A guest blog posting in honour of Earth Day (April 22nd), from our British High Commission Ottawa, Climate and Prosperity Advisor, Adrienne Yuen:
“There are no passengers on spaceship Earth. We are all crew.”
– Herbert “Marshall” McLuhan
This past Sunday marked the world’s 42nd Earth Day. It’s a great way to refocus our attention on the significance of the planet we live on. A reminder that, and as far as we know, it’s the only home we’ve got. Plus a nice occasion to clean up a beach, plant a tree, take a deep breath of fresh spring air. But to take a more cynical point of view: if the Earth is vital to our existence, why just one day? Why not Earth Everyday?
But I do think we are getting there. Just several years ago the environment was a niche concern. Now we see environmental considerations in the mainstream, their gradual integration into the ongoing functions and decisions of society. We see sustainability offices, carbon offset groups composting programmes. Academic degrees in environmental sustainability are increasingly common. Every company wants to “go green.” Individuals, businesses, and governments alike understand the impetus to improve.
The UK shows that ambitious public policies are possible. The prime minister has pledged to lead the “greenest government ever.” Britain has the strongest climate change targets in the developed world, enshrined in law: 50% below 1990 levels by 2025, and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. The UK is the first country to create a bank dedicated to greening the economy, with £3-billion by 2015 to the Green Investment Bank to help fix the market failures that hold back private investment in clean technologies. The UK is helping developing countries respond to the climate challenge as well, investing £2.9 billion by 2015 to adapt to climate change, make the low-carbon transition, and cut emissions from the destruction of forests.
As the UK Canada network’s lead officer on climate and prosperity, Earth Day is significant to me because it prompts me to pause and look back. In doing so, I realise how far we have come on the environment file. The title of my job says it succinctly—address climate change and prosper, not in spite of it. It’s an odd argument to make, and sometimes my fellow Canadians are sceptical. But as environmental trends build growing evidence of a significant change in our physical environment, and policy and investment trends point to a shift in the global political economy, I think we’re on to something.
Britain, I think, gets it. It gets that we aren’t just passengers here. We are all crew.
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