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development dialogue

no. 48 september 2006

a critical conversationon climate change,

privatisation and power


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Guest editor and authorLarry Lohmann

EditorsNiclas Hllstrm

Olle NordbergRobert sterbergh

Sub-editorWendy Davies

Production editorsMattias LassonGerd Ryman-Ericson

Design and layoutMattias Lasson

PrintersMediaprintUddevalla, Sweden,September 2006

Subscribers are kindly requested toinorm the Dag Hammarskjld Centreo any changes o address or subscriptioncancellations.

Editorial Of ceThe Dag Hammarskjld Centrevre Slottsgatan 2SE-753 10 Uppsala, Sweden

Fax: +46-(0)18-12 20 72E-mail: [email protected]: www.dh.uu.se

The opinions expressed in the journal

are those o the authors and do notnecessarily reect the views o the DagHammarskjld Foundation.

ISSN 0345-2328

Larry Lohmannworkswith the Corner House,a small research and soli-darity organisation in theUK. He is the co-author oPulping the South: Industrial

Tree Plantations and the World Paper Economy(with Ricardo Carrere, 1996) and WhoseCommon Future? Reclaiming the Commons(with Simon Fairlie, Nicholas Hildyard

and Sarah Sexton, 1993), and co-editor oThe Struggle for Land and the fate of the Forests

(with Marcus Colchester, 1993). Since then,he has published articles and book chapterson climate change, land rights, globalisation,racism, orest conicts, development,environmental change in Southeast Asia andthe politics o cost-benet analysis. Duringthe 1980s he lived and worked in Thailand,

most o the time with non-governmentalorganisations.

Website: www.thecornerhouse.org.uk

This issue oDevelopment Dialogueis thesecond in a series oWhat Nextprojectpublications. It also orms part o a new phasein the journals history. Development Dialoguehas been given a resh look - a new coverdesign and a new layout. At the same time weare introducing a new and simpler numberingsystem, consisting o a running number alongwith month and year o publication. Thisissue is No. 48 in the series o issues published

since 1972. The length oDevelopment Dialogueissues may vary more than beore. We hopethe new design o the journal will meetwith readers approval.

Development Dialoguewill continue toprovide a space or pioneering ideas, andthe essential character o the journal willremain unchanged.

This issue oDevelopment Dialogueis publishedin cooperation with the Corner House.


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Eitoil ote 3

Chpte 1 Itoctio A ew oil el cii 5

Chpte 2 Me i the USA A hot hitoy o cbo tig 31

Chpte 3 Leo lee Polltio tig ile 71

Popety ight pivtitio 73

Emiio tig v. tctl chge 101

The pecil poblem o cbo poject 137

Whee the eocemet? 187

Nowig the icio 190

Smmig p Mket ieology v. climte ctio 198

Chpte 4 Ofet The oil ecoomy ew e o coict 219

The begiig A toy om Gteml 222

Fom the Nethel to the Ae A tle om Eco 226

The toy cotie Cbo oety i Ug 237

Cot Ric Eviometl evice pioee 247

Ii A tte o the te 255

Si Lk A cle eegy poject tht w ot o cle 273

Thil Biom i the evice o the col g ecoomy 280

Soth Aic Cbo ceit om the citie 287

Bil Hot o epeio l 302Photo Essay Plt v. locl people Two veio o hitoy 309

Chpte 5 Wy ow 329

Appeix The Db Decltio o cbo tig 356

Cotet


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Eitoil Note

It i ow ccepte wolwie tht the globe i wmig to ch extet

tht the livelihoo o lge wthe o the wol popltio e e

eio thet. Violet eqet tom weck people hbitt; -peictble wethe ticlly chge coitio o giclte; ew

helth thet emege. A elt, wee o globl wmig i i-

ceigly iecig thikig i both the Soth the Noth.

The ioy i, howeve, tht ome o the epoe to the globl thet

o climte chge e l ikely to ce ew evee poblem, which,

i wot-ce ceio, col ctlly icee globl wmig. A

thi pecil epot how, thi eem to be the ce with cbo t-

ig gioe mket cheme et p the wol pimy e-

poe to the cii o climte chge.The mi ce o globl wmig i pily iceig cbo iox-

ie emiio pimily the elt o big oil el epite

itetiol geemet to ece ch emiio. The toble i tht

epite beig we o the eio ittio, vey ew eciio-mke

e ey to tckle the poblem t it oot. Ite o ecig the

extctio o oil el echig o othe oltio, cet

cbo-tig policie, i pctice, vo the the exploittio o

thee el. Fthemoe, ew tee plttio, which e clime

me o mitigtig the coeqece o icee cbo ioxiepolltio, ote ive people ot o thei titiol livig go

etoy biologicl iveity.

