First published on the Climate Safety blog, on 27/09/09 http://climatesafety.org/money-money-money/
A recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) asked what it would take for action on climate change to be ‘mainstreamed’ . The IPPR conducted research with ‘Now’ people – perceived as leaders of public opinion and a supposed barometer for the acceptability of behavioural norms. A key conclusion was that for these trend-setters to change their behaviour, there would have to be something in it for them. That something, according to the IPPR, was the promise of financial gain for their adventures in sustainability.
On the Climate Safety blog, Tim Holmes has already questioned some of the methodological assumptions of the study, and the predictable media response to it . But there is a further problem with the logic of the report that raises a serious communication challenge for environmental campaigners: Using money as a motivator of sustainable behaviour simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
First things first – no-one is denying that financial considerations are not an enormous influence on behaviour. They clearly are – every time you decide to get up extra-early to get a cheaper train, you are making a decision based on how much it costs you. The findings of the IPPR report back this up. Their participants expressed a desire to save money, and felt that the prospect of saving money would make them more likely to engage in sustainable behaviour.
So – people do things because of financial reasons, and would be more likely to be green if it saved them money. Why not give the people what they want? Tell the world that saving energy will save them money!
There’s only one slight problem with this insight – sustainable behaviour doesn’t always come cheap. Certainly, there are times when saving energy also saves money (in general using less means spending less). But there are plenty of green behaviours that cannot easily be packaged as financially attractive. Taking the train to the Costa Del Sol is not cheaper than flying there – the low-carbon choice is not always the low-cost option. In the future we might hope that the ‘polluter pays’ principle is accurately reflected in the prices of the world’s commodities, but for now being green isn’t necessarily the cheapest game in town. It’s a tough sell during a recession, which is what the IPPR study found. But what’s the alternative – to lie?
Of course, you might imagine that once people have started ‘going green’ (tempted into some sustainable behaviours by the prospect of saving money), a momentum will be created that will propel them into other green actions – even if they’re not so cost effective. However, as Tom Crompton at the WWF has documented in detail, this assumption is something of a myth . Some key social-psychological theories and empirical evidence simply do not support the idea that people will spontaneously progress from ‘simple and painless’ behaviour changes to less simple (and perhaps more financially painful) steps in the future. If anything, the reinforcement of the link between saving money and sustainable behaviours is likely to act as a barrier to further changes in the future – when the money saving stops, so does the behaviour.
And as if it wasn’t bad enough that the link between saving money and saving the environment was tenuous, evidence from studies conducted by Ken Sheldon in the US suggests that people with materialistic values (that is, people who value money, possessions, and power) are the least likely to engage in environmental behaviour . In an experiment where people could divide up environmental resources in whichever way they chose, highly materialistic people exhibited more environmentally destructive behaviour. Unfortunately, emphasising the link between money and sustainable behaviour fails on every level.
So – what’s the alternative? The solution advocated by Tom Crompton, Joe Brewer and other contributors to the Identity Campaigning website is to promote so-called ‘intrinsic’ motivations for engaging in environmental behaviour (such as the interconnectedness of humans and nature) – because this will lead to longer lasting and more embedded behavioural changes . This approach is appealing, as it is difficult to dispute that if more people led lives that were based on respecting the environment and valuing nature, pro-environmental behaviour would be more prevalent.
However, while this vision of value-based sustainability is a desirable goal, attempting to translate it into reality is a challenge. Governments and NGOs are wary of being seen to dictate values to the electorate (never mind that the values of consumption-based growth are promoted every second of every day – they’re so embedded in the fabric of society they’re invisible). And on a practical level, its awkward and unfamiliar for most people (campaigners or otherwise) to link mundane behaviours like driving a car to abstract concepts like ‘valuing nature’ or ‘intrinsic motivations’.
There is a compromise which acknowledges that money matters in people’s decision-making, but doesn’t constantly crank-up the link between saving money and sustainable behaviour. The fact is that people will work out for themselves whether something is in their financial interest – they don’t need campaigners to do it for them. Far better is to use money more subtly – by removing financial barriers to behaviour change (such as governments offering subsidised loft or cavity wall insulation).
The message here is not that installing insulation will save you money (although it will), or that the reason for caring about climate change is that it will be good for your wallet. It is that green intentions will be reciprocated by the government. Here the lower cost encourages participation, but doesn’t reduce sustainable behaviour to a cost-benefit analysis that in the long run is doomed to fail. The idea of reciprocation also fits in well with the sort of values that are linked with pro-environmental behaviour – people who care about fairness also tend to care about the environment.
We cant ignore the fact that money motivates behaviour, but we can approach it in a more sophisticated way. We know that people are constrained by financial concerns, but that promoting the link between saving money and saving the environment is problematic in the long run. Could the idea of reciprocation permit both of these issues to be addressed?
