logo
Canada must learn from the green backlash

Canada must learn from the green backlash

Observer09-03-2025

As Canadians prepare to elect a new government, the rapid deterioration in relations with the United States will be front of mind. But the slow pace of decarbonisation of our planet, and Canada's role in turning this around, must be right alongside it.
The chance of limiting global warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as set out in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, is now vanishingly small. Despite many countries' efforts, global greenhouse-gas emissions have not even started to fall, and would have to decline by a staggering 7.5 per cent per year to stay within the carbon budget envisaged by the Paris agreement. If this does not change soon, the planet will start to cross climate tipping points, from the collapses of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the Labrador Sea Current to the abrupt thawing of the permafrost.
Addressing this existential crisis requires implementing policies that will accelerate the pace of decarbonisation by leveraging the improvements in green-energy generation and infrastructure. The desire is seemingly there – global surveys show that voters want more, not less, climate action. But politicians rightly sense that they will be penalised in the next election for taking aggressive action, leading to an overly cautious approach. We are thus winning the war too slowly, which, as climate activist Bill McKibben has pointed out, is the same as losing.
The political backlash against climate action is growing worldwide. Green parties are in retreat across Europe, and the European Commission is rethinking its Green Deal legislation in light of the continent's declining competitiveness, stoking fears that the bloc may scale back its targets. From Australia to Germany, incumbent governments have faced public pressure to abandon green policies. In the United States, President Donald Trump ran for re-election on a platform to reverse Joe Biden's signature climate policy. Similarly, in Canada, the Conservatives have embraced the rallying cry 'axe the tax' – referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's carbon tax.
The political backlash against climate action is growing worldwide.
Policy backsliding is to be expected on occasion, and global progress must be resilient to such lapses, as it was during the first Trump administration. But the populist revolt against green policies offers some important lessons for the next Canadian prime minister.
Some of this pushback reflects the fact that the costs of climate action are not evenly distributed. To be politically sustainable, such policies must internalise these costs in the initial design phase. For example, economists have rightly championed carbon taxation as the most efficient way to curb emissions. But sometimes efficiency must be sacrificed – in this case, by resorting to alternative instruments or complementary measures to soften the blow of the green transition on segments of society that are less able to bear the cost.
To be clear, that does not mean invoking the compensation principle, which claims that the most efficient policy maximises the resources available to provide compensation for those negatively affected (it does), but fails to recognise that such compensation rarely takes place. Nor is it enough to say that if carbon taxation is revenue-neutral, as it is designed to be in Canada, this will somehow ensure that compensation will reach those who need it. Voters are smart, and unless policy credibly convinces potential losers that they will be made whole, the mere risk that they will lose can provoke a backlash. And, as we are seeing now, even a small group of affected citizens can wield outsize political influence, and their cause can be taken up by populist politicians.
This is not idle theorising. A paper that my former International Monetary Fund colleagues and I published in 2023 examined whether climate policies were politically costly in OECD countries, including Canada, over the last few decades. Our findings suggest that a voter backlash is avoidable when policy design ensures that those likely to lose disproportionately – whether poorer households or fossil-fuel firms – are protected, for example through social insurance, monetary compensation, or the gradual phase-in of green policies. Perceptions matter, too, and our research implies that some measures, especially carbon taxes, are particularly likely to be unpopular, while regulations that reduce emissions at a slightly higher social cost are more palatable for voters.
Climate policies must be compatible with social and political realities, and not based solely on economic efficiency. This is a lesson for all countries – including Canada – experiencing broad pushback against green measures. The world cannot afford populist politicians denigrating decarbonisation as a harmful obsession of the elite. Buy-in from the households and firms that will disproportionately bear the costs is necessary if we are to have any chance of avoiding catastrophic global warming. @Project Syndicate, 2025

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

The EU can play it cool with Trump's trade threats
The EU can play it cool with Trump's trade threats

