Another climate summit missing the most important agenda item - why isn't this working?
A guest blog by James Greyson
James Greyson runs the global revival think-tank BlindSpot and publishes research in the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme. After working on sustainability for two decades he’d like to see it start to happen.
Everyone knows that international climate summits aren't working, yet the question "why isn't this working?" doesn't appear on their agendas. This missing question attracts no calls for evidence, no research funding, no submitted reports and no allocated time for discussion within the UNFCCC process. The UN process hasn't worked because of this and it can begin to work only when the item appears.
"Why isn't this working?" isn't asked because people assume it's obvious. It isn't working because it's such a huge complex problem; because particular groups are blocking it; or because idealists are asking for too much. These obvious answers have obvious responses: keep going within the process; set up a competing process (such as the Copenhagen Accord); or refocus on national and local action. None of these answers and responses lead to a working UN process. Something more is needed.
With respect to the many great thinkers already involved, thinking is not a notable feature of the process. The climate is treated as an 'out there' effort to juggle the science, politics, money and technology. The 'in here' effort of thinking creatively about all this is omitted, assuming perhaps that creative thinking happens automatically when very many people discuss very big problems. What happens instead is the opposite. The problems don't get solved because the process inadvertently perpetuates the same kinds of thinking that causes the problems. The box that was supposed to hold the climate solutions has ended up only holding people's attention, while the opportunities for meaningful solutions lay beyond in unexplored territory.
'Thinking about anything but thinking' is not a conspiracy. It's an outcome of education, governance, professional specialisation and media that's most comfortable in small familiar boxes. Let's look around this 'out of the box' territory and compare it to what's going on 'in the box'. A simple map, sketching six sides of the box, can hopefully show that this territory does really exist and it's not as hard to navigate as we might fear. The first two sides are about the basic question of choosing what to focus on. This choice has a huge influence on whether the process works. The next two sides are about the scale of our ambition. When problems are big, urgent and complex should we be more or less ambitious? The final two sides are about what to actually do to make the process work.
Side 1. The average global temperature is regulated by nature, so that temperature doesn't simply follow rises in greenhouse gases. This is why average temperature has so far varied very little. The UN process has focussed on average temperature, which makes the problem appear far less serious than it is, given the severe impacts already being felt around the world. A continued focus on average temperature invites continuing slow action until the day when temperature self-regulation breaks down and average temperatures soar beyond any hope of human influence. Alternatively the process could focus on nature's capacity to regulate average temperature, such as the heat buffering role of polar ice. This capacity is being dramatically lost and replaced by positive feedbacks, such as methane from melting permafrost, meaning that temperature controls are being replaced by temperature out-of-controls.
Side 2. The UN process aims to reduce emissions with endless discussion about how much to reduce by when. This is like living in a house where the residents argue about how much to turn down the taps when the rooms are already flooded by rising water levels. A continuing focus on emissions reductions invites continuing disagreement and continuing rises in greenhouse gas concentrations until the house becomes uninhabitable. Alternatively the process could focus on the variable that actually drives climate change - greenhouse gas concentrations. The process will be working when it rapidly reduces concentrations. Reducing emissions is relevant only for its contribution to reducing concentrations. Notional emissions cuts ("we're emitting less than if we were emitting even more") are irrelevant.
Side 3. Society's persistent failure with the climate makes solutions seem really hard. This becomes a 'political reality' that invites lower expectations. Talk of higher expectations is seen as idealistic, perfectionist and utopian. Proposals that provide for further massive rises in greenhouse gas levels are called realistic. This process is a clear retreat of ambition, defeatism dressed as realism. When the goals seem to be far away, the easy option is to set up new goals closer. The alternative is to raise our game. Expand our ambitions to match the scope and urgency of the problems. Aim to reduce concentrations not just emissions. Work to reverse climate instability rather than just 'mitigate' it. Reinvent 'development'. Make this the reality.
Side 4. Silo thinking, or reductionism, can be tricky to discuss since it's so deeply ingrained in modern culture that it disappears as an conscious option. Reductionism is the default process for all problems. The climate issue is plucked from the global mega-muddle and handed over to climate specialists who generate a deluge of climate data that floods into climate talks and trickles out as climate policy and climate financing. The climate issue is almost always further reduced into a scattering of climate sub-topics all seen separately. The rich tapestry of a society able to care for its climate is typically reduced to a meagre vision of 'low-carbon'. The alternative process would replace silo thinking with whole systems thinking. Climate is a just a symptom, one of many. It's about all resources, not just fossil carbon. Seek solutions that apply to all the big challenges. Fix systems not symptoms.
Side 5. The UN process realises "that addressing climate change requires a paradigm shift..." but doesn't realise how to get the shift. It's the economy. The standard assumption about economic growth is that bigger emissions cuts means lower growth. The UN process invites nations to use their political commitment to cap emissions as a lever to shift their economies to lower carbon (and lower growth). Hence decades of political stalling. An alternative process could work the other way around, inviting nations to use the power of their economies as a lever to cut their emissions with no need for caps and no need to sacrifice growth. A new paradigm would reshape the whole economy, using growth to create the conditions for more growth, rather than to continue undermining it and wondering why things don't work out. The economy and the planet could be revived together.
Side 6. There has yet to be a civil society movement that leads the UN process by example, with its own "why isn't this working?" agenda based upon broad dialogue and rethinking assumptions. There is instead a quantitative strategy, with vast numbers of well-meaning messages circulated to vast numbers of people with the unintended net effect of reinforcing all of the above 'in the box' thinking. There is endless comment on the players and their plays but little about how to change the game. An alternative process would support dialogue more than broadcasting. Any of the numerous climate movements could encourage their members to be visible and active as part of the emerging global sustainability community.
Paradigms are sticky and cannot be changed in the ways we've been trying. The climate, or anything else, cannot be rescued in the ways we've been trying. Time is short so it would be wonderful to see an attempt with a chance of working!
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