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Catherine McKenna: Winning the Climate Revolution
On March 3, the first event in Columbia’s new Speaker Series was held. It featured Catherine McKenna (ex-Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change) and her current appearance. Distinguished Visiting Fellow with Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy. During the event, McKenna shared some remarks and participated in a Q&A moderated by Climate School Founding Dean Alex Halliday. Columbia University affiliates were unable to attend, but McKenna shared her speech and slides below.
First, I want you to know that I am grateful for being here today and for inviting to be the opening speaker in the conference. Columbia Climate School’s lecture series. It’s a real honor — and I’ll confess, a bit intimidating!
I entered politics to fight for policies that I believe in, such as climate change and equity and justice. I quit government when I realized that the best place for fighting for a sustainable future was the world.
I’d like to think that when we look back from 2050 — when many of you are deep into your careers, and others, like me, have likely finished theirs — we’ll see that Columbia’s Climate School will have played a vital role in advancing this movement.
And really: There’s no place I’d rather be.
In the next 15 minutes, let me talk about the challenges we face right now.
I want to share some of the tough lessons I learned while in government — especially during the fight to put a price on carbon pollution across Canada. It’s a story that has its share of ups and downs, twists and turns, victories and heartbreaks.
First, I need to clarify something. I didn’t grow up in Ottawa or Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver — Canadian cities you might actually have heard of.
Hamilton is my hometown.
And to grow up in Hamilton is to grow up next to this — Canada’s largest steel mill.
Source: John Rennison/Spectator Staff
It’s hugely carbon intensive and polluting.
ArcelorMittal Dofasco, and its predecessors, have been making the steel that goes into Canadian automobiles, buildings, and industry for generations. These are union jobs.
It’s a working-class town. It’s not fancy and I’m not fancy.
We call it the Steeltown or the Hammer — which tells you maybe everything you need to know. It’s a proud place. And if you grow up in Hamilton, you’re a practical person. You care about your family. Your community. You do your job. You get stuff done.
I went to law school because I was interested in how things work — and can be made to work.
Source: Sanook
I wound up working for the United Nations to help negotiate an international maritime boundary and energy treaty between East Timor and Australia that was signed on East Timor’s independence.
I then founded a charity to allow more lawyers to share their expertise with countries less developed and organizations that need it.
And then I decided to enter politics — which was decidedly not the plan. Remember Steel Town. My bedroom wall did not have posters of prime ministers. Only Olympic swimmers.
But I got into politics because we had a government that wasn’t facing the future and it didn’t get climate change. I had three kids and I could see — anyone could see — that it was well past time to get serious.
Being elected is one thing. Being a minister is another. I was a rookie. I’d never sat in the House of Commons.
Source: AKDN/Zahur Ramji
And in 2015, days after being elected, the Prime Minister called me and asked if I would be Canada’s first Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Seventy-two hours later, I was on a plane to Paris — because COP21 was about to begin. I didn’t even know what a COP was. It’s Conference of the Parties in case you’re wondering — and yes, I immediately put a ban on the use of acronyms in my office.
Source: Catherine McKenna
Everyone in this room knows the answer. Paris is vitalIt was amazing what was accomplished there. It was the first time the countries of the globe agreed to an ambitious plan to combat climate change. The goal was to keep global warming well below 2 degrees and to aim for 1.5.
Every country agreed that they had to do their part.
Parenthetically, I’ll note that I am convinced that the only reason we were able to achieve such an ambitious agreement was through the leadership of women — from Christiana Figueres, to Laurence Tubiana, to Mary Robinson, to women leading environmental organizations and unions, to Indigenous and grassroots women, to the women ministers like me who were directly involved in the negotiations.
Ministers returned home from the Paris Agreement knowing that there was no way to deliver.
So let’s talk a bit about Canada.
Source: Long John Index Service of Canada
Three-quarters of a million. The second largest land mass in the world, with 90% of our population located within 100 km of the US border. It’s often cold. On energy — you probably know about flashpoints like pipelines and oil sands. But you might not know that 80% of our electricity is already clean — coming mostly from hydro and nuclear with some wind and solar, and the last coal fired generating stations shutting down within this decade. With 40% of the population, Ontario was the first to kick the habit a decade back. This was the largest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Canada’s history.
Source: Hydro-Québec
Delivering Canada’s carbon commitment would take heavy lifting — including putting a price on carbon pollution. Initialy, the price increased by $10 per year to $50. It’s now on a trajectory to increase by $15 per year, reaching $170 by 2030.
This was not an easy sell. Canada isn’t a country that pulls in the same direction. We have a tendency to elect opposing governments … so if you have Liberals in Ottawa, you have Conservatives in power most everywhere else. This creates what we might politely call dynamic.
You could see in the news on any given day about provincial premiers who were removing a cap-and trade system or cancelling carbon taxes, dismantling wind farm, and actually ripping down charging stations for electric cars.
At the same time, we were creating a system which would require the provinces to bring in carbon prices to meet a minimum federal level (and keep the revenue!) Or else, we would impose an federal backstop.
Source: MacLean’s Magazine
We encouraged the provinces and territories to design a system that was efficient for them. However, we made it clear that inaction wasn’t an option. Perhaps most importantly, we wanted to make sure that the money didn’t stay in Ottawa but was returned to people’s pockets — especially those who needed the money most.
We thought that this was logical. This was fair. We tried to work with the provinces to reach deals.
Enter the Resistance. These populist provincial leaders, who represented Ontario and other western provinces in Canada, were determined to end our policy. They did many things that would discredit it. They tried to mobilize public opinion.
