Here’s the last in a series of three posts about shifting facts and climate change, from a talk in a series called Rights to a Green Future in Utrecht earlier this month. The general idea is that the facts of climate change are shifting around, and I think that’s doing something to moral reflection on action. The first post, about history and cumulative emissions, is here. The second, about the present state of play and equal per capital shares, is here. This post is about arguments for action that depend on some future good.
These arguments are hypothetical in form: if we value a sustainable world, a green future, a nice and habitable planet like the one we’ve got for those who come after us, then, the argument goes, such and such a sort of mitigation or adaptation strategy is now demanded. Sometimes the argument is reversed: if we want to avoid a future with a lot of miserable lives in it – suffering we might dodge if we choose wisely now – then, again, such and such a strategy is morally demanded of us.
Commitments to a sustainable future, when they do appear in international negotiations, typically mention the Brundtland Report’s definition: sustainability ‘implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. The question at the back of everyone’s mind when they hear this, the question which needs now to shift to the front, is this: is it possible for our needs and future needs to be met?
There are now a lot of people around – we were just joined by number 7 billion, and it looks like we’ll have 10 billion before the world’s population levels out. Most of our basic needs are met by burning fossil fuels. In other words, the moral argument for action now might be thought to boil down to the question of whether we really can act to meet everyone’s needs. In a nutshell, is sustainability possible? Is it possible to meet our own needs and leave a habitable world in our wake?
That’s partly an empirical question. The world seems to have settled on two kinds of targets or limits – the thought is that if we pass them we’re in for dangerous climate change and an unsustainable world. One is 2 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels, and indeed this target was loudly endorsed at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Cancun in 2010, which called for all countries to take urgent action to limit the increase in global average temperature to beneath this temperature threshold. (There’s a good summary here.) Some nations, particularly low lying island states with a lot to lose as sea levels rise, have argued that 1.5 degrees or less is the only safe maximum. (112 countries argue for this more ambitious target. There’s a list and details here, of the so called Least Developed Countries and the Association of Small Island States.)
How likely are we to stay under the 2 degree target? We have already warmed the world by .74 degrees, and another half a degree or so is thought to already be in the climate system. In a paper which appeared in October of this year, the examination of published emission scenarios from different climate models found that in the set of scenarios with a ‘likely’ chance of staying below 2 °C, and by that the mean merely a better than 66% chance, emissions must peak and begin falling rapidly very soon, between 2010 and 2020. (Joeri Rogelj et al, ‘Emission pathways consistent with a 2 °C global temperature limit’ Nature Climate Change, Volume: 1, (2011) 413–418)
As they put it,
“Without a firm commitment to put in place the mechanisms to enable an early global emissions peak followed by steep reductions thereafter, there are significant risks that the 2 °C target, endorsed by so many nations, is already slipping out of reach.”
The related target is 450 parts per million of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, which is thought to be the maximum we can emit and stay beneath the 2 degree threshold. The level at present is about 390 ppm. It turns out that while the projected date at which passing 450 is unavoidable is still several years ahead, the choices we make now about building power plants and extracting energy can ‘lock us in’ to pathways that overshoot 450. According to a report released last month by the International Energy Agency (World Energy Outlook 2011), the world’s existing infrastructure is already producing 80% of the carbon budget we’ve got left if we want to stay under 450 ppm. If trends continue and we build more fossil fuel burning energy plants, by 2015, 90% of the available “carbon budget” will spent. By 2017, the remaining carbon budget that might keep us under 450 ppm will be gone, and we’ll have no chance at all of staying under 2 degrees. As the Guardian reported,
“The door is closing,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety] … If we do not have an international agreement, whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door to [holding temperatures to 2C of warming] will be closed forever,” said Birol.
Are we likely to have such an agreement? Copenhagen was viewed by many as the world’s last chance at a global agreement, and of course that did not materialise. As I write this, newspaper reports from the current UN Climate Conference in Durban say that the world’s leading economies now privately admit that no new global climate agreement will be reached before 2016. The EU is pressing for targets now, but the US, Canada, Russia, Japan, India and China say new negotiations should not begin until 2015, to come into effect in 2020 at the earliest.
The IEA, again in its 2011 report,
“projects that world CO2 emissions from fuel combustion will continue to grow unabated, albeit at a lower rate … [this] is in line with the worst case scenario presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the Fourth Assessment Report (2007), which projects a world average temperature increase of between 2.4°C and 6.4°C by 2100.”
For what it’s worth this kind of talk jives with the results of a 2009 poll, undertaken by the Guardian, which showed that,
“Almost nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe political efforts to restrict global warming to 2C will succeed … An average rise of 4-5C by the end of this century is more likely, they say, given soaring carbon emissions and political constraints.”
