It'll take lots of wins, big and small, to build a decarbonized world brick by brick. We can’t let climate despair slow us down or paint us into a corner.
Hi Mitchell - I don't think On2Ottawa's goal is individual behaviour change. I think their goal - and the goal of groups like Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Derniere Generation - is to engage in high-profile non-violent public actions to a) dramatically and widely convey the true depth and extent of the unprecedented existential crisis we are in; and b) build a movement of people willing to engage in non-violent civil disobedience in order to make it difficult or impossible for governments to continue to refuse to act with the urgency required (for example, by disrupting business as usual and by filling the jails with protestors). We can debate their tactics, but their assertion that non-violent civil disobedience actions have a track record of winning rapid and significant action to address persistent injustices is sound, and applicable to the climate crisis, an injustice to future generations which the Canadian government (and many other governments) have largely failed to address (judging by GHG emission trajectories) for decades. P.S. I suggest readers take a look at the CBC's recent article which cites evidence of the effectiveness of non-violent civil disobedience action (https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-on2ottawa-climate-protest-1.6953456). Gene Sharp's Politics of Nonviolent Action (volume 1) is also a must read.
Thanks, Michael. I really appreciate the callback to Gene Sharp -- for anyone here who remembers the Grindstone Island Co-op, I think that's the last time and place I heard about his work. Which means it's been far too long.
But as for the specific tactics, I think this is one of the key segments from the CBC story:
>> Bugden cautioned that to be successful, the tactics should challenge those directly responsible for the problem protesters are trying to solve, such as governments or industries.
>> "I think disruption that really aims at the right target is more useful," he said. "And to me, the right target is always going to be power in society."
No doubt, the "brutal" responses On2Ottawa says it has received come partly from the faux grassroot groups the fossil industry has been busily setting up and funding. But I would still suggest that if the pink paint protests are creating a whole bunch of new anger (in a population that is already angry, stressed, and scared) for what Sullivan acknowledges is just an incremental gain in support...that's not a strategy to fill the jails, and it isn't a strategy to win. I can see the similarities, but would still suggest there's a world of difference between blocking traffic to prevent someone from getting from their first to their second job when the rent is already overdue, or standing between fossil fuel shareholders and their white wine and canapes during their AGM.
Thanks for writing this, Mitchell, and good to find The Energy Mix - I have subscribed. Yes, I think it's so true that we need a combination of strategies that tend to start as small, locally-based, frugal ideas that solve a problem for a person or a community. The kind of solutions that people go searching for on academic pilgrimages to the countryisde to find 'oddballs', or that UNDP looks for in its accelerator workshops. It is hopeful that a large international organization has decided to go looking for what works, in more remote areas. Which brings me to the one thing I found jarring in the article. I keep reading skeptical takes on carbon capture. And it bothers me that corporate adoption of this technique hides its origins - two engineers who loved the Swiss mountains and set out to find possible solutions to climate change. See https://hopebuilding.blog/2021/09/05/this-swiss-company-is-reversing-climate-change-and-you-can-help/
Thanks, Rose. It's so good to hear from you, such a treat to see your name pop up in my inbox!
The concern with carbon capture is indeed that it's been taken over as a bolt-on for fossil fuels, meant to perpetuate an industry that is entering its sunset and really needs to pick up the pace. The technical issue with direct air capture, that it requires a lot of water and electricity, may or may not be something that Climeworks and others can solve with more research, development, and experience. But the big-picture worry matters, too -- with big fossil companies like Shell and BP now abandoning any pretence that they're serious about emission reductions, there's bound to be broad and growing opposition to any technology that risks giving them political cover.
Something we've been hearing more about is carbon capture for the high-emitting industries outside oil and gas -- steel, aluminium, and a few others -- that will find it harder to decarbonize and have the advantage of *not* sending 80%+ of their embedded emissions on to their end users as soon as they export a shipment of oil or gas. I'd love to see a company like Climeworks successfully and affordably take on that challenge, though once again, the last I heard they still had some fairly steep technical hurdles to climb. (Then again, if they started out motivated by the Alps, they must be no strangers to a challenging climb...)
Thanks, Mitchell. I guess what I wonder is, does the fact that fossil companies are enthusiastically taking up carbon capture mean that it is not part of the menu of solutions we need to address climate change?
