Re.Climate’s senior advisor Dr. Louise Comeau previewed our latest report, Building a Social Mandate for Climate Action: Communicating Affordability (Technical Report). Jim Stanford, the director of the Centre for Future Work, shared the findings of their groundbreaking report, Counting Costs: Impacts of the 2022 Oil Price Shock for Canadian Consumers and Workers.
Economic volatility has unfortunately become the new norm since the COVID-19 pandemic. No surprise, affordability remains a top concern for Canadians.
In response to this, communicators have pivoted to affordability messaging, but they are facing pushback.
Re.Climate wanted to understand why.
What the research tells us about affordability messaging
For the third year in a row, Re.Climate’s senior advisor Dr. Louise Comeau partnered with the Environics Institute to conduct a national survey and focus groups on Canadians’ views of electrification and clean energy regulation.
This year, they added new questions around affordability and tested narratives that might counter the public’s reluctance to tackle climate change.
The headline? Affordability is about a lot more than just money.
First, it matters how people perceive clean technology and their ability to access it.
According to the survey results, over a third of respondents feel that only the wealthy could afford heat pumps and EVs.
Twenty-nine per cent feel angry about their perception that they’re being pressured to buy these things, while 20 per cent responded that they feel judged by elites who “flaunt” this technology.
Finally, 17 per cent felt these solutions are just a passing fad and unreliable.
Even those who are interested in these technologies feel they are out of reach. Forty-seven per cent of respondents said they have no choice but to use their existing vehicle and furnace, but only 15 per cent said incentives make heat pumps or EVs more affordable.
To sum up, Canadians are not convinced that the high upfront cost of heat pumps and EVs will pay off over the long term; they are angry and feel judged for not using this technology, and they are skeptical that incentive programs will actually help with the cost.
The role of fairness
Clearly, there are many emotions involved in clean tech solutions, anger standing out in particular.
“We’re actually getting a sense of what people think is fair,” said Comeau.
For example, people might not think it’s fair that most incentives require you to spend the money first and get a rebate months later.
They might also balk at messaging that tells them to buy heat pumps and EVs if they sense they are being asked to buy unreliable technology and aren’t connecting this tech to combatting climate change.
After all, only 49 per cent of respondents correctly identified fossil fuels, like oil, coal, and gas, as the primary cause of climate change.
Fairness concerns are also at play when people generally consider the transition to electrification.
People are concerned not only about how a regulation might affect them, but also how it will impact low-income households. Additionally, they want to understand its fairness: will those who have contributed most to climate change bear the greatest financial or other consequences?
“Most importantly though, people want to know: does this actually protect the environment? Does it actually reduce emissions? And that is super, super important,” said Comeau.
Keeping fossil fuels in our sights
The survey and focus group data remind us that just because climate change isn’t the top priority, people are still concerned about it.
They want the next generation to have access to renewable energy, they want more green jobs, and they would choose more renewable energy to power their homes over fossil fuels.
It’s tempting to see the fixation on affordability and respond by focusing hard on that message, maybe even eliminating the climate aspect of your narrative.
However, according to Comeau, that is precisely that wrong approach, especially since fossil fuel companies are the culprits behind not only climate change but our current energy affordability concerns too.
“Of course, affordability has been a big concern of Canadians,” said Jim Stanford, the director of the Centre for Future Work.
“The petroleum industry has jumped right in to try and take advantage of that, diverting people’s fear and uncertainty and anger about that and use it against anything to do with climate or regulations.”
The centre’s latest report, Counting the Costs, documents the role fossil fuel companies have played in inflation and the rise in prices over the last three years.
The report is a deep dive into speculative financial markets, corporate greed, and deregulated oil prices.
During the webinar, Stanford recounted how a “financial speculative shock” sent oil prices soaring in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and investors bet that oil would be in high demand and short supply in the future.
This set off a cascade of price spikes in gasoline, natural gas, and home heating oil. In turn, those who rely on those products—namely businesses—raised their prices to offset this higher cost.
Though prices have now started to settle down, gasoline, natural gas, and home heating oil prices have not returned to pre-2022 levels. Rather, fossil fuel companies used the financial volatility and soaring prices to line their pockets.
“Virtually all of the money that consumers paid extra because of these higher prices and subsequent rise in interest rates was reflected in increased profits for the oil and gas sector,” said Stanford.
“And in 2022, they earned their highest profits ever, and compared to the pre-pandemic period, compared to 2019 oil and gas industry profits in Canada grew 1,000 per cent.”
