What a strange week. The world faces two crises, both of which have ravaged the USA over the past year. The US leads the world in coronavirus cases and deaths, with over 10 million people infected and nearly a quarter of a million dead. 2020 has also been a year of record-breaking natural disasters - with fires in California and Colorado and so many hurricanes that the official alphabetical list of hurricane names was exhausted. Neither of these crises, though, figured at the top of voters’ list of priorities.
On the face of it, who wins the election has a fairly clear implication for how these two crises will be dealt with going forward. One Party is yet to be entirely convinced that climate change exists or that tackling COVID-19 requires any fact-based information dissemination.
At the same time, when it comes to action on climate change, the US has had an embarrassingly poor record for decades. In 1997, the US Senate declined to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on grounds of “economic harm”. In 2001, former President Bush withdrew the US signature to the protocol. In 2010, the US sought to reinforce the “perception that it is constructively engaged in climate negotiations”, while also setting a target against a 2005 baseline rather than a 1990 baseline, which amounted to emission reductions of just 4%.
More was yet to come. After arguing for blurring the distinction between developed and developing countries under the Paris Agreement, and advocating for voluntary pledges by all, the US weakened its emission reduction pledge in 2014, was accused of excluding developing country views in the run up to COP21, and eventually withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2017. Earlier this week, the US officially exited the Paris Agreement. Even with changing political winds, the US’ international efforts on climate change have followed a remarkably consistent trajectory.
And domestic policy has kept pace with it. The US’ first NDC was among the shortest, at only 5 pages, and committed to an economy-wide reduction of 26 - 28% from 2005 levels with no quantified information on actions to achieve this target, relying largely on descriptions of the Clean Air Act to fill out the pages. The Green New Deal, a non-binding vision statement rather than an action plan or policy, was not only rejected by the Senate but heavily mischaracterized in the run-up to the elections.
In the meanwhile, Canada elected a progressive government that would fight climate change. Canada’s record is, at best, checkered. Following the US’ example, Canada weakened its climate pledge and then withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2011. While agreeing that Canada needs to do more, Justin Trudeau approved two oil sands pipeline expansions, which are among the world’s most destructive operations.
The question for consideration from a climate perspective: is positive posturing on climate better than climate denial? One could argue that claiming to address climate change is more insidious and harmful than outright denial because it creates the false belief that there is action. At the same time, rhetoric drives action, and advocating scientifically baseless information risks driving millions to make poor choices, compounding the government’s own inaction.
More to the point, given how closely contested the election was, does it matter whether 49% or 51% of the country lives in a state of denial?
In my opinion, yes it does. President-elect Biden promised that the US would rejoin the Paris Agreement and is considering a White House Office on Climate Change. Both promises signal that climate change will be taken more seriously, but are not commitments to do anything specific that will drive down emissions. The fight against climate change remains an uphill one, and the public will need to guard against positive rhetoric that masks an unwillingness to raise climate ambition. But it is undeniable that, when facing a seemingly insurmountable challenge, having to convince the elected government of one of the largest emitters in the world that climate change really exists is exhausting, despair-inducing, and frustrating in the extreme. We do not have a guarantee that the US will commit to meaningful action. But at least we can start talking about what needs to be done instead of dealing with willful denial of reality.
Even hope is important.