What exactly does passing the 2 degree limit mean? No one is sure. It’s synonymous with so called ‘dangerous climate change’ or ‘runaway climate change’. The IPCC associate temperature rises above 2 degrees with ‘more and more negative impacts’. Mark Lynas put some flesh on the these conservative bones with a book called Six Degrees, an attempt to work out what we’re in for as the world heats up, degree by degree, by looking at what the world has been like, in its long history, at those temperatures. It’s just one take on our prospects past 2 degrees, but it’s well-researched, compelling stuff. Here’s a summary:
Between 2 and 3 degrees of warming, one ‘tipping point’ is crossed. Enough heat to cause the eventual complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet is in the system, which would eventually raise global sea levels by as much as seven metres and change the planet’s weather systems. Heat waves are likely to be responsible for many deaths each summer in Europe, coral reefs die and the marine food chain is disrupted, and the loss of fresh water from melting glaciers and snowpack affects both food production and the availability of drinking water.
Between 3 and 4 degrees, a large tipping point is crossed, where it’s thought that climate mechanisms might run out of control, with tipping points leading to the emission of more greenhouse gasses and more tipping points leading to the emission of still more greenhouse gasses, and so on until warming is, in effect, runaway. If the Amazon rainforest collapses, dries and burns, as is consistent with a 3 degree world, the carbon released could be enough to push us up another 1.5 degrees past a four degree world. Beyond three degrees, Africa, Australia and parts of North American turn into deserts on some climate models – food production obviously suffers, and water becomes scarce.
Between 4 and 5 degrees another tipping point is crossed, the Arctic permafrost melts, and huge amounts of methane and carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere, further increasing the effects of climate change and pushing us up to 5 or 6 degrees. The Arctic melts, again increasing sea level. Humanity heads towards the poles, as other parts of the world become uninhabitable.
Beyond 5 degrees … there’s nothing like a clear picture. The world hasn’t been that hot for millions of years. Lynas talks of methane hydrates on the ocean floor erupting up in warmer waters and pushing the greenhouse effect out of control, and real questions arise here about the possibility of human beings joining the other 95% of the earth’s species in extinction. There’s talk of the Earth becoming a hot, desolate, lifeless ball, like Venus.
So what can we make of arguments for sustainability in the light of all this? Is sustainability still a live possibility? The argument is of the form, if we want a world like x, we must do y — but it’s possible that a world like x is becoming less and less likely.
It seems to me that sustainability arguments can take still take hold of us, with a particular sort of urgency, but perhaps only for a few years more, after which it becomes more and more likely that we’ll be unable to do anything to avoid the possibility of runaway climate change. I have to admit that it’s not easy to say things like this and keep a straight face. One sounds very much like some end-of-the-world cultist, warning that the end is nigh, but the voices telling us that we’ve only got a few years left to leave a habitable world in our wake are coming from the authors of peer reviewed papers, the heads of respected research institutions, the writers of books that win the Royal Society Science Prize. The world’s nations have agreed a 2 degree target, calling climate change an ‘urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet’. These aren’t crazy people talking. It’s the agreed language of representatives of our governments.
There are thoughts to be had here about civil disobedience, as well as other thoughts about human nature. But since I wrote this, we’ve had something of a conclusion in Durban. (Mark Lynas’ valuable discussion of the meaning of the Durban Platform is here.) It looks like there’s a commitment to have a commitment in 2015, which will come into legal force, if all hurdles are cleared, in 2020. Whether or not we’ve left it too late is unlcear, but there’s room for philosophical reflection on how to think about this possibility, about what it does to arguments for action on climate change, and about what to make of ourselves against this backdrop.
http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate
Here’s an article on the subject, which points out, among other things, that climate change denial is increasing in the United States, rather than decreasing, as I would have assumed, after all the publicity and prizes that Al Gore’s documentary on the subject received.
Thank you for the interesting series on climate change.
There was little discussion on the value of labour and its ecological impact. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) treat labour and the Environment as “A Natural Synergy (2007).” Although the motives are clear, the reasoning is not:
http://www.unep.org/labour_environment/pdfs/unep-labour-env-synergy.pdf
Simply put, more labour means more pollution, less labour means less pollution. Should job creation be at the expense of environmental destruction? Occupation and submersion in a task seems productive, and perhaps it should remain so. In the past, idleness was often considered a sin, something to exploit, an economic drain, or a pastime of the rich. These are dogmatic beliefs rather than factual criteria. Addressing these issues would have an enormous effect on global carbon emissions.
