Where Does Climate Optimism Fit in the Race to Net Zero?

So, what is the role of optimism in the race to net zero? As we balance milestones like the hottest year on record (2023), powerful progress like record-breaking clean energy investments via the U.S. IRA, and a predicted peak in global emissions this decade, should we be congratulating our leaders for great progress or demanding faster action? Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Normand Mousseau and Chris Turner as they discuss balancing optimism and pessimism, getting inspired and staying motivated through Canada’s energy transition. 

Read on for highlights: 

• Compared to parts of the world leading the energy transition like northern Europe, Canada’s thorniest transition hurdles are driven by politics and a powerful fossil fuel economy.
  “One of the stickier problems we have in Canada is very, very powerful and pretty slow-moving incumbents, particularly on the electricity side. But we’re not looking now at a technological problem we can’t solve. We’re looking at a political problem or a regulatory problem,” says author Chris Turner. 
• The oil and gas industry now broadly accepts climate change, but they won’t be players in getting Canada to net zero.
  “There’s the great hockey metaphor, ‘ragging the puck,’ which is basically pointlessly stick handling away from the action to try and eat up the clock, and that to some degree is how the fossil fuel industries are approaching this,” explains Chris Turner.  
• It’s almost impossible to get people to change from a known to an unknown. We are evolutionarily wired to not want people to do that.
  “When you think about it, what we’re doing here in this world—retooling our economies—is the largest change management exercise the world has ever seen,” says Transition Accelerator CEO Dan Wicklum. 
• Telling success stories about the plausible pathway from here to there is one of the most effective ways of helping people envision that future net-zero world.
  “We haven’t really given people a picture of a better world to work towards,” explains Turner. “I talk about [it as] moving from less bad to much better: let’s not just talk about why we have to reduce emissions. Let’s talk about why this is a better car, this is a better way to heat your house, this is a better industry to invest in. But we have to be able to do that plausibly.” 
• While individual actions are important, systemic change requires coordinated efforts.
  “Creating the future does not happen by every single individual’s decisions,” says energy expert Dr. Normand Mousseau. “It comes in because you have marketing, it’s because you have regulation, you have things that are structuring the possibility to move forward.”