WWViews Blog

Yesterday, World Wide Views hosted a panel debate about the project and about citizen participation in connection with climate politics in general. Among the participants was our friend, Shauna Sylvester of Canada’s World, who delivered a beautiful presentation. Even though national states seem to be failing in delivering the leadership we need, the alternative of turning our backs to the state is not really viable either – the realities awaiting us down that road are simply too harsh to be wished for. Does participatory processes, then, provide a middle road? Read Shaunas presentation here.

Pardon me if I take a moment to look with a jaundiced eye at the climate change debate:

The more I consider the form of the questions in the survey, the respondents statistics, and the discussion that evolves, so the more I wonder at how well we really communicate across cultural, economic, and social divides!  In my work I deal with regional climate change projections and spend much time in trying to communicate these unambiguously to stakeholders, along with all the necessary caveats and nuances.  While I consider these attempts to be reasonably successful (at least, I hope I am), I am acutely aware when my communication fails.  Central to communicating is raising and meeting the right expectations; too often we bait one another with provocative statements to which we all rise with quick rejoinders.  What’s missing is a place of reasoned discussion outside the stream of urgency that seems to carry this all along.

So are we raising objective expectations here?  What would these be?  An unavoidable commitment to global change with regional expressions of change that are not equitable across the world, a world culture where in the past the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the cry for development pathways in the developing nations, the real cost of response.  I wonder sometimes what we’re communicating here and at COP?  An approaching disaster or an artificially inflated hope of remedy?  Vested interests in protecting my lifestyle? Altruistic intentions masked behind self interest?  OK, so I can be a cynic.  However, in these times of hyperbole the real, on-the-ground, practical messages get lost in the dust of the rhetoric that fills our screens.

It seems the long view, the big picture, gets lost sometimes in the flurry of the immediate.  I suggest that a reasonable focus is to accomplish the possible, in so far as it is aligned with the ideal.  This discussion will evolve, and often (sadly) only progress when real impact is experienced.

So what is “the possible”; surely at least it’s a beginning on effective mitigation that is economically sustainable, a realignment of global resources for adaptation, and a new sharing of responsibility.  A requirement for science to communicate practical information (including when we don’t know), and a responsibility of society to learn to “read” the information correctly!   From a position of the world being aware of climate change and swimming in an ocean of variable quality data, the practical measures are those that steer us toward a knowledgeable action of shared responsibility, and away from the extremes of apathy or knee jerk responses.

But it starts with clear communication … a dialogue that is time-intensive.

The COP of Copenhagen should be marked as a crucial event in the planet history. A moment, for inflection, reflection and world action, to change our life style and the models and processes of development, that are causing climate change and threaten our own subsistence. For this reason, the population of the countries Annex 1 and Not Annex 1, like their institutions and governments, we should work together, implementing MITIGACION measures, where developed countries include – besides what come doing – emissions reductions in their commercial and residential sectors, and the developing countries generate not contaminate growth processes and preserve forests and natural reserves, supported in new technology and adaptation additional funds.
Considering the greater developing countries vulnerability, the climate change impacts, represent important backward movements in the achievement of the Millennium Goals, since they are expanding the covers gaps, and amplified dissatisfied basic needs with negative effects in poverty reduction. In this sense, ADAPTACION and TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFERENCE, should be rewarded for the countries Not Annex 1, in terms to preserving natural drains, to reduce inequities and in favor to development an ecological, more fair and progressive world.

Most of the political climate policy fights in the US Congress, in the EU, Australia and California has been over appropriate targets and timetables for Cap and Trade-like policies. It has proved difficult to fashion acceptable rules in most venues. But is that really the most important strategy–to push for market solutions like a “shadow price” on carbon. Let me, to get our blood flowing, take an excerpt from the final chapter of my next book–Science as a Contact Sport, to be published on 3 November by National Geographic Society press–on the other steps that we need to complement a shadow price market-based approach. Here is a bit of what I say in my last chapter:
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We must figure out what levels of climate
change in each sector, region, or group that may be impacted is “dangerous”—a value judgment about what is unacceptable—for that system. Next, that assessment needs to be used to help define an urgent mitigation strategy to stay below those levels of likely
nonadaptability. For some systems, like the Inuit hunting culture, Kiribati permanence, or the polar bear ecosystem, it is probably already too late to adapt successfully, so we will need to find ways to reduce impacts via alternative activities for the Inuit, new homes for small islanders, or to fashion viable land-based habitats for polar bears. At the same time, these unavoidable impacts should be used to help motivate strong mitigation actions, so we don’t end up having dozens of systems comparably damaged. But before mitigation is achieved via a price on carbon, there are other mitigation steps to implement even earlier—like now.
Performance Standards. One concrete step to take is creating performance standards for buildings and machines. Energy efficiency is the cheapest, best way to achieve this goal. California uses only 50 percent
of the emissions and energy per capita of the U.S. average and is 300 percent better than Texas. The prime reason: California has a 35-year history of legally mandated performance standards like building codes, refrigerator and air conditioner standards, and so on. This
policy, while initially contentious, is now popular with both Democrats and Republicans, because it saves the state 15 percent of its electricity bill annually, which for California is about $7 billion a year. That gets bipartisan attention in a positive way.
The Waxman-Markey bill did recognize this need, despite most of the public contention being focused on the shadow price issus, as will most subsequent climate policy legislation, I am quite confident.

