Break In Case of Emergency

Emergency Marker 1: Spend what it takes to win (w/ Caroline Brouillette & Seth Klein)

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Episode 1 of our 6-part special series begins with the first marker of the climate emergency: spending what it takes to win. Host Erin Blondeau is joined by Seth Klein and Caroline Brouillette to explore what real, transformative climate investment would look like, drawing parallels to Canada’s WWII mobilization. Together, they break down why today’s spending falls far short, and why committing at least 2% of GDP annually is both doable and necessary. They dig into ending fossil fuel subsidies, taxing windfall profits, and creative revenue tools like aviation pollution charges. It’s a clear-eyed conversation about ambition, urgency, and the choices that define whether we win this fight.

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More on the 6 Markers of the Climate Emergency:

Credits:
Produced by Erin Blondeau and Doug Hamilton-Evans. Written and hosted by Erin Blondeau. Music by Anjali Appadurai. Audio editing by Blue Light Studios. Artwork by Geoff Smith.

Hello and welcome back to break in case of emergency, a podcast about mobilizing Canada for the climate crisis with audacious solutions rooted in justice and workers' rights. I'm your host. Erin Blondeau, and this episode is part one of a special series of break in case of emergency over the course of six episodes, we are breaking down the climate emergency unit's six markers of climate emergency framework, and today, we are focusing on marker number one with an introduction to the framework as a whole. We believe that it's not too late to change the course on the climate emergency, but only if we embrace the kind of transformational change not seen since the Second World War. During World War Two, the Canadian government took extraordinary measures to confront fascism, as Seth Klein explains in his book a good war mobilizing Canada for the climate emergency, the government did hit key markers that we'd expect to see in a genuine emergency response. You know, the type of response where all governments and all society are working together to achieve a common goal. We got a glimpse of this kind of mobilization During covid's first year, but governments failed to leave no one behind. These emergency measures worked once against fascism, and they can work again against the climate crisis, but with a crucial difference, when we ask people to join this fight, we must be committed to a society emerging on the other side that's more just than the one we're leaving behind. So what are the six markers of climate emergency? Marker number one is spend what it takes to win, not incremental funding, but mobilizing resources at the scale that the crisis demands. Marker number two is create new institutions to get the job done. Marker number three is shift from voluntary and incentive based policies to mandatory measures. Marker number four is tell the truth about the severity of the crisis and communicate urgency. Marker number five is leave no one behind, and marker number six is indigenous rights and leadership are essential to winning. Seth and I recorded a previous episode on all six markers, which you can find a link to in the show description. But for today, we are focusing specifically on marker number one. Spend what it takes. As always, I'm joined by Seth Klein, the team lead here at the climate emergency unit, and we are very fortunate and excited to also have Caroline Brouillette with us today. Caroline is the executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, and the country's farthest reaching network of organizations working on climate and energy issues, with over 180 members from coast to coast to coast. She represents environmental NGOs on Canada's sustainable jobs Partnership Council and co chairs the just transition Working Group at can International, a global network of over 1900 organizations. Her climate commentary has appeared in CBC, The New York Times, Reuters and Al Jazeera Caroline holds a Master's in Public Policy specializing in economics from the National University of Singapore. We are so happy to have you here, Carol, thanks so much for having me. And Seth is the team lead and the director here of strategy at the climate emergency unit. He is the author of a good war mobilizing Canada for the climate emergency, a regular columnist with Canada's national observer, and he also spent many years as the director of a progressive think tank, and currently serves on the board of the BC society for policy solutions.

Hey, Seth, Hi. Good to be back with you.

So I want to start by unpacking some historical context as always. Seth, what can we learn from how we mobilized resources in the Second World War, or more recently, during the covid 19 pandemic, right? Yeah. Let's begin there. So this is the key thing about this marker of spending, what it takes to win, a benefit of an emergency mentality, is that it forces governments out of this austerity mindset. And as you know, first of all, in the first year of the pandemic, we really saw that in response to the covid emergency, the federal government spent a lot of money, and consequently, Canada's debt to GDP ratio jumped from about 30% to just over 50% in a single year. That's a big jump in a single year, but it still pales in comparison to what happened during the Second World War. We really spent a lot of money in the Second World War. By the time we got to the end of World War Two, that debt to GDP ratio was was more than double what it was in covid, it was well over 100% the minister in the Mackenzie King government at the time who oversaw much of this spending in this ramp up in military production was this guy, CD Howe, and when he was pressed at the time about this incredible ramp. Up in government spending, he famously replied, If we lose the war, nothing will matter. And I think that's very apt to the present. And in order to finance that war effort, the government issued public Victory Bonds, and it instituted new forms of progressive taxation on the wealthy and on corporations, including, by the way, a cap on profits. So the kind of profiteering that we have seen during and since the pandemic was actually illegal in the Second World War. And I think as we confront the climate emergency, we're going to have to finance the transformation with with similar tools, which I think we'll come back to around windfall taxes and wealth taxes. But just to illustrate a comparison for you, federal government spending in the pandemic in order to fund the wage subsidies and the Cerb for much of that year, the federal government was spending about $5 billion a week to do that. In comparison, federal spending on the climate emergency clocks in generously at about 19 billion a year, or about point 7% of GDP, so 5 billion a week for most, most of a year, that's emergency, versus 19 billion a year. So federal government spending on the climate emergency, we're not just spending a little bit less than we should be. We're probably spending less by a three fold order of magnitude.

