Climate Change: Economics and George Monbiot’s Action Plan

We hear increasingly urgent calls for action, while still being offered larger and faster cars, being encouraged to invest in oil related investments and to take our holidays ever further away. Philip Stephens, writing in the Financial Times (“The Inconvenient Truth that Threatens to Change Everything”, 6th October 2006) comments “They still do not get it. Tune in to the politicians and you could be forgiven for thinking they are finally grasping the significance of climate change. Sustainable growth is the political cliché of our times. Smart politicians have learnt that there are votes to be had from planting trees. Listen carefully and the rhetoric is mostly empty”. He refers to an as yet unpublished report for the British Government by Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank economist, which shows that the “costs of action now are relatively modest – far smaller than those that would flow from delay. In the US, Mr. Bush is looking increasingly isolated, and obsolete, as states and cities pledge to reduce carbon emissions.”

The Huge Cost of Not Tackling Climate Change soon

A fuller account of the Stern report was published on SciDev.net “UK Warns of Huge Cost of not Tackling Climate Change”. His report was presented to a private meeting of environment and finance ministers from 20 industrialised and emerging economies in Mexico. The gathering in Mexico was to establish a framework for tackling climate change after the Kyoto Protocol comes to an end in 2012.

George Monbiot’s Action Plan

I went to a stirring meeting organised by COIN (Climate Outreach Information Network) on 19th October 2006. George Monbiot, the campaigning journalist in favour of tackling climate change and inequity, was the main speaker and, ostensibly, the meeting was to launch his new book “Heat: How to stop the planet burning”, published by Allen Lane. Expecting a large turnout, the Sheldonian Theatre in Broad Street, Oxford, had been booked and even that was filled to capacity, despite bad weather (I cycled home in a heavy downpour at the end – feeling intrepid).

He speaks well, using neither notes or presentation software. It’s refreshing to hear rhetoric and effective argument, uncluttered by images and bullet points.

Some of his themes:

Climate change challenges our imagination and our morality. It’s hard to believe that our individual actions are changing the nature of the planet. In our old morality it is right to travel to New York for a friend’s wedding or to visit relations in Australia, but a new morality is emerging in which those things could be contributing to our destruction. But the danger is that we are witnessing a shift, a tipping point, moving from “is climate change really happening?” to “it’s too late” and abdication of responsibility.

This led to his over-arching theme – we still have time to avert disaster and his action plan.

Firstly, what do we have to achieve, and what are the dangers of not achieving it?

As one expects from Monbiot, this is starkly presented, and research based; an FAO report which concludes that climate change will increase hunger in the 40 poorest nations on earth; the Royal Society paper which demonstrated that forecasts that climate change will increase food production (in the temperate regions – not in regions where poverty is prevalent) are wildly optimistic – ozone levels will rise and will inhibit plant growth; a paper in a hydrometeorology journal concluding that by 2090 climate change would produce a severe net global drying threat.

Monbiot concludes that the west (equity demands that we need to cut more than less developed countries) needs to achieve a 90% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030 in order avoid tipping off an accelerating and uncontrollable global warming trend (an article in New Scientist of 30th September 2006, “One Degree and We’re Done For” explains how warming in Siberia – now almost 2°C warmer than in 1970 – is causing methane to be released and how this could set in train other processes which have ‘the potential to transform the world into “another planet” ..).

Monbiot’s plan is for bringing about this 90% reduction in the UK. As he commented, he’s explained what could be done, but doesn’t deal with the issue of how to achieve the necessary political will. I may devote another posting to his solutions, which cover individual, tradable, carbon rations, electricity generation, energy saving in the home, inter-city transport and aviation. His solutions sometimes run counter to accepted wisdom, for example highlighting the dangers of switching to biofuels and arguing for offshore wind-generation and solar electricity generation in the Sahara Desert while dismissing microgeneration [1] as too costly and ineffective for general consumption (though possibly effective in some situations).

I was disappointed that he did not cover urban design and local transport (and the short-comings of the UK Government’s plans for ‘sustainable communities’ to provide for additional dwellings in the south-east of England) but time was limited. Questioning was lively and strictly managed by George Marshall (of COIN). I was unable to ask my question – whether he’d taken account of the major emissions involved in the infrastructure development involved (such as offshore wind-turbine installation, photo-voltaic arrays in the desert and a new high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission network.

