Climate, technology and chaos Blog

This is a summary of a report that already has a summary website, but hopefully this summary might get some more recognition for the report. The ‘Executive Summary’ and the Report itself, are both linked on that site.

The initial point is similar to ones that have been made repeatedly:

Over the period 1990–2015, nearly half of the growth in absolute global emissions was due to the richest 10%, with the wealthiest 5% alone contributing over a third (37%).

Action targeted to change the behaviour of these people will be more effective, than action that targets poorer parts of society, even if as many people as possible need to be engaged.

To come anywhere near meeting the target of peaking at 1.5 degrees C.:

the richest 1% of the global population needs to reduce their emissions by a factor of at least 30 by 2030, while the poorest 50% of humanity could increase their emissions by three-times their current level.

An Oxfam report says something similar:

From 1990 to 2015, a critical period in which annual emissions grew 60% and cumulative emissions doubled, <despite knowledge of the dangers> we estimate that:

The richest 10% of the world’s population (c.630 million people) were responsible for 52% of the cumulative carbon emissions – depleting the global carbon budget by nearly a third (31%) in those 25 years alone

The poorest 50% (c.3.1 billion people) were responsible for just 7% of cumulative emissions, and used just 4% of the available carbon budget

The richest 1% (c.63 million people) alone were responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions, and 9% of the carbon budget – twice as much as the poorest half of the world’s population

The richest 5% (c.315 million people) were responsible for over a third (37%) of the total growth in emissions, while the total growth in emissions of the richest 1% was three times that of the poorest 50%.

Oxfam. Confronting Carbon Inequality. 21 September 2020

In terms of global wealth, most (but not all) middle class people in the West, and often elsewhere, probably count as in that wealthiest 10-20% of the world population. In other words, almost anyone who is living a comfortable material lifestyle could help reduce emissions directly by cutting their own emissions, and teaming up with others to reduce emissions and eco-destruction in their local areas. The more that wealthier people end excess carbon emissions, then the more the transition is likely to be welcomed by those who are poorer and help boost their sense of agency and participation. The process could become a circular, with one group of people encouraging another and this coming back to encourage the original people. This is part of “just transitions” theory, in which everyone participates, people who loose livelihoods are compensated and few suffer, as opposed to neoliberal transitions theory in which sacrifice is extracted from poorer people.

This means “sustainable behaviour change” is an essential element of any attempt to reach useful climate targets. Social and cultural involvement is vital for success, and we may need to help cultivate a real and accurate sense that this movement is a collective effort to deal with an urgent existential threat. There is a risk that with massively divergent carbon emissions, people might think that their emissions are unimportant, that those at the top are doing nothing, or that it should be someone else who is doing the work.

If poorer people want to emulate the producers of massive pollution then everyone is sunk. If poorer people start to find new (or old ways) ways of organising and looking after the world without destructive lock-in, and assert their authority in the world, then that will absolutely help. While the movement does not have to be led by richer people, and indeed it may be more successful if it is not, wealthier people do have to change as well. We need climate generosity. We need people to start reducing their own emissions without waiting for others, and without waiting for fairness. We need people to organise themselves with others to reduce their emissions, as much as we may need to help wealthier people lower their emissions and eco-destruction.

It is even possible that with leadership from the poor, the wealthier may start to come along. Through the interlinks of complexity, even small local changes to reduce emissions and eco-destruction can be emulated and spread, and have large effects.

[W]e need both individual and systemic change, and the key challenge is to ensure that they reinforce one another”

Executive Summary

Wider social action means dealing with the causes of over-consumption of carbon. Which they say includes:

excessive working,…. [and] the bombardment of advertising glamourising frequent air travel, large cars and large houses.

Which really comes down to changing consumerist capitalism, and the pursuit of happiness, contentment, wisdom, love and so on, through earning money and purchasing largely pointless items on a market. We may need to change the economic system, so as to enhance survival, rather than simply carry on defending a system which is not delivering, and not helping that survival. This could involve “embracing ideas of wellbeing and sufficiency” instead of attempts to produce wellbeing through over-consumption. But it can also involve simple measures such as buying less, changing buying patterns, and using any shareholdings to support those who are arguing for an end to corporate destruction of ecologies.