Those are some crazy numbers. And Caroline, I want to turn to you to get a little bit more specific on the climate part. So when we say, spend what it takes to win on climate, what are we actually talking about? How much should Canada be spending? Which is, you know, what Seth was starting to get into, and what should we actually be spending that money on?

Thanks for that question, and I'm really thrilled to be here, because Seth's work has been, I think, inspiring all over for the climate movement. But in 2023 inspired us at Climate Action Network with colleagues at the Canadian Center for Policy alternative. So big shout out to Mark Lee and Hadrian Mer tens Kirkwood, who are economists there who worked on the on this with us. We tried to answer this specific question, Erin, yeah. How much should we actually spend? So we started at a macro economic level, looking big picture from Nick Stern, who is a British economist and some of the work he had done to see what it took globally for us to limit the worst impacts of climate change. And what he found was that generally, and this was a couple years ago, and given where the unfortunate direction of things and is going, probably has changed, and I would suspect increased. But he found basically that on average, countries should be spending at least 2% of their GDP in climate mitigation measures. So we then mapped this out in terms of what this meant for Canada, and found that this would mean 287 billion over five years. So on average, close to 60 billion a year. And so, you know, when we did that recommendation in 2023 at that time, Canada's climate spending was approximately 0.5% of GDP had come up quite substantially from previous years. The year after we got to 0.7% of GDP, folks might remember those who were closing tracking closely policy developments that this was the year that we saw a lot of money set aside from the federal government for investment tax credits for clean electricity as well as clean technology manufacturing, but still right pretty far away from this, this 2% measures and some of the things we were asking to be supported are things like support for public transit operations across provinces and municipalities, supporting indigenous leadership directly in communities as these are not only at the forefront of climate impacts, but are often and actually leading the way when it comes to adopting renewable 10. Technology, some of the things we're still asking for today, and I think we might get back to that later, but supports for labor and workers, in particularly younger workers, as well as investing in high quality electric infrastructure that allows us to decarbonize and replace fossil fuels.

And you know, one thing to note about about that Erin too, is, while we have seen this bump up under the final years of Trudeau in that spending, a chunk of it isn't actually happening and may not happen. Part of what I think the government is stuck with is like when you look at the list of things that Caroline just mentioned, you know, high speed rail, interprovincial grid stuff, all of these are inherently public infrastructure things, and yet, the route that the government has gone with its spending is to offer tax credits to the private sector, hoping that they'll step forward and build these things. A few of them are but not nearly as much as the government had hoped. And so they, they, they, they announce these expenditures in the form of tax credits, but in fact, a bunch of it is being left on the table because the private partners aren't there. In fact, we have to do it ourselves.

Yeah, and I think we are going to get more into the institutions that need to be built in future, markers as well. And Seth, I guess I did just want to follow up with you, because often we hear about why we cannot spend on climate. Can we actually spend what it takes like, does Canada have this kind of money to actually spend on this? We do, yeah.

You know, there's always this fear mongering out there whenever we talk about spending this amount of money. Oh, Canada's bankrupt, and we have a 50 or $60 billion deficit, and, you know, we can't possibly do this. And I think for much of the public, these numbers, when we Bandy about these billions of dollars, the numbers are so abstract. But from an economics point of view, if you want to know, like, what's the fiscal capacity of a country, what you're actually interested in is that figure I mentioned off the top. You're interested in the debt to GDP ratio. You're also interested in, well, what are you amassing the debt for? And you're interested in who do you owe it to? So let me just take a pause on each of those. Why debt to GDP? I mean, it's sort of Erin. It's sort of like if I told you, Oh, somebody's taken on a debt of $100,000 are they in trouble? The answer is, it