“If you want to know why affordability became an issue, this is the biggest single reason. There’s no other factor, not food, not shelter, not transportation, directly, but the fossil fuel price spike was the biggest single thing that set this whole thing off.”
Meeting the moment
Climate communicators must move beyond the “climate vs affordability” debate, especially when a federal election is in full swing, with parties discussing new oil pipelines, Trump, and tariffs.
Now more than ever, anyone who is concerned about climate change needs to speak up. There’s an enormous opportunity to show Canadians that staying tethered to fossil fuels is bad for the economy and for the environment.
“Go through the front door on climate change,” advised Comeau. “It is the issues, concerns, and risks associated with climate change that get people’s attention. It’s about the things we love, future generations, protecting nature.”
However, this doesn’t mean you should share the same message across all your audiences.
Using resources like Re.Climate’s Five Canadas playbook, identify what your audience cares about and show how climate change threatens that while clearly demonstrating how they can be part of the solution.
Comeau found, for example, that loss-framed messaging (you’ll have higher energy bills in the future if you stick to your gas-powered furnace) works better for less engaged audiences than gain-framed messaging (your life will become more affordable after buying a heat pump).
She also noted that one of the Five Canadas segments, Civic nationals, feels strongly about making polluters pay. Framing clean energy regulations as measures that ensure oil and gas companies take responsibility for climate change will resonate with that audience.
Of course, good messaging is only one component of getting people on board with clean tech solutions.
“We also need to reform programs and have more concierge services and more expanded and robust programs for lower- to moderate-income households,” said Comeau.
Climate communicators play a critical role in creating the perception that Canada can combat climate change and that the solutions we have on hand will make a difference.
With so much at stake, we have to be loud and clear that climate action is not a luxury but part of the puzzle in making people’s lives better and more affordable.
Five recommendations for communicators who want to talk about affordability
- Current users of heat pumps and EVs are your champions. Feature them in your messaging. Let them tell their story.
- Do more to answer non-financial questions like how the solution or technology works and how it affects the users’ quality of life. Describe the process and tell stories about how others accessed incentives. Remember, it’s all about the process!
- Explain options in less technical ways for those who are less excited about the inner workings of a heat pump or EV but who may be more concerned about reliability or other attributes like comfort and ease of use.
- Emphasize the reliability of solutions through demos and user stories.
- And, crucially, don’t stop making the connection between fossil fuels and climate change. The Centre for Future Work’s report makes clear that the fossil fuel industry does a lot of harm to both the planet and Canadians’ pocketbooks. Don’t let them off the hook.
Both reports contain a lot to unpack, far more than we can possibly cover in one blog post. What’s clear, though, is that the cost of living and affordability messaging are more complicated than we tend to think.
It’s up to all of us to tell the story of how fossil fuels make life unaffordable and damage our environment.
Resources from the chat
We love how engaged our webinar audiences are. Here are some great resources that were shared by audience members during the webinar.
From the panellists
- Rabble: Fossil fuels are hurting affordability, not helping it
- The Canadian Climate Institute: EXPLAINER: The differences between industrial and consumer carbon pricing
- The Canadian Climate Institute: How large-emitter trading systems keep Canada’s exporters competitive
- The Canadian Climate Institute: How to modernize Canada’s large-emitter trading systems
- 440 Megatonnes: Which Canadian climate policies will have the biggest impact by 2030?
- 440 Megatonnes: Five recommendations to modernize Canada’s large-emitter trading systems
- 440 Megatonnes: New analysis shows how Canada’s industrial carbon pricing protects competitiveness and profitability
From the audience
Upcoming events:
- Green Communities Canada: 2025 National Progress Report on Retrofitting Canada’s Homes April 3, 2025 2-3pm ET
News Stories and Releases
- Canada’s National Observer: Canadian fossil fuel execs push feds for Trump-style emergency powers
- Canada’s National Observer: Opinion: Ontario, please purchase the lowest-cost electricity
- The Cornwall Standard-Freeholder: Opponents vow to block approved battery energy storage system north of Dunvegan
- Institute for Research on Public Policy: New IRPP research shows emissions pricing has little effect on affordability
- Alberta Wilderness Association: AWA Statement on the Government of Alberta’s Draft Mature Asset Strategy
Organizations
Actions
- The Council of Canadians: sign-up to host a kitchen table conversation
- Cooperate for Canada: Take Action: Individuals
- Environment and Climate Change Canada: Engagement and reports, oil sands mining effluent
- All of Us Together: Build a People’s Power Grid
