Emission Cuts: Government, Industry or Public responsibility?

I’ve been reading a few blogs lately in which the authors speculate about whether the responsibility for reducing climate change causing emissions should be placed firmly on the shoulders of industry. “Individual efforts are not enough”, they say, “and people should demand that the government lay the responsibility where it belongs.”

There is even speculation that continued efforts to guilt people into feeling personal responsibility will backfire on the government and political parties for failing to provide leadership and solutions and for continuing to blame people instead of industry.

But is this true? Is it really mostly industry’s problem?

It’s certainly true that our governments, past and current, have been laying most of the responsibility onto the public rather than face down large corporate interests with millions available for lobbying. Remember the One Tonne Challenge? The Liberals hired Rick Mercer to try to convince people to do their part by reducing their personal emissions by one tonne. At the same time, they continued subsidies to the oil & gas sector, the nuclear industry, the automotive sector, etc. and let emissions rise by 25% over 1990 levels. As minor as this campaign was (at one tonne each it would only reduce emissions by 33 million tons!), it was still a move in the right direction and provided much needed public awareness. The Conservatives canceled the program and have done nothing about the perverse subsidies.

It’s also true that the top 10 emitters in Canada are responsible for 16% of Canada’s emissions, a number which is growing with each new expansion of oil sands projects.

I mean really, let’s just look at where Canada’s greenhouse gases come from (in CO2 equivalent terms.)



The top 5 plus one more in the top 10 are power companies.

So you have to ask yourself, how much can we lay responsibility for those emissions at the feet of the power companies, oil companies, and car companies? How much on all of us that demand that power, oil, and high energy modes of transportation?

And how much blame do we assign to government policy which keeps power prices artificially low and subsidizes the emitting industries over cleaner alternatives?

In my mind, it’s all three.

First off, I don’t really blame industry too much for their GHG emissions. They are merely doing what industry does; working within the market and regulatory framework to maximize shareholder value, be it in immediate returns or future value through investments. This is their job and they do it well.

The major blame that I assign to corporations is the lobbying that they undertake to maintain the status quo, despite knowledge that this is not in the public interest. After all, corporations are just groups of people and these people have to live in the same world as the rest of us. If anything, I would hope that this lobbying effort could be turned to good, encouraging the government to change the framework to favour a lower emissions model so that they could make money doing so. But I guess not changing is easier.

Our governments certainly deserve blame and have a responsibility for the required changes. They have a responsibility to the citizens of this country to enact policies which will lower emissions in real terms (not just have “aspirations”.) At the same time, they have a responsibility to the corporations of this country to set policy which is predictable, consistent, and provides a framework in which companies can make money while social goals are achieved, or at least not hindered.

But we the people are responsible as well. I’m not talking about our own personal emissions from heating and cooling our homes, or driving our cars, though certainly we all have a lot of room for improvement in these areas.

We are to blame because we demand the products that these companies have on offer. We demand electricity, as much as we want whenever we want it. We demand that our governments act to keep the prices low so that we’re not faced with the real costs of our choices. (Though I’ve argued many times that we pay the cost anyway, either through taxes or ill health.) And we elect the governments which will maintain the status quo.  We complain about the situation we’re in but won’t elect those that will actually affect change.

In fact, I believe that individual people are mostly responsible. Not only for our own personal emissions, but for not demanding better of our industries and governments.

For industry and government both, we don’t have to buy what they’re selling! We can demand better!  And it’s high time we started doing so.