cause = initiate

drive = an ongoing event

Example:

The closing of the isthmus of Panama by continental tectonics three million years ago re-routed the ocean currents and caused the cycle of one hundred thousand years of intense glaciation and the ten thousand years of interglacial warmth that we are undergoing now.

The continuing transfer of heat to the North by the Gulf Stream is one of the main engines that drives this cycle and keeps our brief Interglacial World balmy.