Class, wealth and climate change - on line livestream

Read the news in recent months, and it is impossible to avoid conservative attacks claiming climate policies make people poorer. From Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre attacking the carbon tax as the cause of high food prices to Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim saying his failed proposal to eliminate the city's groundbreaking ban on natural gas heating was about "affordability," efforts to link climate initiative to the cost of living crisis are common. 

The claim isn't fully true. Climate action is expensive for both individuals and society, but less than the cost of doing nothing. In some cases (think heat pumps), it's cheaper. And climate change is fuelled by the wealthy, even as marginalized and working-class communities are hit harder by the crisis. 

Those nuances are ignored by conservatives who use anti-climate rhetoric to boost their popularity. U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent win and Poilievre’s popularity are due, in part, to their anti-climate stance. Class and wealth are often ignored in the discourse around climate politics. That intersection will be the topic of discussion at two upcoming roundtable discussions organized by the University of Toronto's Institute for Environment, Conservation, and Sustainability, in partnership with Canada's National Observer and Another Story bookstore. 

"It's not just that climate change affects livelihoods differently," said Imre Szeman, the institute's director. "Class also affects decision-making: who gets to make those decisions, who gets to identify what matters and what should be addressed more more quickly." 

The first panel, on March 6, will examine how those differences shape the impact of climate change on vulnerable and low-income communities. The goal, Szeman said, is to show how people’s experience of climate change is dictated by their circumstances. For instance, a lot of reporting on the January fires in Los Angeles painted people who lost their homes with the same brush, when in reality, victims who were relatively well-off and had their homes insured face fewer challenges than those who don't, he said. Highlighting these differences and wrapping them into climate activism and policy is key to a more just transition, he explained. 

Moderated by media and environmental studies expert Hannah Tollefson, the panel brings together: 

• Angele Alook, a professor of gender, sexuality, and women's studies at York University, and member of the Bigstone Cree Nation in Treaty 8 territory. Her research has examined the Indigenous experiences in Alberta's oil industry and its gendered impact on working families. Her on-going work is examining a just transition for Alberta's labour force and the impact of climate change on Treaty 8 territory. 

• Geoff Dembicki, an investigative journalist with DeSmog who has specialized in fossil fuel industry disinformation. He is the author of The Petroleum Papers, an exploration of historical disinformation about Alberta's oil sands that was named best non-fiction book of the year by The Washington Post in 2022. 

• Zamani Ra, founder of CEED Canada, an organization that helps communities, like universities or social housing stakeholders, take climate action. The organization focuses on highlighting people’s lived experiences to shape climate activism and policy change. 

• Matt Huber is a professor of geography and environment at Syracuse University in upstate New York. His research focuses on how capitalism and energy interact with the politics of climate change. 

The second panel, on March 7, will delve deeper into class and climate in the "age of Trump." Featuring Matt Huber, from Syracuse University, and Myles Lennon, an environmental anthropologist at Brown University. Lennon's work examines how rooftop solar, microgrids and other climate resilience infrastructure impact power structures as they proliferate across New York City. He also worked in sustainable energy for eight years before starting his Phd. 

The discussion will focus on how class and race impacts people's political influence and ability to access resources to adapt to the problem or push for change, Szeman said. Building on the panel around vulnerability, Huber and Lennon will examine how socio-economic status influences the extent to which people can modify their lifestyles for the climate or influence societal responses to the problem. 

"At a personal level, it costs money to be virtuous with respect to the climate," Szeman explained, citing for instance the higher cost of eating organic foods or replacing electric appliances. But at a societal level, the investments in cleaner infrastructure or regulations setting more environmental pollution standards can reduce prices for everyone – if people can convince politicians to make the shift. 

"That doesn't happen often because they're cynical, or they don't worry about your experience compared to other people's, or they have other political goals," he said. 

The events will also be livestreamed here. 

— Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, reporter