On March 13, U of T’s Hart House Social Justice Committee hosted a collaborative climate crisis workshop in the Hart House Music Room with student groups Climate Justice U of T and Green Leading U of T, as well as the U of T NGO Science for Peace. The event, titled “The Climate Crisis: What is the basis for hope,” brought together students, academics, and activists with the aim of combating the sense of doom often surrounding the climate crisis.
The speakers were Professor Emeritus Richard Sandbrook and Professor Danny Harvey — from the political and environmental science departments, respectively. Each offered their expert analysis on the future trajectory of the climate crisis and reasons to remain optimistic.
A political problem with a technical solution
Sandbrook opened the workshop with a sombre but constructive assessment. “I would argue that climate change is a wicked political problem,” he said during his speech. Sandbrook also noted, in an interview with The Varsity, that although technical solutions to reduce carbon emissions exist, “to carry those through in a coordinated, long-term manner, we need to have the political will to do so.”
Sandbrook stressed that the power of the fossil fuel economy — including oil companies, banks, insurers, and investors — poses a massive obstacle to political action. “If you didn’t have a government… saying outright that we’re phasing out fossil fuels over 10 or 15 years, what you would have is a collapse of the stock market because of the stranded assets,” he warned. In the context of the climate crisis, “stranded assets” means the depreciation of resources, impacting industries like oil, gas, and coal.
Despite this, Sandbrook sees a path forward through non-violent activism. “Attention to nonviolent action and civil disobedience is very important in the future for getting climate policies that will be effective,” he said.
Currently, the importance of environmental activism has never been greater. The 2015 Paris Agreement set a goal to limit further global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, Sanbrook noted that many experts do not feel that 1.5 degrees Celsius is a realistic target given the current rate of warming. He stressed the importance of aiming for 1.6 degrees Celsius if 1.5 degrees Celsius is unattainable, and 1.7 degrees Celsius if necessary. “We [must] fight for every 10th of a degree… because every 10th degree makes an enormous difference in terms of the volatility of climate.”
Signs of progress and reasons for optimism
Complementing Sandbrook’s political insight, Harvey offered an empirical overview of recent climate trends and why he remains “quite optimistic.” According to Harvey, the International Energy Agency (IEA) now predicts that global fossil fuel emissions will peak this decade and begin declining by 2030. “This is the first time ever a major energy organization is projecting that we’ve met peak emissions, and they’re going to be on the way down,” he said.
Harvey also pointed to demographic trends as a basis for hope; “70 per cent of the world’s population is now at or below replacement-level fertility,” which means that the current birth rate does not surpass death rates. He added that lower population growth could ease future pressure on food systems and emissions. “If we only need to feed nine billion people instead of 11 billion… it [will] be a far easier task.”
Another hopeful indicator is that global meat consumption, a major source of greenhouse gases, has plateaued and even declined per capita. “That’s also ground for optimism, and a lot of the credit goes to the younger generation,” said Harvey, who noted the rise in plant-based diets and awareness of animal ethics among youth.
Perhaps what I found most striking was Harvey’s analysis of energy generation trends. “Fossil fuel plus nuclear [energy] has plateaued,” he said, noting an upward trend in clean energy (wind, solar, and hydro), and that the manufacturing capacity is at 80 per cent of the level of fossil fuel and nuclear energy.
While storage and grid integration challenges remain, Harvey believes that renewable energy is becoming too economically viable to ignore. Since “China is going to have a lot of excess manufacturing capacity,” renewable energy is “now cheaper than fossil fuels just about everywhere in the world.”
A call to action — and to hope
Lisanne Koehler is a fourth-year international relations, political science, and european affairs student, and co-chair of the Hart House Social Justice Committee. In an interview with The Varsity, she described the climate crisis workshop’s goal as providing hope through action. “We want to encourage students… to give them some hope [that] what you’re doing actually matters.”.
For both Sandbrook and Harvey, the message is clear: while the climate crisis is serious, positive changes can still happen. It will require political courage and sustained collective action, but there is still much that is worth fighting for.
As Harvey told The Varsity, the transition to a carbon-free economy is happening and it is unstoppable. “The only question is how fast it will happen and who is going to benefit most along the way.” To Harvey, those who act accordingly will thrive, and, eventually, so will the whole world, from a stabilized climate.