Incentives to Invent Our Way out of the Problem. Another step is to fashion incentives to invent our way out of the carbon emissions game—what I like to call a “learning-by-doing feeding frenzy.” We have to get funding to the creative ideas in those hundreds of promising energy system start-ups out there. One day somebody’s going to
make billions of dollars when they invent a really efficient solar thermal system capable of energy storage, or produce biofuels with a negative CO2 balance that isn’t competing with food production. I can cite any number of worthy competitors—for instance, biochar or some
other very promising ideas such as algae for biodiesel. But can we scale these up to the massive level that we need to replace the energy that produces a trillion tons of CO2 over this century? That requires experimentation that leads to learning by doing. We have always done that.
We did not start coal and nuclear power and the electronics industry by free market capitalism alone. Government subsidies and government direct funding and government-determined friendly operating rules spurred fledgling industries. The Japanese still do that, and we
will have to do the same for green technology developers.
To have those new clean technologies, we’ll need investments. Does that mean loan guarantees? It could. At a recent conference in which I was advocating technology pump-priming via loan guarantees to venture capitalists and grants for promising ideas, a congressman who happened to be in the audience asked me, “How much do you think we’ll need in loan guarantees to venture capitalists and the like to be able to have a significant impact on the rate at which we learn to get these cleaner technologies to scale?”
“Maybe $30 billion annually for a decade or so?” I answered.
“Thirty billion!” he roared. “Don’t you read the newspapers? That’s completely impossible. That’s outrageous. We’re having a major problem
with the economy.” “But, Congressman, we just spent three-quarters of a trillion dollars in one year to bail out a bunch of under regulated, greedy bankers. Why can’t we spend 4 percent of that every year for the next ten
years or so to try to get planetary sustainability and long-term energy systems that will sustain the economy with growing numbers of jobs?”

Put a Price on Carbon. The fourth step in the climate policy sequence, already described earlier in detail, is what many governments and the UN conferences are working on: cap and trade or carbon taxes. It is a
critical component of effective climate policy, and it must happen if dangerous climatic impacts are to be reasonably reduced. But, as earlier said, given how long it will likely take to get it fully implemented, I am very leery of putting all our mitigation eggs in the cap and trade or carbon tax basket without also implementing immediately stronger
performance standards and investment incentives. Each of these four steps mentioned so far is necessary, but none by itself is sufficient to effectively solve the problem.
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Hope that idea that while we debate targets and timetables we commit to policies and measures for efficiency and incentives to mobilize capital to invest in R, D & D so we can “invent our way out of this problem” Unfortunately it is already too late to avoid a potentially dangerous overshoot in greenhouse gas concentration in the next several decades, but we certainly can reduce dramatically the long term concentrations that would see a virtual certainty of dangerous outcomes if we don’t get rolling on real and explicit policies to achieve emissions reductions of many tens of percent over the next several decades. By mid century we need at least 80% cuts in current emissions to have a fighting chance to see warming below a few degrees Celsius. To have much more, the IPCC literature reviews have shown, is to subject the planet and it’s inhabitants to many forms of serious disruption that still can be averted with strong actions, such as this sequence of steps. I look forward to any reactions.

The global financial crisis starting in May 2007 and reaching its final phase in 2010 is a global financial catastrophe. As central banks reduce interest rates to zero, one after another, they have propelled the world economy into a global liquidity trap in which monetary and fiscal policies are ineffective and regulation becomes the main instrument for recovery. The effect of such a trap is to prolong global depression and mass unemployment perhaps for years to come.

The other crisis is the risk of dangerous climate change. Although such changes are more slow-moving and more difficult to attribute to their cause, i.e. greenhouse gas concentrations, much higher concentrations have the capacity to lead to climate catastrophes that will destroy human well being and conceivable lead to mass unemployment in the very long run.

