 2022 — roughly $0.11 per litre of gas — for those provinces that don’t have their own system.)

Trudeau’s trump card is that he could levy the tax and then return the proceeds directly to households in the province where they were raised.

But the perils facing the carbon tax do not absolve the Conservatives from coming up with a solution of their own.

They may want to hammer the carbon tax, in the belief that when the debate is over taxes they win nine times out of 10.

Scheer has committed to meeting Canada’s Paris climate targets, however — emissions 30-per-cent below 2005 levels by 2030 — without a carbon tax. The Abacus poll and Van Boven and Sherman’s findings suggest his own supporters are going to demand a policy response. Since a carbon tax and capand-trade are off the table, the plan is likely to centre on regulations that are likely to prove less noticeable to voters but more expensive for the economy than a revenueneutral, market-based carbon price.

Perhaps the smart thing for the Liberals to do is wait until the Conservatives show their hand, then steal the policy, as they have done with innumerable NDP ideas.

They could claim, with some justification, that provincial opposition has made the carbon tax untenable and then adopt regulations equivalent to Scheer’s suggestions.

The rationale, based on Van Boven and Sherman’s research, is that political disagreement was substantially reduced when it came to Republican-backed climate policies.

In Canada as in the U.S., a climate change plan proposed by the right-of-centre party holds more promise for bipartisan agreement.