Conservatives around the world are waging a fierce battle against climate policies. In the United Kingdom, India, Canada, and recently in Brazil, the United States, and Australia, conservative parties are campaigning against the climate.
It wasn’t always like this. 35 years ago in the United States, we did not observe a big difference between Democrats and Republicans on ecological voting. Since then, the issue has become polarizing and it is almost impossible today to see a Republican vote in favor of a climate measure. In Canada, an analysis of data from the House of Commons (by the media DeSmog) shows that during his 20 years in Parliament, Pierre Poilievre voted against climate measures or in favor of weakening them… almost 400 times . He was at the forefront of this polarization.
Today, the policies of these right-wing parties are ecologically and economically disastrous. Their only chance of being elected is therefore to make it a partisan and identity issue, because campaigning on global pyromania when we see our world on fire is not very winning.
According to these new conservatives like Pierre Poilievre, Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro, as well as Scott Moe or Danielle Smith, in Saskatchewan and Alberta respectively, climate action is an attack on freedom and the economy. This is false, but it is the only card they can play, knowing that their policies are literally aimed at throwing fuel on the fire of a burning planet.
Here’s why climate action is neither an attack on freedom nor an attack on the economy.
The costs of climate inaction
Conservatives say that environmentalists and liberals are waging a “war on the automobile.” They seek to consolidate their vision of freedom around motorist identity. So, having seen that their platform will directly lead us to climate catastrophe – and that is not very good in elections – the Conservatives must frame the issue differently to win votes. This is their last resort: to divide the population aggressively to prevent us from thinking about the future together. Instead of helping to send the message that we need to build a society together to help us get around efficiently (with a happy mix of public transit, active transportation, and electric cars), all climate policy is portrayed as “war on the automobile” and an attack on their narrow conception of freedom.
Wearing masks when pollution levels are too high, losing your home to wildfire, flooding or coastal erosion, not being able to leave your home or exercise because of a heatwave, or living in a neighborhood that is a heat island, are not symbols of freedom. Our freedom will be seriously constrained in the context of the climate crisis. Not to mention the interruption of supply chains which will make foods more scarce.
And that’s for us, in Canada. Imagine what it will be like for climate refugees who will have to leave their city, their region, their country. There is already a regular shortage of water in Barcelona, California… With their policies and their rhetoric, the conservatives will not hesitate to see the planet burn to win an election.
Economically, it’s not better. Conservatives say the carbon tax contributes to inflation. Have they understood that the main cause of inflation is the rise in the price of oil? Between studies by the World Bank and the IMF, among others, we can attribute 30% to 40% of inflation directly to the price of oil. The carbon tax is currently responsible for no more than 5% of inflation (0.15 points of inflation), according to the Bank of Canada. This is very little compared to the impact of the price of oil in general, or more specifically to the rise in oil prices following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, to the droughts caused by the crisis climate, or even to interruptions in supply chains caused by the pandemic (which are favored by zoonotic diseases like COVID-19 which will be more frequent with the weakening of ecosystems), or even to oil companies and supermarket chains which have took advantage of this context to raise prices even further.
These are the factors that really explain the 9% inflation we had in 2022 or 3% today. When it comes to reducing our dependence on oil and the effects of the climate crisis, note that the carbon tax does just that. If the Conservatives want to counter inflation, they must stop attacking one of the main tools that would allow us to move away from oil and, in doing so, increase our economic resilience.
But more broadly, the costs of climate inaction will be far greater than the cost of action. Climate change will destroy economies around the world. The recession caused by the pandemic will seem quite small to us compared to that caused by climate upheaval (SwissRe estimates a 13.9% drop in global GDP in 2050 in the context of a temperature rise of 2.6 degrees Celsius). Climate change is already costing us dearly with forest fires, heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels. And it will only get worse if we continue to fail to act, as the Conservatives are proposing.
The benefits of climate action
Furthermore, the benefits of climate action will far outweigh the benefits of inaction. Climate inaction will above all put money in the pockets of oil companies (which are among the richest companies in the world). But there are two real challenges here.
The first is to take care of the workers and communities who depend on the fossil fuel. For example, Bill C-50 for the Sustainable Jobs Act aims exactly to provide training and support for our workers during the transition, taking into account their reality. Yes, this is the same bill that Poilievre tried to block by causing a circus in the Ottawa parliament late last year. The good news is that studies (like that of Clean Energy Canada in 2023) show that the transition to a green economy that will have reached net zero emissions in 2050 will create many more jobs than jobs will be lost .
We are already on this path in Canada! Solar, wind and batteries are the central pieces of our energy future. We just don’t want conservatives like Danielle Smith imposing another moratorium on renewable energy.
The second challenge for governments will be learning to live without oil revenues. Stopping subsidizing them as Steven Guilbeault seems to want to do is a good first step. But we must learn to live without this income too. By keeping their heads in the (tar) sand, I do not believe that conservatives Poilievre, Smith or Moe can aspire to be at the top of the class.
So one of the main things, perhaps the most important thing, that we can do for the climate right now is to vote and tell everyone around us that we cannot elect political parties that encourage this cultural war and undermine the climate fight. It is our duty not to put the most convinced arsonist politicians at the head of the country.