As enthusiasm for a Green New Deal for Canada grows, what type of planning will bring about a just transition to a low-carbon society?
Specifically, we turn to two questions.
First, how can plans for a just transition, from their very beginning, respect the principle of free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples?
If, as the maxim goes, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” we ought to ask just why it is that good people so often do nothing.
“The Earth System may be approaching a planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing rapid pathway toward much hotter conditions. … Incremental linear changes to the present socioeconomic system are not enough to stabilize the Earth System."
Can the global climate be stabilized before runaway change creates conditions that are too hot for human civilization and deadly for most species?
March 21, 2018 - Alberta’s Premier Rachel Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have repeatedly claimed that the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will secure higher prices for Canada’s heavy crude and therefore is in the national interest.
Our planet’s climate crisis is intensifying, but many in industry, government and even the advocacy community have turned to market mechanisms to alleviate climate change instead of regulating the pollutants that cause it. These free-market approaches rely on putting a “price” on climate change-inducing emissions — such as imposing taxes on carbon — as an indirect method to reduce these pollutants.
This is an odd time for those on the Canadian left who are used to Americans looking longingly north of the border. For now, as long as the Bernie Sanders campaign continues to mobilize thousands of new supporters each week, the tables have turned.
