You Alone Can't Save the World

By Kaija Belfry

Kaija Belfry is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia. Originally from Prince Edward Island, she left home in 1999 to work as a House of Commons Page in Ottawa. As a result of that and subsequent experiences, she has had numerous opportunities to observe Canada’s political system in action and believes strongly in the role of government in finding solutions to collective problems. A 2003 Globe and Mail article describing the rate of decline in arctic ice sparked her concern about climate change. Profoundly disturbed by the evidence presented, she went on to complete a Masters degree in Development Studies at Dalhousie University with a thesis focused on Renewable Energy Policy. She now studies business-government relations on climate policy in Canada at the University of British Columbia.

When I was a little girl, my fourth grade teacher told our class that, when it came to the environment, one person could make a difference. We should recycle, avoid paper towels and turn off the tap while brushing our teeth. Some fifteen years later, now a grad student studying environmental issues, I heard this familiar refrain from the keynote speaker, Justin Trudeau, at a youth conference I attended in Toronto in May 2006. While I do not mean to disparage either Mr. Trudeau or my grade four teacher, this claim is unreasonable.

In an era when our most basic, banal activities—including driving, lighting our homes, and even eating—contribute to the substantial build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, can a single individual, or corporation for that matter, have a significant impact? Climate change is a collective problem and it will require a collective solution. Individuals and corporations cannot be expected to take on this mammoth problem, if our collective institutions—governments—fail to support us in this endeavour.

The focus on individual action by government and environmentalists suggests that there are specific things that we, as individuals, can do by ourselves to prevent climate change. This is, of course, somewhat true. Each of us has the power to decrease our own environmental impact by, for example, switching to lower energy light bulbs, choosing to take the bus when possible and turning off the lights and heat when not at home. But will this be enough? Even if most of us made a significant effort to go green, it seems illogical to suggest that we could combat climate change ourselves when so much of our society is organized around fossil fuel consumption.

My own life provides a good case in point. My grad student poverty keeps my emissions low in Vancouver (I can’t afford a car and use public transit daily). If, however, I want to visit my boyfriend in Cochrane, Alberta, I have no choice but to use high carbon transport. Normal passenger trains are unavailable from Vancouver to Cochrane, so I must fly or drive. Once I arrive in Cochrane, near Calgary, there is no public transit from Cochrane to the library at the University of Calgary, which is only half an hour away by car. Am I to blame for my high emissions during these trips? For that matter, are all the people of Cochrane derelict in their environmental duty for living away from the city where many work?

Such a suggestion seems both extreme and unfair, but it is the logical extension of the focus on individualism in climate change policy. While changing individual habits will be important in mitigating climate change, if the overall structure of society supports carbon-based activities (our governments build new highways regularly but high-speed trains remain unlikely), how can the individual be expected to decrease the country’s emissions substantially?

I cannot help but feel that corporations labour under the same paradox. Over 40% of Canada’s emissions come from “large final emitters” such as the resource extractors and electric utilities and, consequently, these organizations must decrease their emissions if Canada is going to tackle climate change. Companies must be willing to invest in new technologies and change the manner in which they do business. Some companies have already begun this process through projects such as General Electric’s Ecomagination program. These sorts of voluntary actions will undoubtedly be important in reducing emissions.

Yet, can we expect companies to act independently, out of sheer altruism, when such action often incurs greater cost? Charles Lindblom once wrote that the market was like a prison. He meant that market forces imprison the policy choices of governments due to the importance and structure of the economy in capitalist democracies. It could equally be said, however, that the market imprisons industry: generally, the company that substantially increases its costs above those of its competitors will suffer and the company’s CEO may face a shareholder revolt. Is it fair, then, for governments to rely completely upon voluntary initiatives in our quest to decrease greenhouse gases?

Lindblom argued that the economy had an inducement structure: companies respond to the inducements within the system. This could explain why, when major changes in economic activity are required, individuals and sometimes industry have turned to government to create the inducements necessary to allow all companies to adapt on an equal footing. Otherwise, we’re expecting corporations to act against their economic interest, which seems a little unfair to me.

Governments can help change the inducements within society through a number of mechanisms, including spending, voluntary programs and regulatory implements. Spending includes funding for capital projects. In many areas of Canada, greater spending on public transit, for instance, is definitely required. Government voluntary programs refer to government-led initiatives that lack any enforceable commitments, like the late One-Tonne Challenge, as well as negotiated voluntary agreements between government and industry. The latter is also often non-binding. Regulation, on the other hand, can be broadly defined as state-created rules backed by penalties and may include certain taxes. Successive Canadian governments have generally focused on voluntary initiatives, with some spending programs, preferring not to take any steps perceived as heavy-handed.

While many individuals and corporations support the government’s focus on voluntary initiatives, I argue that the state’s unwillingness to employ all the tools at its disposal has led to unfair expectations being placed on individuals and corporations. How can I decrease my carbon footprint when our transport systems are so limited? How can a corporation make serious adjustments at considerable cost, if its competitors are not forced to do the same? The structure of our society creates inducements for certain activities while penalizing others.

It is time for government—our collective voice—to begin changing those inducements and stop expecting that we should voluntarily take action that undermines our own material good. After all, climate change will penalize all of us.