About WeDidIt!?

Origins

The idea for the We Did It!? project emerged from the coincidence of two disparate events. First, in June of 2021, the Canadian government enacted the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, enshrining its Net Zero by 2050 pledge into law. Second, we learned that Lund University in Sweden was in the midst of creating LU375, a version of their university magazine set in 2041 (the 375th birthday for Lund University) reflecting on what higher education might look like 20 years in the future.


This kind of future-history storytelling has been gaining momentum in climate circles (see for example Lund’s Museum of Carbon Ruins; Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s book on collapse of civilization) in addition to a recent explosion of climate fiction—clifi (e.g., this Grist.org project, too many novels to name, or Manjana Milkoreit, Meredith Martinez, and Joey Eschrich’s volume of clifi short story contest winners, Everything Change). To our knowledge none of these projects have addressed the pursuit of net zero goals (and especially not in Canada).

That said, there are several think-tank reports on pathways to decarbonization and net zero, some specifically about Canada (e.g., Canadian Climate Institute, Canada’s Net Zero Advisory Body) that discuss policy and technical needs for pursuing net zero. We drew on these reports for our world building exercises.


Our motivation to pursue this project was the idea that we might be able to develop a future-history approach that used stories to help people imagine both what a net zero world might look like in Canada and how it might come about, but ground those stories in understandings of social, political, and technical dynamics from the social and sustainability sciences. We hoped to produce engaging stories through grounded imagination.

Our lofty goal for the project was/is to contribute to and help catalyze the conversation around pursuing Net Zero in Canada—to enhance the policy process and spark a public conversation.

Methods & Processes

Our process started with desk research in two areas, facilitated by our excellent research assistants (Carley Chavara, Ella Hartsoe, and Samantha Tristen). First, we explored the range of net zero reports produced by the Canadian government and Canadian think tanks as well as the academic literature on net zero pursuits to get a sense of how the policy world is envisioning the pursuit of net zero and what it would take technically and in terms of economic, technical, and social policy/politics to achieve. We also reviewed the literature on future-oriented methodologies (focused mainly on backcasting, scenario development, premortem analysis, and climate imaginaries) to guide our thinking on how to develop stories with a backbone of social science knowledge.

Second,  we convened a small workshop with experts on energy transitions and climate policy in Canada. We asked the experts to reflect on four questions:

  • How might you expect actual net zero in energy (assuming we achieve it) to deviate from a utopian version of net zero in the Canadian energy sector (i.e. net zero plus democracy, equity, justice, etc.)?

  • What do you think is most likely to derail net zero processes/momentum in Canada?

  • What existing drivers/processes are pushing toward or away from achieving net zero?

  • What are the most promising factors/processes that could change trajectories moving forward?

These discussions helped us to develop a roster of dynamics and factors that could be the baseline for stories—we grouped these into enablers, obstacles, wildcards, and theories of change:

Enablers:

  • Decolonization – Empowers those previously disempowered

  • Eco-Justice – Imagined future where non-humans play a greater role in governance

  • Community energy – Democratized energy systems; indigenous sovereignty

  • Export economy – Focus on new exports transforms Canada’s political economy

  • Climate impacts – Intensifying natural disasters catalyzes public support

  • Political coalitions – Minority governments

  • Political activism – Children’s crusades / youth movements 

  • Intergovernmental relations – Government coordination on a national electricity grid

  • Markets – Low carbon energy becomes cost competitive

  • Industrial policy – Interaction between activists, voters, and a pro-net zero business community grows a green coalition

Obstacles

  • Technological solutions – fail to materialize, focus on energy efficiency fails

  • Natural resource endowment – New fossil reserves are discovered

  • Regional differences – rural/remote vs. urban areas require different solutions; regional differences across Canada in production and consumption of energy, natural resources

  • Renewable energy – replicates existing inequities under extractive capitalism

  • Public apathy – Lack of interest and public support for fuel switching

  • Regulations and implementation – domestic and international offsets

  • Lack of political leadership – Election of populist governments

  • Domestic opposition – tax rebellions, opposition to exporting clean energy

  • Lack of strategic vision – piecemeal policymaking

Wildcards

  • Financial industry – could help or hinder green business coalitions

  • Climate refugees – could put increased demand and pressure on resources but also could increase Canada’s capacity to respond to climate change

  • Feelings and emotion – Anger/anxiety could be channelled to either enable or slow transformative change

  • Heterogenous interests – e.g., Different indigenous futures may push in different directions

  • International politics – e.g., The Ukraine crisis

Theories of Change

  • Reversal – On “wrong” trajectory>>something changes>>totally new trajectory

  • S-curve – On “right” trajectory>>gets stuck>>something changes>>becomes unstuck