Thi pecil epot om pt o the Dg Hmmkjl Fotio

What Nextpoject. It oce o cbo tig i itee to i-ece cet climte politic. I the ebte o the Kyoto Potocol

ew cto hve expee citicl view. It i high time, o the p-

poe o ebte policy-mkig, to pt the potlight o the coe

poblem oil el extctio comptio.

Thi pblictio, theeoe, tke bo look t evel imeio ocbo tig. It lye the poblem iig om the emegig globl

cbo mket petiig to the eviomet, ocil jtice hm

ight, ivetigte climte mitigtio ltetive. It povie hot

hitoy o cbo tig ice mbe o leo lee.

Nie ce tie om ifeet pt o the wol povie exmple o

the otcome o the go o vio cbo ofet cheme.

The pblictio poject h mte ove time. It w t ice

i coectio with ely Dg Hmmkjl What Nextemi

i Jly 2001 o Aeig Notechology Othe EmegigTechologie i the ETC Cety.

The eito mi tho, Ly Lohm, who wok with The

Coe Hoe mll eech oliity ogitio locte


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editorial note 3

i Doet, UK poite the Fotio to the iceig coce

bot cbo tig the ee o coolitio o citicl pe-

pective. A elt, the Dg Hmmkjl Fotio, i col-lbotio with evel othe civil ociety ogitio, ogie

itetiol emi i Soth Aic i Octobe 2004. The emi

le to the Db Decltio o Climte Jtice gve ie to

the Db Gop o Climte Jtice, which i ow plyig i-

ceigly impott ole i climte politic. The meetig w lo

the ttig poit o the witig o thi epot. At vio time i

2005 2006, Ly Lohm woke o the poject t the Dg

Hmmkjl Fotio Schol-i-Reiece.

Membe o the Db Gop hve plye impott ole i thepoce by cotibtig to commetig o the text. A ite-

tiol etwok o iepeet ogitio, iivil people

movemet, the Db Gop i committe to helpig bil glo-

bl goot movemet o climte jtice, mobiliig commitie

o the wol plegig oliity with people oppoig c-

bo tig o the go.

Thi pecil epot i thoogh, well-ocmete wok, the ppoe

o which i to ipie citicl -echig icio. Althogh the

topic i complex, it i o hope tht the welth o iomtio the epotcoti the iloge om i which it i witte will cotibte to

boe etig o the poblem eepe eggemet i oe

o the mot impott ie o o time.

* * *

The Fotio What Nextpoject, o which thi pecil epot ipt, im to cotibte to the icio o ccil evelopmet ie

i the ext ew ece. A ivee gop o cocee people h come

togethe to egge i itee iloge. The poject i eqel to the

Fotio What Now: Another Developmentiititive o 1975.

The What Nextelibetio e beig compile i evel pblic-tio. I itio to thi pecil epot, thee will be mbe o

volme oWhat Nextppe. The t, etitle Setting the Context,w pblihe i Jly 2006. Volme II III will ollow. The WhatNext Report 2005-2035, to be pblihe beoe the e o 2006, wo the mjo ebte o the What Nextpoce. It peet mbeo poible ceio o the ext thee ece, icle coce

bot vio oltio to climte chge ch lge-cle geo-

egieeig cheme techologicl xe to the poblem.

Olle Nordberg, Niclas Hllstrm, Robert sterbergh


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Chpte 1

ItoctioA ew oil el cii

In which the growing climate crisis is traced mainly to the mining o coal,oil and gas; the dangers to survival and livelihood are outlined; the politicalnature and implications o the problem explored; and reasonable andunreasonable solutions sketched.

Weve all heard about climate change. But is it really something we need to beworried about?

Ye. The climtic tbility tht hm hve gow e to ove the

lt ew cetie my be eig ooe th we thik. The elt

e likely to icle iteie oght oo, chge wethe

ptte, gicltl bekow, ecoytem iptio, iig e

level, epiemic, ocil bekow tht ltimtely thete the

live o livelihoo o he o mill io o people.

Whats the cause?

Like my othe ocil poblem, climte chge i cloely tie to

the big o oil, col g. Foil cbo i beig tke ot o

the go, thogh combtio chmbe, tee to

moe ctive pily cicltig cbo pool i the i, oce,

vegettio oil. Some o thi ctive cbo bil p i the t-

mophee i the om o cbo ioxie, tppig moe o the

het, wmig the eth etbiliig the climte. The cbobil-p p to 90 pe cet o which h come om the Noth h

bee me woe, epecilly ove the lt cety, by checke l

clece the pe o itil giclte.1

The i clty i tht oil cbo i lot eie to b th it i to

mke. It took millio o ye o plt to extct the cbo om

the tmophee tht mke p toy col, oil g epoit. It

tkig oly ew cetie to b it. Toy, the wol combt 400

ye woth o thi ccmlte, compee biologicl mtte evey

ye,2 thee to o time moe th i 1950. Thi cbo will ot beble to lock itel ely p ego gi col, oil o g o

my, my millei.


