I spent a little over a week reading through Mark Jaccard's newest book, The Citizen's Guide to Climate Success: Overcoming Myths that Hinder Progress. Notably, the book is Open Access, and so it's downloadable from that link (and it's even possible to send all the chapters to Kindle, which I find slightly surprising!)
Summary
In the book Dr. Jaccard discusses eleven myths which he argues prevent us from succeeding at addressing climate change. By describing the myths, and how they are unhelpful, he is trying to guide concerned citizens to what he sees as the most likely route to success, which is:
- Transforming and decarbonizing a few key sectors of the economy first: Transportation and Electricity production. While he doesn't advocate ignoring other sectors, these are key sectors to target initially because they are domestic services, where we don't need to worry about competition from other countries, and we know this can be done because near-zero emissions technologies already exist at reasonable costs.
- Decarbonizing other emissions intensive industries that are exposed to global trade, using 'climate clubs', where groups of countries cooperate to implement carbon tariffs imposed upon imported goods that vary based on the carbon emissions of production.
- Assisting poorer countries in adopting low-emissions energy.
One theme that runs through the book is the need for flexibility on the part of campaigners to address climate change.
Indeed, we cannot be rigid about solutions. We must pay attention to technical, economic, political, and social feasibility, and be willing to shift our preference for a particular action or policy if one of these factors presents an insurmountable barrier to its contribution
For example, while economists see carbon taxation as the most cost-effective mechanism for reducing carbon emissions, they have become a political nightmare almost everywhere. As a result of this, a fixation on carbon taxation is counter-productive if the goal is decarbonization. In the book he discusses other policies: Cap-and-Trade and flexible regulations which have had a great impact in some areas, and are more politically feasible in many areas than carbon taxes. I found this to be particularly interesting. I know I have historically been heavily in favour of carbon taxation as a road to climate success, but after finishing the book I have to wonder if we haven't wasted a decade in Canada by choosing to argue and fight about Carbon Taxes rather than trying to find the most politically acceptable solution.
Politics is another very interesting theme that runs throughout the book. Dr. Jaccard has been working in this field for a long time, advising many different governments of many different stripes over a long period. This experience has obviously made it very clear to him that the only way we are going to decarbonize is through the effective use of our political power as citizens:
This leaves one last task on the simple path to climate success. We must be able to detect and elect climate-sincere politicians, and then pressure them to implement a few simple policies, such that any citizen can detect procrastination and evasion.
He includes in the book a diagram he titles the "Guide to citizen behaviour for climate success"
As you can see, there's an important set of bars we can apply to our politicians to help drive climate success: Targets, Policies, and the stringency therein. I think perhaps that is the most important takeaway from the book: We as citizens must exercise our political muscles to make action on climate change happen. There are huge benefits to political careers in dilly-dallying and paying lip-service, but we as citizens are the only people who can really hold politicians to this course of action.
In any case, it’s time to stop feeling guilty about ourselves as consumers and start feeling guilty about ourselves as citizens. As consumers, there is little we can do with the guilt in those cases where we have no realistic options to reduce GHGs. As citizens, however, there is a lot we can do. There is a lot we must do. But it won’t always be comfortable
Other Notes
I think this book is likely an excellent resource to share with people who want to effect change on climate. I found Dr. Jaccard's style in the book to be very interesting: He wrote the entire book in extremely plain language. You can feel throughout his aversion to overly technical jargon. While the book is excellently notated with citations for various assertions he makes, the actual style is extremely plainspoken throughout. It made reading the book very low cognitive effort.
As someone who was a believer in some of the myths he deconstructs ("We Must Price Carbon Emissions", "Energy Efficiency is Profitable", "Renewables Have Won") I found this book to be an extremely helpful corrective.
Quotes
I'd like to leave with some of the quotes I highlighted on my read through, because I found them valuable:
Demanding that the global climate agreement only happen if it is seen as equitable by every country on the planet is to ensure that it won’t happen. Those who demand this need to look in the mirror when it comes to allocating blame for a continued global failure that is now especially harming the poorest people on the planet.
If we allow the fossil fuel industry to paint our domestic efforts as globally futile, these efforts will be thwarted.
When they say, “Our oil, coal, or gas is ethical because when you buy from us your money doesn’t go to terrorists,” Steve now wonders, “How ethical is it to harm current and future generations with climate change simply to enrich yourself?”
These are just some of the justifications for continuing on our high-risk path. The false logic and biased evidence are easily refuted, but informing the public is not easy. This is why people who understand the need to act quickly on the climate threat must lobby for and support compulsory policies, domestically and globally, and actively help their neighbours, friends, and family achieve this same understanding.
The fossil fuel industry and insincere politicians would like nothing better than to delay compulsory decarbonization policies by claiming that we need behavioral change. We must not play into their hands. Instead, we should prioritize the one behavioral change that can make a big difference: changing our behavior as citizens and voters to more forcefully pursue deep decarbonization policies.