Electoral systems in Western democracies have always been a seesaw, teetering every term or two between parties, hinging, with a creaky moan, a little to the left or to the right. For the most part, everyone has agreed that our collective world functions best with clean air, clean water and plenty of preserved green spaces.
The climate crisis changed that. Somewhere between when the oil industry began sowing doubt about mounting climate science and when George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto Accord, a once non-partisan issue grew increasingly polarized. Today, climate action is too often mired in divisive politics, with climate solutions getting sucked into the culture wars. In both Canada and the U.S., right-wing politicians are now threatening to water down and repeal existing climate policies if elected, while U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has begun doing just that.
As Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre vows to axe the carbon tax, Republican front-runner Donald Trump appears set on dismantling President Joe Biden’s climate policies, in particular the Inflation Reduction Act. “The only global warming we should be thinking about and worrying about, because it could happen tomorrow, is nuclear global warming, not global warming,” Trump said at a Fox News town hall in December.
Meanwhile, scientists have been immeasurably clear that we don’t have time for backtracking. The latest Emissions Gap Report from the United Nations Environment Programme found that “current pledges under the Paris Agreement put the world on track for a 2.5–2.9°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels this century, pointing to the urgent need for increased climate action.” We can’t afford to set existing policies even further back every couple of terms.
Politics aside, surveys on both sides of the Atlantic say the majority of us care deeply about the environment. Canadians of all stripes expect government to act on climate change: 81% think a Conservative government should deal with climate change seriously, according to the latest Abacus Data polls. And while Trump recently said he wants to “drill, drill, drill,” fall 2023 polling from the Pew Research Center in the U.S. found that 79% of millennial and Gen Z Republicans think that government should prioritize the development of alternative energy sources – compared to 55% of boomers.
In fact, conservatives in all three countries have a history of leading on key environmental policy. In 2005, a Corporate Knights survey of a dozen prominent environmentalists named Brian Mulroney Canada’s greenest prime minister for his action on acid rain (a treaty signed with U.S. president George H.W. Bush). While we may agree to disagree on the saliency of some of their prescriptions (Corporate Knights doesn’t consider new nuclear or gas projects sustainable, and we don’t think markets alone can deliver a transition to sustainability, much less a just and equitable one), evidence of green conservatives abounds.
Getting more of today’s conservatives on board may be about how the message is crafted. Republican pollster Frank Luntz (who changed his tune on climate change after his house almost burned down in a California wildfire in 2017) recently asked voters in the U.S. and the U.K. what kind of language might make them consider backing green policies. As the Financial Times put it, “when asked whether they considered it more important to protect ‘the economy’ or ‘the environment,’ 75% of U.S. voters chose the former. But when the question was rephrased to offer the choice between ‘the economy’ and ‘a healthy, safe, clean environment,’ 55% chose the latter.” Abstract terms like “net-zero” and “greenhouse gases” don’t poll well with Republicans, who would be more likely to support climate action if it were framed in terms of “why it’s good for you, your family, your neighbourhood, your community, your country – in that order,” Luntz said, emphasizing opportunity over sacrifice.
If it’s done right, smart environmental policy can put money back in the pockets of people who need it most. A Corporate Knights analysis of household expenditures found that a family that swapped out its gas-powered car, furnace, stove and hot water heater for clean technologies could save up to $5,000 per year. Rebates to lower-income families could help families afford to trade up to these clean alternatives.
The European Central Bank has recently been extolling the anti-inflationary benefits of clean energy, with credible estimates indicating that electricity consumers in the EU expected to save an estimated €100 billion from 2021 to 2023 thanks to new low-cost wind and solar installations, which have displaced an estimated 230 terawatt-hours of expensive fossil fuel generation since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Globally, investment in clean energy reached US$1.1 trillion in 2022 – growing six times faster than the economy at large. This is where the opportunity lies now. And every dollar invested in adaptation (preparing our homes and infrastructure for climate change’s devastating impacts) can save $13 to $15 down the road – conserving resources while better preparing us for the future. Both conservative values.
In the quest for common ground, Corporate Knights reached out to conservatives in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. who are hoping to steer their parties toward a more sustainable future. We asked all three the same question: what is your prescription for green conservatives? As former Tory minister Zac Goldsmith has said, we may have disagreements about the means but not the end: preserving a healthy and safe environment.
READ MORE:
The right thing to do: A prescription for Canada's green conservatives
A quest for 'green liberty': How America's eco-republicans are trying to reclaim the right