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6 development dialogue september 2006 carbon trading

Arent there any other ways that the earth can reabsorb this carbon?

Ye, bt they tke eve loge. The wetheig o ilicte ock

ie by wte the ctivity o plt emove ome cbo i-

oxie om the tmophee. Cbote ccmltig o the e oo

thogh wetheig, of o the ccmltio o cbo i the

hell o livig ogim e evetlly phe e cotietl

plte t oce ege, ig thei wy to the tmophee gi i

volcic ctivity. Thi poce, tkig mill io o ye, it goig to

olve the cet cii.

So the carbon that comes out o the ground stays out o the ground.

Fo vey log time. A oce it mke it wy to the ce i big

eogh qtitie, thee o wy o toppig it om bilig p i

the tmophee. Beoe the itil evoltio beg thee wee

oly o 580 billio toe o cbo i the tmophee. Toy

the ge i cloe to 750 billio toe the highet i he o

tho o ye.

Why cant trees absorb enough carbon dioxide to keep it out o the air?

Tee c bob ome o it. So c the wol oce, g, oil

eh wte. Bt they ct bob eogh o it, t eogh, to keep

it om ccmltig i the tmophee. No c they hol oto it

o vey log. Oce bove go, cbo cottly ow bck

oth mog vegettio, wte, oil i.

The oce, o itce, c tke p jt o mch o the ew cbo

poig p om ego. They hve ley bobe thi

o thei ltimte potetil, the ew cbo ioxie iolvig i

them i tig them moe ci.3

Figure 1. Human-caused CO2 build-up in the oceans is concentrated in the North Atlantic.

Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.


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introduction a new fossil fuel crisis 7

Plt oil e eve moe limite eceptcle o oil cbo

th the oce. Thei toge potetil i le th the cbo

cotet o the col, oil g till ego (ee Tble 1). Livig e biom hol o the oe o 2,000 billio toe o cbo,

while oil el compie e til l plig to te o twice

mch oil cbo to the ce. I itio, plt oil c

oly hol oto cbo o hot while beoe eleig it gi to

the i, wte o oil. Filly, how mch cbo l vegettio will

bob o emit i the te i highly ceti.4

So the above-ground carbon pool in the oceans, vegetation and soil is like a

bathtub with the drain plugged. As long as the tap stays on, the water justkeeps overfowing.

Ye. O to mke wht might be lightly bette compio, yo

might look t the eth bove-go cbo-cyclig cpcity,

mi the tmophee, mpig go tht h the bility to

ecycle ceti mot o the wte tht i pt ito it, bt o moe.

Accoig to oe etimte, betwee 1850 1995, totl o 368

billio toe o cbo wee elee globlly ito the tmophee

thogh hm ctivitie. Some 208 billio toe wee bobe

ito the oce ito vegettio oil, levig ext 160 bil-lio toe i the tmophee.7

Table 1. The Earth s Carbon Pools (billion tonnes)

Atmosphere 720-760

Oceans 38,400-40,000

Rock (mainly underground) 75,000,000

Land biosphereliving biomass 600-1,000

dead biomass 1,200

Fresh water 1-2

Fossil fuels

coal 3,510

oil 230

gas 140other 250

Annual transfer of fossil carbonto above ground carbon pools

7+

Sources: P. Falkowski et al., The Global Carbon Cycle: A Test of Our Knowledge of

Earth as System, Science 290, 13 October 2000; US Energy Information Administra-

tion. Estimates of the amount of unmined fossil fuels are all highly controversial. Much

higher estimates for oil (670 billion tonnes) and gas (503 billion tonnes) are given, forexample, by Hans-Holger Rogner.5 The US Geological Survey estimates about 360 bil-

lion tonnes of carbon to lie in recoverable oil.6


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Figure 2. Atmospheric carbon

Source: World Resources Institute

The cet te o ccmltio i the tmophee i ove 1.6 extbillio toe o cbo evey ye. A o cet te, my

time moe oil cbo will be e to the tmophee ove thi

cety th h bee e ice the itil e beg.

What would have to be done to stop the overfow?

Well, thee ley moe cbo ioxie i the tmophee th

thee h bee t y othe time i the lt hl millio ye 380

pt pe mill io, compe to pe-itil level o 280 pt pe

millio.8 So lot o mge h ley bee oe.

Accoig to the Itegovemetl Pel o Climte Chge

(IPCC) i 1990, i oe to tbilie tmopheic cocettio t

level le th oble tht o peitil time, geehoe g

emiio wol hve to be ece by 6080 pe cet.

So at present were acting as i we have something like two and a hal to vetimes the amount o carbon dump space than we really have.