XPRIZE had a big contest about carbon removal and Earthshots Prize awarded some of its initial prizes to carbon removal solutions. So just because industry likes it does not mean to me that we should be ignoring its potential. I am solutions-focused, so that is what interests me - what works. And some of these smaller carbon capture ideas are part of that mixture of solutions you were talking about, I think.
I think there may well be a lot of this kind of 'two track' work as we move toward 2030 - smaller and more agile locally based projects and bigger corporate ones. Whatever one's ideology, methnks we need both approaches :) Cheers.
In the spirit of being solutions-focused, I would never rule out any viable option -- including, as you say, smaller-scale (and I'll add nature-based) measures that aren't just bolted onto a fossil fuel plant. Prioritizing those options is a different story. Of *course* it would be easier if the fossil industry suddenly decided to get serious about decarbonization, rather than greenwashing their operations for decades and then deciding that even a minimal, ineffectual effort on renewables was more than their shareholders would tolerate. The actual evidence from science and economics gives them no real reason to embrace carbon capture because they think it will actually work, at the price point and scale they would need for it to really make a difference. So the only remaining explanation is that it's a throwaway that allows them to keep on extracting and polluting, and postpone for a few years the moment when the music finally stops.
So why should the rest of us bet the future on the fossil industry's good will when there are indeed options for reducing, then entirely eliminating our dependence on products that fry the planet when used as directed? If fossil companies want to invest some of their record profits in the carbon capture they say they want, none of us should object. If insights from those investments eventually help us meaningfully decarbonize sectors like concrete and steel, even if they don't work adequately for oil and gas, better still. But their repeat bad behaviour is proof enough that we need regulations and rapid decarbonization strategies to impede new extraction projects while simultaneously driving down fossil fuel demand and reducing their stranglehold on public policy in far too many jurisdictions.
Am interested in the 1.7 trillion figure of renewable investment, that you say outweights fossil fuel investment. What is the reference for this figure. Since an Energy Mix article based on a Reuters report, says that fossil fuel subsidies alone hit 7 trillion last year.
Thanks, Sarah. The $1.7 trillion figure traces back to a report last May from the International Energy Agency. The difference is between the amounts companies invest in new projects and infrastructure (the latest oil and gas extraction project, solar or wind farm) and the income they generate from those projects and other sources...including subsidies.
As I'm sure you know, fossil companies took in record profits last year when Russia's war in Ukraine drove up prices, but their financial picture would have been very different without subsidies.
In fairness, the big-picture subsidy number includes consumer subsidies in poor countries and regions where people can't afford energy without financial support, and don't yet have access to the alternatives (one of the many urgencies behind the calls for equity in international climate finance). Also note that Canada has become the first G20 country to mostly phase out its production subsidies, with a next step in that process expected next year.
Great piece, Mitchell! The days of small disruptive actions are over. Many people are now experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand and they know only too well what the consequences are. We have to keep our collective eye on the ball, the fossils and their enablers such as RBC. Pink actions may become associated in the public's mind with truckers rather than progressives trying to make real change.
I'm really glad you liked the post, Pam, thanks. I'm not arguing that there's no place for disruptive actions, only that they defeat the purpose when they target regular folk, rather than systems and structures.
I doubt the pink paint crowd would want to hear how closely they're aligned with BP, the colossal fossil that brought us the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Just like OnToOttawa, BP was focused squarely on individual responsibility when they started their 1990s greenwashing campaign suggesting that if everyone just "does their bit" as individuals and households, climate change will be solved. Just like BP, the pink paint actions take attention away from the big-picture change we need, at just the moment when we need it to accelerate.
Just one nitpick from a location about three kilometres away from ground zero for the occupation -- they were occupiers, and the ringleaders were seditious conspirators and wannabe coup architects, but most of them were *not* truckers. The real truckers were on the job, trying to (literally) deliver the goods until the blockades went up in Ontario and Alberta.