Friday, 30 October 2009
Monday, 26 October 2009
October 2009 - Psychology & Climate Change
>>>>first published on the Guardian website, 26/09/09
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/oct/26/psychology-of-climate-change
From 10:10 to the government's Act On CO2 campaign, it is now widely accepted that tackling climate change will require tackling behaviour change too. But until now, a key piece has been missing from the puzzle – psychology. The study of human behaviour has been conspicuous by its absence from the climate change debate.
The assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have provided the scientific evidence of human impact on the climate, and a glimpse of what the future may hold if we don't act fast. But while the consensus may be growing on the need for changes in behaviour, we're no closer to understanding how we're going to do it. Attempting an unprecedented shift in human behaviour without the input of psychologists is like setting sail for a faraway land without the aid of nautical maps.
Psychological research shows that most people in the UK don't feel personally threatened by climate change because it is vague, abstract and difficult to visualise. This means that doomsday scenarios and apocalyptic language are unlikely to work – although fear can motivate behaviour change, it only works when people feel personally vulnerable. Clearly, exaggerating the threat of climate change is not an option. So how can climate change be made more relevant to people's lives?
In the dusty journals and leather-bound books of university libraries lie decades of psychological research on human behaviour. Why are habits so difficult to change? Do people make decisions based on rational criteria, or impulse and intuition? Why do people tend to unnecessarily fear some risks, yet inadvisably discount others? These are all questions that will become increasingly pertinent as the transition to a low-carbon future progresses.
Fortunately, climate change is starting to be acknowledged by social scientists on both sides of the Atlantic. Earlier this year, the American Psychological Association published an extensive review of psychology's contribution to tackling climate change. And on 27 October, the British Psychological Society will hold its inaugural meeting on the psychology of climate change. From the language used to describe climate change, to the ways in which habits are made and broken, the signs are that psychology holds the key to driving the shift to sustainability.
An American study played people recordings of actors delivering speeches about climate change. The version that people responded to the best talked about "air pollution" rather than "climate change" – because pollution is something visible that they could relate to, with strong connotations of dirtiness and poor health. Climate change is about much more than just dirty air, but finding ways of making climate change more visible is critical. People simply don't worry about things they can't see (or even imagine).
One approach that has been used to increase the amount that people use public transport breaks down habits into simple "if… then" plans. To change a habitual behaviour, a person has to identify a goal (drive less, for example), a behaviour they want to perform in pursuit of that goal (get the bus to work on Fridays) and a situation that will trigger the behaviour (having enough time to catch the bus). In this example, if it's Thursday evening, then the alarm needs to be set for a different time, and if it's Friday morning, then have a quick shower instead of a long bath. Thinking about behaviour in these terms is unfamiliar – but even the most well-intentioned goals are doomed to fail without a strategy for achieving them.
Of course, some people are wary of committing themselves to changes in their personal behaviour. They argue that political agreements and technological advances will do more to reduce greenhouse gases than anything an individual could achieve. But while it is comforting to draw sharp distinctions between politics, technology and individuals, the reality is that human behaviour underpins it all. Political parties will not pass legislation that is patently unpopular among the electorate. Technology can provide low-carbon alternatives like electric buses. But a zero-emissions bus will have zero passengers unless people decide to use it.
Household insulation has been rightly prioritised by policymakers as a key area where individual-level changes can play a significant role in reducing carbon emissions. But as Alexa Spence and Nick Pidgeon from Cardiff University argue in a forthcoming paper in the journal Environment, changes in household insulation depend on some key behavioural assumptions. In particular, the overheating of residential buildings has to become socially unacceptable, and people will have to be motivated to make changes to their home heating routines. Spence and Pidgeon suggest that periods of transition, where routines are already in flux, provide useful opportunities to develop new, more sustainable habits. In the context of home insulation, some building work already scheduled for the house might provide not only the practical opportunity for some low-carbon upgrades, but also the perfect psychological context for making some long-intended changes to habits and routines.
If the thought of psychologically informed lifestyle change campaigns sounds a bit too Big Brother for your liking, then consider the alternative: millions of pounds spent on technology that is never taken up, and a market-based system of economic coercion that penalises the poor while the rich keep polluting. Without an understanding of what drives people's environmental behaviour, the dream of a low-carbon society will remain forever out of reach.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/oct/26/psychology-of-climate-change
From 10:10 to the government's Act On CO2 campaign, it is now widely accepted that tackling climate change will require tackling behaviour change too. But until now, a key piece has been missing from the puzzle – psychology. The study of human behaviour has been conspicuous by its absence from the climate change debate.
The assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have provided the scientific evidence of human impact on the climate, and a glimpse of what the future may hold if we don't act fast. But while the consensus may be growing on the need for changes in behaviour, we're no closer to understanding how we're going to do it. Attempting an unprecedented shift in human behaviour without the input of psychologists is like setting sail for a faraway land without the aid of nautical maps.
