By Haley Cullingham

Clare Demerse, Associate Director of Climate Change for the Pembina Institute
“To be honest, the Canadians I talk to about Climate Change are usually more inspiring than their political leaders,” says Clare Demerse, Associate Director of Climate Change for the Pembina Institute, a Sustainable Energy Think Tank. “We’re already feeling the impacts of Climate Change around the world through things like melting glaciers and stronger tropical storms. Here in Canada, climate change means that we’ll see less ice in the Arctic seas, very dry summers on the prairies, and stronger storms on the east and west coast.” Clare suggests reading here for a great backgrounder on causes and effects of Climate Change. “Scientists predict that the damage from climate change could be extremely serious for people, economies and ecosystems around the world. Even though they’ve done the least to contribute to this problem, it’s the world’s poorest people who will be hurt first and hardest by the impacts of global warming.”

SDTC: What is Canada’s role in Climate Change? How has Canada contributed to this?
Canada is one of the top 10 greenhouse gas polluters in the world, so we’ve made a significant contribution to this problem. Canada is also one of the world’s richest countries, which means that we have a responsibility to help poor countries as they cope with the consequences of climate change.

Unfortunately, Canada has been a laggard so far in tackling climate change. Our government hasn’t put in place the most important policies we need to cut our greenhouse gas pollution.

What is your role in the fight for climate justice? Why do you feel this role is important?
To me, climate justice means finding solutions to climate change that are fair for people around the world, and that are ambitious enough to protect us from dangerous climate change.

I work for a sustainable energy think tank called the Pembina Institute (http://www.pembina.org/). We provide policy and technical advice about climate solutions to governments, companies and communities, and we advocate for stronger climate policies in Canada.

In my own work, I spend a lot of time on climate justice issues, like pushing the government of Canada to provide its fair share of financial support to poorer countries so they can adapt to the consequences of climate change and reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions.

In your opinion, what is the most important issue pertaining to the planet right now?
No surprise, I’m going to go with the one I work on, climate change. The risk to all of us if we get this wrong are so serious. Climate change also makes lots of other existing important issues – like reducing poverty – even tougher.

Where would you most like to see change happen?
This is a global issue, so we need to see change everywhere. But because I’m a Canadian, I’d love to see Canada move from a laggard to a leader. I think that’s what Canadians want – but we still have lots of work to do in persuading our governments to see climate change as a top priority.

What would you tell young women looking to get involved in climate justice?
We need you! All of us can do things in our own lives to reduce our greenhouse gas “footprint” – like finding alternatives to driving, or choosing local foods. And politicians need to hear from you: governments won’t take the kinds of actions we need unless they know that people like you care about climate change and climate justice.

What fact about climate change, and the state of the environment, do you think people would be most shocked to learn?
People are usually surprised when they hear that Canada is among the world’s top 10 greenhouse gas polluters, or that only about 2% of our electricity comes from “green” power like wind and solar.

A lot of people don’t realize that the U.S. is already outspending Canada dramatically on investments in renewable energy: in 2010, President Obama’s budget contains 18 times more funding, per capita, for those solutions than Canada’s federal budget does.

And people are usually a bit shocked to hear that, according to federal government projections from 2008, 95% of the growth in Canada’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions will come from developing the oil sands in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Looking back at changes from last April, what has disappointed you this year? Inspired you?
The UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen was definitely the toughest part of last year. Organizations like ours were calling for a fair, ambitious and binding deal, and the governments there came up short.

But in another way, Copenhagen was also pretty inspiring. Lots and lots of people got in touch with us to ask questions – we could see that Canadians really cared about the outcomes and Canada’s performance. It’s important that world leaders come together to try to get a deal done, even thought they still have a lot more work to do. It was great to see the thousands and thousands of people (in Copenhagen itself, but also back home) pushing their leaders to be more ambitious.

Why was Copenhagen considered such a failure?
The agreement that leaders reached in Copenhagen is really just an outline, and right now the actions that countries have committed to aren’t enough to reach the goals they’ve set. Countries need to raise their level of ambition at home, and rebuild trust so they can work together constructively to get a strong global treaty.

What should young women be reading to keep themselves informed?
There are lots of good books and articles about climate change by people like Al Gore, but I find that blogs are also really important in keeping up with this issue. We have a Pembina blog on climate change (http://climate.pembina.org/blogs), but I also find that Switchboard from the Natural Resources Defence Council and Climate Progress are really good for understanding what’s happening in the US, and Warming Up to Reality does a really good job in Canada.

What inspired you to get involved? What keeps you inspired?
My parents got me interested in environmental issues when I was really young. I grew up in the suburbs, and my mom used to be the only person in our neighbourhood to ride her bike to the grocery store instead of driving. My dad was always trying to get us to turn off the lights when we left the room to save energy. And I’ve always loved being outside.

What keeps me inspired now is realizing how important it is for us to make progress – the consequences of getting this wrong are really scary. And there’s such a big upside to getting this right: I’d love to live in a country that has walkable cities and great public transit. I think we have all the ingenuity and talent to build climate solutions here at home, and I’m tired of seeing Canada fall to the back of the pack when we could be among the leaders.

What do you, personally, hope to achieve by next year?
Good question – have to admit that I haven’t really thought that far ahead…The next global climate negotiations are in Mexico in December, and I’d like to be there, working with all my colleagues and allies to get a breakthrough there.

What do you hope Canada as a country will have achieved by next year?
We need to start charging a price for greenhouse gas pollution, so that clean options become cheaper than dirty alternatives. Right now the federal government’s policy is to wait for the US before we take that step, but frankly that’s just not an acceptable approach – this issue is way too urgent to be waiting around in that way. And we need to start contributing our fair share of the support that poorer countries need to tackle climate change.

How do you feel about the Canadian political landscape surrounding climate change?
Sometimes it can be very demoralizing. There are weeks when we see our leaders afraid to go beyond business as usual, or when our politicians spend most of their energy arguing amongst themselves. But just this month, we saw politicians from all three opposition parties in Ottawa work together to push forward on important legislation and statements. We also have examples of leadership in some of our provincial and city governments – places like British Columbia or Toronto. But to be honest, the Canadians I talk to about climate change are usually more inspiring than their political leaders.