There are difficulties in changing people’s views linking the quality of life to labour. For example, in India, farm work and labour have been a part of the culture perhaps since pre-history. India would have difficulty questioning the value of labour. Although farmland size has not decreased in India, the population has increased, setting an even larger task on feeding their people. China has similar problems.
The environmental impact of the future is also a political problem. The communist and labour agenda is for increasing the quantity, value and power of labour. They are unlikely to relax their basic political agenda on the world.
What can philosophy offer to the problem of global warming? Perhaps philosophy could reassess the value of labour, and focus on changing how we value our time in life.
Amos – interesting article. There’s a lot written which tries to explain the shifting attitudes, particularly in the states. There’s a paper called Widening Gap by Dunlap I think, about the correlation between political views and belief in climate change. Lakoff writes about that too, particularly about how the discussion is framed, and how different people respond, depending on the frame.
There are always dips in environmental concern during tough times. Really worrying recent shifts documented by Gallup here:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx
Thanks for that, Dennis. There are a number of people working on new economic models for a greener future. One thing some people are saying is that we can’t grow our way out of poverty anymore — the New Economics Foundation is worth a look in this connection:
http://www.neweconomics.org/
First of all a criticism at the philosophical level: the article states a theory as fact. AGW is a hypothesis that explains recent global warming in the 20th century, and by a bit of numerical fudging also makes an accurate curve that matches what is, as far as we know, the actual record of 20th century warming.
It is not the only model that does so. In fact it took me less than a day to produce another one, which is if not as rigorous, equally plausible at face value and a bit more amusing.
Enjoy http://www.clarewind.org.uk/events-1.php?event=39
Sure its a spoof, but the data is in fact ACCURATE and the curve fit is as good – or better – than the IPCC model, but it highlights exactly the sorts of procedures than have to be undertaken to mash CO2 into the (sole) villain in the piece and make it account for all the warming going on.
In short AGW as it stands represents a limited guess at what is happening dealing only with things we think we understand and not with anything we may not have thought of yet. And its scariness is there largely because CO2 cant account for the warming by itself – it needs to be multiplied up to fit the trend, and that means that ‘unknown positive feedback factors’ have to be introduced to the model. That makes really scary predictions of temperature rise way beyond what CO2 by itself produces.
Likewise the tenuousness of historical data and its general trend seem to indicated that CO2 has not been a large driver of climate change in the past.
If this were not a matter of global concern most reasonably objective scientists would say ‘go back, run it again because that’s not good enough for a Phd yet’.
In short the case for AGW is nowhere near as solid as its made out to be. Only the dire nature of its predictions means that its paid any attention at all.
And that fact that a lot of money can be made out of it.
And that brings up a second point. Its profitable. Its extremely profitable. And its extremely well funded.
http://vps.templar.co.uk/Cartoons%20and%20Politics/climate-scare-machine-800.gif
This alone is probably what is driving the climate scepticism as much as any fundamental issues with the science: people are aware that the are being sold green this, renewable that, sustainable the other and being taxed left right and center and someone is making money out of that, and naturally they smell a rat. Especially when a huge amount of it doesn’t actually work at all.
http://vps.templar.co.uk/Cartoons%20and%20Politics/117322.strip.gif
Al Gores involvement, if anything, has strengthened this feeling.
I coined a phrase which sums up my position ‘renewable energy in homoeopathic doses’
It makes you feel better, its expensive, but achieves nothing of an value.
So at two levels there is reason to be suspicious, firstly because its not nearly as good science as it ought to be..it is essentially a first year students curve fitting exercise. Now that may reveal a causal linkage between CO2 and climate change, but the fact it has to be adjusted is a huge problem for me. What that essentially means is that the global warming is NOT coming DIRECTLY from CO2, but its being triggered by CO2 – the CO2 is the catalyst in the AGW model. And moreover there is a linear relationship between what is really causing the rises and the CO2.
But in that case minor variations of CO2 in the past should have triggered massive climate change: they haven’t.
Nor indeed have temperatures continued to climb much beyond 2000, although there is a lot of violent weather about – but that’s consistent with a slightly flushed earth sweating a bit to restore equilibrium.
So there remains considerable doubt that AGW represents the whole picture or even the largest PART of the picture.
And there is no doubt that its being shamelessly used to advance commercial interests and political and scientific careers.
Ok humans are frail. Let’s view it another way.
Apart from the USA the largest emitters of carbon dioxide are India and China.
If they decide to ignore the AGW hypothesis, whatever the West does is pointless.
That gives us a matrix of outcomes dependent on whether China and India go ‘green’ and whether or not AGW turns out to be true. This is hugely relevant for small European countries, whose individual contributions are small although its less valid for the US.
IF (China and India don’t do anything AND AGW is TRUE) THEN
The world is screwed no matter what the West may or may not do,.. Might as well teat drink and be merry and save the cash for dealing with the disaster.
