Who pays for existential threats?

Who pays for existential threats?
By Cecile Wilson
[Atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa, Hawaii on 28th November 2024: 424.43]
Two recent events, one global and one local, raise questions about whom we ask to pay for climate change remediation, mitigation and adaptation and what the different entities consider to be an existential threat.
The global existential crisis is now
The first event was the outcome of the “finance COP” (the Conference of the Parties) in Azerbaijan in November. The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) had requested from the developed countries at least $1 trillion US annually by 2030 to fight the effects of climate change. The money is required to rebuild damaged infrastructure, reduce emissions and adapt to increasingly destructive weather events. The LDC delegation represented 45 countries and 1.1 billion people. Despite contributing only about one per cent of global emissions (2022), the World Meteorological Organization estimated in 2020 that the LDCs experienced 70 per cent of the deaths caused by climate-related disasters.
In the end, the delegates for the LDCs and the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) reluctantly accepted the offer of $300 billion US annually, payable by 2035. This amount is only slightly more than an increase due to inflation of the funds previously committed. It is unclear whether the money will come in the form of grants instead of loans, which the recipient countries have little capacity to pay off.
Sadly, this COP placed most of the burden of paying for climate change on the countries that are the least responsible for the threat. The LDCs and the AOSIS pay for our excessive use of fossil fuel products with the loss of manmade and natural infrastructure, such as arable land and forests and – most expensive of all – with their lives.
COP29 marches backwards
At the other end of the climate change responsibility continuum are the world’s fossil fuel companies and the top polluting countries. Burning coal and oil has raised the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by about 50 per cent since the Industrial Revolution. “Natural” gas is mostly methane: a powerful greenhouse gas that is around 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere.
At last year’s COP in Dubai, delegates took the landmark step of declaring that the world needs to transition off fossil fuels. This was the first time since the Paris Agreement that the elephant in the room was acknowledged. There was hope that we had turned a crucial corner and were about to embark on actions that would rapidly decrease our emissions and start to lower the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that is heating our planet.
That hope was quashed this year when Saudi Arabia and its allies refused to confirm the UAE declaration. Small surprise given the context of the conference. The president of Azerbaijan opened the COP by declaring oil and gas “a gift from God.” According to Global Witness, fossil fuel lobbyists numbered 1,773, more than the delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined and more than any country attending the conference except Azerbaijan (the host), Brazil (the COP30 host), and Türkiye. Clearly, the fossil fuel companies feel the need to protect their $7 trillion U.S. in annual subsidies.
Where’s our own ‘climate lens’?
The second event was the presentation of OC Transpo’s draft budget, which contained notable fare increases for those least able to afford the hikes: pre-teens, post-secondary students and senior citizens. As former transit chair Alex Cullen noted, increasing fares seems a counterproductive strategy for increasing ridership. It doesn’t seem fair to expect the most financially vulnerable customers to bear increased costs when affordability in general is such a concern.
Transportation is Ottawa’s second biggest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The transition to a clean and sustainable transit system will improve personal and environmental health outcomes in our city by reducing air pollution. A reliable and affordable transit system will reduce gridlock on our roads, further decreasing air pollution and climate change effects. As a service that provides both social and climate goods that benefit even people who don’t use public transit, OC Transpo deserves funding that is stable and sufficient.
Who pays?
Ottawa is struggling to return to its pre-2020 ridership levels and is expected to suffer the largest decrease in transit subsidies in the province in 2025. But subsidies aren’t the only possible income stream. In Canada and around the world, jurisdictions are leveraging development rights, so that those who profit from proximity to transit stations help fund the service they benefit from financially. (For more suggestions, see Catherine McKenney and Neil Saravanamuttoo’s “Fix Your City” substack.)
Regardless of who forks over the money, with climate change we will all pay sooner or later. Even fossil fuel companies.
What you can do
Take public transit.
Contact your councillor, MPP, MP and the appropriate government ministers, and tell them you support clean, affordable and reliable public transport.
Cecile Wilson has lived in the Glebe for more than two decades.