The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Do Voters No Longer Care About Climate Change?

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

On the heels of the fires that continue in Los Angeles, the Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that 2024 was the first calendar year that was 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – the limit agreed upon in the Paris Climate Agreement. Yet, support for climate policies here in Canada seem to be on the wane. According to Abacus Data, concern about climate change has decreased 14 points between 2023 and 2024, from 76% to 62% of Canadians. And, according to an Ipsos poll from this month, climate change or the environment was ranked ninth among the list of priorities for Canadian voters. Housing, healthcare, economy, inflation/interest rates, and immigration rounded out the top five. Do we simply no longer care about climate change in this country – especially at the ballot box? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. We are seeing more extreme weather events around the world. Record high temperatures, flooding, droughts, the wildfires that continue to rage in Los Angeles, snow in Louisiana and Florida. Yet support for climate policies here in Canada seems to be on the wane, at least according to some polls. In the midst of inflation and affordability issues, do we simply no longer care about climate change

in this country, especially at the ballot box? Let's consider that with, in Drumheller, Alberta, Marty Solberg, CEO of New West Public Affairs and a former conservative MP for Medicine Hat. And with us here in studio, Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, and Jessica Green, professor of political science at the University of Toronto

and cross appointed in the School of Environment. And it's good to have you two here in our studios. Maudie Solberg, welcome back to our airwaves from Western Canada. I wanna put some stats and quotes on the table here just to get our our studios. Monty Selberg, welcome back to our airwaves from Western Canada. I wanna put some stats and quotes on the table here just to get our conversation started. On the heels of the fires that continue in Los Angeles, the Copernicus Climate Change Service

reported that 2024 was the first calendar year that was 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which was the limit agreed upon in the Paris climate agreement. According to Abykestada, concern about climate change has decreased 14 points between 2023 and 2024, from 76% to just 62% of Canadians. And according to Darrell's firm, Ipsos Poll from earlier this month, climate change or the environment were ranked ninth among the list of priorities for Canadian voters.

Ninth. Housing, healthcare, economy, inflation, interest rates, immigration, all ranking higher than the environment and or climate change. Okay, Monty Sahlberg, come on in here. To what extent do you believe that voters in your province, in our province, across the country,

no longer care about climate change policy? Well, I think they do care about climate change policy. It doesn't rank as high right now because some of these other concerns are more pressing. They're more immediate. Climate change is viewed as a bit of a tomorrow problem. That said, when the smoke starts to flood southern Alberta because of fires up north, they take an immediate interest.

And they clearly indicate they want something done, and they want policies that are effective. So I don't think it's gone. I think it's sleeping a little bit. Sleeping a little bit. Jessica, what say you? I think that's probably right. I think also it depends on what, when we say climate change,

people think about very specific things. But I think as we'll get into, housing is a climate change issue. Public transportation is a climate change issue. Fuel costs are a climate change issue. So I think if we think about climate change in a more expansive way, that the Canadian public is still really interested in climate change issues so I think if we think about climate change in a more expansive way that the the Canadian public is still really interested in climate change. Interesting. Daryl, your view. No it's really as very much as

Monty was saying it's a it's a case of the urgent pushing out the important and not just in Canada on a global basis I mean we track at Ipsos you know in 30 countries what people care about very similar question to the one that you read up front and climate change is you know out of the 18 that we track is probably 9 or 10 right now It tends to be a bit higher interestingly enough in the developed markets rather than the developing markets And so what's happened over the space of the last I'd say five years as a result of a combination of kovat And then basically what the world agreed was a cost of living crisis is that hierarchy of needs that was out there in 2019 which you know had a sort of a longer timeline in which people were

thinking about maybe we're making the world a better place that hierarchy got a lot closer the world got a lot smaller and it moved down and we started thinking more about our day-to-day ability to just get by and some of these other issues got lost. That doesn't mean that they don't care, it's just that the urgent things in their lives have pushed out something that's an important issue. I take your point on that but, Monty, let me follow up with you and tap into your knowledge as a former member of parliament. In this respect, we're about to have an election called in the province of