depends who they are. It depends what their income is. If you're a student right out of school and $100,000 in debt, you're in big trouble. You know, if you're the CEO of a major, major grocery firm that shall remain nameless, it means you might have just pulled out the line of credit to build a bigger dog house. It matters what your income is, and for a country, we measure that as debt to GDP, meaning GDP is an imperfect measure of annual income of a country. So we're asking, what's the total debt accumulated relative to the income? And here's the good news. I mentioned that during the pandemic, the debt to GDP ratio went up to about 50% it then quickly came back down to about 40% right now it's hovering around 42% and that's among that is the lowest in the g7 among the g7 countries, and it's mostly owed to ourselves, to fellow Canadians. In fact, a big chunk of it's owned to the Bank of Canada. That's very different from poor developing countries, who mostly owe it externally to their and so they're in more trouble. And it matters what you're taking it on for, like, same way, like, if, if a household took it on as an investment in a in a mortgage, well, that actually might be a very good investment. If they're just taking it on to to for frivolous expenditures, that's a bad investment. And the same is true for us as a country, if we're taking it on to delink our economy from fossil fuels and from the US and invest in the infrastructure we need to sustain ourselves in the future, that's a good investment, if I can come in here quickly. Seth, what you're saying resonates so much because I think we've been used to using this analogy of household debt with, you know, public debt, but these things are actually very different. You know, the state has assets. We have roads and schools. So, you know, if we default on a loan, it's not the same as you know, you yeah. Like having to sell your house, for instance, and a lot of that public investment actually increases productivity in the long term, right? If we're talking about either strategic investments in industries, for instance, green industries, a little bit like China was doing 10 years ago, and is now reaping massive benefits from as well as investing in our human resources, through care, through education. These are paying off in the future in a way that this household debt analogy is not the same as me maybe going to the restaurant a bit too often, and paying that with my credit card.

Absolutely. Caroline. Are we seeing any nations that are actually spending what it takes on climate?

So we don't have those specific numbers to do the comparative, but I just mentioned China, and I think this is a really important example, especially now, where we're seeing the United States with Donald Trump at the head, deciding to really kind of lock the US and in some ways, trying to bring Canada with it into a Fossil fuel economy, where, in contrast, we're realizing now collectively that, you know, China, in the past 1020 years, has been really strategically investing, through industrial policy, through state led Innovation and interventions into industries like solar photovoltaic, like electric vehicles, as well as other types of renewables and electric technology. I was just looking at numbers before coming on to the show today and in 2024 only China is estimated to have spent 1.9 trillion in one year in just three sectors. We're talking electric vehicles, batteries and solar power, and this has accounted for 10% of its GDP. So the order of magnitude, without speaking of you know how big the Chinese economy is and how influential it is on the rest of the world, is pretty monumental. And that all goes also without talking about how this strategic investment led by the Chinese state, again decades ago, is also contributing to countries in the Global South, accelerating their adoption of these clean, these electric, these renewable technologies, this, according to carbon brief, has led to 1% like a globally 1% decrease in global emissions. So again, we're talking about really strategic investments that you know have paid off in the long term. And part of how you know this austerity frame, as Seth was explaining earlier, is limiting our imagination. Is also because within our political system, we're working with shorter timelines. And that has also needs to be named, because obviously our political system is very different from the Chinese one, and they're, you know, many ways in which that's also better and advantageous for us.

But you know, just to build on that point, when we think about our imagination, it feels, you know, Erin, that so much of our our imagination, we're so insular when we as a Canadian society, where we really only pay attention to ourselves and to the US. But really, in the grand scheme of things, North America is the aberration here. Most of the rest of the world is is kicking our ass. I'm not sure offhand, how many European countries are hitting that 2% goal that Kelvin spoke of earlier, but the reality is, all of them are doing are doing substantially better than us when it comes to spending what it takes to win. The Chinese example that kow Lin mentions, though, is really emerging as a standalone case of spreading what it takes to win, particularly on solar. You know, as we're taping this bill mckibben's latest book, here comes the sun, has just come out where he has these incredible statistics of how you. The rest of the world, while North America drags its feet, the adoption of solar is just exploding. This past summer, Bill writes the world saw a third more solar power produced than the summer before, and in China alone, they are building as many solar panels as a coal fired power plant every day. So just to give you a sense, there are places that are starting to lean into what it means to do this at speed and at scale. It just ain't us.

Yeah, it feels really good to have a little bit, just a little bit of hope when we're talking about this, because oftentimes, especially from like a North American perspective, things feel extremely bleak. And in this conversation, we've been talking a lot about new investments. But, you know, spending what it takes to win is actually about more than that. It's also about stopping investments into ecocidal industries, right? So why is it important to also end fossil fuel subsidies and to divest Caroline? I would love to turn to you for this question.