Hi Mitchell - I don't think On2Ottawa's goal is individual behaviour change. I think their goal - and the goal of groups like Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Derniere Generation - is to engage in high-profile non-violent public actions to a) dramatically and widely convey the true depth and extent of the unprecedented existential crisis we are in; and b) build a movement of people willing to engage in non-violent civil disobedience in order to make it difficult or impossible for governments to continue to refuse to act with the urgency required (for example, by disrupting business as usual and by filling the jails with protestors). We can debate their tactics, but their assertion that non-violent civil disobedience actions have a track record of winning rapid and significant action to address persistent injustices is sound, and applicable to the climate crisis, an injustice to future generations which the Canadian government (and many other governments) have largely failed to address (judging by GHG emission trajectories) for decades. P.S. I suggest readers take a look at the CBC's recent article which cites evidence of the effectiveness of non-violent civil disobedience action (https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-on2ottawa-climate-protest-1.6953456). Gene Sharp's Politics of Nonviolent Action (volume 1) is also a must read.
Thanks, Michael. I really appreciate the callback to Gene Sharp -- for anyone here who remembers the Grindstone Island Co-op, I think that's the last time and place I heard about his work. Which means it's been far too long.
But as for the specific tactics, I think this is one of the key segments from the CBC story:
>> Bugden cautioned that to be successful, the tactics should challenge those directly responsible for the problem protesters are trying to solve, such as governments or industries.
>> "I think disruption that really aims at the right target is more useful," he said. "And to me, the right target is always going to be power in society."
No doubt, the "brutal" responses On2Ottawa says it has received come partly from the faux grassroot groups the fossil industry has been busily setting up and funding. But I would still suggest that if the pink paint protests are creating a whole bunch of new anger (in a population that is already angry, stressed, and scared) for what Sullivan acknowledges is just an incremental gain in support...that's not a strategy to fill the jails, and it isn't a strategy to win. I can see the similarities, but would still suggest there's a world of difference between blocking traffic to prevent someone from getting from their first to their second job when the rent is already overdue, or standing between fossil fuel shareholders and their white wine and canapes during their AGM.
Thanks for writing this, Mitchell, and good to find The Energy Mix - I have subscribed. Yes, I think it's so true that we need a combination of strategies that tend to start as small, locally-based, frugal ideas that solve a problem for a person or a community. The kind of solutions that people go searching for on academic pilgrimages to the countryisde to find 'oddballs', or that UNDP looks for in its accelerator workshops. It is hopeful that a large international organization has decided to go looking for what works, in more remote areas. Which brings me to the one thing I found jarring in the article. I keep reading skeptical takes on carbon capture. And it bothers me that corporate adoption of this technique hides its origins - two engineers who loved the Swiss mountains and set out to find possible solutions to climate change. See https://hopebuilding.blog/2021/09/05/this-swiss-company-is-reversing-climate-change-and-you-can-help/
Thanks, Rose. It's so good to hear from you, such a treat to see your name pop up in my inbox!
The concern with carbon capture is indeed that it's been taken over as a bolt-on for fossil fuels, meant to perpetuate an industry that is entering its sunset and really needs to pick up the pace. The technical issue with direct air capture, that it requires a lot of water and electricity, may or may not be something that Climeworks and others can solve with more research, development, and experience. But the big-picture worry matters, too -- with big fossil companies like Shell and BP now abandoning any pretence that they're serious about emission reductions, there's bound to be broad and growing opposition to any technology that risks giving them political cover.
Something we've been hearing more about is carbon capture for the high-emitting industries outside oil and gas -- steel, aluminium, and a few others -- that will find it harder to decarbonize and have the advantage of *not* sending 80%+ of their embedded emissions on to their end users as soon as they export a shipment of oil or gas. I'd love to see a company like Climeworks successfully and affordably take on that challenge, though once again, the last I heard they still had some fairly steep technical hurdles to climb. (Then again, if they started out motivated by the Alps, they must be no strangers to a challenging climb...)
Thanks, Mitchell. I guess what I wonder is, does the fact that fossil companies are enthusiastically taking up carbon capture mean that it is not part of the menu of solutions we need to address climate change?
The man who alerted us to the problem of carbon in the first place made a TED talk saying that the companies could have avoided causing the problem in the first place but because they hadn't done so, we now have a lot of carbon in the air that needs to be removed. https://hopebuilding.blog/2021/09/15/engineers-know-how-to-decarbonize-fossil-fuels-doing-so-can-help-us-get-to-net-zero/
XPRIZE had a big contest about carbon removal and Earthshots Prize awarded some of its initial prizes to carbon removal solutions. So just because industry likes it does not mean to me that we should be ignoring its potential. I am solutions-focused, so that is what interests me - what works. And some of these smaller carbon capture ideas are part of that mixture of solutions you were talking about, I think.