Psychological research shows that most people in the UK don't feel personally threatened by climate change because it is vague, abstract and difficult to visualise. This means that doomsday scenarios and apocalyptic language are unlikely to work – although fear can motivate behaviour change, it only works when people feel personally vulnerable. Clearly, exaggerating the threat of climate change is not an option. So how can climate change be made more relevant to people's lives?
In the dusty journals and leather-bound books of university libraries lie decades of psychological research on human behaviour. Why are habits so difficult to change? Do people make decisions based on rational criteria, or impulse and intuition? Why do people tend to unnecessarily fear some risks, yet inadvisably discount others? These are all questions that will become increasingly pertinent as the transition to a low-carbon future progresses.
Fortunately, climate change is starting to be acknowledged by social scientists on both sides of the Atlantic. Earlier this year, the American Psychological Association published an extensive review of psychology's contribution to tackling climate change. And on 27 October, the British Psychological Society will hold its inaugural meeting on the psychology of climate change. From the language used to describe climate change, to the ways in which habits are made and broken, the signs are that psychology holds the key to driving the shift to sustainability.
An American study played people recordings of actors delivering speeches about climate change. The version that people responded to the best talked about "air pollution" rather than "climate change" – because pollution is something visible that they could relate to, with strong connotations of dirtiness and poor health. Climate change is about much more than just dirty air, but finding ways of making climate change more visible is critical. People simply don't worry about things they can't see (or even imagine).
One approach that has been used to increase the amount that people use public transport breaks down habits into simple "if… then" plans. To change a habitual behaviour, a person has to identify a goal (drive less, for example), a behaviour they want to perform in pursuit of that goal (get the bus to work on Fridays) and a situation that will trigger the behaviour (having enough time to catch the bus). In this example, if it's Thursday evening, then the alarm needs to be set for a different time, and if it's Friday morning, then have a quick shower instead of a long bath. Thinking about behaviour in these terms is unfamiliar – but even the most well-intentioned goals are doomed to fail without a strategy for achieving them.
Of course, some people are wary of committing themselves to changes in their personal behaviour. They argue that political agreements and technological advances will do more to reduce greenhouse gases than anything an individual could achieve. But while it is comforting to draw sharp distinctions between politics, technology and individuals, the reality is that human behaviour underpins it all. Political parties will not pass legislation that is patently unpopular among the electorate. Technology can provide low-carbon alternatives like electric buses. But a zero-emissions bus will have zero passengers unless people decide to use it.
Household insulation has been rightly prioritised by policymakers as a key area where individual-level changes can play a significant role in reducing carbon emissions. But as Alexa Spence and Nick Pidgeon from Cardiff University argue in a forthcoming paper in the journal Environment, changes in household insulation depend on some key behavioural assumptions. In particular, the overheating of residential buildings has to become socially unacceptable, and people will have to be motivated to make changes to their home heating routines. Spence and Pidgeon suggest that periods of transition, where routines are already in flux, provide useful opportunities to develop new, more sustainable habits. In the context of home insulation, some building work already scheduled for the house might provide not only the practical opportunity for some low-carbon upgrades, but also the perfect psychological context for making some long-intended changes to habits and routines.
If the thought of psychologically informed lifestyle change campaigns sounds a bit too Big Brother for your liking, then consider the alternative: millions of pounds spent on technology that is never taken up, and a market-based system of economic coercion that penalises the poor while the rich keep polluting. Without an understanding of what drives people's environmental behaviour, the dream of a low-carbon society will remain forever out of reach.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
September 2009 - 10% …but what kind? The Disconnection between Private and Public Action.
10% is the figure of the moment in UK Politics. First of all Fanny Armstrong’s 10:10 campaign, which calls on individuals and organisations to cut 10% of their carbon in 2010, has caught on with the political community - On september the 3rd the Guardian reported that the cabinet, the Conservative front bench and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg had all signed up http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/03/cabinet-signs-up-10-10
Also while the Baby-kissers pledge to cut their personal carbon, that 10% figure is also the one circulating (from the mouths of MP's and the pages of leaked treasury memos) for the probable amount of public spending cuts needed in 2010 - when (as all the 3 main parties appear to see it) the current, recession-busting financial stimulus ends and the belt tightening begins.
It is fair to say both these 10 % agendas have gathered a snowball like momentum over the last few months. Back in June Tory Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, was first to admit (as he saw it) the necessity of 10% cuts in public spending and at the time it was reported as a big gaffe http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23705988-brown-corners-cameron-on-tory-spending-cuts-gaffe.do;jsessionid=D3B77BCC42206E3E72FFA19E4A9FCBBB.
Now at the end of september 10% cuts are promoted routinely by the Conservative front bench and if leaked treasury documents are to be believed Labour have also adopted the 10% agenda. This journey for deep (or “savage” as the Nick Clegg describes them) spending cuts from “nasty” to “necessary” Seumas Milne for one has described as a “a brilliant political manoeuvre” by the Conservative opposition. So despite Brown being elusive on his figures and public polls showing as unconvinced on the necessity of cuts the notion of 10% is still in forward motion through government westminster and local authorities. http://www.lgcplus.com/finance/recession/public-in-denial-about-spending-cuts/5006509.article.