Climate policies themselves also may become ineffective as conditions are changed beyond recognition by the financial crisis. Carbon prices in the EU ETS have fluctuated and fallen sharply over the last 12 months, undermining prospects for profits and growth. This loss of confidence in the carbon markets is a result of the drop in demand for allowances due to falling demand for carbon-based electricity. The risk is that the reduction in demand for emission permits will lead to a an irreversible loss of institutional learning in the carbon markets and in the CDM and JI project implementation markets. One easy resolution is through the tightening the emission reduction targets decided by governments in Copenhagen, December 2009, perhaps to a unilateral industrialized country reduction of 40% by 2020 as proposed by China.

The two crises both arise out of the pursuit of money for its own sake, without full consideration of the common system risks of private actions and without private corporations taking full responsibly for the consequences of their actions.

As the financial crisis becomes resolved, there will be an urgent need for more investment that passes conventional cost-benefit analysis (CBA) tests, supported directly or indirectly by governments funding that will restore confidence and spending to more normal levels. These investment can be in more complete decarbonisation of national economies and of international transportation. The immediate solution to both crises is such action, although the scale of the financial crisis is such that much more investment will eventually be required. Since the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report has assessed the literature on such investment for climate change stabilization at different carbon prices, this forms a starting point and a blueprint for a programme of the sectoral and regional investments required.

There is an urgent need for national and international plans to be drawn up to assess the nature and scale of such investments given latest knowledge about climate change, adaptation and mitigation, e.g. in IPCC AR4 WG3 chapters 4 to 11 and later literature, given the changed conditions of the global financial markets. These plans should take into account the potential for costs to fall through induced technological progress, the adoption of global standards for R&D, innovation, and investments in low-GHG processes and products for global markets, and the available co-benefits in the form of increased local employment in agricultural, forestry, construction and other capital sectors, energy security, and reduction in damages from air and water pollution

There is also a need for research into the adoption of ethical standards in business and governments to avoid regulatory capture and other problems of governance.

Provisional projections of the world economy using the E3MG model (see note 2) suggest that, on present policies, global GDP will fall by as much as 13% below what it might have been without the financial crisis. Global GDP growth was 3.4% in 2007, 2.4% in 2008 and is expected to be -2.3% in 2009 and again by -2.3% in 2010 before a very slow recovery. Employment is expected to continue to fall rapidly, especially in the USA, but also in many OECD countries. This is then a global depression not quite expected to be on the scale, yet, of the Great Depression, 1929-1932, except in the UK, many other EU countries and Japan. The risk is that the weak and damaging policies being followed in many countries will exacerbate the dynamics of the crisis and generate a much worse depression. This may be the direct consequence of falling into the liquidity trap, apparent in the USA and Japan, and imminent in the UK if the Bank of England decides to lower interest rates by a point on Thursday.

I have proposed a 7-point plan for resolving the crisis and returning the global economy to normal growth rates. This involves radical coordinated action at the global level, without which the financial crisis will continue to deepen and develop into a twenty-first century Greater Depression, at least for the EU and Japan.

The plan involves (1) allowing the financial markets to work and the banks to go bankrupt, rather than being saved by government bail-outs and recapitalisation. The other six points are (2) setting global interest rates to near zero (3) fixing exchange rates temporarily along with key global commodity prices, followed by (4) a massive investment programmes, but not in the banks. Point (5) is a consolidation of toxic debt into regional good banks, as done by Sweden in its 1992 crisis. Point (6) involve a global procedure to name and shame instances of “regulatory capture” and point (7) involves the rapid establishment of global legal and technological standards and procedures to regulate banks and lower the costs of the coordinated investment programme. Provisional projections suggest that the global decrease in employment of some 55 million by 2012 could be reduced to 21 million of such a coordinated plan were put into operation over the next 3 months, to take effect immediately.

The resolution of the global financial crisis is also an opportunity to kick-start a rapid shift to a low-carbon economy, which is absolutely necessary in the coming decades if we are to avoid dangerous global climate change.

The World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews) project is important in 2 different basic ways:

Climate Change: First, WWViews presents a vitally needed snapshot of what everyday people all around the Earth think about climate change politics and policy, once they have a chance to learn the views of the scientific community and to deliberate and reflect together in groups. The world’s leaders and, in particular, the delegates to the UN climate summit in Copenhagen (COP 15, December 2009) need to hear this message. One clear result coming out of the WWViews citizens’ meetings is that the people of the world are out in front of most of their national leaders in regarding it as urgent to take serious steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Global Democracy: Second, WWViews represents the first global democratic citizens’ deliberation in world history. This sets a precedent, and establishes a vivid model, that needs to be applied to other vital policymaking processes at the global level. Henceforth, it will not do to accept that world leaders and powerful interest groups are entitled to make important global decisions on behalf of humanity. WWViews shows that humanity can find its collective voice, and that voice needs to be heard at all the world’s bargaining tables.

~Richard Sclove, U.S. Advisor to World Wide Views on Global Warming Project