Well, it pobbly ot poible to etimte with y cetity theeth cpcity to ecycle te o oil cbo with o emi-

e. Bt thee o qetio tht the cet te o oveow i hge.

400

380

360

340

320

300

280

260

240

220

200

1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000

Source: Scripps, ORNL, and IPCC

Parts Per Millions By Volume

Atmospheric Concentrations ofCarbon Dioxide, year 1000-2003

8,000

7,000

6,000

5,000

4,000

3,000

2,000

1,000

0

1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

Source: Worldwatch, ORNL, BP

Million Tons Carbon Equivalent

Global Carbon Emissions fromFossil Fuel Burning, year 1751-2003


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And this is denitely the main cause o climate change?

The Uite Ntio Itegovemetl Pel o Climte Chge,

pehp the mot petigio boy o climte cietit eve em-

ble, cocle tht mot o the obeve wmig o the lt 50 ye

i likely to be e to the icee i geehoe g cocettio

e to hm ctivitie.

But isnt there a lot o controversy about that?

Not mch. The IPCC jgemet i ow ppote by the US N-

tiol Acemy o Sciece, Bil Acemi e Cieci, Chi

Acemy o Sciece, the UK Royl Society, Fce Acmie e

Sciece, Gemy Akemie e Ntoche Leopoli, Ii

Ntiol Sciece Acemy, the Sciece Cocil o Jp, the Ri

Acemy o Sciece, Itly Accemi Niole ei Licei, the

Ameic Meteoologicl Society, the Ameic Geophyicl Uio,

C Royl Society the Ameic Aocitio o the A-

vcemet o Sciece.9 Thee o iet om it i y o 928 pee-

eviewe cietic ey o globl climte chge pblihe betwee

1993 2003.10 A the ew emiig coty bit o eviece hve

bee petty mch explie wy ove the lt cople o ye. Fo ex-

mple, the oce hve wme i wy tht vitlly le ot cyclicvitio i ol eegy expltio.11

OK, give me the bad news. What happens i the worlds above-ground carbondump goes on overfowing into the atmosphere?

At ome poit the bilp o cbo ioxie othe geehoe

ge i the tmophee will chge the climte cttophiclly. A

biologit Tim Fley ote, Thee i o mch cbo bie i the

wol col em [loe] tht, hol it it wy bck to the -

ce, it wol mke the plet hotile to lie we kow it.12

Com-btio o eve bttil ctio o emiig oil el eve

ew moe he billio toe col be ito.13

How bad is the situation now?

It h to tell wht the ltimte efect will be, bece the ext

geehoe g ley i the i will hve log-tem efect, ot

ll o which e eviet toy. Globl vege tempete hve

icee by oly 0.7 egee Cetige ice the mi-1800. To

be e, ome chge ote ttibte to globl wmig e l-ey oticeble. Fo exmple, ill i mi- to high ltite

h icee, Actic commitie e iceigly thetee by

cotl eoio mge htig teitoie, Actic e ice


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pemot i wilig, te i gowig o plt i-

ml pecie gig om pol be to btteie boel oet

tee.14 The popotio o the globl popltio fecte by wethe-elte ite oble betwee 1975 2001.15 Bt ch chge

e othig compe to wht o the wy. I it Thi Ae-

met epot i 2001, the IPCC pojecte tht, o cet te, the

plet wol wm p by betwee 1.4 5.8 egee Cetige

by 2100. My eeche ow believe tht the wmig col be

moe evee.16 Whicheve etimte e e, it i likely tht by

the e o the cety the eth will be hotte th t y othe

time i the lt two mil lio ye.

Two million years! Will human beings be ready or that?

Little will hve pepe them o it. At tht poit, climtic coi-

tio will pobbly be ot oly otie the hitoicl expeiece o

peet-y hm, bt otie thei ceto phyicl ecologi-

cl expeiece well.17

What are the changes that are expected?

Amog the likely miettio o climte chge i thi cety

will be: Le gicltl poctivity, epecilly i hotte plce.18

Moe eqet het wve le eqet col pell.

Bigge tom, highe wi moe wethe-elte mge like

tht ocite with Hice Kti i 2005 Hice Ct-

i i 2004, the t ecoe hice i the Soth Atltic.19

Moe itee oo , i mi-ltite cotietl iteio,

oght.

Wte cie ocite with ippeig glcie owpck

othe evet.20

Movemet o mig to othe egio, epecilly highe ltite.

Fte iee tmiio othe helth impct.21 The Wol

Helth Ogitio etimte tht the wmig pecipittio

te e to thopogeic climte chge o the pt 30 ye

ley clim ove 150,000 live lly.22

Riig e level. Meltig o the Wet Atctic Geel ice

heet, oce tte, wol likely become el-eiocig (ch ice

me col ot om i toy climte).23 Combie with the

theml expio o the wme oce, thi wol ltimtely

ce e-level ie i exce o 10 mete, ooig cotl citie


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pime gicltl e. Glcie withi the Wet Atctic

ice heet e ley ttig to ippe, collpe o the heet

withi thi cety cot be le ot.24

Specie extictio bioiveity lo.