10:10’s growth started with an idea from Fanny Armstrong the director of the Film Age of Stupid, which also has a run away momentum of its own kicking off with the UK premier back in March building to the Global Premier this month. Evidently 10:10 has penetrated the “politico-media sphere” supported as it is by the guardian and endorsed even by telegraph journalists.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/6223936/1010---why-I-have-decided-to-sign-up-and-save-the-planet.html
However importantly what has not been evident are clear links between these two “runaway’ 10% agendas. There have not been clear political and media narratives saying saving public cash can also save public carbon. For example the spectrum of views on cuts in public spending in a Five Live radio talk show this month ran across conventional right to left lines with some advocating cuts and some arguing for continued public spending - with all arguments geared to the best way to re-stimulate growth. There was no carbon aware contribution to the discussion.
We know that carbon smart policies could have been linked more fundamentally to spending policy the global fiscal stimulus while it still lasts could and should already have prioritised investment to bring about the so called “Green New Deal” (discussed many times on this blog). A Green New Deal would prepare the ground for doing the belt tightening (that our party politicians tell us is is inevitable) while making the argument for carbon sustainable economic futures.
Green New Deal or not it still appears to be an anomaly that we now accept fairly readily the notion of saving money and cutting carbon at the same time in the private sphere but not so in the public sphere. The media narratives about cutting carbon so often appear to be about spending more cash (on renewables etc). Of course this spending is essential but it can be done by diverting public money away from carbon heavy public spending items and cost saving cuts (or efficiencies as Brown and co like to call them) such as reducing carbon heavy travel and food waste. Ultimately didn’t government economist Nicholas Stern tell us that in the long term cutting carbon is a saver - he said the cost of our inaction will be more than the cost of the action.
The 10:10 campaign asks for sign ups from individuals but also business’s and organisations, and one great big sign up for them is Royal Mail. On that theme also a positive move in September was the Lib Dems passing a conference motion for Lib Dem run local councils to sign up to 10:10. The same party conference also endorsed an end to taxpayer support for investments in high-polluting fuels like tar sands extraction http://peopleandplanet.org/navid8316
Many individuals experience the sense of disconnection between the action they take at home and the carbon usage of their places of work but people at the top, middle and bottom of organisations need to start to “own” the carbon spend in their daily shared enterprise whether its an airline or a school. It follows from all of this that politicians need to account for the carbon in there departments/offices/realms of influence to always be stepping beyond personal commitments, like signing up as an individual to 10:10, which have a useful symbolic significance but are at best misleading if those politicians are not taking the required 10% action in their public roles.
TF
Also while the Baby-kissers pledge to cut their personal carbon, that 10% figure is also the one circulating (from the mouths of MP's and the pages of leaked treasury memos) for the probable amount of public spending cuts needed in 2010 - when (as all the 3 main parties appear to see it) the current, recession-busting financial stimulus ends and the belt tightening begins.
It is fair to say both these 10 % agendas have gathered a snowball like momentum over the last few months. Back in June Tory Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, was first to admit (as he saw it) the necessity of 10% cuts in public spending and at the time it was reported as a big gaffe http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23705988-brown-corners-cameron-on-tory-spending-cuts-gaffe.do;jsessionid=D3B77BCC42206E3E72FFA19E4A9FCBBB.
Now at the end of september 10% cuts are promoted routinely by the Conservative front bench and if leaked treasury documents are to be believed Labour have also adopted the 10% agenda. This journey for deep (or “savage” as the Nick Clegg describes them) spending cuts from “nasty” to “necessary” Seumas Milne for one has described as a “a brilliant political manoeuvre” by the Conservative opposition. So despite Brown being elusive on his figures and public polls showing as unconvinced on the necessity of cuts the notion of 10% is still in forward motion through government westminster and local authorities. http://www.lgcplus.com/finance/recession/public-in-denial-about-spending-cuts/5006509.article.
10:10’s growth started with an idea from Fanny Armstrong the director of the Film Age of Stupid, which also has a run away momentum of its own kicking off with the UK premier back in March building to the Global Premier this month. Evidently 10:10 has penetrated the “politico-media sphere” supported as it is by the guardian and endorsed even by telegraph journalists.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/6223936/1010---why-I-have-decided-to-sign-up-and-save-the-planet.html
However importantly what has not been evident are clear links between these two “runaway’ 10% agendas. There have not been clear political and media narratives saying saving public cash can also save public carbon. For example the spectrum of views on cuts in public spending in a Five Live radio talk show this month ran across conventional right to left lines with some advocating cuts and some arguing for continued public spending - with all arguments geared to the best way to re-stimulate growth. There was no carbon aware contribution to the discussion.
