The following is a re-print of the October 2024 edition of Shift Storm, the CCPA’s monthly newsletter which focuses on the intersection of work and climate change. Click here to subscribe to Shift Storm and get the latest updates straight to your inbox as soon as they come out.
Amidst the scorched-earth, no-holds-barred struggles of American politics, a curious phenomenon is occurring: Republicans are supporting climate policy.
Not in name, of course. “Climate” is still a slippery slope to a Green New Deal, woke socialism and other forms of unsavoury leftist radicalism. An anti-environmental ideology, fuelled by conservative think tanks and media figures, is deeply entrenched in the modern Republican party.
But on the question of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—the Biden-led, big-government policy of green industrial subsidies—Republican leaders are expressing an uncharacteristic degree of nuance.
While not a single Republican voted for the IRA back in 2022, a group of 18 GOP lawmakers recently spoke out in favour of the legislation. Governors in red states such as Georgia and South Carolina have also, reluctantly, acknowledged the value of the IRA.
The reason is simple—the regions of the country reaping the greatest benefits of the US$369 billion spending plan are all led by Republicans. To date, 85 per cent of the investments and 68 per cent of the jobs created by the IRA have been in Republican congressional districts. Over the long term, it is the conservative Midwest and South that are expected to be the IRA’s biggest winners.
While the Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump, has promised to repeal the IRA, he is receiving significant pushback from within the party. Conservative leaders are loath to give up the benefits that green industrial policy is bringing to their communities. Trump will find the policy hard to undo now that a powerful constituency has been created to protect it. And, even if he does, most of the investments locked in to date will continue to provide climate benefits well into the future.
Don’t misunderstand the stakes. A second Trump presidency would be disastrous for climate action, as I explore in my U.S. election preview over on the CCPA blog. In one of the more cartoonish illustrations of his fossil-fuelled corruption, Trump has promised to cut environmental regulations in exchange for campaign contributions from oil executives—a naked quid pro quo that could set back climate efforts significantly.
But the lesson here is that for climate policy to be durable—to survive shifting political winds over the long-term—it must create practical, visible benefits for people on the ground. The IRA could be repealed, but the solar farms and battery plants it funded will still be there, as will the workers and communities that now have a vested interest in defending them.
It’s a lesson climate-minded Canadian governments should heed as climate-denying reactionaries come knocking on the electoral door. Regulations, targets and strategies are important, but they do not automatically create lasting change or constituencies that will fight for them.
If, at the end of your time in government, all of your greatest environmental achievements can be undone with the stroke of a pen—whereas your gifts to the fossil fuel industry are cemented for decades to come—then that is how you will be remembered.
Storm surge: this month’s key reads
ENGOs call for worker-focused and community-led transition strategies
The Green Budget Coalition, which brings together more than 20 Canadian environmental groups, has released their Recommendations for Budget 2025. As always, it offers a compelling case for what comprehensive environmental policy could actually look like at the federal level.
One of this year’s headline recommendations is a $6.5 billion allocation over five years for regional workforce development, a Youth Climate Corps and Indigenous-led community transition planning. These are not only good policy ideas from an equity perspective. Bringing workers, youth, Indigenous folks and other groups into the clean energy fold is essential for making decarbonization possible. There is simply too much work to be done and not enough capacity in the current workforce.
Indigenous communities are already the second largest owners of renewable energy assets in the country after provincial utilities. One of the recurring themes at the recent AFN Climate Gathering I attended was the importance of letting Indigenous communities continue to lead on this front. For governments, that means providing financial, technical and regulatory assistance. But it also means respecting Indigenous Peoples’ inherent rights to self-determination.
The GBC recommendations strike the right balance here. Canadian governments need to offer transition support but get out of the way when it comes to developing and executing transition plans at the community level.
Countries gear up for COP debate over climate finance
One of the big focuses at the UNFCCC’s 29th Conference of the Parties (COP), which kicks off in Azerbaijan next month, is setting a new target for the amount of climate finance developed countries should be offering developing countries to help them mitigate and adapt to climate change. The New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG) will replace the previous global target of US$100 billion per year, which was set in Copenhagen in 2009 and achieved in 2022.
As a new report from Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body, Climate’s Bottom Line, points out, increasing Canada’s climate finance commitment is necessary because it is no longer possible for us to meet our fair share of emissions reductions through domestic policy alone.
Let me repeat that. Even if Canada manages to meet its current climate targets—which we are not on track to do—we will still exceed our cumulative carbon budget by at least eight gigatonnes of CO2e by 2050. That’s equivalent to more than a decade of national emissions at current levels.