Observer

time4 hours ago

  • Observer

The EU can play it cool with Trump's trade threats

Other governments have so far taken three main approaches to dealing with Donald Trump's trade threats. China hit back hard at the US president's tariffs and got him to back down partly. Canada also retaliated and avoided some of the pain Trump inflicted on other countries. Meanwhile, Britain cut a quick deal that favoured the United States. None of these is a model for the European Union. The 27-member group is not China. Though its bilateral goods trade with the United States last year was worth 70% more than between the US and the People's Republic, the EU is not an autocracy that can outpunch Trump. If it antagonises the US president, he might up the stakes by pulling the rug from under Ukraine and undermining the EU's defences. American hard power gives it what geopolitical strategists call 'escalation dominance'. The EU is not Canada either. Ottawa was able to hang tough because its people were infuriated that Trump was trying to blackmail Canada into becoming part of the United States. While anti-Trump sentiment is high in the EU, politicians who are sympathetic to him, such as Poland's new president, can still get elected. On the other hand, the EU is not the United Kingdom. Both are at risk from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the EU trades seven times more goods with the United States than Britain does - so Washington has more to lose if economic relations break down. There is another way for the EU to handle Trump's threats: play it cool. That is more or less what the bloc is doing. It involves neither escalating the conflict nor accepting a bad deal. It means being open to a good agreement if the US lowers its demands, but willing to play the long game if it does not. One reason to buy time is to help Kyiv. The longer the EU has to prepare its own support package for Ukraine, which should include getting it a lot of cash, the less the damage if Trump ultimately cuts off all US aid to the country. The president's own vulnerabilities may also increase over time. Just look at the spectacular end of his alliance with Tesla boss Elon Musk. The fragile US trade truce with China may break down causing more financial turmoil, making Trump less keen to pick a fight with the EU. If the Supreme Court stops him using emergency powers to impose tariffs, his negotiating position will be weaker. And tariffs could hurt the US more than its supposed victims, by pushing up inflation and crimping growth. A QUICK DEAL? Trump has zig-zagged in his trade threats and actions against the EU. The current state of play is that there are 50% tariffs on US imports of steel and aluminium from the bloc, a 25% tariff on cars and 10% so-called reciprocal tariffs on most other goods. And so they're trying to be the first and the best to get there, which is why everybody's throwing so much money at it without any clear sense of, you know, The US president has threatened to jack up these reciprocal tariffs to 50% if there is no deal by July 9. He is also looking at more 'sectoral tariffs', including on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. While the EU has complained to the World Trade Organization (WTO), it has delayed its own retaliation. Its negotiators accept that they are unlikely to overturn the reciprocal tariffs, the Financial Times has reported. The bloc still aims to avoid the sectoral ones. Those on cars and any on pharmaceuticals would hurt it the most. It has dangled the possibility of buying more US equipment and natural gas to get a deal. An agreement on those lines could be good for the EU. It needs to beef up its defences and eliminate its purchases of Russian gas. While it would be best to have its own arms and energy supplies, buying more from the US makes sense as an interim measure. An important nuance, though, is that the EU should reserve the right to take action against the reciprocal tariffs after the WTO issues its verdict, says Ignacio Garcia Bercero, a former senior EU trade official. Such a pact would involve quite a climbdown by Trump. True, arms and gas purchases would narrow the US goods deficit with the EU, which was $236 billion last year. But his administration has a host of other complaints including the bloc's value-added tax and food safety standards as well the digital taxes that some of its members impose on tech giants. It is hard to see the bloc agreeing anything in those areas, says Simon Evenett, professor of geopolitics and strategy at IMD. BACK TO WAR? Although the US side described last week's trade talks with the EU as 'very constructive', discussions could easily break down. The question then is how the bloc would react if Trump imposed higher reciprocal tariffs. The EU has so far imposed no countermeasures. Though it has agreed to tax 21 billion euros of US imports in response to the steel and aluminium tariffs, it has delayed these until July 14 to try to get a deal. The European Commission, its executive arm, is also consulting on taxing a further 95 billion euros of US imports in response to the car tariffs and the reciprocal ones. But added together, these tit-for-tat measures would be equivalent to only a third of the 379 billion euros of EU imports subject to Trump's tariffs. Some analysts think the bloc needs to be tougher. One idea is to crack down on American services, where the US had a 109 billion euro surplus with the EU in 2023. Another is to activate its 'anti-coercion instrument ', which would allow retaliation against US companies operating in the bloc. Yet another is to threaten to ban exports of critical goods, such as the lithographic equipment necessary to make semiconductors. Extreme events may require extreme responses. But for now, the EU should keep its cool. It should not kid itself that it is stronger or more united than it is. It should remember that Trump may get weaker with time. And it should never forget Ukraine. — Reuters Hugo Dixon The writer is Commentator-at-Large for Reuters. He was the founding chair and editor-in-chief of Breakingviews.