We know that carbon smart policies could have been linked more fundamentally to spending policy the global fiscal stimulus while it still lasts could and should already have prioritised investment to bring about the so called “Green New Deal” (discussed many times on this blog). A Green New Deal would prepare the ground for doing the belt tightening (that our party politicians tell us is is inevitable) while making the argument for carbon sustainable economic futures.
Green New Deal or not it still appears to be an anomaly that we now accept fairly readily the notion of saving money and cutting carbon at the same time in the private sphere but not so in the public sphere. The media narratives about cutting carbon so often appear to be about spending more cash (on renewables etc). Of course this spending is essential but it can be done by diverting public money away from carbon heavy public spending items and cost saving cuts (or efficiencies as Brown and co like to call them) such as reducing carbon heavy travel and food waste. Ultimately didn’t government economist Nicholas Stern tell us that in the long term cutting carbon is a saver - he said the cost of our inaction will be more than the cost of the action.
The 10:10 campaign asks for sign ups from individuals but also business’s and organisations, and one great big sign up for them is Royal Mail. On that theme also a positive move in September was the Lib Dems passing a conference motion for Lib Dem run local councils to sign up to 10:10. The same party conference also endorsed an end to taxpayer support for investments in high-polluting fuels like tar sands extraction http://peopleandplanet.org/navid8316
Many individuals experience the sense of disconnection between the action they take at home and the carbon usage of their places of work but people at the top, middle and bottom of organisations need to start to “own” the carbon spend in their daily shared enterprise whether its an airline or a school. It follows from all of this that politicians need to account for the carbon in there departments/offices/realms of influence to always be stepping beyond personal commitments, like signing up as an individual to 10:10, which have a useful symbolic significance but are at best misleading if those politicians are not taking the required 10% action in their public roles.
TF
Monday, 31 August 2009
September 2009 - What are we going to do at Copenhagen (part II)
Some possible answers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/table/2009/aug/05/climate-change-ngo-copenhagen
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/table/2009/aug/05/climate-change-ngo-copenhagen
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
August 2009 - What are we going to do at Copenhagen?
Oh, to be a member of the anti-vivisection movement. OK, so standing in the rain on a Saturday afternoon handing out pictures of tortured animals is no-one's idea of fun. But at least their purposes are well defined: they want an end to animal testing. And how would they know when they had succeeded? When animal testing was banned across the world.
By comparison, to be a climate change campaigner is to gradually accept that there is no single 'goal' towards which you are aiming, and that even if there was, you would have no real way of knowing that it has been achieved. Of course, there are any number of climate change campaigns with specific targets, and at Copenhagen, campaigners will push for the United Nations Delegates to agree to keep global temperatures to less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. But in general, the green movement has a problem: its not obvious what we're campaigning for.
The upcoming Copenhagen negotiations make this all too clear. Thousands of campaigners will descend on the conference. I will probably be one of them. But when we are there, what will we do? At the rarefied level of international negotiations, we find not a global problem waiting to be solved but a jumbled projection of human problems rolled into one. Powerful commercial interests will lobby for exemptions from emissions reductions. Corrupt governments will seek to leverage more power from regulatory authority. Opportunistic investors will invent financial instruments to cash in on carbon markets. These are all problems that a global cap on greenhouse gas emissions will do nothing to alleviate. So what are we fighting for - an idealised level of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations? Preventing a 2 degree rise in global temperatures means nothing without an equitable mechanism for making this happen.
Are we for or against carbon trading? Is the scheme to reduced emissions from deforestation and degredation (REDD) a way of preserving the Amazon or a land-grab? Should the world be investing in high-tech infrastructure to adapt to inevitable climate change or throwing everything we've got into stopping any more from happening? These are questions that climate change campaigners have opinions on - the problem is, our opinions often differ.
In an eye-opening piece in the Guardian earlier this week, Andy Beckett asked why the political Left had not seized the opportunity presented to them by the global recession and the exposure of laissez-faire capitalism for the cut-throat casino that it is. The conclusion he reached was depressingly familiar: there simply isn't a coherent set of ideas that can wrestle power away from growth-based capitalism. Despite being exposed as a delusional sham, it remains - for all intents and purposes - the only game in town: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/17/left-politics-capitalism-recession
Beckett pondered whether the increasing political focus on climate change and environmental sustainability would provide some structure for the Left's shapeless ideas. But if the Left are looking to the Green movement for an ideological framework, then they've come to the wrong place: as Mike Hulme powerfully demonstrates in his book Why We Disagree about Climate Change, this is a place for all of humanity's previous disputes and disagreements to be played out again and again.
The NGOs are starting to mobilise support for their Copenhagen campaigns - there will be no shortage of demands made, no lack of enthusiastic pressure for a 'strong' agreement to be reached. But its difficult to shake the feeling that the Copenhagen conference will be predominantly political theatre, played out on the world's biggest stage. While some crucial milestones are yet to be passed (the final position taken by the US, for example), COP15 may be significant not because key decisions are made there, but because they are formalised there. So what role for the activists on the outside? Will we simply be playing our role in the political theatre?
