Politicians are green until they're intimidated by the electoral price: Don Pittis

You can boast to your grandchildren that you lived through a technological revolution. That is, if you're lucky.

But rather than speeding us through a capitalist-led transformation to a high-tech low-carbon economy, politicians seem to be getting cold feet, fearful that voters won't accept the short-term pain of the costs involved.

Everything sounded so different only nine months ago, when world leaders held hands as they celebrated a "historic" deal to defeat climate change.

Backing away?

Suddenly, it seems, now that it's time to pay the bill, everyone has forgotten their recent enthusiasm for saving the world. There are signs politicians may be backing away from the difficult process of convincing voters that making the transition is worth the cost.

In Ontario, Premier Kathleen Wynne appears to be retreating from one of the essential parts of making green power work: higher electricity costs. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is being urged by a ghost from the past, former prime minister Brian Mulroney, to push through the Energy East pipeline.

In British Columbia, home to one of the most environmentally friendly electorates in North America, Premier Christy Clark has left increased carbon taxes out of the province's latest climate plan and is pushing ahead with new fossil fuel developments.

Nobody said fighting climate change would be easy. But despite some enormous difficulties, we may be just on the verge of a tipping point that experts say will be good for business and good for the entire economy.

• Climate change will push Canadian business onside

Signs are everywhere, but there were two transformational announcements just this week.

Only three years ago when I wrote about the Tesla battery-powered automotive revolution, doubters outnumbered supporters of the idea. The skeptics said electric cars were too expensive, too short-range and technically impractical.

Now the world's largest car companies have joined the race to perfect the battery-powered car. This week, U.S. giant General Motors released the all-electric Bolt, with a range of nearly 400 kilometres, outdoing Tesla.

Another reason offered for why green technology would never take off was that wind and solar were intermittent power sources requiring fossil fuel backup. Battery technology, we were told by groups like the Calgary-based climate change skeptics group Friends of Science, will not be adequate.

Well this week, that objection, too, took another big step toward not being true, if it ever was.

On the Scottish island of Gigha, a company called redT is installing something called vanadium flow batteries that the company says will prove the technology is ready for widespread commercial use.

"The technology has moved faster than anyone has expected," company chief executive Scott McGregor told the Financial Times.

Electric cars and vanadium storage may not yet be in a state of perfection, but they are two examples in a single week that show that technology being created by disruptive industries is advancing by leaps and bounds.

Going through a disruptive energy transition is nothing new to us. We did the same thing when we went from wood heat to coal.

In that transition, politicians escaped most of the blame because wood was running out and getting expensive. That's just not true this time.

Peak oil?

It's hard to imagine that as recently as 2009 we were all doing stories about peak oil, the moment when oil would go the way of wood, sending prices up toward a prohibitive $300 a barrel.

For environmentalists and oil producers, peak oil now seems like a bad joke. Another thing we also learned this week was that the glut of oil on world markets is growing. And there is plenty more in the pipeline. This week we heard that  the Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea, one of the world's largest new discoveries, will go into production next month.

If oil and natural gas continue to be cheap, the only thing standing between us and a world damaged by climate change will be the resolve of politicians. 

• Ontario throne speech promises electricity bill rebates
• Justin Trudeau's leadership measured by the pipeline question
• B.C. Premier Christy Clark's climate change plan does not raise carbon tax 

Energy has to be more expensive. Pipeline opponents must be given a voice, even if it hurts the established giants of the doomed fossil fuel economy. Carbon has to cost us more.

But in a democracy, politicians can't act alone. Without loud voices of political support, environmentally inclined governments quite rightly fear they will be pitched out and replaced by those willing to sacrifice the future to relieve short-term pain.  

Capitalism has demonstrated it's up to the job. All that green technologies need to become the motors of a brilliant new disruptive industrial boom is a little economic push to get them over the hump.

Changing our ways will mean a little pain. If voters are able to bite the bullet and make it happen, if politicians can help persuade them, that will be something to tell the grandchildren.

Follow Don on Twitter @don_pittis

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