I think there may well be a lot of this kind of 'two track' work as we move toward 2030 - smaller and more agile locally based projects and bigger corporate ones. Whatever one's ideology, methnks we need both approaches :) Cheers.
Interesting, Rosemary, thanks. We wrote about Carbon Takeback early this year (https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/01/12/breaking-fossils-should-pay-trillions-to-store-carbon-through-2050-ex-industry-execs-say/). It's an interesting concept, not least because it puts the onus and the cost on industry to clean up their own mess, just like they should have been taught to do before they graduated kindergarten.
In the spirit of being solutions-focused, I would never rule out any viable option -- including, as you say, smaller-scale (and I'll add nature-based) measures that aren't just bolted onto a fossil fuel plant. Prioritizing those options is a different story. Of *course* it would be easier if the fossil industry suddenly decided to get serious about decarbonization, rather than greenwashing their operations for decades and then deciding that even a minimal, ineffectual effort on renewables was more than their shareholders would tolerate. The actual evidence from science and economics gives them no real reason to embrace carbon capture because they think it will actually work, at the price point and scale they would need for it to really make a difference. So the only remaining explanation is that it's a throwaway that allows them to keep on extracting and polluting, and postpone for a few years the moment when the music finally stops.
So why should the rest of us bet the future on the fossil industry's good will when there are indeed options for reducing, then entirely eliminating our dependence on products that fry the planet when used as directed? If fossil companies want to invest some of their record profits in the carbon capture they say they want, none of us should object. If insights from those investments eventually help us meaningfully decarbonize sectors like concrete and steel, even if they don't work adequately for oil and gas, better still. But their repeat bad behaviour is proof enough that we need regulations and rapid decarbonization strategies to impede new extraction projects while simultaneously driving down fossil fuel demand and reducing their stranglehold on public policy in far too many jurisdictions.
Am interested in the 1.7 trillion figure of renewable investment, that you say outweights fossil fuel investment. What is the reference for this figure. Since an Energy Mix article based on a Reuters report, says that fossil fuel subsidies alone hit 7 trillion last year.
Thanks, Sarah. The $1.7 trillion figure traces back to a report last May from the International Energy Agency. The difference is between the amounts companies invest in new projects and infrastructure (the latest oil and gas extraction project, solar or wind farm) and the income they generate from those projects and other sources...including subsidies.
As I'm sure you know, fossil companies took in record profits last year when Russia's war in Ukraine drove up prices, but their financial picture would have been very different without subsidies.
In fairness, the big-picture subsidy number includes consumer subsidies in poor countries and regions where people can't afford energy without financial support, and don't yet have access to the alternatives (one of the many urgencies behind the calls for equity in international climate finance). Also note that Canada has become the first G20 country to mostly phase out its production subsidies, with a next step in that process expected next year.
Great piece, Mitchell! The days of small disruptive actions are over. Many people are now experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand and they know only too well what the consequences are. We have to keep our collective eye on the ball, the fossils and their enablers such as RBC. Pink actions may become associated in the public's mind with truckers rather than progressives trying to make real change.
I'm really glad you liked the post, Pam, thanks. I'm not arguing that there's no place for disruptive actions, only that they defeat the purpose when they target regular folk, rather than systems and structures.
I doubt the pink paint crowd would want to hear how closely they're aligned with BP, the colossal fossil that brought us the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Just like OnToOttawa, BP was focused squarely on individual responsibility when they started their 1990s greenwashing campaign suggesting that if everyone just "does their bit" as individuals and households, climate change will be solved. Just like BP, the pink paint actions take attention away from the big-picture change we need, at just the moment when we need it to accelerate.
Just one nitpick from a location about three kilometres away from ground zero for the occupation -- they were occupiers, and the ringleaders were seditious conspirators and wannabe coup architects, but most of them were *not* truckers. The real truckers were on the job, trying to (literally) deliver the goods until the blockades went up in Ontario and Alberta.