How to Beat Back Global Warming – Personalizing the Problem So That All of Us Get Involved

How do you become personally involved in mitigating climate change? For young people like Greta Thunberg, it means becoming an inspiring leader of young people taking to the streets to get the rest of us to focus on the issue. But what will it take to really make a difference? Because protesting doesn’t reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere. Only concerted behavioural change by each and every one of us can make fighting climate change more personal.

My wife and I have made changes in the last decade. We moved from a house in the suburbs to a midtown apartment in the city, dramatically reducing our personal footprint. We switched from an internal combustion engine vehicle to a hybrid. We no longer use incandescent lighting anywhere in our home.

The apartment we live in is in a condominium and is rented. That is a challenge for us as we try to further reduce our carbon footprint because we have no say over the building’s budget for tackling climate change through retrofits. At nearly two decades old the building is a significant contributor of greenhouse gas emissions. In our Canadian winters, the original windows no longer insulate as we leak heat into our outdoors daily. The heating system burns natural gas. Electricity is bulk metered.

As renters, we have little to no say in retrofitting budgets to address these impediments to fighting climate change. But we can talk to our neighbours and members of the condominium board and building management about measures to collectively address issues such as window replacement to reduce heating costs while fighting greenhouse gas emissions.

The building roof is gravel composite and there is plenty of space for solar panels which could reduce the electricity we draw from the grid. We could install plugin capacity for residents who see an electric vehicle (EV) as a personal way that they can contribute to lowering their carbon footprint. These two acts: solar panels and EV recharge stations would be a community-wide contribution to make our building more climate change friendly.

Other personalized ways for those of us living in the building to mitigate climate change can be as simple as insulating areas of walls where we detect drafts (plug outlets are often culprits), upgrading to more energy-efficient appliances, and changing lighting fixtures.

When we all are invested in personalizing our climate change response then we can make great strides in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating global warming.

Can governments play a role in helping us in these efforts?

Absolutely. But so many government initiatives I come across aren’t focused on personal acts to address climate change. None help me measure my carbon contribution and give me tools and strategies to make personal reductions.

As I went looking for examples here in Canada, I studied federal, provincial and city programs and what follows are just a sampling of what each offers.

Canada, at the federal level, offers a number of programs including:

The Climate Action and Awareness Fund (CAAF) – a community-based initiative with $206 million to be spread over five years to support youth climate awareness (really, our youth aren’t aware?), climate research, science, and technology coming from think tanks and academia.

Environmental Projects – no specific investment numbers are disclosed but what is described states financial support to raise climate change awareness, implement emission reductions, preserve ecosystems and species at risk, restore coastlines, and make improvements to freshwater and saltwater bodies. Specific funding mentions a $50 million First Nations’ project budget.

Low Carbon Economy Fund – is a $2 billion federal investment in projects focused on clean growth, emission reductions, and meeting or exceeding Canada’s Paris Climate Agreement commitments. Nothing personal here.

Green Infrastructure Fund – started in 2009 and scheduled to end by 2022, this initiative supports infrastructure investments for wastewater, green energy generation and transmission, solid waste, and carbon transmission and storage projects. Once again, nothing personal.

At the provincial level in Ontario the government has provided a climate change plan that describes how good things are locally with nothing aimed at individual projects. One program is The Ontario Carbon Trust, a $400 million fund aimed at private investors developing clean technology solutions.

At the municipal level, Toronto takes a more activist role on the climate file. I selected three initiatives that invite the public to participate. They are:

TransformTO – a net-zero strategy to seek public engagement and feedback on achieving emission reduction targets.

Community Energy Plans – looking at local infrastructure and land-use projects from an energy solution perspective.

Live Green Environmental Grants and Incentives – offering residential and homes and building rebates, low-interest loans for energy retrofits, tree planting on properties, and solar power consulting and planning.

At this stage in our collective climate change fight, we are still far from getting ourselves as individuals involved. The big Canadian strategy that has a personal impact is the putting of a price on carbon pollution which currently at $30 per ton amounts to less than 7 cents per liter for diesel and gasoline at the pump but will rise to $170 per ton or 37 cents per liter by 2030. Sounds meaningful at the back end. But the current government policy is to rebate much of that money back to individuals in the form of income tax relief. So we feel a bit of personal pain when we pump gas and that’s about it. I believe for our climate change mitigation efforts to succeed we need greater personal involvement than that.