Icee mbe o eviometl egee.25

How ast is all this happening?

No oe c be e how qickly thee poblem will ol,

how evee they will be. Oe thig cietit e iceigly co-

cee bot i poible eebck ectio tht col ccelete glo-

bl wmig. Accoig to the IPCC, ch efect e moe likelyto mke globl wmig woe th to meite it.

Fo exmple, meltig o ice cp i the Actic,26 whee the climte

i chgig te th elewhee, col le to eoble wmig,

highly eective white ce give wy to ke, moe het-

boptive oce ce.27 A tempete ie, moe cbo i lo

beig lot om oil e to moe pi ecompoitio o ogic m-

teil, cetig othe eebck efect.28

I Agt 2005, cietit epote tht the wol lget expe o

oe pet bog i wete Sibei, pig millio qe kilo-mete, w egoig peceete thwig tht col elee

ito the tmophee billio o toe o methe geehoe g

20 time moe powel i ocig globl wmig th cbo iox-

ie.29 Some cietit e tht i the oce e wme beyo ce-

ti egee, thee my lo be e, cttophic elee o meth-

e om methe hyte o the e oo pevioly kept qiecet

thogh high pee low tempete.30

The geologicl ice-coe eco how tht climtic icotiitie

ce by ch pheome hve bee ie i the pt.31 At time theymy hve ive p vege globl tempete by mch eight

egee Cetige i the pce o hm lietime.32

Similly, i y eo become log eogh, eiccte Amo

col b, eleig hge biotic toe o cbo ito the tmophee

ll t oce. I othe oet ollowe it, tht col ive the tempe-

te othe two egee Cetige highe o moe.33

Still othe bpt, olie ip o the climte to ew eqilibi e

lo poible. Fo itce, ixe o eh wte om meltig iceo the Noth Atltic, togethe with icee ow o Ri

ive ito the Actic Oce, e cpble o lowig o eve toppig

the themohlie coveyo-belt o the Gl Stem. Aley, ty

Humanity is perorminga great geophysicalexperiment, not in

a laboratory, not in acomputer, but on our own

planet.

Roger Revelle and

Hans Suess, 1956


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o oce cicltio i the Noth Atltic h o 30 pe cet e-

ctio i the wm cet tht cy wte oth om the Gl

Stem.34 A htow o the Stem wol ece the ow o Cib-

be het othw, oppig Eope tempete ticlly

while yig ot the climte i egio ch Cetl Wete

Ai.35 Whe the cet toppe bot 12,700 ye go poibly

e to e ge o eh wte ito the Noth Atltic tig-

gee by the meltig o glcie tht h mme p ciet lke

i Noth Ameic it w o moe th 1,000 ye; othe evet

ltig 100 ye occe bot 8,200 ye go.

The climte, i othe wo, i likely to chge i olie o-

iom wy. Yet eve i it wee poible to peict exctly how it

might hit i evey egio, it wol till be vitlly impoible to

tck o etimte i vce the efect o livig thig hm

ocietie with mch coece.

A ecoytem coot hock te hock, t o i clt-to-ticipte

efect will ite thogh commitie o livig thig h, i-

ect, micoogim tee hit thei ge o gowth ptte

o ie of.38

The peictbility c oly icee thee hock evebete

thogh ocil ytem. Wte, hetig, tpot, helth ce, i-

ce, legl policig ytem will ll hve to pt to chge

otie thei hitoicl expeiece.39

The climte oet lwy chge getly

glly. Moe moe climte cie-

tit e poitig to the poibility tht, e

to globl wmig, the eth climte col

ely hit to iclly ifeet

iclly le hopitble tte, h ote

hppee i the pt (ee mi text).

Geophyicit Dol Peovich like the

climte ytem to owig bot tht iocke om ie to ie moe moe

violetly, til it lly tke i wte

ely cpie. Yo c tip the

yoll jt go bck. Yo c tip it jt

go bck. A the yo tip it yo get

to the othe tble tte, which i pie

ow.36

Vete pleoclimtologit Wllce Boeck-

e o Colmbi Uiveity e ifeet

compio: The eth climte ytem

h pove itel to be gy bet.Whe ge, it i cpble o violet e-

poe.37

Tipping Points and Angry Beasts


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Is climate change already irreversible?

It epe wht yo me, o whom. Fo my people, o ex-

mple i ome egio o the oth, it i ot oly ieveible bth ley ovete the live o, o exmple, hte who ely o

wite ice. Fo ome bi pecie o col pecie it i ley too lte.