Ontario this week. And of course, everybody's anticipating a federal election not too far down the road. Is that to say, given what I'm hearing so far, that if you're a politician running for office right now, you kind of just have to say, yes, I believe in climate change, but you really don't have to say anything more than that. Is that the case? No, I think in some writings it'll matter. More affluent writings,

you know, in the lower mainland of British Columbia, Toronto, Montreal, etc. There will be, I think, in some corners people concerned enough about some of these things to cast their votes based on it. I do think you need to meet some basic standards. Daryl, what about you? If you were advising would-be politicians running for office right now, how much would you tell them to feature climate change in their window? Depends on the party that I'm advising. So if I'm advising New Democrats and Liberals and Green Party voters,

potential progressive voters, increasingly we are talking about progressive voters as opposed to just Liberals, New Democrats and Green Party voters. Climate change is going to be there, exactly as Monty said. I mean if you're in a downtown Toronto riding and you're a candidate for one of those parties probably you should be talking about it. But if you're running for the Conservatives? If you're running for the Tories probably not number one on your hit parade. How about number two or three or four? Probably the only thing that you would do is pretty much what you're saying right now is acknowledge it, say that

you've got a plan as Monty was just saying, but it's not going to dominate the conversation among the coalition of voters that you're going after. Jessica, you want to see what you looked like five years ago? I guess so. Well, you're going to anyway. Here's you and Peter Lowen five years ago on this program talking about the political price of climate inaction.

This was just a few months after Justin Trudeau defeated Andrew Scheer, the then-leader of the Conservative Party. And here's how it rolled out. Sheldon, if you would. Absolutely, that political price is starting to ratchet up over time. And as it becomes more pronounced, we're going to see more and more sort of demands for climate policy and more pushback against this kind of climate denialism that we've seen in Australia for example in the last over the last month. The last Canadian election was a great example of a case where you know the climate goes up as one of the most important issues it's one of the first times first time I've

ever seen it being a top one or two issue over and over again in voters minds and there was differences between the parties in terms of how much times, first time I've ever seen it being a top one or two issue over and over again in voters minds. And there was differences between the parties in terms of how much emphasis they were putting on it and how credible they were on those on those issues. You get those two factors, importance and difference between parties, it's going to become a big, a big political issue. That was then. How about now?

Well that was before COVID. So a lot of things have changed, obviously, since then. The whole world has changed since then. I mean, I think a lot of the things that have been said before are correct, that it is, you know, Canadians are concerned about education, health care, and housing. Those are their top three. And climate is not maybe labeled as the top thing that they're concerned about.

But climate is wrapped up in education, health care, and housing. So I do think that climate change has become pervasive through everything that we think about now in our political world. And so I think it may not be called. It may not be at the top of the list labeled as such, but it's still pervasive and it's still something

that Canadians need to be and I think are concerned about. You will well remember, Monte, that Andrew Scheer kind of took it on the chin in that election because he had pretty much nothing to say about climate change and the voters expected him to have at least something to say about climate change. Where are we at on that scale today? Well, you know, Pierre Poliev has talked about the need to embrace technology.

He's talked about the need to engage the provinces who do the lion's share of the lifting when it comes to addressing climate change. The political landscape has shifted as well. So the degree to which you talk about it might have changed somewhat, especially with what's going on in the US, especially. But there's no question that the conservatives have to have a credible message. I think they're getting there. You know, and I think a lot of it will center around things like nukes,

carbon capture and storage, critical minerals, this kind of thing, things that align with a conservative view of the economy. And quite candidly, if you're not doing something that aligns with where Canadians are at on the economy, your environmental plan just isn't going to fly. Daryl, I don't want to let media off the hook here either. There have been a lot of press conferences with the premier lately. Almost all of them are about tariffs or early election calls. I can't recall in the last, oh I don't know, ten press conferences any questions about climate change. Are we failing?

Well, the media can read a poll and so can the premier. And what's happening right now is not unique in Canada. about climate change. Are we failing? Well, the media can read a poll and so can the premier. And what's happening right now is not unique in Canada. I mean, the war in Ukraine has created a completely different conversation about the environment in Europe. The rise of the right, the populist right in Europe has created a real pushback against Green coalitions and progressive coalitions, even in the European Commission itself. We've just seen what's happened in the United States. It's not number one on the dance card now even

even if what we just saw in California happened. What tends to happen these days is people's views of climate tend to track what happens in the news particularly related to weather. So an event happens, takes place, goes away and concern tends to drop down. And the problem these days is people know that there's been a fairly, I would say, aggressive conversation about this over the space of the last five or six years. And nothing really seems to be getting any better

in terms of the climate. These things still keep happening. So there's also a bit of a learned helplessness around this, I would say, as well. And when you get policies when you have that kind of a perspective, it kind of just becomes a talking point rather than actually you know a Statement about allegiance as opposed to actually anything that has any policy implications

I mean the liberal leadership contest is a great example. Can they run fast enough away from the carbon tax? They're all doing it. They're all doing it. Yeah, let me take you back not even two decades You'll remember Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. It won an Oscar. It put this issue front and center for so many people that hadn't thought about it before. But then the financial crisis happens,

and climate change is barely mentioned at all in subsequent presidential debates. Stephane Dion ran on the green shift for the liberals. It fell flat. He lost that election badly. Does our interest in saving this planet depend on how well we are doing economically in the moment? So I'm going to make the argument that those two things go together.

