The climate emergency requires extraordinary measures

As any observer of the energy scene can confirm, renewable energy is providing an increasingly large portion of our energy needs. Photovoltaic solar panels are cheaper than coal. Geothermal and wind are competitive with other fossil fuels. We have the technology to phase out the internal combustion engine and to massively reduce the energy wasted in inefficient buildings. We can switch from fossil fuel to bio-diesel for most engines currently sucking fossil fuels and overloading our atmosphere with greenhouse gases. But as any climate scientist can attest, market forces, innovative technologies and current climate policies are far too slow to avoid risks of cataclysmic climate shifts. The entrenched special interests of fossil fuels have even succeeded in keeping its subsidies—globally and within Canada—in place and growing, despite promises to eliminate them. It is increasingly clear that the pace of government/societal response is wholly inadequate to avoid a growing risk of the extinction of millions of species, including us. The Oct. 8 special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was the most urgent and compelling report in the 40 years of the IPCC’s existence. The IPCC has a strong record of accuracy, but of always underestimating the impacts and the speed with which we will experience them. Through that lens, the news that we have at most 10 to 12 years to dramatically reduce our GHG emissions, while simultaneously, massively increasing forest cover and other sinks, should be viewed as an optimistic projection of how much time we have. The reality is that we likely have to do more in even less time. Against this existential threat, governments around the world, including our own, act as if we have all the time in the world. We can maintain the status quo until after the next election, after the next COP ... sometime later. But there is no later. There is only now. There are always chances of a deus ex machina solution. We could see a disruptive technology so powerful that it knocks fossil fuels out of competition in time to avoid runaway global warming. Historically, we have seen one energy source displace another. Fast. This was what happened to the use of whale oil in lamps across North America. The invention of kerosene by Nova Scotian Abraham Gesner changed everything. We did not stop hunting and slaughtering whales because we suddenly cared about whales, but because kerosene burned more cleanly and was cheaper. Fast forward to today; we are acting as though propping up whale oil to keep kerosene out of the market was a shrewd move. We can hope for the disrupting technology, but we should be able to advance the needle on disruption by adopting serious policies to become carbon neutral. The IPCC 1.5 report was clear. There are no physical barriers to holding at the Paris target of 1.5 degrees. There are no laws of chemistry or physics that block our path to holding to 1.5. There are no technology gaps or economic pitfalls that stop us. According to the IPCC, the only missing ingredient is political will. The political party system works against courage. We need less hyper-partisanship and more collaboration. We need courageous, societal government; the kind of government in Canada, and the U.K., that confronted Hitler and won. That is why I propose we adopt a radical approach to governance. On the precedents of war cabinets, we establish a Survival Cabinet. It will be (as were the war cabinets of World War I and World War II) an interior executive cabinet. The rest of government activities remain in the outer cabinet. The War Cabinet under Winston Churchill included key generals, as well as members of opposition parties. Mackenzie King’s war cabinet was similar. Canada’s Survival Cabinet could be a lesson to the world. Members of the opposition parties would be added to a powerful inner-cabinet. Scientists would replace the generals as the people who understand the threat and know where we must marshal resources. This inner cabinet would steer the over-whelming threat of climate to a safe conclusion. We need a whole-of-government approach. We need a War Cabinet in the most desperate gambit of humanity. We need a Survival Cabinet. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May represents Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C. The Hill Times