Well, so I mean, at a physical level, we know that climate change, and I know listeners know this, so it might feel a little bit pathetic, but it's called, it's caused by the burning of fossil fuels. So how do we transition is, basically, we electrify our electricity system, and need to ensure that that is backed by renewables, and then, you know, as much as possible improve the efficiency of the rest of other sectors where there are emissions, like buildings and transportation, through smarter urban planning and building regulations, but also, you know, electrifying the remaining vehicles on the road, for instance. So we need to, you know, make sure that, yes, we're spending and supporting and investing in those sectors, that we need to scale up to electrify our economy and make it largely renewable based progressively until it is entirely while at the same time, we need to phase out the bad stuff, you know, those fossil fuels. And you don't have to take my word for it, the International Energy Agency, which, by the way, was founded by fossil fuel exporters in response to the oil shock in 1979 so not the most kind of eco radical crew, right? They put out reports every year to look at, you know, where is the energy system going globally. And they have one scenario that looks at aligning with net zero by 2050 the first time they did this in 2021 they said, want to get there. We can invest in any new fossil fuel infrastructure. When they did this again this year, they said that remains true, and multiple existing oil and gas fields and oil and gas assets will be rendered stranded or unusable if we want to stay within this climate, safe, sustainable and life giving trajectory, what this looks like when we're talking about, you know, spending what it takes. It means that we have to stop spending on the bad things. And the reality is that the world still does so much of this in Canada, can rec members and colleagues from Environmental Defense keep a really solid tracking of what our fossil fuel subsidies look like. This is a very difficult and complicated exercise, because when we think of subsidies, we think of the government giving money to company, A, B, C, right? But in practice, that kind of happens, and there's also a suite of kind of tax exemptions measures, and also public financing like loans that make it very difficult to calculate $1 amount. Still, when Environmental Defense did this calculation in 2024 they found that those subsidies amounted to approximately $30 billion a lot of this was spent on our public investment in the trans mountain pipeline, which is something that obviously was a disastrous choice, but both from an environmental and indigenous rights but also economic perspective. But again, when we look at those figures and contrast these, approximately a. Um, $10 billion per year that we're spending on climate, you know, we're, we're, yes, watering the flowers for the garden that we want to see, but we also have to kind of stop investing in the things that are burning our communities down. Right?

And Seth, what about fossil fuel divestments? Yeah.

So that's a that's a part of this too. When, when we talk about, you know, as we're saying here, it's not only about spending what it takes to win. It means stop spending on and investing in the industries and companies that are blocking progress on on this fight of our lives. So as ca what was saying, there's, there's the support that those industries continue to get from government, but then there's also the investments from other institutions. You know, it could be pension funds or unions or fate, even faith institutions have investment pools, post secondary institutions, municipal governments, and they also need to be divesting their holdings from these fossil fuel companies. They need to do it for a host of reasons. There are legal reasons to do it because these investments have legal risks. We're seeing this burgeoning of court cases where of suing the fossil fuel companies for for climate damages, that's only going to get those risks are only going to increase. There's financial risks, as as Caroline was saying, the when you look at what the International Energy Agency is predicting, a bunch of these investments are going to become stranded assets. But I also think there's just a more foundational moral and intergenerational justice issue at play, because by continuing to hold these fossil fuel companies in a pension fund, in particular, you know, effectively, it means we're betting against our own grandkids, like, if the bet wins, it's only because they lose, like we are effectively staking our pension returns on a future in which they reside at hellscape. And none of us want that.

That's obviously like a really compelling moral case, and it's crucial. At the same time, there's also like we're at a point in the acceleration of adoption of clean technology where the economic case is equally compelling for us to stop investing taxpayer dollars into this infrastructure of the past, right? And again, here, there's also, like a moral and inequality question that we need to profoundly ask ourselves. Oil and gas companies have made record profits in particular during the covid 19 pandemic, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we saw spikes in price, prices in a way that led to fossil fuel driven inflation, which increased the returns and dividends of These privately, by the way, in large part American owned companies, and through our public investments, what we're doing is tilting the playing field in favor of these fossil fuel projects in a way that you know, as Seth was saying and Talking about how solar is exploding and costs are decreasing. We're basically actually, like, going against what would be free market competition. And, you know, renewables kind of winning that that on the markets. So a lot of the conversation in Canada, especially right now when we're talking about major projects. And you know how the government prioritizing and putting its political stamp on these, including, you know, these potentially being floated fossil fuel infrastructure, and you know pipelines that are coming back to the fore. The reality is, I'm not seeing any private proponent put forward these projects potentially, because they're making, you know, this economic calculus. However, when you add public dollars, that calculus changes, and that's basically the story we saw unfold with trans mountain. So we have to be very mindful of the question of subsidies, right? Because sometimes that is what will make or break these projects that we're hearing being discussed politically, if I may, though too, it's not only that the market gets distorted by these subsidies. 90s, there's an inherent problem with the market itself. People often say, Oh, well, if the cost of renewables is becoming so incredibly low, why aren't we seeing more take up in investment there? And part of it is because the market doesn't actually care about the cost of things. The market cares about profit and the amazing thing that the gift to fossil fuel companies, industry, if you're a pro, if you're the private sector, is that, or let me put this the other way. The Curse of renewables is that once you make a major capital investment, Mother Nature in her generosity, fuels it for free afterwards, with the wind and the sun, and you don't make money on that.