  • Incremental – Slow build-up of changes result in transformational change

  • Exogenous shock – On a trajectory>>exogenous shock makes status quo impossible>>new trajectory

  • Convergence –Interests and actors converge>>new path forward is made possible

  • Simultaneous/Parallel – Uncoordinated efforts in parallel push in same direction 

  • Bottom-up – Non-elites push for change

  • Top-Down – Elites push for change

  • Unintended Consequences – Social/political/policy change has unanticipated effects>>create opportunity for change

  • Learning Effects – Change in one location/group copies/mirrors change in another location/group

Our third step was convening a small workshop with writers to get a sense of what they would need from experts and from discussions in the symposium to develop stories. The workshop provided excellent plans for structuring the writing workshop to best engage both writers and experts.

For the writing symposium itself, we brought together about 20 experts (some from the first workshop) and writers (some from the second workshop) for three days of discussions and brainstorming of story ideas. Leading up to the symposium the editors developed initial world-building parameters to focus the discussion:

Initial 2050 World Building Parameters for Discussion

  1. Canada has achieved Net Zero emissions in the sense that its carbon emissions have been reduced significantly (60+%) and the rest have been offset through a combination of natural/technological offsets/capture and/or through the purchase of offset credits.

  2. The world has not crashed nor has it abandoned climate action (we’re not starting from a dystopian foundation or a post-apocalypse rebuilding scenario). Substantial progress has been made globally towards the Paris Agreement targets (though, of course, we can talk about variation and trials and tribulations of getting to this outcome). Countries in the Global North are in the same(ish) position as Canada, countries in the Global South are transitioning.

  3. Climate impacts have increased, some are quite severe, but haven’t led to a civilization-ending scenario (see parameter 1 above). We can discuss whether we want to include a singular major catastrophe (like the heat wave in Ministry for the Future) or not. Keeping with the optimistic(ish) tone, we suggest that the world of our e-zine is one where the world held the line at 2 degrees but overshoots 1.5 degrees.

  4. Technology has developed apace in the way that most Net Zero scenarios envision (e.g., some of the carbon reduction technologies imagined come to fruition) but there hasn’t been a technological miracle (e.g., cold fusion).

  5. Geoengineering (especially solar radiation management) is still a matter of debate but has not been deployed at an operational scale.

  6. The full range of global political dynamics can be on the table (within the realm of parameter 2). Global social movements, violence, authoritarian/democratic friction can be part of the wider world in which Canada is situated. We should discuss at the outset how we want to characterize the 2050 state of the Canadian state. Our initial thought is still democratic, still federal, still struggling with reconciliation with Indigenous Nations.

Social Science and technical kernels in each story

Each story was built on (or references) one or more change dynamics that social science and/or technical experts have identified as key to delivering a just and comprehensive Net Zero Canada. Some of the stories highlight changes that are not made or changes that are only made after other, problematic choices are tried first. Others explore unintended consequences and unforeseen connections between change dynamics. The stories differ on how ‘surface’ the change dynamics are in the narrative, but each draw on kernels of social/technical dynamics from academic study that illuminate what might be necessary to achieve net zero and/or possible consequences (positive, neutral, or negative) of pursuing net zero policies.

 

 The stories self-consciously reference changes that are needed/important in pursuit of net zero rather than exploring specifically how those changes came about. For instance, the Just Transition Act of 2032 in Alberta is mentioned in a few stories and is crucial to the substance of the stories being told, but no story details how the act came about. Similarly, a couple of stories refer to changes in the national grid, but no story takes that development as its main narrative. It is an open question as to which approach is more effective at sparking conversation. The project is experimental. Future volumes might add stories that explore the specific emergence of a ‘necessary’ policy or change, for example. Or, perhaps a more atmospheric approach will better generate conversation than a more fine-grained approach to change dynamics (which might veer more towards backcasting).

 

Setting aside how ‘surface’ the change dynamics are, each story idea emerged from small group discussions of the leverage points, technical requirements, and change dynamics mentioned above. Groups worked from a specific area (e.g., normative change or an infrastructural shift) and then built characters and a narrative that either 1. explored those specific kernels or 2. elaborated the ramifications for people/society that arose from those specific kernels. In this way, the social science ideas about change (and obstacles to it) as well as the technical aspects of pursuing net zero provided a seed around which the stories developed. To be clear, this is not about producing net zero scenarios or proposing an exact policy/technical pathway. It is, instead, designed to provide a way for readers to imagine (concretely and in a relatable way) the possibilities of policy and technical choices. In the blurbs that follow, we identify the levers and technical or social/political change dynamics assumed or implicit at the foundation of the stories or explored through the storytelling.