By Isaiah Ritzmann
Published September 2022
We are living through a climate emergency. At least that’s what we’ve been saying. Whole sectors of society, including governments, are recognizing climate change as an existential threat. The government of Canada declared a climate emergency in June 2019. Other nations, as well as the European Union, have made similar declarations. In Canada, 384 local jurisdictions have declared climate emergencies including the Region of Waterloo. As of this past summer, over 2,000 local governments in nearly 40 countries have made climate emergency declarations.
We are living through a climate emergency. But are we acting like it? Imagine you are in a crowded building – a school, a mall, maybe an office. The fire alarm starts to sound. But nobody does anything. They just keep doing what they were doing before: the students sit in class, shoppers keep shopping, and the office workers go about their business. It’s an emergency. But nobody is acting like it. To keep doing what we were doing before is not what we need to do now. Is this a parable for an age where we declare climate emergencies and go on acting like we always have?
In his book A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency (2020), Seth Klein explores Canada’s emergency mobilization during the Second World War as a model for today. At the beginning of the war our governments declared an emergency. And acted like it. Based on this experience Klein develops four markers to help tell us whether governments are actually acting like it’s the emergency they say it is. Governments that act like they are in an emergency:
1. Spend what it takes to win,
2. Create new economic institutions to get the job done,
3. Shift from voluntary and incentive–based programs to mandatory measures,
4. Tell the truth about the severity of the crisis and communicate the urgency about the measures needed to combat it.
Based on these indicators, is our government acting like it’s an emergency? Klein doesn’t think so. Take spending as an example. Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, has said that governments should be spending at least 2% of their GDP on climate mitigation efforts. In Canada this would amount to about $50 billion a year. Compare this number to the climate spending from the 2022 federal budget. Economists at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives crunched the numbers and identified total mitigation spending in Canada to be around $2.9 billion this year – a gap of over $47 billion. Clearly, Canada is not putting its money where its mouth is. It has pulled the alarm but is refusing to leave the building.
And this is just with spending. Klein notes that during the Second World War the federal government established a remarkable 28 crown corporations to meet the needs of the war effort. When it was necessary, it rationed essential goods like food and energy. It didn’t rest its hope on voluntary and incentive-based programs. Too much was at stake. Lastly it told the truth. Leaders regularly communicated the urgency of the crisis and what measures were needed to meet the challenge. In other words the government not only said but acted like it was an emergency. Is government acting today like climate change is the emergency it says it is?
Government plays a critical, irreplaceable role in responding to the climate emergency. Yet governments are not the only actors in society. All our institutions and all of us as citizens have a role to play. And happily countless individuals and many sectors – including schools, businesses, and religious communities – are recognizing the existential threat of climate change. But are we – non-governmental organizations and ordinary citizens – acting like it’s an existential threat? And what might indicate that we are?
Klein’s four markers are helpful, but they are government-specific (federal government in particular). They are easy to remember and can be used by pretty much anybody. Could we have similar indicators for our major social institutions? And for ourselves? These would be short, rule-of-thumb type measures that help us determine whether our schools, our hospitals, our religious and business communities are acting like we are in a climate emergency. Right now if we asked whether our institutions are acting like it’s an emergency we would unlikely be able to find a clear, simple, agreed-upon answer. Common measures that are easy to use, easy to remember, and easy to share with others would go a long way to help remedy this situation.
Governments have sounded the alarm but are refusing to leave the building. For the most part they have not acted like it’s the emergency they say that it is. In light of this, perhaps civil society and all of us as citizens need to get a start – pressuring governments to catch up. If you are in a crowded building, the alarm is sounding, and nobody is doing anything – do you just wait around? Of course not! You start acting like an emergency, even if those in charge aren’t. And you don’t abandon those around you. You encourage them also to start acting like it’s the emergency that it is. This is a call for deep soul searching. To all levels of government, to all civil society organizations, and to all of us as individuals: are we acting like climate change is the existential threat that it is? We have no time to waste. Let’s start acting like it’s an emergency now.
