Mari Martiskainen opened the subject referring to a short blog in relation to Tony Blair Institute’s report which calls for very techno-optimistic approaches to climate change. The UK’s ex-prime minister Blair was quoted in the media this week saying that net zero policies are doomed and new thinking is needed as people are not willing to make changes. We have, however, emerging evidence from the Energy Demand Research Centre (EDRC), that people are willing to take action and change, for example their diets, as long as they have clear leadership from government.
As referred to in the blog, it’s also important to question who funds institutes such as TBI and where the potentially vested interests lie.
“…..the report calls for ‘actions for positive disruption’, and by this it means accelerating and scaling technologies that capture carbon, harnessing the power of AI, investing in frontier energy solutions, and scaling nature-based solutions. The latter are very welcome, but a major focus on nuclear, carbon capture and AI relates to techno-optimism and the widely debunked approach that technology alone will fix the world’s problems. This approach leaves out a range of positive socio-technical approaches where people are at the centre of climate solutions. It also misses out on the numerous benefits that could be achieved by engaging citizens in the energy transition…..”
Bill Rees
1) The world remains 80% dependent on fossil fuels for virtually everything including wind and solar energy. Were we to stop fossil fuels quickly, say by 3030, then national and global economies would collapse. People may be “willing to take action” (such as changing their diets) to fight global heating, but are they prepared for the implosion of their economies, i.e., energy shortages, massive unemployment, broken supply chains, local famines, etc.? We need a comprehensive equitable ‘Plan B’ to ease society into transitioning to a minimal consumption, low energy future with smaller populations. No government is yet prepared to contemplate this reality.
2) Climate change/global heating may be a huge issue but it is only one visible co-symptom of its cause, the meta-problem of ecological overshoot. As 33 years of ‘fighting’ climate change has shown, the world cannot ‘fix’ any major co-symptom of overshoot in isolation of the others. This implies that much of the effort to address climate issues (Including Blair’s report) is wasted. Indeed, the singular focus on climate is a distraction from the real eco-problem, overshoot. Again, overshoot is the material cause of climate change and is itself caused by excessive industrialization and growthist economics.
3) The only solution to overshoot is major absolute reductions in economic throughput (resource consumption and pollution) and smaller populations. Addressing overshoot directly would solve all its symptoms, from climate change and biodiversity loss to ocean acidification, simultaneously. But again, fixing overshoot will require a comprehensive equitable ‘Plan B’ to ease society into transitioning to a minimal consumption, low energy future with smaller populations. No government is yet prepared to contemplate this reality.
Joe Zammit Lucia
We have for far too long promoted the delusion that a rapid shift to current renewable technology will ‘solve’ the climate problem and that the transition can be done effectively, equitably, fast and with minimal disruption of any sort. We are learning that this is, indeed, a delusion. Tony Blair is right.
Regarding major reductions in economic throughput and that smaller populations are the ‘solution’, that may well be true in theory but I would suggest that the reason governments cannot contemplate that is that none of us have any idea as to how that can be achieved. Some of it (eg smaller population) may well happen by default according to current projections. Whether that will lead to less economic output or suffer from the Jevons Paradox is unknowable.
Most think tanks declare their funding interests openly. Yet biases do not only arise from the sources of funding. They also arise from the ideological biases and belief systems of any researcher and the desire to fit in with their social and professional circle of peers. It may be time that all research should clearly state what such ideological biases are.
Surveys show that people support climate action but that commitment wobbles when they are faced with the realities of the transition. Everyone supports transition at low cost and no disruption to their creature comforts. But that may simply not be possible. People say they will change their diets, but they don’t. People say they will take care of their own health but they don’t. Every morning I say that I will stop smoking (and that’s what I would reply in a survey), and I don’t. We all buy goods from China because they come with a penny off and we don’t worry about the embedded emissions from the world’s largest polluter. We all happily fill our cars with fuel regularly and then pretend it’s nothing to do with us and blame oil companies for providing that fuel that we demand while being outraged when its price goes up.
The increasingly poor performance of green political parties and the dilution of green policies by many political parties trying to get elected, questions what is the degree of popular commitment in real life.
The whole sustainability agenda needs a substantial re-think if we are to move it forward. Here are some thoughts at a broad level intended to do nothing more than stimulate discussion.
Bill Rees
Simplicity will come but it will be imposed upon us by nature as various forms of ‘negative feedback’ set in in response to excessive scale and continued growth. Watch for accelerating climate damage, more rapid spread of controllable diseases (measles, anyone?), another pandemic(s), increasingly tight energy supplies, local and then more widespread food shortages, civil unrest, etc.
If we really wanted to achieve an orderly sustainability, then it would be necessary to articulate a global ‘Plan B’ which clearly lays out and implements the cooperative policies by which we achieve major absolute reductions in energy and material throughput (consumption and pollution) while: a) redistributing wealth/income in a justly equitable manner and; b) introducing non-coercive procreating planning to bring populations down to sustainable levels.
We do understand the ‘WHAT to do’ (i.e., the mechanics of how to do these things) but in the absence of the appropriate social norms, behavioural responses and political will, we don’t know HOW to do it. Governments remain paralyzed — or worse, continue to (re)produce and augment our collective predicament. Which brings me back to the likelihood of painful systemic self-correction — negative feedbacks will set in.
Problems have solutions; predicaments merely have outcomes over which we have little control.
Akaninyene Ntia
Nigeria is a country that gets more than 90% of its annual revenue from fossil fuel energy, as do Angola, Saudi Arabia. Asking people to adjust their diets, or change them totally, in an atmosphere of inflation and very poor standards of living could be seen as building castles in the air The transition to renewable energy sources to some, is an invisible long road that these countries must walk, to ease the Climate crisis facing them. I may not agree with Mr. Tony Blair’s recent words that vividly point out the fears of the climate projects spearheaded by the global climate team, but he has pointed out a very salient point.