I othe, boe ee, thig c be te o, eve thogh t

thi tge they e bo to get woe beoe they get bette, o mt-

te wht policie e opte ow.

I everythings so uncertain, why should we do anything? Wouldnt it be betterto wait until were sure whats going to happen?

Thee will lwy be cetity bot the etil the timig. Btwht i ceti i tht the wol i o coe o evee hock, tht thee

will become moe evee the moe oil cbo i tee to the t-

mophee, tht they will thete my millio o people, tht thee

will cotie to be pie, tht thee pie will motly be

plet.40 Tht eogh to em immeite ctio.

Give me the bottom line. I we dont do anything, what will climate changecost us?

Agi, tht qetio o oe i likely to be ble to eiblewe to. Fit, oboy h y ie how to clclte o etimte

with y coece the extet efect o climte chge.41 No

c yoe peict vey well the te cot o techologie tht

Strange weather

ahead: global

warming will

increase stormintensity.


16/361


hve yet to be evelope o eploye o ocil chge tht e likely

to hve mltiple efect.42 Seco, o oe c eobly ig cot

to impobble bt ieveible o cttophic evet whe wht coltigge them i o pooly etoo, whe icot te e

cpble o mkig y te ite ltimtely icoeqetil i

moey tem.43 Thi, thoe efect my evethele be o weepig

tht they emie my o the imgie cott o which cot

etimte e be.44 To tke exteme ce, i thee e o mket

thee will be o pice. Foth, the civilitio hm lie

livelihoo tht e thetee by climte chge e ot geelly

hel to be o le. No oe c imgie wht mket they wol be

ol i i they wee wht thei pice wol be, ttempt to

itte them i imgiy mket e elely ipte. The me i

te o pecie extictio, helth ite tht fect te o millio

o people, my othe o the poible efect o climte chge.45

But i we cant assign a price to all the possible uture damage, how can weknow how serious the threat is? And how will we know what level o actionwill be appropriate?

A Rth Geep Bell o Reoce o the Fte h poite ot,

whe love oe h potetilly tl iee, yo ot peom

cot-beet lyi whe eciig wht to o. Ite, yo o wht

i withi yo powe to help.

We c gp how eio the thet o climte chge i by lookig t

the te, lookig t the ciece, lookig t the poible efect, ot

peteig to poe kowlege tht we ct chieve. The ittio

i b, bt imgiig we c qtiy how b it i iteee with cl-

ity o thoght with goo eciio-mkig. Eve woe i tyig to

compe ome imgiy ge o te cot o climte chge with

imgiy mbe o, y, te ecoomic gi o loe ocite

with titio to moe eible eegy ytem.46

The efect o poible chge i climte, howeve hoiyig they e,

e ot, tictly pekig, ik. Rik c be clclte pobbil-

itie ige to them, llowig them to become the bject o ecoom-

ic clcltio. Fo exmple, lie ice compie, extpoltig

om hitoy, c compile ctil tble tht will tell them the likely

liep o people ttig vio eciptio. O, to tke the clic

exmple o chmpge poctio e i 1921 by Fk Kight, oe

o the emil thike bot ik: Sice i the opetio o y po-

ce pcticlly cott kow popotio o the bottle bt,it oe ot epecilly mttewhethe the popotio i lge o mll.

The lo become xe cot i the ity i pe o to the

come, like the otly o lbo o mteil.47

The climate system is nota statistical sample of

champagne bottles.


17/361


Plig o climte chge eqie ifeet ki o thikig.

The climte ytem i ot ttiticl mple o chmpge bottle.

Climtologit o ot extpolte ttiticl ly om pt te, i-ce compie wie bottle o, bt cotct implie,

te-oce compte cicltio moel tht yiel vio ife-

et ceio.48 The pobbilitie o thoe otcome tht c be -

ticipte t ll c be clclte oly eltive to ome otmet o

compte moel. Thee moel my o my ot icopote elevt

cto,49 my o my ot ee the ll ge o poible te

elitie (ee box o p. 16: Wol iie Compte).

So industrialised societies arent going to be able just to keep on what theyredoing, calculate their chances, and take out a little more insurance?

No. My o the likely otcome o climte chge e goig to

be ible. Aew Dlgolecki, ice pecilit omely

with CGNU (ow kow Aviv), the ixth lget ice m

i the wol, peclte tht, ely 2010, bpt o chotic cli-

mte chge col oce ice compie to chge l te

high 12 pe cet o ie vle, ocig mot biee

iivil to op thei covege etiely.55 Ice loe bece

o exteme wethe, Dlgolecki poit ot, e iceig by -

l 10 pe cet while wol ecoomic gowth i vegig 3 pe cet

ye: By 2065 the two gowth gph co, the wol ecoomy c

o loge ti the loe, collpe will ollow.56

It ote tee tht the Soth will fe mot om globl wm-

ig. Sothe cotie e etimte to fe 97 pe cet o tl

ite-elte eth occig ech ye, lo ce mch lg-

e ecoomic loe th Nothe cotie i tem o pecetge

o go tiol poct.57 Bt it impott to elie tht globl

wmig will ot pe itilie ocietie, the ecet New

Ole ite gget.