Take Responsibility!

His final words, in answer to a question about how to generate the political will, were “that’s up to you … there are no other people, there is no other time – ten more years and it will be too late – I want you to take responsibility”. Reminded me of Billy Graham’s evangelical meetings of many years ago where people were invited to come up and pledge their lives to Christ – and often the majority of the audience made the pledge. But, as a friend remarked afterwards, Monbiot’s claim was grounded and built on sound science and hard-headed assessment of the risks. Monbiot is right, the dangers challenge our imagination, but the potential for harm is so enormous we must take responsibility and take whatever action we can to bring about a new political reality where governments can introduce tough measures, which, like war-time fuel rationing, are accepted, because the public recognises their need.

1. See his article “Low-wattage thinking: Small-scale power schemes may sound great, but this flawed idea could wreck our chances of stopping global warming” New Scientist (30^th September 2006)

Climate ‘tipping points’, carbon offsets and emergency shelter

I’m relieved that climate change seems to be moving higher up the agenda, although bearing in mind the magnitude of the risks we’ve hardly started tackling the problem.  Last Thursday, 14^th September 2006, I attended an evening organised by COIN (Climate Outreach Information Network) at Ruskin College, Oxford.  The subject of the evening was ‘Carbon offsets – salvation or distraction?’  Mike Mason, the founder and managing director of Climate Care, one of the fastest growing offset companies, gave an excellent talk on the theory of offsets and the problems of selecting projects which reduce emission of greenhouse gases (primarily carbon dioxide and methane) which would not otherwise have taken place.  I intend to give a flavour of the meeting in another posting, but I want to mention a few of the statistics which emerged from the evening.  In 2005, according to their annual report, Climate Care sold of 99 000 tonnes of carbon offsets and Mike claimed that their offsets achieved were running ahead of the offsets sold.  On the other hand the UK’s emissions have increased in the last two years and are now more than in 1995.  The government has the rhetoric but has not achieved reductions and certainly nothing like those needed to achieve climate stability, given IPCC forecasting consensus figures.

Whatever reductions the UK might expect be planning (20% by 2020) this is swamped by increasing emissions from a power hungry China, which is apparently opening new coal-fired power stations at the rate of one every five days, and putting 22 000 thousand new cars on the road every day (I must check that – it seems so incredible).  Incidentally, a programme on BBC Radio 4, ‘Driven by Oil’ considered the effect of China’s aggressive search to secure sources of oil on political stability and on attempts by countries of the West to aim for an ‘ethical foreign policy’ – a phrase marketed by the late Robin Cook as UK Foreign Secretary but long since dropped.

 Last Friday’s Financial Times (15^th September 2006) demonstrated how the urgency of tackling potentially disastrous climate is becoming better known.  An article by Fiona Harvey “The heat is on: how global warming could suddenly tip over and ignite calamity” reviewed some of the arguments and areas where feedback effects can reinforce the impact of a rise in greenhouse gases, namely melting of artic ice, melting of the Greenland ice sheet and  accelerating glacier movement towards the sea, melting of glaciers elsewhere as likely to lead to floods followed by water shortages, melting of the permafrost leading to methane emissions, faster decomposition of organic matter in the soil, Amazon rain forest die-back and acidification of the oceans and lowered agricultural productivity.

This reminded me of an editorial in New Scientist (24 December 2005) Review 2005: Climate going crazy “The ominous phrase “tipping point” entered the vocabulary of climate science – a stark warning that global warming may soon spiral out of control”.  The article reviewed the worrying events, and research published, during 2005 suggesting climate change acceleration.

Meanwhile, I’ve been browsing through Architecture for Humanity’s 2006 book “Design Like you Give a Damn”, some of which deals with ideas for emergency housing, shelter and water supply.  Some of the demand for these arises out of climate change related events such as drought, flood and storms including Hurricane Katrina, the one which hit New Orleans in 2005; even now some of those displaced are living in emergency accommodation.  Let’s hope that we manage to contain our impact on climate change and that we won’t have enormously increased crisis needs to respond to – we’ve got quite enough unmet need as it is.