We've had this longstanding kind of bifurcation between jobs and the environment, economy and the environment. economy in the environment, and it's pretty clear that that's not true. I mean, there was a report released by the International Accounting Coalition that said basically we can expect possibly up to a 50% reduction in global GDP by 2070 because of climate change, right? There's been similar projections about the drop in Canadian GDP, not obviously that large, but... Here's World Economic Forum here. Yeah.

1.7 trillion to 3.1 trillion dollars by the year 2050. That's what it could cost. Right. So that's a huge number and that's not, you know, that is about climate change and the economy in the same sentence, in the same breath. So I don't think that we need to separate these two out and say, oh, well, we can't deal with climate change until we deal with the economy. Those things are one in the same. And it's time for all of the parties to get on board with if we're going to have a climate

plan, we need an economic plan. And if we're going to have an economic plan, it's going to have a climate plan, we need an economic plan. And if we're going to have an economic plan, it's going to be a climate plan. Monte, that argument has been made by environmentalists for a long time, for 20 years now. And it does not appear to be convincing the Canadian public. They still seem to think there's a choice between the environment

and having a good economy. What's the problem? Just some context here. In the last decade, according to the Business Council of BC, Canadian economy has grown, real GDP has grown less than 1%. So that's the here and now. And that, to some degree, reflects the outright attack on regions of the country by the Liberal government with respect to their climate policy. We've driven away foreign direct investment. We're hurting people's paychecks. We're hurting their ability to get jobs. So there does need to be a plan that incorporates the current situation

of the economy, which is that Canada does produce a lot of oil and gas. Big swaths of the economy are dependent on it, our standard of living. It can't be about something that were promised in terms of jobs 20 or 30 years down the road. It needs to be something that aligns with where the Canadian economy is right now. And I think if you have a solution to climate change or progress on climate change that aligns with that current situation we have with the Canadian economy, you're going to have much better chance of getting buy-in. But you certainly face all kinds of skepticism, I think, when you say that down the road there'll be renewable jobs, there'll be all these green jobs, but no real evidence.

Jessica, you want to come back on that? Yeah, I do. I mean, I think, first of all, I think it's very easy to make broad statements about how environmental regulation hurts the economy, but we know that climate change hurts the economy, right? So last year, summer 2024, cost us $7 billion because of the fires and other various climate disasters. And there's also this kind of belief that oil and gas,

if we regulate oil and gas, we're going to lose all these jobs. Well, most of the statistics suggest that it's about 3.5% of Canadian jobs are in the oil and gas industry, either directly or indirectly. But if you look at health care and the care economy, so health care and education, that's looking at 12% of GDP and about 20% of Canadian jobs. So again, I think we need to be really specific about what we mean when we say this is going to hurt the economy.

Because it looks like there are a lot of other sources of GDP growth and economic growth that are not reliant on the oil and gas industry. Let me circle back something that you said just a few moments ago, Daryl, because this is so interesting. It was 10 years ago that Justin Trudeau went from third to first in one election and part of his platform was a carbon tax. And he brought it in and there you go.

And now the liberals are having a race to replace him and all of the candidates are running away from that policy as quickly as they can. Provincially too, the Ontario liberal leader says won't be a part of her platform either. What went wrong? Well first of all people didn't perceive that was actually working, that we're still having all of these carbon related events and we're being told by you know everybody who's out there that things are just gonna keep getting worse but our bill for paying for it just keeps getting going up and people don't feel that it's having an effect. The second thing it was incredibly complicated that you would pay out money and then you would get it

back. I mean what like what is what is that? It doesn't make sense. And also just because Justin Trudeau got elected didn't mean that everything in his platform was popular. The carbon tax was never popular. The best we ever ever got on it was around 50-50. So it was an unpopular policy that was tolerable at a time in which the economy was doing better. Not a popular policy in terms of effect. It hasn't really changed anything for the better. It's confusing as far as the public is concerned. And they really want to hold on to those dollars

now because they feel that their own economic security is in peril. So the market tells you, eventually, Steve, and the fact that the people who are the architects of this are running as fast as they can away from it tells you about what a political liability is. Let me pick up on the notion of the market with Monty because carbon pricing is supposed to be a signal to the market that you can pay less if you are