Sources: PHOTODESK EMAIL/Ontario Government
I wish I made this up but Ontario’s premier even ordered totally misleading stickers placed on every gas pump in the province. Hilariously they didn’t stick.
They took us to court. Then they took us to another court. And so on. For years.
Source: Dig Deeper
In the end, the battle for Canada’s carbon price was settled by our Supreme Court. The majority of the court found that the law was constitutional because climate change is a “threat to the future of humanity” and therefore the federal government had the authority to impose a minimum price on greenhouse gas emissions across the country. Chief Justice Wagner writing for the majority was clear: “A provincial failure to act directly threatens Canada as a whole.” The provinces would have to comply.
I searched for allies to help me sell carbon pricing wherever I could.
Source: Presentation by Catherine McKenna
I found myself calling the Guvernator, asking Arnold Schwarzenegger to endorse our plan, hoping that as a Republican he could reach Conservative-leaning voters … and, well, Terminator fans. You can find the video by searching my social media.
And while the question of carbon pricing quickly became accepted wisdom on the left, despite its free market appeal, it became something of a purity test for the federal conservatives who continued to oppose our government’s policies.
So what can we take away from this…
First, climate politics can be messy. It can break your heart. There will never be enough set-backs or detours.
It took time. It took time for our government to learn how to communicate with real people, not like an environmentalist or a card-carrying member a out-of-touch elite. (Sorry, but this is true. The short-hand for our policy was to put a “price on pollution.” This frame works because regular people understand that pollution has a cost and that it can’t be free to pollute.
We had to reduce the impact of our policies on real people.
Source: Presentation by Catherine McKenna
Though we could have spent the billions of new revenues from pricing on any number of priorities including those that could accelerate the transition, it wouldn’t matter if we lost public support.
This is why we have to remember that for most people, it isn’t that climate change is an abstraction. It is something that people can see and feel. Politicians who push for a bold climate agenda must remember that regular people care about the cost and want to do the right thing for the planet.
Our decision to return all the revenues of carbon pricing disarmed critics who feared a hidden motive — bigger government. And, our plan made most Canadians better off — especially lower income Canadians, while also allowing them to support a policy that would do the right thing.
Third: I learned that you don’t fight people. Save your fight for your opponents — the mostly right-wing politicians and their surrogates in the media. It is exhausting and a pain. They will pursue you personally. They will lie and defame everything you say. You need to know the facts.
Fourth: This is politics, and you need to have a ground game. This involves organizing and working with allies that can command and mobilize their networks. We gathered support from everyone: children (and their parents), NGOs and faith leaders, Indigenous leaders and academics, physicians, economists and even business and industry leaders. We also enlisted faith leaders.
What now?
Our job is two-fold, according to me. We have to hold the gains we’ve made while continuing to move forward. This means a fair transition for workers and communities, as well as equity for those most affected by climate change, particularly Indigenous peoples and historically marginalized populations.
The latest IPCC report, released Monday, makes clear that climate justice is integral to climate action. We must ensure that there is a fair transition across the globe as we transition. We cannot leave people behind — otherwise the transition won’t be successful.
We need to combat disinformation spread by right-wing media, conservative politicians, and, as it has become shockingly obvious, the influence of state actors such as Russia, who are keen to sow discord, confusion, increase polarization.
A 2021 study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that 10 publishers are responsible for more than two-thirds of digital climate change denial content on Facebook — which includes several right-wing websites in the US, as well as Russian state media.
I saw disinformation first-hand in my time as minister, but most notably when we introduced a tax on pollution in Canada.
Source: Presentation by Catherine McKenna
An analysis by Climate Lab at University of Toronto showed that the volume of replies to my tweets increased significantly from April 1, 2019, the date the federal carbon tax took effect. This was the day I received the most number of tweets in my four years as minister. These tweets argued that climate change was not a global emergency and falsely claimed that it isn’t caused by people or carbon emissions but rather the sun. It was disturbing that the content did not only focus on climate disinformation, but also included hateful remarks about me personally.
Tragically, it’s taken the crisis in Ukraine to jolt us into recognizing how malign foreign actors like Russia exploit issues like climate change precisely because they can be used to sow division and heighten polarization in order to destabilize democracies.
The Aspen Institute has named this condition ab “information disorder” — which seems apt. Without trust and quality information, democratic societies will not survive. Defending our institutions, dramatically enhancing access to quality information, making social media platforms accountable, actively rooting out malign actors, and restoring trust must be job one — it will save our societies and is a prerequisite to achieving our climate goals.
These are dark times — but the choices and solutions have never been clearer. This is when my hometown comes back to me.
Source: Dan Molon/shutterstock.com
Because we have to be practical. We must fight the real enemies. We need to prove our case by talking to real people. We have to put in the work.
Change can happen — and looking around the world today, that change is happening.
Remember ArcelorMittal Dofasco? That’s where I grew up and those coal piles? The federal and provincial governments announced last week that they would retrofit the coal blast ovens to make them more efficient and electric. So not only will the car of the future be electric, the steel it’s made with will be electric, too. One change, which will reduce Dofasco’s greenhouse gas emissions by half — a reduction of three million tonnes per year by 2030. This will make Dofasco and the province a world-leading producer low carbon steel.
Hamilton is proud and practical. Although it took some time, they are now on the path to a better future that includes good union jobs, economic growth and competitiveness. I’m sure we will, too.
That’s why I guess you could call me a stubborn climate optimist — like Columbia Climate School students.
Source: Catherine McKenna
We are grateful.