Whinging that climate change is a complex and multi-faceted problem is not going to make it go away. The activists that go to Copenhagen will do so with passion and conviction, and hope for a fair and sustainable future. But with only a few months to go until supposedly the world's most important meeting begins, there is a chorus of overlapping and sometimes contradictory voices where (ideally) a coherent position should be.
Do we know what we are campaigning for at Copenhagen?
AC
By comparison, to be a climate change campaigner is to gradually accept that there is no single 'goal' towards which you are aiming, and that even if there was, you would have no real way of knowing that it has been achieved. Of course, there are any number of climate change campaigns with specific targets, and at Copenhagen, campaigners will push for the United Nations Delegates to agree to keep global temperatures to less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. But in general, the green movement has a problem: its not obvious what we're campaigning for.
The upcoming Copenhagen negotiations make this all too clear. Thousands of campaigners will descend on the conference. I will probably be one of them. But when we are there, what will we do? At the rarefied level of international negotiations, we find not a global problem waiting to be solved but a jumbled projection of human problems rolled into one. Powerful commercial interests will lobby for exemptions from emissions reductions. Corrupt governments will seek to leverage more power from regulatory authority. Opportunistic investors will invent financial instruments to cash in on carbon markets. These are all problems that a global cap on greenhouse gas emissions will do nothing to alleviate. So what are we fighting for - an idealised level of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations? Preventing a 2 degree rise in global temperatures means nothing without an equitable mechanism for making this happen.
Are we for or against carbon trading? Is the scheme to reduced emissions from deforestation and degredation (REDD) a way of preserving the Amazon or a land-grab? Should the world be investing in high-tech infrastructure to adapt to inevitable climate change or throwing everything we've got into stopping any more from happening? These are questions that climate change campaigners have opinions on - the problem is, our opinions often differ.
In an eye-opening piece in the Guardian earlier this week, Andy Beckett asked why the political Left had not seized the opportunity presented to them by the global recession and the exposure of laissez-faire capitalism for the cut-throat casino that it is. The conclusion he reached was depressingly familiar: there simply isn't a coherent set of ideas that can wrestle power away from growth-based capitalism. Despite being exposed as a delusional sham, it remains - for all intents and purposes - the only game in town: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/17/left-politics-capitalism-recession
Beckett pondered whether the increasing political focus on climate change and environmental sustainability would provide some structure for the Left's shapeless ideas. But if the Left are looking to the Green movement for an ideological framework, then they've come to the wrong place: as Mike Hulme powerfully demonstrates in his book Why We Disagree about Climate Change, this is a place for all of humanity's previous disputes and disagreements to be played out again and again.
The NGOs are starting to mobilise support for their Copenhagen campaigns - there will be no shortage of demands made, no lack of enthusiastic pressure for a 'strong' agreement to be reached. But its difficult to shake the feeling that the Copenhagen conference will be predominantly political theatre, played out on the world's biggest stage. While some crucial milestones are yet to be passed (the final position taken by the US, for example), COP15 may be significant not because key decisions are made there, but because they are formalised there. So what role for the activists on the outside? Will we simply be playing our role in the political theatre?
Whinging that climate change is a complex and multi-faceted problem is not going to make it go away. The activists that go to Copenhagen will do so with passion and conviction, and hope for a fair and sustainable future. But with only a few months to go until supposedly the world's most important meeting begins, there is a chorus of overlapping and sometimes contradictory voices where (ideally) a coherent position should be.
Do we know what we are campaigning for at Copenhagen?
AC
Thursday, 16 July 2009
July 2009 - The sky's the limit?
The past seven days have seen a wave of activity from the Department for Energy and Climate Change. With the publication of the UK Low Carbon Transition plan outlining the first steps in Britain's attempted transition towards a post-carbon (well, a 20% carbon) society, Ed Miliband has provided the first glimpse of a counterpart to the Climate Change Bill. We celebrated the ambitious targets, but we always knew that what came next would be critical - the plan for how the targets would be achieved.
The Transition plan seems to revive something of the spirit of the Green New Deal, mercilessly dashed on the rocks of the recession at the g20 meeting in London. Much is made of the prospect for Green Jobs, not least in the insulation of inefficient housing stock (firmly echoing the Green New Deal call for a 'carbon army' of home insulators).
Announcements were also made about the approximate pricing of feed-in renewable energy tariffs, designed to encourage micro-generation. Combine this with the UK Climate Projections issued last month, the supposed global agreement on 2 degrees as constituting 'dangerous' climate change at the g8 in Italy and the imminent conference in Copenhagen, and its difficult not to feel vaguely optimistic that the UK government are at last getting their arse in gear on climate change.