As Ban-Ki Moon says elsewhere:

…our current economic model has been an enabler of catastrophic climate change and equally catastrophic inequality. The COVID-19 pandemic provides an incontestable imperative to rebuild better and place the global economy on a more sustainable, resilient and fairer footing. Addressing the disproportionate carbon emissions from the wealthiest in society must be a key priority as part of this collective commitment.’

Oxfam. Confronting Carbon Inequality. 21 September 2020

The Cambridge report adds the possibility of restricting the availability of high carbon products and services, but recognises that undoing unsustainable behaviours is much harder than preventing unsustainable products from coming to market in the first place (Executive Summary). But if we don’t manage to change our attitudes at the same time, then people are likely to think that they are being restricted, rather than freed, and companies will object because they (and their shareholders) may see themselves as coming to a dreadful end.

This is why there needs to be research into “key points of leverage and traction that bring about shifts of the scale (as well as speed) now required to tackle the climate emergency” (Executive Summary).

On the positive side the report recognises that this movement involves developing new infrastructure to make low-carbon choices easier for poor households, particularly through measures around travel, energy, housing and food.

They further suggest:

Attitude Change:

• embracing ideas of wellbeing and sufficiency, rather than consumption as an end in itself
• recognising that what works in one place may not work in another, without being caught in the trap of thinking everyone else has to change but not us.
• Help people to participate in creative problem solving.

Restrictions:

• frequent flyer levies – flying frequently should not be encouraged
• bans on selling and promoting SUVs and other high polluting vehicles
• dietary shifts away from destructive foods to more sustainable foods
• abolishing tax credits for those who pollute and destroy ecologies

Support:

• increasing green grants for homes and electric cars
• electric public transport and other forms of low-cost electric transport,
• community energy schemes,
• insulating homes to address energy poverty and reduce emissions.
• rewiring the economy [although they don’t mean this, we also need to change and extending the grid]
• lowering working hours (redistributing wealth back to producers)

Political Change:

• severing ties between polluting and destructive industries and the political system. Perhaps finding a way to prevent politicians from lobbying for big companies after they have finished their political careers
• control the process through Citizen Assemblies and democratic engagement – protecting and expanding spaces of social and citizen innovation

I would add we probably need to:

• Stop non-local biofuels,
• End fantasies about Carbon Capture and Storage, although greenhouse gas drawdown is worth pursuing.
• Stop subsidies (tax and environmental) for fossil fuels.
• Phase out fossil fuel drilling and mining.
• Lower ecological damage and pollution of all types.
• Support regenerative agriculture.
• Restore the oceans, by ceasing over-fishing, bottom trawling, and enforcing world national parks in oceans so fish can come to flourish again.
• Help people to recognise complexity, the primacy of functional ecologies and the existence of planetary boundaries.
• Be careful with changes in land use, and reduce rates of dispossession of people from their land or traditional land.
• Increase the input of citizens into corporate governance.
• Revoke neoliberalism.
• Recognise the problems of using corporately owned, and corporately sponsored, media to try and promulgate the solutions, and find other ways of communicating, as well.

They conclude:

We need an account of the role of behaviour change that is more political and social, that brings questions of power and social justice to the fore in order to appreciate how questions of responsibility and agency are unevenly distributed within and between societies….

social mobilisation is crucial to pressuring governments and businesses to show leadership and accountability for major decisions that lock-in carbon-intensive behaviours. Examples include the divestment movement and community energy programmes, as well as pressure for pedestrianisation and car-free cities, and against airport <and highway> expansion….

Harnessing… social innovation and mobilisation towards the goal of scaling behaviour change is vital to the success of collective efforts.

The goals of the Paris Agreement… cannot be achieved without radical changes to lifestyles and shifts in behaviour, especially among the wealthiest members of society, and on the part not just of individuals, but all actors in society.

(Executive Summary)

We don’t have to wait for governments and others to act. We can act now, we can act with others, we can try and do local research as to what involves other people, and we can support the change that is happening.

Change is difficult but it is not impossible.

Tags: climate change, politics

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