environmentally more sensible and they've taken that approach as opposed to sort of top-down government enforced regulation as the way to go. In which case, why don't more conservatives support a carbon tax since it seems to be a market based solution? Well, I think there's a couple of answers to that. One is, as Daryl said, it is really complicated. It doesn't seem to make sense. It sounds like a shell game, you know, taking money from consumers, sending it back to them, but then they can spend it on driving if they want it. It doesn't really make sense to

a lot of people. So they, they are naturally skeptical about government to begin with. And then you add that complication in and it really gets pretty ugly. The second point is that there seems to be a lot of more direct ways to address climate. For instance, EVs are probably something that really, you know, that come to some degree from the private sector, private sector innovation that is actually generating real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. That's just one example. Nukes would be another one. You know, the widespread use of nuclear energy that responds in to some degree from private sector players who want to

reduce their emissions overall in some cases because it's just good business. That's another good example of something that's practical and that would have an immediate effect on greenhouse gases. Why do you think, Jessica, the carbon tax has become such a... I don't know how it works in practice, but certainly politically it's become a turkey. Yes, absolutely. And if you had played more of the clip from five years ago, I would have said the same thing. So I've always said that this is... it's not a good policy, right? People don't want to pay more now for a potential benefit later.

They're upfront concentrated costs, and they're not doing a whole lot to bend the curve on emissions. It's just bad politics. Does it make sense on the face of it, though, that if there is certain behavior you don't like, i.e. polluting, you tax it. And theoretically, if you want to avoid paying tax,

you'll get less pollution. I mean, that makes sense on the face of it, doesn't it, and theoretically if you want to avoid paying tax, you'll get less pollution. I mean that makes sense on the face of it, doesn't it? Yes it does. There are a lot of things that make sense, you know, in theory, but in practice don't work out so well. And actually what works a lot better in practice is the carbon tax on large emitters. And that's really what's doing the lion's share of changing behavior. Because if you talk to it, you know, individuals, they may have a lot less flexibility in how much they can actually, how much fossil fuels they can actually cut out of their quote unquote carbon budget.

But if you talk to an electricity producer or an industrial emitter, they have a lot more flexibility. And that's actually those carbon taxes, which is called the output based pricing system. That's a good name. Yeah, it's terrible. Actually do a lot more to reduce emissions. And that's really going to the source of where pollution is coming from.

But Monty, if we're trying to figure out why this became such a stink bomb politically, have conservatives opposed this, not because they actually dislike the specifics of it so much, but basically just because the liberals brought it in. No, I think there's political capital that you spend any time you bring forward an initiative like this, and you can only bring forward one or two of these that are complicated and hope for any kind of buy-in. So I think it's just a,

I think it is a bit of a calculation. It's like, if we're going to spend our capital on getting Canadians to buy into a particular approach to climate, it better be effective and it better work. It better be something that people can understand. And I really don't think this ever met that litmus test. It was always something that just seemed a little too indirect to be effective with voters. So I think that's the challenge in terms of the industrial carbon tax. You know, you've got sort of widespread support for that amongst the premiers, including Premier Smith, Premier Ford, etc.

It does seem to respond very well to the threat of losing investment into the US. And it doesn't really impact Canadians day to day very directly. very well to the threat of losing investment into the US. And it doesn't really impact Canadians day to day very directly. So I just see that as being something that probably any leader is going to want to hold on to. Darrell, have you done polling which would point us towards an approach that

could garner public support if a future government were to take that approach? Yeah, the problem on anything to do with the environment is that you can get people around the world and in Canada to say the following on a survey and you do not get them. This is what they say. The first thing they say is I believe that this is important. Overwhelming support. I believe that this is caused by human activity. Overwhelming support. I believe that somebody needs to do something about it. Overwhelming support. Okay, here's the things that you can do about it. No way.

As long as somebody else does it, they're okay. As long as somebody else does it, that's the situation. So the politics of this one in Canada are, you know, we discussed this on the show before the big shift right? Okay so who does a carbon tax really hurt in the view of voters? Western Canada and car commuting suburbanites in places like Toronto. How do you win elections if you're a conservative in this country? You appeal to Western Canadians and car commuting suburbanites outside of the city of Toronto. Who hates the carbon tax?

Those people. So that's why politically it's a valid, a valid approach for the Conservatives. I do want to ask you, Maundy, because one of the things that Pierre Poliev has said is technology is going to figure us a way out of all of this. And okay, maybe it will, but is that simply his way of punting the issue down the road? No. You see examples of it all the time, even on things like renewables. You know, we've come so far on things like solar and wind, where now when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, renewables and the innovations in renewables have caused our

energy prices to come to as low as you could possibly get them, frankly. So, you know, that's an example of technology. That's an example of innovation. You're seeing it all throughout the renewable sector in nuclear and so many other areas, carbon capture and storage is another example. These things will all make a difference. And that's what Canadians want. I think when their governments invest in addressing climate change, they want to be able to point to something that actually has made a difference and technology is definitely something that fits the bill.