And this is, and in contrast, the incredible thing, if you're a private operator about fossil fuels is not only is there the money from the upfront investment, but you got to fuel the beast every goddamn day, over and over and over again. That's why fossil fuel companies are the most profitable corporations in human history. But it also means that's why we need governments themselves to spend what it takes to win on renewables, because the private sector isn't going to do it. We have to do it.

If I can just come in here with a book recommendation on what Seth just shared the price is wrong, which came out, I think last summer, like really goes into the weeds of that explanation that I recommended.

Yeah, I think a big part of this conversation as well, which is kind of what we were starting to get into, is this idea of, like energy sovereignty. And I would love to know what the both of you think about if we focused on becoming a climate leader with more energy sovereignty in Canada that causes less pollution. Do you think that we could also deal with the security issues and the affordability crisis, two things that you know, Mark Carney says or acts as though, he's prioritizing, but a lot of this just feels so paradoxical, because, you know, we see Mark Carney upping the NATO spending, like trying to meet our commitments there, and upping the spending on military. But yeah, I would love to know maybe Caroline. Maybe I can pass to you on this, can we deal with the security issues and the affordability crisis if we invest in renewables?

Yes, and there's a lot in your question. So I think first thing is the structure of the Canadian economy, right a lot of these projects that are being, you know, incentivized through political signals right now are projects that are geared towards the export of Canadian natural resources, Whether we're talking about liquefied natural gas, whether we're talking about mining. And I think this is a crucial moment where we need to ask ourselves as a country, you know, is this the type of economy that we think is the most resilient in the future, right? Like basically providing resources without adding much value through transformation, through innovation, and, you know, basically providing Trump's us with those resources. You know, whether these resources are actually climate aligned is another crucial question, but is very much linked to the structure of our economy, and the fact that, you know when we invest political capital, but also our industrial kind of might and attention into this kind of extractive model. What we're doing is perpetuating a model for the Canadian economy where we're seeing innovation rates decrease across this country, why aren't we instead investing in, you know, high technological and high added value sectors, which, you know, includes the care economy as well. These are questions that are not really asked right now, and that are actually pretty crucial to this question of diversifying away from the United States in the context of a trade war. And I think, you know, I was just thinking when we were talking about China, and how China has been able to really dominate specific electric technology as well as renewables technologies sectors, we have to ask ourselves, what are these made in Canada, products and endeavors where we could build a real competitive advantage that you know, not only through our own. Domestic adoption, we could contribute to reducing our energy costs. For instance, if we're talking about that, the technologies that relate to being more energy efficient, but also, you know, create really good local unionized jobs.

Yeah, I strongly agree. But I also heard, in your question, Erin, a comparison to the military spending that we're seeing. And I just want to respond to that to say I think the comparison is certainly at I mean, look, ever since my book came out five years ago, I've spent all of these years arguing that we need a wartime approach to confront the climate crisis. I meant it as an analogy. You know, the government's metaphor does not seem to be the government's strong suit. Their imagination for a wartime approach seems to be limited to war, and it's been pretty disorienting, like we've here, we've all been arguing and campaigning for years trying to get the government to increase spending on the climate emergency to 2% of GDP, to no avail. And then overnight in June, Mark Carney announces that we're going to get to 2% of GDP spending on the military this year, in a single year. So we're going to see a $9 billion increase in military spending this year. And as if that's not enough, he's put us on a 10 year schedule to get to 5% of GDP by by 2035 that would be another between 50 and 90 billion a year on military spending. And it is, it's, it's disorienting that that, you know, it's that that's happened so quickly as you know we, we at the climate emergency unit have been campaigning hard for almost three years now for a Youth Climate Corps. And every time we're engaging the government asking for a $1 billion expenditure, the rejoinder is always, well, the money's not really there. The Ask isn't. Is unrealistic, and yet, boom, here we go with this incredible ramp up in military spending and to your, your your your your security point, Erin is absolutely right, because what's so incongruous about this is, is how it misunderstands the actual security threat that we face, like it's the climate crisis that's Cooking people to death at record breaking levels of heat domes, and did so to over 600 people in this province of British Columbia in the space of of a week four years ago. You know, heat kills, according to the recent report in The Guardian, 20 times more people than terror attacks and six times more people than war and armed conflicts. You know, it's the climate crisis that's displacing millions of people globally and wreaking havoc with our food and water systems and killing 9 million people a year from air pollution. So why is it so bloody hard to spend what it takes to confront this emergency that this emergency compared to the military?