IF (China and India don’t do anything AND AGW is FALSE (or partially true only) ) THEN anything the west does simply screws up the West’s economies and gives the Chinese and Indians a competitive edge, to absolutely no purpose.
What this means is that fundamentally the discussion lies with the Chinese and the Indians. We cant stop them.
In fact acting unilaterally achieves nothing beyond wrecking our own economies. WE die holding the moral high ground. Big Deal!
Lets see what happens if the Asian bloc DOES act AND AGW is TRUE
We still get screwed, because we have also wrecked our economies on ‘green stuff’ and so have they.
If we all act and the theory is false, we are still screwed because we have bankrupted the world chasing the chimera of CO2 emissions to the exclusion of what turned out to be more important stuff.
There is actually only one GOOD outcome for the west, and that’s bet all the money on AGW being false and do nothing.
All other outcomes either feature a broken west that busted its guts to achieve something that wasn’t needed (or was needed, but it simply wasn’t enough to make a difference) and no energy left to deal with changes that ultimately were inevitable anyway, or a broken world economy (more than its broken already) and probably no money anywhere to deal with climate change overpopulation and resource shortages, it all having gone into useless solar panels and the like.
So, in conclusion:
- AGW is not such a done deal as its portrayed
- There is strong evidence its being used as a pure cynical marketing ploy
- Even if its true, the attempts to deal with it are likely to be as bad, if not worse than the disease itself. There are no good outcomes except gambling on it being false theory, if its true, there is probably little or nothing we can do about it, and wasting money on measures that don’t work is the most stupid thing of all.
“sustainability ‘implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’”
Two comments in response. First, I have trouble with the second part of this definition: “without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Place yourself one or two hundred years in the past and try to imagine how well you would do predicting our current needs and the ways we fulfil them: not well, I suspect. Most exercises in predicting the future fail dismally.
Now this does not mean that I think a “free for all” approach is sensible. Although we may not be able to predict the future with any certainty, it seems sensible to me to do the best we can; particularly as we are likely to be able to predict the near future better than the far future.
Second, I have rather more practical concerns about limiting emissions as a way of dealing with future climate disasters. I live in Darwin, Australia: this city was destroyed by a cyclone in 1974. A few hours ago, a cyclone watch was declared, meaning we should prepare for the possibility of a cyclone hitting the region in the next 48 hours.
Cyclones are inherently unpredictable. The IPCC has this to say about cyclones in our region: “There is no clear picture with respect to regional changes in frequency and movement, but increases in intensity are indicated” but “ENSO fluctuations have a strong impact on patterns of tropical cyclone occurrence in the region, and therefore uncertainty with respect to future ENSO behaviour (see Section 10.3) contributes to uncertainty with respect to tropical cyclone behaviour (Walsh, 2004).” In other words, we don’t really have much idea what will happen (historical records do not appear to show an increase).
So…
1. Darwin is in the cyclone belt, has been hit by cyclones in the past and will be hit by cyclones in the future. We must be prepared for this, and the infrastructure must be built to withstand it (theoretically it is but some say it is not).
2. Cyclones are inherently unpredictable events and climate science is currently unable to reduce this uncertainty in any meaningful way.
3. Trying to deal with extreme events by reducing emissions is a foolish and futile strategy. Kevin Trenberth understands part of this: “Decarbonizing the economy is very important for many reasons, not the least of which is climate change. However, by itself, I view this as short-sighted, as the steps required are so revolutionary as to be highly unlikely to be achieved. Instead, we must recognize that while there is considerable merit in slowing the pace of climate change, and we should work to reduce emissions, it is also essential that much stronger steps be taken to plan for and adapt to the change that is surely coming. How we cope with challenges ahead and build more resiliency in our system, are major questions that should be higher on the agenda.”
Note the last two sentences quoted.
Finally, if a cyclone arrives, I don’t want to be relying on solar panels (useless when it is dark) or wind farms (which would probably be destroyed) for power. Wasting money on “green energy” projects, which have minimal potential to affect the extent of extreme events, is simply stupid. This money would be better spent on practical measures — better infrastructure, mitigation measures — that would quickly and surely reduce the impact of those extreme events which will inevitably occur.
Parts of this are adapted from this post:
http://kamcgnt.blogspot.com/2011/01/uselessness-of-when-preparing-for.html
Darwin eh Keith: I’ve got cousins and nieces out that way..batten down the hatches mate.
I agree with you. Where reality meets climate, pontifications in aircon hotels in Durban are just pissing in the wind.
Unless they can link global warming to erectile dysfunction, we’re still driving our SUVs.
blackeneth, that did make me laugh.