Canada to hit defence Nato spending target
Canada to hit defence Nato spending target

Observer

time8 hours ago

  • Observer

Canada to hit defence Nato spending target

TORONTO: Canada will hit Nato defence spending threshold of two per cent this year, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Monday, warning that in a "darker" world, Canada must reduce its security dependence on the United States. "I am announcing today that Canada will achieve Nato's 2 per cent target this year — half a decade ahead of schedule," Carney said during a speech at the University of Toronto. "The threats that Canada faces are multiplying," he added. Carney's pledge followed similar announcements by members of the alliance and comes after consistent pressure by US President Donald Trump for Nato members to spend more on defence. "In a darker, more competitive world, Canadian leadership will be defined not just by the strength of our values, but also by the value of our strength," Carney said. "The United States is beginning to monetise its hegemony: charging for access to its markets and reducing its (relative) contributions to our collective security," Carney said, condemning Trump's trade war. "We should no longer send three quarters of our defence capital spending to America," the prime minister said. — AFP

Iran plans to submit own nuclear proposal to US soon
Iran plans to submit own nuclear proposal to US soon

Observer

time8 hours ago

  • Observer

Iran plans to submit own nuclear proposal to US soon

TEHRAN: Iran said on Monday it will soon present a counter-proposal on a nuclear deal with the United States, after it had described Washington's offer as containing "ambiguities". Tehran and Washington have held five rounds of talks since April to thrash out a new nuclear accord to replace the deal with major powers that US President Donald Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018. The longtime foes have been locked in a diplomatic standoff over Iran's uranium enrichment, with Tehran defending it as a "non-negotiable" right and Washington describing it as a "red line". On May 31, after the fifth round of talks, Iran said it had received "elements" of a US proposal, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later saying the text contained "ambiguities". Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei criticised the US proposal as "lacking elements" reflective of the previous rounds of negotiations, without providing further details. "We will soon submit our own proposed plan to the other side once it is finalised," Baqaei told a weekly press briefing. "It is a proposal that is reasonable, logical and balanced, and we strongly recommend that the American side value this opportunity." Also on Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told state news agency IRNA that Iran's response "is a framework for agreement". "If we reach an understanding on this framework in principle, further extensive negotiations will begin on its details," he added. Iran's parliament speaker has said the US proposal failed to include the lifting of sanctions -- a key demand for Tehran, which has been reeling under their weight for years. Trump, who has revived his "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions on Iran since taking office in January, has repeatedly said Tehran will not be allowed any uranium enrichment under a potential deal. On Wednesday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the US offer was "100 per cent against" notions of independence and self-reliance. He insisted that uranium enrichment was "key" to Iran's nuclear programme and that the US "cannot have a say" on the issue. Iran currently enriches uranium to 60 per cent, far above the 3.67-per cent limit set in the 2015 deal and close though still short of the 90 per cent needed for a nuclear warhead. The United Nations nuclear watchdog on Monday began a Board of Governors meeting in Vienna that will last until Friday to discuss Iran's nuclear activities among other topics. "I call upon Iran urgently to cooperate fully and effectively with the International Atomic Energy Agency," said agency chief Rafael Grossi in his opening speech. "Unless and until Iran assists the agency in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues, the agency will not be in a position to provide assurance that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful," he added. — AFP

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store