According to a new briefing from Climate Action Network Canada, Paving the way for an equitable future, a good start would be a tripling of Canada’s current climate finance commitment to $15.9 billion in the 2026-2031 period. That’s a drop in the bucket on the global scale—developing countries are calling for a cumulative US$1 trillion per year commitment from rich countries through the NCQG—but it would begin chipping away at the problem.
Where is all this money supposed to come from? A new briefing from Oil Change International, The Road to COP29, argues that rich countries could mobilize as much as US$5 trillion per year by ending fossil fuel subsidies, implementing carbon taxes or other fees for climate damages, and recalibrating the global tax regime to stamp out tax minimization strategies by corporations and wealthy individuals. It’s a lofty set of proposals, but an important reminder that our biggest barriers to effective climate action are political, not economic or technical.
Research radar: the latest developments in work and climate
Bay Street responsible for twice as many emissions as the whole of Canada. New research published by the University of Toronto’s Toronto Climate Observatory, Bay Street Climate Report, finds that if Toronto’s financial sector were its own country, it would be the sixth highest emitting economy in the world. That’s because Canadian-headquartered firms, especially in the energy, mining and finance industries, own highly-polluting assets all over the world. The report offers yet another indictment of Bay Street’s role in driving the climate crisis, but it also highlights an opportunity. Through stricter financial regulations, the federal and provincial governments could drive GHG reductions that go far beyond Canada’s own domestic emissions.
Lifecycle GHG emissions from LNG may be higher than from coal. It’s a stunning finding, considering how heavily Western governments are banking on liquified natural gas to be a long-term climate solution, but a new article published in Energy Science & Engineering finds that when upstream and transportation emissions are included, the GHG footprint of LNG may be us much as 33 per cent higher than for the same amount of energy produced from coal combustion. The crux of the issue is methane leakage, which is a major problem here in Canada. Gas is simply not as clean or safe as the oil industry or governments would like it to be.
Gender equity can accelerate green transition. A new report from the International Monetary Fund, Green Jobs and the Future of Work for Women and Men, highlights the underrepresentation of women in key sectors of the green economy on a global scale. That entails two risks. First, that gender inequality will worsen as more of the economy shifts into green sectors. Second, that the transition will be held up by an insufficient supply of skilled labour. Unfortunately, the report’s recommendation to focus on STEM education is just the sort of pablum you might expect from the IMF. There are more significant systemic barriers to women’s participation in the labour market that need to be addressed first, including inadequate public services, wage discrimination and unsafe workplaces.
U.S. Inflation Reduction Act could exacerbate inequality. Although I celebrated the IRA above as an example of strong green industrial policy, it is far from a perfect approach. A new study published in the journal Critical Social Policy, “The (un)just transition in ecomodernist climate policy,” finds that the IRA reproduces a pro-corporate model of economic development that is unlikely to ensure a just transition for marginalized communities in that country.
A community-led agenda for change in a key Scottish oil region. My favourite example of state-led transition planning, Scotland’s Just Transition Commission, has published an excellent new report, A Just Transition for Shetland, based on dialogue with workers, communities and industry in the Shetland region. One of the key recommendations to come out of this work is the importance of community ownership of renewables to ensure the transition builds public wealth. This report, and the work of the commission more generally, offer a fantastic model for Canada’s forthcoming Sustainable Jobs Partnership Council to follow.
Indigenous Peoples can be global renewable energy leaders. I mentioned above the important role Indigenous communities are playing in the development of clean energy in Canada. A new report published by Indigenous Peoples’ Rights International and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Exploring shared prosperity, discusses the potential for doing so on a global scale. The report’s emphasis on respecting rights is welcome, but I would have liked to see more of a focus on full community ownership of projects rather than mere “benefit-sharing” arrangements.
Labour power is key to successful just transitions. A new article in the journal Energy Research & Social Science asks why labour unions are the greatest champions of energy transitions in some contexts and the greatest obstacles in others. Through a case study of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, the paper concludes that for unions to be supportive of just transition policies they require (1) leadership that’s willing to go “all-in” on transition, (2) the power to shape transition policies, and (3) supportive state partners that offer tangible economic alternatives. The paper concludes that leaving economic diversification to the private sector is less likely to deliver the kinds of transition that workers are looking for—namely, the place-based investments that the public sector is best-suited to delivering.
Upcoming events unpack climate equity and Trudeau’s legacy. The Climate Emergency Unit is hosting a virtual summit on global climate equity next week. I’ll be speaking on a panel about tax and trade justice. And if you’re in Ottawa on November 7th, the CCPA is hosting a launch party for our new book, The Trudeau Record. I’ll be speaking about my chapter on Trudeau’s climate legacy.
