Breaking Through the Slow Walk: Climate Delay Discourses and the Politics of Closing the Implementation Gap

Abstract:  Climate change has slipped down media and political agendas, and even proven climate policies now stall at implementation. Since 2024–25, Canada has scrapped its consumer carbon tax, rolled back its Electric Vehicle Availability Standard, abandoned the oil and gas emissions cap, and embraced proposals for new fossil fuel projects. Today's obstruction rarely denies climate science. Instead, it spreads subtler "delay discourses" that contain kernels of truth, such as the need for just transitions. Drawing on surveys, experiments, and modelling across Canada, the US, and Latin America, this talk shows how these narratives erode policy support. Up to half of US survey respondents endorse delay discourses. Western Canadians overestimate their climate-related job-loss risk more than threefold, and engagement with delay narratives widens that gap. Party cues outweigh the role of climate policy substance. I conclude by introducing a new SSHRC project that uses AI, modelling, and public deliberation to map and counter climate misinformation, with the goal of reviving Canadian climate policymaking in ways that also advance the country's economic and political priorities.

Bio:  Dr. Katya Rhodes is an Associate Professor of Public Administration at the University of Victoria, where she leads the ZEST research group. Her interdisciplinary research combines energy-economy modelling, surveys, experiments, and social media analysis to design climate policies that are effective and politically durable. Previously, she worked in the BC government advising on CleanBC’s climate plan. She is a Lead Author on the IPCC Seventh Assessment Report (Working Group III), an editor at Nature Communications Sustainability, and an advisor to Canada's Sustainable Development Goals Council.