Iee, the locke-i epeece o itilie ocietie thei

militie o eomo oil-oiete techologicl itittio-

l ytem o pllele ieti iexibility cete it ow pecil

globl wmig vlebilitie. Michel Nothop o Rockeelle Both-

e F Dvi Soo o Sciece Fit Commictio ote i

ecet bie pblictio tht climte chge i like y othe ik

cto tht o moe cil ytem h eve coote:

It coti o ecipocl o ltetive oppotity... Climtechge ee [moey mge] impotet. It ik tht ct

be mge o, the oly tiol coe o ctio i to

miimie it impct.58


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Geel Cicltio Moel (GCM) emiite, cloe wol cete iie

compte. Coitig o te o tho

o lie o compte coe, ech GCM cl-

clte how climte might chge i

pticl imgiy wol ove ece

o cetie, give ceti iitil mp-

tio.

Thee moel thee e oe o them i

e i vio plce e be o oli pi-ciple o phyic. Tke togethe, they give

eel o how climte might chge i the el

wol. Bt thei ele ct be checke

by expeimet i the oiy ee,

thee e thig they cot tell .

Fit, GCM e highly implie whe

compe with the el climte ytem.

Seco, ll o them e likely to hve let

ot ceti mechim iecig cli-

mte tht e ot yet kow.50 Thi i -

clty i me moe eio by the ct tht

my moel he commo heitge.

Typiclly, oe moellig gop bo-

ow othe gop moel moie

it, meig tht the ew moel my

eti poblemtic elemet o thoe omwhich they wee cete, eplictig y-

temtic eo.51

Thi, the globl t tht moel e hve

ceti limittio limittio excebt-

e by the ct tht my o the t e ge-

ete by the moel themelve, to ll i

blk eee to globl imltio.52

Foth, moel e chcteie by vi-

o ki o cetity. Fo itce, theye extemely eitive to iitil mp-

tio, meig tht ifeet will yiel

hgely ifeet elt. No pticl

o moel c be expecte to eect the

el climte ytem, i which, lo, mll

chge t oe loctio time c le

to lge ifeece t othe loctio

time.53 Climte moellig geete wht

oe lyt cll mtte ct ll o the-

oie, cetitie mbigitie cttht hve to be gpe mch with yo

imgitio with yo clclto.54 Tht

oe ot mke them y le wothy o t-

tetio.

So i conventional types o economic management are out the window, what

do we do?

A ifeet ki o pectio i eee, oe mtche to the ptic-

l te o the climte poblem.

Thi ki o pectio wol ckowlege ttempt to emove

igoce cetity. It wol ty to mximie exibility, e-

iliece poibilitie o te leig. A i the metime

it wol voi ieveible coe o ctio tht e potetilly

civilitio-theteig.5960

Uvoibly, tht me tkig bette ce o the wol tive biot,which cotitte lge voltile toehoe o cbo. Bt bove

ll, it me lowig hltig oil el extctio peig moe

eech ito gp bli pot.

Worlds inside Computers


19/361


What? You mean we have to stop mining coal and drilling or oil and gas?

Moe o le, ye. Remembe the imge o the bove-go cbo-

cyclig ytem oce, tmophee, vegettio, oil git glo-

bl wte mp with limite cpcity. The thik o oil el mi-

ig big git ctoy tht ceelely pmpig wte ito

thi mp egle. The oly ece wy o toppig the mp om

oveowig i to ece ticlly, ltimtely top, the ow ito it

to mke e tht mot emiig oil el ty i the go.

That seems so extreme.

It ot. Eve Sheikh Zki Ymi, the ome Si oil miite,

h ckowlege tht [t]he Stoe Age i ot e o lck o toe,

the oil ge will e log beoe the wol ot o oil.61 Mot

oil el e goig to hve to be let i the go, jt mot o

the wol toe i eve goig to be tome ito owhe

o Stoehege.

Cotiig to tke oil cbo ot o the go pttig it i the

bove-go mp i oe-wy teet, bece it ct ely be pt

bck. Stoppig the ow ito the mp, o the othe h, i both po-

ible pet. Keepig oil el i the go ecogigy emoctic movemet tht ley hve thi objective h to be

the elt, mitem ppoch to tcklig climte chge.

How soon must the fow o ossil uels rom the ground to the surace be cut o,then? Immediately? As soon as possible? How soon is that?

Thee i o igle coect we to qetio like tht. Bt ome

wok h ley bee oe o the cle o ctio eee to mii-

mie te mge keep optio ope.

