By James Tansey
Vancouver, November 29,
2011 - While many of us are pessimistic about
the likelihood that a new global accord on climate change will
emerge to replace the Kyoto Protocol (with large emitters like
Canada and the United States retreating from the development of
national programs), we have many reasons to be optimistic about the
potential for urban and regional approaches to succeed.
This multi-level and multi-stakeholder platform is more
flexible, resilient and effective than stale international
relations. A grand and ambitious climate policy experiment in
British Columbia over the last three years exemplifies how a small
jurisdiction can both enact meaningful climate policy and
demonstrate how a wide constituency from citizens to companies can
respond to the new opportunities it creates.
There is plenty of evidence that
non-state actors - companies, NGOs and public institutions - are
rushing in to fill the void left by the political impasse on
climate change at the national level in many
countries.
More than 50 per cent of the world's population now lives in
cities, so leadership from urban centres and regions under the C40
Cities Climate Leadership Group and R20 Regions of Climate Action
initiatives gives us cause for optimism.
Just as Finland showed how a small country can become a world
leader in technology, British Columbia has shown how, in three
years, a region can leap to the front of the climate policy pack.
Beginning in 2008, the provincial government implemented a wide
range of policies to create a revenue-neutral carbon tax, committed
to carbon-neutral government operations and regulations that tackle
emissions from vehicles, buildings and landfill gas sites.
It also ensured that the investment environment for clean
technology would capitalize on natural resource endowments through
a bioenergy strategy and tax and venture capital programs that
create strong conditions for growth.
Revenues from the clean technology sector had grown to $2.5
billion by 2010; while that amount is dwarfed by investment by
countries like China, the province has established itself as one of
the most vibrant clean technology innovation hubs in the world and
the businesses that succeed there are poised to take on export
markets.
Successful climate policy not only requires comprehensive and
intelligent policy design; the greatest barrier to progress in the
low-carbon economy is social acceptance of new policy and
technologies. Cities within B.C. continue to build on their legacy
of sustainable urban design, creating the most livable urban areas
in the world through policies that encourage density, building
retrofits and the development of infrastructure for green
vehicles.
Perhaps the most comprehensive reinvention of a city is on the
campus of the University of British Columbia. With the campus
functioning like a city with 60,000 inhabitants, the university's
leadership has committed to turn it into a living laboratory for
clean technology innovation, with a target of 33-per-cent reduction
in greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 and 60 per cent by 2020.
By turning the campus infrastructure into a laboratory where
emerging companies can develop and test technologies, including a
biogasification system developed with Nexterra and GE, and through
the construction of The Centre for Interactive Research on
Sustainability (the greenest building in North America), the vision
is to create a vibrant cluster of commercial innovators and
world-class researchers.
Climate change will not be solved through a weak and non-binding
consensus among 200 nations.
It will be solved through the vigour, energy and resolve of
thousands of smaller jurisdictions around the globe that choose to
master their own destinies.
James Tansey is CEO of Offsetters, which helps organizations
and individuals understand, reduce and offset their climate impact.
He is also an associate professor at the Sauder School of Business
at the University of B.C. This article first
appeared in the Vancouver Sun and is reprinted here with the
kind permission of the author