Yeah, and if I can say this, this kind of really wild discrepancy and cognitive dissonance in our capacity to spend into what you know, global North countries consider emergencies or security has been really noticed within climate negotiations by countries who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Last year, at the cop 29 which was in Baku Azerbaijan, this question of, you know, new finance for countries in the Global South came came up right because, as part of our efforts as a rich country, an industrialized country, and a country who has disproportionately contributed to depleting our global carbon budget, Canada must also support Countries in in the global south in their own mitigation efforts as well as adaptation and loss and damage. And so in those discussions, small island developing states, least developed countries, were very quick to note that they saw the g7 mobilize and spend when Russia invaded Ukraine, they saw those countries mobilize and spend when the covid 19 crisis happened in a very insular kind of we're looking at ourselves only way, of course, and now these really wild NATO spending increases again, make the argument that, but there's no money, but we're our fiscal. Strings are so tight sound very, very hollow,

yeah, and I feel gross, even bringing it back to this, and it feels very capitalist, but this is often the argument that's used against climate movements and and climate action in general. But you know, the cost of responding to these climate disasters that costs money too, right? So Seth, aren't we already spending massive amounts on climate change, just in the least effective way possible, responding to these disasters rather than trying to mitigate them? Yeah.

I mean, what you're asking is a super important point, because often when we talk about spending what it takes to win, and people say, Oh, well, you know, we can't afford it as if the status quo is free and it isn't. Climate change is costing us enormously. It's first of all, it's costing us in human lives. That's the point I was just making. You know, fossil fuel air pollution alone kills roughly 9 million people a year. We just had a report a couple weeks ago that the forest fires in Canada in 2023, two years ago, which were very much exacerbated by climate change, led to 82,000 deaths, not just in Canada, but everywhere where the smoke went, but it's also costing us in dollars. Last year, there was a study from the US Bureau of Economic Research before Trump took over that found back when they were still allowed to talk about such things, that climate change may knock a third out of the global economy as the century progresses. A couple of years ago, the Insurance Bureau of Canada calculated that the cost of extreme weather events in Canada in 2023 was about $3 billion now that's just privately insured costs. The Canadian climate institute that year figured that the actual cost to the economy as a whole are was 25 billion so the costs are already racking up at a societal level, and it's worth noting they're racking up at the household level. You know, the more climate change progresses, households are noticing it and will increasingly notice it in the cost of food and groceries. They're going to notice it big time in the costs of home insurance. So the cost of inaction is not nothing,

yeah, and exactly like you said, we pay for that in action with people's lives and people's health. You know, I My son has asthma, and every summer it is always this brutal balance of trying to keep him inside when it's really smoky, but also recognizing that it's 35 degrees and inside is extremely hot, and we need to be outside. So we have to do something about this, obviously. So let's maybe talk a bit about revenue generation. So Caroline, if we need to spend at this scale, how can we actually raise the funds in a way that's not just, you know, making the average worker bear the brunt. You know, typically, we hear that kind of counter argument from the conservatives that you know, that the average worker is just having to pay this on their taxes or whatever. So how can we actually raise this? How can we get the money for this? What roles could tools like pollution pricing or a public bank or a windfall profits tax, play, play in this.

So first things first, we need to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies in countries like Canada, where a lot of that subsidization is coming. On the supply side, that's kind of the lowest hanging fruit in terms of, you know, freeing up public revenue. The second piece, and one that can rack members have been really energized about, as you've named, is taxing the windfall profits of oil and gas. We know this is a really volatile kind of boom and bust economy, and that in times often of crisis, the profits really skyrocket, and that's when we need a public intervention to tax those those profits and again, reinvest them into the right things, spending what it takes In the right things. There's also a lot of interesting, so called innovative finance ideas being floated internationally, the idea of taxing the pollution of in the maritime sector. Has been coming out, coming up quite a bit, as well as the pollution of the aviation sector. Those ideas have kind of percolated through international governance spaces. Obviously, as you can imagine, politically, a little bit difficult to move on another really interesting idea that tackles both climate and inequality at the same time, because we know that those things are highly correlated, right? Super wealthy, rich folk are the ones who disproportionately pollute through, for instance, you know, writing private jets, same for air travel. And so there's a coalition that was launched this summer at FFD four, which basically brought together leaders to discuss the question of Financing for Development, again, very tightly linked with climate. So the idea here is putting a tax on flights. This work has been led by France, with Barbados as well, and is gaining steam. And so that's one of the innovative ideas that could help generate revenue. But as we've been talking about the funds and the funding are there? The question is the political will to mobilize them. So I think the question we might want to ask ourselves is, how do we get there politically?

