‘The house is on fire’
MCMASTER UNIVERSITY POLITICAL SCIENTIST ROBERT O’BRIEN PREDICTS A UN REPORT MAY SPARK MOVEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
We may not be able to stop it from warming 1.5 C but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act to stop it from getting to 2.0 C or 3.0 C, because each increase will cause more death, disease and dislocation.
ROBERT O’BRIEN
Professor, political science, McMaster University
This is a helpful report because it’s as if thousands of scientists are jumping up and down shouting the house is on fire, and that should attract attention, and it has.
ROBERT O’BRIEN
“It’s important to remember that in the U.S., you have different currents: California is racing ahead on the green energy front. So while there are setbacks on the federal level, at the state level, governments are pursuing climate-friendly legislation.” ROBERT O’BRIEN
VIOLENT STORMS, WILDFIRES, food shortages, and a mass die-off of coral reefs by 2040 are some of the effects of global warming predicted in a new United Nations report.
The report, recently released by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, had input from by 91 authors based in 40 countries.
Under the Paris Agreement in 2015, signatory nations agreed to set a goal of limiting the global temperature increase this century to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But the report said that even meeting this goal will mean climate change impacts far worse than previously envisioned.
It added that for countries around the world to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently to head-off catastrophe, it will require “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.”
That means global warming is as much a political issue as it is one of climate science, suggests Robert O’Brien, a McMaster University political scientist.
O’Brien teaches an undergraduate course in the politics of climate change. He spoke with The Spectator about the impact of the UN report, the political hot potato the issue may become in the next federal election, and how revolutionary change on global warming may one day be compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Questions and answers have been edited for length.
JON WELLS: You are a political scientist, and while climate change and global warming is an issue of geography and climatology, it is also one of politics, yes?
ROBERT O’BRIEN: It is a political issue, and also an economic, engineering, ethical and moral issue. It goes across all fields of inquiry. The raw political issue is how quickly are we going to act on climate change, and how will the costs be distributed among countries, and within countries.
The report seemed to inspire a fair bit of discussion when it came out, which happened to be when we had a couple of days of record warm temperatures in southern Ontario. I wonder if that attention will cool now that fall temperatures are dropping.
A: The problem is when people confuse weather with climate change. Climate change means long-term trends, but weather fluctuates week to week. It’s more helpful if people are able to make the link between climate change and a whole series of other issues, such as hurricanes: their increasing force is directly related to climate change, because oceans are getting warmer, and as that happens, storms become more powerful.
Q: The UN report suggested that while radical action is necessary on the climate change front, achieving this type of fundamental change politically is unlikely. What do you think about that?
A: The main reason it’s unlikely is because our system is characterized by political inertia. And also that we have powerful, wealthy interests opposed to doing anything on climate change; in the U.S. there is the fossil fuel lobby and industries that don’t want to change. But one thing that’s important to remember is that this isn’t an either/or situation — it’s not either we stop warming 1.5 C or we don’t do anything, because the problem will be a long-lasting one. Eventually we will have to do something, the question is, how quickly will we do it, and what costs will we pay for acting slowly? We may not be able to stop it from warming 1.5 C but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act to stop it from getting to 2 C or 3 C, because each increase will cause more death, disease and dislocation.
Q: Do you think climate change will be an issue in the next Canadian federal election?
A: It’s hard to say but there is potential for it to be a significant issue, and the reason is because it does differentiate the Conservative Party from all of the other parties. There is a clear fault line, and I think at the moment (the Conservatives) believe it’s a winning issue for them, the carbon tax issue. But the Liberals might see it as winning issue, too, that it’s a vulnerability for the Conservatives. It will depend on how it’s framed for the public; for the Conservatives it will be through an anti-tax lens, the Liberals will frame it as one of responsibility.
I guess it remains to be seen which point of view the majority of the electorate supports.
There are very different regional (opinions) on it; the Conservative message plays well in Alberta, but poorly in Quebec. And it’s tricky because of the nature of the electoral system. In the last Ontario election, Doug Ford and his anti-climate change policy got 40 per cent of the vote, and 60 per cent voted for parties who support action on climate change.
Q: Which brings us to Donald Trump, who has suggested he will not sign the Paris Agreement, and is a big supporter of coal-fired power generation. To what extent do you think he is voicing the opinion of Americans?
A: Trump was an accident in the sense he was elected by a narrow margin. He represents a position which is very much in favour of fossil fuels and is anti-science, looking to the past instead of the future. But it’s important to remember that in the U.S., you have different currents: in California they are racing ahead on the green energy front. So while there are setbacks on the federal level, at the state level, governments are pursuing climate-friendly legislation, and industries are quickly moving forward on it as well, no matter what Trump does.
Q: Climate change is a polarizing issue and there are commentators who have called warnings of global warming overstated, and even that UN officials are “crying wolf.” How widespread do you think that opinion is?
A: It’s a popular view in some important political constituencies, for example in the U.S. among white evangelical Christians, where there is widespread disbelief on scientific evidence. In Canada, I don’t think it’s quite as bad, because even parties such as Ontario’s Conservatives, who are dismantling climate change legislation, are not denying there is climate change, they are saying it exists but we don’t like these policies to address it; it’s a softer form of denialism. The Liberals take the position we can grow our oil and gas industry but still meet our (carbon) targets; there is more acceptance of the science, but not the implications of the science.
Q: What sort of impact will the UN report have on the politics of climate change to spark change?
A: The report is useful because it does give a stark warning. Scientific reports tend to be conservative in language, and restrained, so this is a helpful report because it’s as if thousands of scientists are jumping up and down shouting the house is on fire, and that should attract attention, and it has. It has sparked some debate, but where it goes form here, it’s up to political parties, activist groups, and individual citizens. I really think it’s helpful to jolt the debate. You know, last week, the Nobel Prize was awarded to economists who work in carbon pricing. It’s becoming clear that expert opinion is saying there is a real problem here.
Q: What do your students think of climate change, are they engaged in the issue?
A: Students in general are interested in environmental issues, it’s about motivating them to take part in the political process ... At the end of my course on climate change, usually everyone is depressed, but I conclude by showing them a picture of the Berlin Wall. I talk about how that stood for decades, and that if in 1988 you stood next to it, you’d have no idea it would be swept away the next year. Big changes are possible and climate change is an area that requires big changes.