Jessica, you think technology can get us there? Well, there are different, first of all, there are different kinds of technologies, is definitely something that fits the bill. Jessica, you think technology can get us there? Well, first of all, there are different kinds of technologies. CCUS, carbon capture, utilization, and storage is not a proven technology at scale. It doesn't solve the problem of combusting fossil fuels, which is the thing that we need to stop if we're going to solve the climate crisis.

So I think we need to separate these out. The other thing I would say is that technology is great, but it doesn't just implement itself. It requires policy and government intervention to make sure that those things can get scaled up, that there is an infrastructure to support them. And that has both legal and economic implications. So we can't just say, I mean, it would be lovely that technically,

if you build it, they will come. But it doesn't work that way. So we need to have active government policies that are both reducing the supply of fossil fuels and enhancing the demand and deployment of renewables. Given that his polling shows that it's not a top 10 issue anymore, what did we say? Number nine.

Yeah, depending on where you go. Yeah. Number nine. And most election campaigns don't deal with issues that rank number nine on the public's list of concerns. Two elections and a leadership convention coming up in the next few months.

How do you get this issue on that radar screen? Well, again, I think you don't talk about it as a climate issue. I think you talk about it as an affordability issue. I think you talk about it as, oh, I think you don't talk about it as a climate issue. I think you talk about it as an affordability issue. I think you talk about it as, oh, well, you know, we know that there is a health care crisis. We need to create more funding and more jobs in the health sector, which will help us redirect our economy

towards lower carbon jobs. I think we do things like invest in building retrofitting. So buildings are 20% of our emissions in Canada. towards lower carbon jobs. I think we do things like invest in building retrofitting. So buildings are 20% of our emissions in Canada. And what if we had government programs that would pay for homeowners to insulate their homes, get them off of gas, install heat pumps, these kinds of things, right?

These are things that will reduce their energy prices, obviously, over time. These are the kinds of affordability issues that I think would appeal to people that aren't explicitly climate, but again, climate and economy are two inextricably linked issues right now. Couple of minutes to go, Daryl. How brave or foolish do you have to be as a political party

leader to do what she just said in the upcoming election campaign? In this current environment? Yeah. Pretty foolish. So it's not the way to go? No. And it's not that it's not right. Not that it's not right.

It's no. In this current environment, if you're banging on about that stuff, talking about those things, in this current political environment, you'll be Elizabeth May. You know, the party of one. And you know this next election is going to pivot on the question and it's going to be rising very very rapidly about how Canada deals with its relationship with the United States. So Monty if you care about the environment and you want politicians to sort of, I don't know, use whatever language will work to get people to care about this,

do we just have to take a siesta for the next six months because we know that it's just, it's a fruitless venture in the upcoming election campaigns. Is that the case? No, I don't think so. I think Canadians want to support, especially things like nature and conservation. They also want to ensure that, you know, their forests aren't burning down in the summers. So to the degree that governments can come up with a solid plan to address those kinds of things, I think they'll win support. I actually agree with Jessica when it comes to a program like retrofitting

buildings. I think that's a practical thing that helps with affordability. So I think that's correct. So I think that's correct. But they do need to be careful. Any leader right now who doesn't overtly address affordability, inflation, things like that, is going to be in real trouble. That's where the emphasis needs to be. And to the degree that you can make environmental approaches on the environment about affordability, good on you. I think that's a good way to win some support. Jessica, let me give you the last 30 seconds to talk about how depressed you are,

that the environment is not going to... We're probably not going to talk much about it at all in the next two elections and leadership convention. I'm ever the optimist. I think there are a lot of ways that the Liberals and the NDP and the Greens can turn this around. Canadians are really, we are in an increasingly unequal society. Canadians are very worried about affordability.

They're very worried about fairness. So I think this is an opportunity for those parties to say, look, we need to go back to the original capital gains proposal from the Liberals. We need to make sure that the original capital gains proposal from the liberals. We need to make sure that the wealthy are paying their fair share. We need to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $18 billion a year.

And I think these are things that will both help the climate and will appeal to voters. So I am optimistic. Mr. Director, can I get a three shot, please, so I can thank all of our guests? Jessica Green from the U of T, Daryl Bricker from Ipsos Public Affairs, Monty Solberg, the former MP now new West Public Affairs, for joining us here on TVO tonight. Many thanks, you three.

Thank you. Thank you.