I mean, if I may, just before we get to how we get there politically, I just want to weigh in on this, on this question of, well, where would the money come from? I mean, Caroline just listed off a bunch of options we should most definitely be pursuing. But the big picture is, we live at a time of unparalleled wealth, and in that kind of context, the whole notion that we should be wrestling with austerity is manufactured. There's so much that we could do so the windfall profits tax absolutely you know that could easily raise over a billion dollars a year. We need a wealth tax. Alex Hemingway, who's an economist with with the BC society for policy solutions has modeled a wealth tax where, in such a way, where, if it only targeted the wealthiest point 5% of Canadians could raise $32 billion a year. A lot of that wealth inequality is in property. We could bring in innovative forms of progressive property taxation. Carlene mentioned a number of international taxes we should have on aviation and marine. We should also just have an international financial transaction tax to pay for a lot of of what the developing world needs for this transition. It could raise billions if we tax capital gains the same way we tax employment income. It would raise $11 billion a year in Canada if we had an inheritance tax, which we don't. We're one of the few industrialized countries that doesn't. It could raise two to 3 billion if we didn't cave to Trump on the digital services tax. You know that was going to raise 6 billion over a five year period. If we had a 15% export tax on the oil and gas exports to the United States, it would raise 25 billion a year. So there's the point. Here is that the options are, are many to then spend what it takes to win

Seth, I'm so grateful for you kind of crunching the numbers for each of these measures together. I'm curious, did you tally them up? Do you have a total?

Oh, no, I didn't make a running total. Sorry, I'd have to, have to take a few minutes. And, you know, but, but, but you take my point, like this whole idea that the cupboard is bare and we can't do this is, is, is a huge falsehood. And, and I guess to segue to this question of political will, I mean, here's the good news. When you ask Canadians in a poll about these windfall profits taxes and these wealth taxes, they are hugely popular across the political spectrum, but those in office at the moment just don't want to do it.

Yeah, even if we could all agree on the economics, it seems like, like you just said, there is this political challenge. So how can we build that political will? How can we get public support? Have you, have either of you found any effective ways to shift the conversation in that direction, to try to get this thing going?

I think there's a really. Interesting conjuncture we find ourselves in when it comes to, you know, the question of austerity, and maybe framed a little bit more like broadly into neoliberal kind of economics, right? And again here, like I will admit I fall prey to the United States kind of ideological, um, yeah, dominance of those questions. But the question of, are we in a post neoliberal moment has been increasingly discussed, and I think this kind of puts the onus on us, as you know, climate activists and folks who have ideas and energy to contribute to the debate to think about what's next, right? I think, like, let's bring ourselves back a couple decades ago, how we got to this point now, where, as Seth is saying, when you know, we decide that the cupboards are bare. Austerity measures kicks in. This was fomented by Milton Friedman and his buddies, who got into a room and said, you know, in 50 years or so, we would want there to be kind of across the political spectrum, there to be consensus on this idea that, you know, there are limits to spending, and the free market reigns free, etc. So I think, like it's also on us to kind of get into a room and think about what these post neoliberal economics look like and plan for the longer term. I think in this moment where we're seeing so much backlash on climate action in a way that is, I'm sure you're both feeling it, you know, pretty heartbreaking and devastating, it also maybe gives us a moment to kind of pause, reflect and restrategize and think about the longer term as climate activists, obviously, we operate in emergency, in urgency, because climate is first and foremost a crisis of time, right? We have until 2030 to bend the curve of emissions so that we limit warming to 1.5 degrees. It's kind of inherent to our work and to our struggle that we have the clock running against us. But I think maybe in this moment, taking a step back and looking at the longer term picture of the economy and society we want to build and then organizing politically to make it happen again. This is not a very concrete suggestion, but is maybe where my head is at in this moment well.

And I think when it comes to that political organizing, you know, it always has to be both an inside and an outside game. On the outside. You know, at the time we're recording this, we just came from a weekend of draw the line, where we saw what I thought was a really interesting and and hopeful mobilization for the first time in in my memory, or at least since the 1990s we saw a really interesting cross movement collaboration, where it was the climate movement joining forces with migrant rights organizations and economic justice groups and anti war groups and Palestine Solidarity groups and indigenous rights groups all uniting to say, well, to say, properly tax the billionaires and rejecting austerity so that outside mobilization really matters. And then it has to find a partner in a in a political project, you know, a an actual kind of progressive populist, compelling project that that gives people a way to give political expression to another way of doing things.

Can I come in quickly here about, you know, the political vehicle question? Because I would say maybe yes. And at the same time, one of the ways in which climate action is often inhibited and hamstrung in Canada is because, unfortunately, there still is no cross partisan consensus that this issue of climate change is real and that it requires being tackled seriously. So, you know, at the same time, we also have to make sure that this organizing happens across the political spectrum and in each political party, federally, but also provincially and municipally, right? Because that's the only way that we're. Going to get to a conversation where there isn't a risk of really kind of dangerous and substantial backsliding every election.

Yeah, this seems like a really important time to ask the question that I've been wanting to ask both of you, which is, what keeps you fighting for climate justice? We are literally in a shrinking window where money can still buy us a Livable Future. And like I talked about earlier, my kid is what keeps me going. You know, just worrying about his future, what? What keeps the two of you fighting for climate justice? Seth, I'll start with you. I was

hoping you were going to start with Caroline, but okay. I mean, look, at one level, it's panic about the climate emergency. I'm the parent of two kids, and it causes me a lot of anxiety.

