Failure by design on the climate crisis

Or why business as usual is planetary sabotage

I recommend that anyone interested in understanding more about the ongoing climate crisis, and why global society has failed to make sufficient progress, read “Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven’t We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?”

In this annual review, Stoddard et al. make clear that the on-going climate crisis is the outcome of the success of the current extractivist economic model to tear up the natural world for consumption mainly by high-earners and powerful sectors of global society. They also show how the United States has been the main opponent to climate solutions, contrary to the triumphalist spin so prevalent in American culture. I was impressed by the degree of critique the review presents, and found it appropriate in its severity.

Most people believe that the efforts to reduce emissions have simply failed. Instead, the failure covers up the success of the stalling tactic. In other words, businesses and world governments aim at fossil-fuel powered economic growth, while dissembling their complicity and pretending to take meaningful actions.

Why we should lead society to reduce resource use

To make progress: more people need to realize that reducing the use of planetary resources should be our new objective while we transform our infrastructure to renewables and less carbon intensive methods. (In fact, one interesting point is that merely letting current installed fossil-fuel based energy capacity live out its lifetime will overshoot sensible emission targets.) We must decommission fossil-fuel infrastructure and replace it with alternatives.

Most people hear this and believe it is tantamount to enforced poverty. The great resignation should teach us, however, that many people are looking for greater quality of life beyond incessant work and unsatisfying consumption. It is therefore now past due to replace the current system goal of economic growth at all costs.

I am convinced we can definitely produce better quality of life, giving people a chance to step off the rat race and decommissioning fossil-fuel infrastructure. And that should be our aim. We all have a part to play here by helping develop ways of life that aren’t all about consumption, money and material possessions.

But we can’t even start toward it while people continue to allow bureaucrats, politicians and business leaders to insist on growth and business expansion as the fundamental goal. It is not natural or obvious that this should be our objective as a global society.

Instead, such pathological “leadership” is actually reflective of a lower stage of philosophical development. These emotionally damaged money-grubbers surround themselves with material possessions to feel whole. What do you think advertising is about? At least partly, it is about creating the feeling of personal lack, a gaping hole where the heart is supposed to be, so that people will buy. Yet based on the contributions to the climate crisis, growth should actually be stopped or reversed.

I admit, this is a simplification. What I mean is we should use policy to drive declines in areas that contribute to the global climate crisis, and promote significant growth in areas that are part of the solution. Yet, the measure of success should be the amount of emissions that can be replaced, not economic growth. The sooner we start, the easier we can transition to an economy worth sustaining.

A few additional notes I found salient

1. More than half of emissions have occurred since the first IPCC report in 1990. This suggests quantitative failure to abate emissions.
2. The international climate governance approach has resulted in much fanfare but played out as a stalling mechanism, especially stalled by the United States and other large emitters.
3. Fossil fuel companies have acted to spread misinformation and to have a seat at the table in these negotiations.
4. The prospect of climate change has detonated a resource race, supported by militarism and a desire for global powers to secure control over new resources such as in the Arctic (US and Russia).
5. Economic ideologies normalize the disregard for nature, with their focus on money transactions as the only way to measure value. As such, they champion consumption and are willing to accept climate catastrophe for consumption.
6. While fossil fuel replacement energy sources are available and at a low cost, there is little commitment to replace rather than supplement fossil fuels. The willingness to let installed capacity play out for its lifetime alone would lead to overshooting sensible targets.
7. While rich countries are culpable for most of the warming, they negotiate from the position of percentage reductions to present emissions. They therefore normalize their right to emit on historical levels.
8. Debates around personal responsibility center on low-impact issues like turning off lights or avoiding plastic bags. Meanwhile, the consumer economy promotes frequent flights, meat-based diets and so on.
9. There are still no social imaginaries for a low-emissions society offering a desirable and indeed necessary way to live. The conflict between the promised way of life and the changes required to abate emissions means that many people bury their head in the sand and refuse change.

Sources

Stoddard, Isak, et al. “Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven’t We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 46 (2021): 653–689. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104