The Political Space for Michael Ignatieff to act on climate change

Dec. 14, 2009 - PRLog -- Structural Tensions
Michael Ignatieff has been effective leader of the Canadian Liberal party since December 10, 2008, and is Leader of the Official Opposition. On November 26, 2009, Michael Ignatieff made a speech  critical of the Canadian government’s approach to climate change and announced a wide range of approaches (particularly using clean energy standards, supporting clean energy investments, support of cap-and-trade) with emissions targets set against 1990 levels.

Yet, where does Canadian public opinion stand towards policies used to tackle climate change?

Before exploring this question, a brief description of the political and economic structural tensions affecting Canada’s climate change position  is relevant. Political power is principally wielded at both the national (federal) level, and the provincial level. At the federal level, Canada is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from the 2006 level by 2020. It is likely to use a cap-and-trade system as a key way of achieving this goal, but is waiting for the US to have legislation in place before specifying a similar Canadian version.  The minority-led Conservative Canadian government (with its political support base from Alberta) is potentially vulnerable to a no-confidence vote by a collaboration of the three main opposition parties. This puts all parties in a permanent state of semi-preparedness for an election (there have been 3 federal elections in the last 5 years). In parallel, all the provinces have also set greenhouse gas targets and policies, using different targets, base years and dates for revisions. This implies that Canada has two effective targets – a) the federal target, or b) the net of all provincial targets  – and federal-provincial level tensions are emerging as people compare these two targets .

Crucially, Canada is a major energy exporter, so ‘energy security’ and ‘climate policy’ are not aligned as they are in the USA and (in particular) the UK. The main issue is the large, and growing, emissions from the development of the tar sands, centred on Alberta – and this contrasts with Quebec’s low-emission hydro electricity (both Alberta’s oil and Quebec’s clean-electricity are increasingly geared for export to the USA). There is tension between Alberta and Quebec (and other provinces) in the greenhouse gas targets they set.
In managing how provinces work towards agreement on these emissions targets, a) it should be expected, as a first step, that political bodies would represent their key economic interests, and, b) emissions targets should be adjusted for ‘energy off-shoring’ .

There is considerable pressure for Canada to do more to tackle climate change. To a certain extent, international pressure can be resisted by appealing to ‘the national interest’. Domestic pressure has come from a report, released on October 29, 2009, outlining scenarios for lower emissions in Canada by 2020 ; and on December 3, 2009, 500 Canadian scientists petitioned parliament writing ‘climate change is happening faster than predicted and Canada is not doing nearly enough’ .

Six degrees of support for climate change policies
Using cluster analysis on attitudes towards these 8 climate change policies (see chart on previous page) amongst the full international sample, we can identify six groups with distinctly different sets of attitudes towards government policy. These groups can be considered to be on a spectrum of support for government ‘green’ policies. Below is a description of these groups, leading with the most supportive, and ending with the least supportive.

1. SUPPORTERS (14%)
Supporters of all climate change policies
The most ‘green’ group, representing 14% of all Canadians, is generally supportive of all policy types – investment, regulation and carbon taxes. They are mainly Climate Citizens  (10% of total sample), with some Mild Greens (3%) and a very limited number of Sceptics/Uninvolved (1%).

2. REGULATORS (21%) - Supporters of strong regulation and green investment; against car taxes
The second most ‘green’ group; 21% of Canadians believe that green policy should focus on strong regulation supported by green investment - but are resistant to higher car fuel taxes, and road pricing. This group are mainly Climate Citizens (12%) and Mild Greens (7%), but there are a few Sceptics/Uninvolved (2%).

3. INVESTORS (26%) - Supporters of green investment; strongly against car taxes or air taxes
‘Investors’ are the third most ‘green’ group, and the largest, representing 26% of Canadians. They believe that green policy should focus on green investment – and are particularly strongly resistant to extra car taxes and flying taxes. They are either Climate Citizens (11%) or Mild Greens (10%) with a smaller number of Sceptics/Uninvolved (5%).

4. UNDECIDED (20%) - Mostly undecided; mildly pro-investment and mildly anti-car taxes
This fourth most ‘green’ group is currently not engaged with any of the different policy options tested. Without a reason to believe, in reality, people in this group are perhaps likely to resist regulation and carbon taxes. They are fairly evenly split between Climate Citizens (7%), Mild Greens (7%), and Sceptics/Uninvolved (6%).

5. NOT MY PROBLEM (10%) - Anti car taxes; ambivalent of investment; some support for regulation
This fifth most ‘green’ group disagrees with car taxes, and is ambivalent about green investment. There is some agreement that airports should be restricted and coal stations should not be built; perhaps because they see climate change as really a ‘business problem’. They are Sceptics/Uninvolved (4%), Mild Greens (4%) and Climate Citizens (2%).

6. OPPOSERS (10%) - Disagreement with all climate change policies
The least ‘green’ group disagrees with all policy options – and they unanimously strongly resist the idea of road pricing! They are Sceptics/Uninvolved (6%), Mild Greens (2%) and Climate Citizens (1%).

How Michael Ignatieff could make ‘green’ popular
This analysis suggests that a focus on carbon tax is a head-on assault on public opinion. This was acknowledged by a speech Michael Ignatieff made on February 27, 2009, saying “You’ve got to work with the grain of Canadians, not against them”.

International cap-and-trade arrangements seem likely to be a more popular way of introducing a tax on carbon, and the Conservatives are already proposing this approach. The advantage that Michael Ignatieff has is that the Liberal supporter base is more likely to believe in the importance of addressing climate change, and more committed to supporting such policies. Michael Ignatieff can also put together an integrated set of policies to invest in low-carbon technologies and to regulate high-carbon technologies (such as car fuel standards). Only very few Liberal supporters are ‘Opposers’ or think it is ‘Not my problem’.  In contrast, a higher proportion of Conservative party supporters can be classified as being in one of these two groups, which may limit the Conservative party’s room for action on climate change.

The ‘Investors’ are a particularly large group in Canada, and careful policy creation, citizen engagement and communications is needed to convince these people that the Liberals have a credible climate change plan.

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Haddock Research and Branding, Inc. is an innovative full-service market research agency focusing on climate change and the low carbon economy. Providing vital information to those creating a low carbon world.