Ed Miliband made one other announcement this week, however, that pierces this little bubble somewhat. Couching his argument as a noble struggle against the tyranny of upper class aviation, Miliband stated unequivocally that aviation would not be subject to the 80% cuts that other sectors of the economy would be making. In fact, he explicitly raised the propsect of deeper-than-80% cuts in 'other areas' in order to permit aviation to continue to be available for rich and poor alike.
In the Guardian, Leo Hickman raised asked a reasonable question: What were these frivolous non-aviation sectors of the economy that were likely to face deeper-than-80% cuts - education? Health? Council services? Despite making it sound as if reducing aviation would mean ushering in a new age of travel apartheid with only the top tier of earners able to leave Britain's drab and cloudly shores, Miliband also conceded that air travel would inevitably become more expensive as the price of oil rose. So despite pledging not to reduce aviation emissions by 80%, he also suggested that the price of flying would rise (presumably leading to a situation where only richer folk get on anyway).
Its good to see that Ed is so concerned about social justice and equality of access to the runway. So why not charge the rich more to allow the poor to fly? If only 20% of the flights that now take off will be permitted in 2080, why not ration them so that we all get an equal opportunity to use the 'freedom' of the sky? It isnt the wrath of the families heading to the Costa Del Sol Ed's fearing (after all, with plausible advances in rail travel, and accompanying reductions in cost, a trip to Spain could be done door-to-door from Manchester overnight). Its the Business class elite (Ryanair's average customer earns £47,000), whose lifestyle and networking would fall apart without the island hopping luxury they have become accustomed to.
Ed Miliband and DECC are starting to make some big strides in putting climate ambition into practice. But for now, it looks like the sky's the limit...
AC
The Transition plan seems to revive something of the spirit of the Green New Deal, mercilessly dashed on the rocks of the recession at the g20 meeting in London. Much is made of the prospect for Green Jobs, not least in the insulation of inefficient housing stock (firmly echoing the Green New Deal call for a 'carbon army' of home insulators).
Announcements were also made about the approximate pricing of feed-in renewable energy tariffs, designed to encourage micro-generation. Combine this with the UK Climate Projections issued last month, the supposed global agreement on 2 degrees as constituting 'dangerous' climate change at the g8 in Italy and the imminent conference in Copenhagen, and its difficult not to feel vaguely optimistic that the UK government are at last getting their arse in gear on climate change.
Ed Miliband made one other announcement this week, however, that pierces this little bubble somewhat. Couching his argument as a noble struggle against the tyranny of upper class aviation, Miliband stated unequivocally that aviation would not be subject to the 80% cuts that other sectors of the economy would be making. In fact, he explicitly raised the propsect of deeper-than-80% cuts in 'other areas' in order to permit aviation to continue to be available for rich and poor alike.
In the Guardian, Leo Hickman raised asked a reasonable question: What were these frivolous non-aviation sectors of the economy that were likely to face deeper-than-80% cuts - education? Health? Council services? Despite making it sound as if reducing aviation would mean ushering in a new age of travel apartheid with only the top tier of earners able to leave Britain's drab and cloudly shores, Miliband also conceded that air travel would inevitably become more expensive as the price of oil rose. So despite pledging not to reduce aviation emissions by 80%, he also suggested that the price of flying would rise (presumably leading to a situation where only richer folk get on anyway).
Its good to see that Ed is so concerned about social justice and equality of access to the runway. So why not charge the rich more to allow the poor to fly? If only 20% of the flights that now take off will be permitted in 2080, why not ration them so that we all get an equal opportunity to use the 'freedom' of the sky? It isnt the wrath of the families heading to the Costa Del Sol Ed's fearing (after all, with plausible advances in rail travel, and accompanying reductions in cost, a trip to Spain could be done door-to-door from Manchester overnight). Its the Business class elite (Ryanair's average customer earns £47,000), whose lifestyle and networking would fall apart without the island hopping luxury they have become accustomed to.
Ed Miliband and DECC are starting to make some big strides in putting climate ambition into practice. But for now, it looks like the sky's the limit...
AC
Friday, 26 June 2009
June 2009 - Climate sceptics: Certain about Uncertainty?
First published in the Environment section of the Guardian on 25/06/09:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/jun/25/climate-science-uncertainty
It seems the one thing climate change sceptics are certain of is uncertainty, in particular how uncertainty in the predictions of climate models fatally undermines their legitimacy.
So the recent revelation of the UK government's projections of global warming through to 2080 was met, predictably, with some cynicism by the deniers. While some commentators used the detailed projections about possible future UK climate scenarios to underscore why we must take strong action on climate change, the response of climate sceptics was to say that the error bars in the projections made them worthless.
Never mind that the level of uncertainty about mean temperature increase, sea level rise and seasonal rainfall was dealt with in painstaking and meticulous detail in the report. For some, the mere presence of uncertainty was reason enough to doubt. But uncertainty is not an enemy of science that must be conquered – it is the stimulus that drives science forward. As in economic forecasts, medical diagnoses, and policy making, uncertainty runs through climate science like the lettering in sticks of rock.