At some level, doing this kind of works in my DNA. Like to know these things and to not do this work. I don't know. It's just not how I'm personally made up, but it is hard just to acknowledge that like you know, it's hard to keep doing this work. Calvin was saying, where, with all the backtracking we're seeing, it's very demoralizing. And all of us in this work walk this razor's edge between hope and despair. You know, if you were to ask me, not what keeps me going, but if I'm optimistic, the answer is, I'm not optimistic. On the other hand, you know, one of the I like to lean on this quote from one of my favorite climate scientists in the States, Kate Marvel, who says this moment doesn't need optimists, it needs heroes, by which she means the people who are prepared to do what it takes without the assurance of whether or not we'll be successful, and I think that is where we're at. I mean, just to bring this full circle, you asked me to talk off the top about the war and the pandemic, you know, and it strikes me in both cases. If you had asked Canadians in 1938 the year before World War Two, this gang in Mackenzie King's cabinet? Do they have what it takes to completely transform society and the economy and retool the whole economy? I'm certain most Canadians would have said, No, not this gang. And they had no reason to believe otherwise, because that gang had done mostly nothing through 10 years of the Depression, and yet they would have been wrong. And similarly, if you had asked me, or most of us, a few weeks before the pandemic lockdown, are there people in the federal government capable of pivoting in the space of a few weeks and creating these audacious new programs and spending what it takes on the Cerb and the wage subsidy, I would have told you, no, there's nobody home there who thinks that way, and I would have been wrong, and I think that's kind of what we have to lean into in the present. Is this, is this sense that there will come a moment when things come together, that events and leadership will align and start to spend what it takes to win. We just don't know how far into this, that moment is going to come.

Thanks for that Seth, I think we're in a moment. You know, not only in terms of the climate crisis and the temperature rise we're at, you know, we're talking about annual averages of 1.5 degrees in the past year. That's not the long term goal, right? We need to be there for 20 years or so for us to say we've reached this critical threshold. This said, we are seeing at this early stage, climate impacts happening at a frequency and an intensity that is, you know, absolutely beyond what scientists were thinking. But I think also at a very kind of real human and emotional level, as I was saying earlier, really scary and heartbreaking. And then you add on that the layer of, you know, geopolitical and political moving backwards that we're seeing that is obviously really hard in particular, you know, I'm thinking of comrades who's you know, have worked on on some of the policies really hard, and that those, those are now being kind of paused or even completely resigning. I think we have to make space for that within our spaces. So I'm really grateful you are doing that on this PO and on this podcast right now to to deal with with the grief that comes with that. But also, you know, naming that our institutions, and namely our international institutions, are massively failing in the case of the genocide happening in in Gaza. And I think that. I, you know, personally, but also I'm seeing in, you know, the community of climate activists around me is taking a really intense toll, you know, not, not speaking, of course, for those who are personally and directly affected. So I think this is a moment where, you know, there is a real taking stock of what is not working in our global system. But also, you know, the masks are falling, and we can't kind of continue pretending that those institutions, whether we're talking about the international rules based order, or, you know, the way our economy is structured to extract from people, from land, from nature, is working right like, I think everyone in this moment is seeing clearly that it's not which offers an opening. And I think the thing that keeps me doing this is I feel like, in some ways, I have the best job in the world, which, you know, is kind of every day, being in community with those who are leading the advocacy on climate justice action in this country and implementing it, whether at the local level, whether at the provincial level, whether you know, within their indigenous nations or federally. And I'm going to quote another author, Rebecca Solnit, you know, hope is is an action. It's an ax through which you kind of power through those those moments of crisis, and I like have the immense privilege of spending my time with those people in action, so it's kind of impossible for me not to keep going in that context.

Oh, man, thank you both for that, that that is actually, that's what I needed, is that little spark because, and Seth, coming back to what you said, it's like once you've seen this, once you know the severity of the issue, it's it's our duty to do something about it. And so that drives me forward as well. And on that note, thank you so much to Seth Klein and to Caroline Brouillette For this essential conversation as we explored marker number one, which is spend what it takes to win. This is the first part of our six markers of climate emergency series. The climate emergency won't be solved by incrementalism and austerity. It demands that we build and mobilize resources at the scale this crisis requires not just spending on solutions, but stopping our investments in the problem itself. We have to end the war machine properly, fund our communities and invest in renewable energy and infrastructure projects. This will build the foundation for a stronger future for our children, and like we talked about today, the money is there. The investments are possible. We just need the political will. I'm your host. Erin Blondeau, be sure to check out our next episode in the series, which is marker number two, create new institutions to get the job done. In that episode, we will be joined by Linda mcquigg, Alex Himmelfarb, and again. Seth Klein, if you liked what you heard today, please like subscribe and share with a friend. Thank you so much for listening. Everyone. Bye. You you.