The good news is that scientists are particularly adept at acknowledging, identifying and modelling it. The Met Office team responsible for the climate projections managed to systematically indicate what they did know, what they didn't know and how confident they were about these judgments. If there's one group of people who have thought long and hard about uncertainty, its climate scientists. But Irene Lorenzoni and her colleagues at the University of East Anglia have shown that people frequently view uncertainty as a reason for inaction on climate change.
Such is the level of scepticism in some quarters that climate scientists are constantly required to apologise for what they don't know, rather than encouraged to communicate what they do. But uncertainty is not the same as ignorance – which is why the labelling of GM food became mandatory in 2004. The Food Standards Agency did not demand certainty before taking action, although the uncertainty surrounding the risks of genetic modification is far greater than the considered consensus of climate science.
One reason that so much attention is given to the uncertainty associated with climate models is that they form the basis of important and costly policy decisions. But the "precautionary principle" is a well-established method of policy making when uncertainty prevails, on the basis that it is better to be safe than sorry. Could it be that climate sceptics' obsession with uncertainty is simply an unwillingness to accept the consequences of the climate changing – that their lifestyles will have to change as well?
The UK climate projections are not a weather forecast for 3 July 2078. They are a set of scientifically rigorous probabilistic assessments of what the UK climate might be like in, say, 50 years time. But the writers of the report seemed to feel compelled to get their counter-arguments in early. Of course, it is absolutely essential that all uncertainties in climate models are made clear. But it's odd reading a scientific report where the caveats come before the take-home message.
There is one crucial uncertainty, however, that cannot be captured in any climate model: the extent to which action is taken to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases. The irony of the debate surrounding what we can and can't infer from climate models is that they sketch out possible, not inevitable futures. By giving us some idea of what lies ahead, they furnish us with a critical opportunity to change course. Rather than procrastinating about uncertainty – an inescapable fact of life – we should be taking the opportunity to get serious about climate change, and prove the climate models wrong.
AC
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/jun/25/climate-science-uncertainty
It seems the one thing climate change sceptics are certain of is uncertainty, in particular how uncertainty in the predictions of climate models fatally undermines their legitimacy.
So the recent revelation of the UK government's projections of global warming through to 2080 was met, predictably, with some cynicism by the deniers. While some commentators used the detailed projections about possible future UK climate scenarios to underscore why we must take strong action on climate change, the response of climate sceptics was to say that the error bars in the projections made them worthless.
Never mind that the level of uncertainty about mean temperature increase, sea level rise and seasonal rainfall was dealt with in painstaking and meticulous detail in the report. For some, the mere presence of uncertainty was reason enough to doubt. But uncertainty is not an enemy of science that must be conquered – it is the stimulus that drives science forward. As in economic forecasts, medical diagnoses, and policy making, uncertainty runs through climate science like the lettering in sticks of rock.
The good news is that scientists are particularly adept at acknowledging, identifying and modelling it. The Met Office team responsible for the climate projections managed to systematically indicate what they did know, what they didn't know and how confident they were about these judgments. If there's one group of people who have thought long and hard about uncertainty, its climate scientists. But Irene Lorenzoni and her colleagues at the University of East Anglia have shown that people frequently view uncertainty as a reason for inaction on climate change.
Such is the level of scepticism in some quarters that climate scientists are constantly required to apologise for what they don't know, rather than encouraged to communicate what they do. But uncertainty is not the same as ignorance – which is why the labelling of GM food became mandatory in 2004. The Food Standards Agency did not demand certainty before taking action, although the uncertainty surrounding the risks of genetic modification is far greater than the considered consensus of climate science.
One reason that so much attention is given to the uncertainty associated with climate models is that they form the basis of important and costly policy decisions. But the "precautionary principle" is a well-established method of policy making when uncertainty prevails, on the basis that it is better to be safe than sorry. Could it be that climate sceptics' obsession with uncertainty is simply an unwillingness to accept the consequences of the climate changing – that their lifestyles will have to change as well?
The UK climate projections are not a weather forecast for 3 July 2078. They are a set of scientifically rigorous probabilistic assessments of what the UK climate might be like in, say, 50 years time. But the writers of the report seemed to feel compelled to get their counter-arguments in early. Of course, it is absolutely essential that all uncertainties in climate models are made clear. But it's odd reading a scientific report where the caveats come before the take-home message.
There is one crucial uncertainty, however, that cannot be captured in any climate model: the extent to which action is taken to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases. The irony of the debate surrounding what we can and can't infer from climate models is that they sketch out possible, not inevitable futures. By giving us some idea of what lies ahead, they furnish us with a critical opportunity to change course. Rather than procrastinating about uncertainty – an inescapable fact of life – we should be taking the opportunity to get serious about climate change, and prove the climate models wrong.
AC
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