I 2001, the IPCC etimte tht etictig tempete ie to 1.5-3.9 egee Cetige wol eqie CO2 level to be tbilie t

450 pt pe millio (ppm). Tht wol imply cmltive cbo

emiio o oly 630650 millio toe betwee 1990 2100,

compe to the 4,000 mill io toe o o tht wol elt i l l e-

miig cceible oil el wee exploite.62

I 2005, eeche Mlte Meihe o the Swi Feel Ititte

o Techology o tht, o ome moel, tempete ie o 2

egee Cetige o le ietie the bitily by my cli-

mte expet to be the highet e level o hetig w likely olyi level o geehoe ge col be tbilie t 400 ppm o CO2

eqivlet, te pekig t 475 ppm.63 Tht wol etil 50 pe

cet ct i emiio by 2050, with pek emiio level o o moe

Humanity has becomemore and more vulner-

able to long- and short-term climate change, asit has become ever moredi cult and expensive

or us to respond to itThe times require us tolearn the vagaries o the

global climate, to study itsmoods, and to keep our

skies relatively ree o ex-cessive greenhouse gaseswith the same diligence,

and or the same reasons,that Mesopotamian arm-ers ve millennia ago hadto learn the moods o theEuphrates and keep theirirrigation canals reason-

ably ree o silt.60

Brian Fagan, 2004


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th 120 pe cet o 1990 l evel t o 2010. A ie o 2 egee

Cetige o le col ctlly be gtee oly i tmopheic

cocettio tbilie t 350 ppm. Tht wol imply eve teepect, ice cocettio ley t t 380 ppm.

Qick ctio i ccil i oe to voi eve moe pilly tic

ctio lte. Meihe we tht l ectio te wol

hve to become 1 pe cet teepe o evey ve ye o ely. De-

lyig ct by 10 ye wol ely oble the eqie ectio

te i 2025. Delyig o 20 ye, ccoig to eeche Stefe

Klbekke Nth Rive, wol me hvig to ece emi-

io thee to eve time te.64

But how are these cuts going to be made? And who is going to make them?

Thee e the qetio t the het o the climte ebte. A they

e ot jt qetio o expet. By evelig tht the wol c-

bo mp i vey limite goo, the ciece o globl wmig h

evele poblem tht i jt mch politicl techicl.

What do you mean?

The wol cbo-cyclig cpcity, ptly bece it vey limite,

h lo become extemely vlble. Fo tht eo, eveyboy i go-

ig to be iteete i gettig ight to it (ee box, below: The Bith

o Atmopheic Right). Pee will gow to ivie p the globl

cbo mp mog the wol people.

Divide up how?

Tht ccil qetio, oe tht h immee eeth the

ce o itetiol egotitio bot climte o my ye.

Wht ki o ight hol people o govemet hve to cbomp pce, give the ee to miti climtic tbility o cet

te geetio? A who will get thee ight? Do yo ivie

p the mp pce eqlly mog the wol people? Do yo give

the wol wot-of ipopotiote he i the mp? Do yo

give the bigget he to thoe who hvet yet h chce to e

mch o the mp? Do yo give the bigget he to thoe who c

let fo to ct ow o thei e o the mp? Do yo give the

mot mp pce to thoe who c e it to cotibte the mot to the

globl goo? O o yo jt give the mot ight to the mp to thoe

who e ig it the mot ley? Thee e gmet o ll o thee

wy o it ibtig the wol cbo-cyclig cpcity.

Delaying action ordecades, or even just years,is not a serious option.

Sciece, 9 January 2004

I we are to avoid havingto make dramatic andeconomically destructivedecisions in the uture, wemust act soon.

Foeig Afi,July/August 2004

U.S.

Austraila

Canada

Singapore

Korea, Rep.

Japan

New Zeeland

Malaysia

Hong Kong

Thailand

Mexico

China

Indonesia

India

Phillipines

20,1

18,3

16,5

13,8

9,4

9,4

8,7

6,3

5,2

3,7

3,7

2,7

1,4

1,2

0,9

Per capita CO2 emissions 2002:

North America and Asia/Pacific

Source: (CDIAC)

metric tons of CO2 per capita


21/361


Up to ow, philoophe Pete Sige wite,it i i the wol people hve bee livig

i villge i which eveyoe pt thei

wte ow git ik. At t thee i

o poblem:

No oe qite kow wht hppe to

the wte te they go ow the ik,

bt ice they ippe hve o -

vee impct o yoe, o oe woie

bot it. Some people come lot, o hve lot o wte, while othe, with

moe limite me, hve bely y, bt

the cpcity o the ik to ipoe o o

wte eem o limitle tht o oe wo-

ie bot the ifeece.65 No mtte how

mch o the ik oe peo my e, o

poblem ie, bece thee i lwy

eogh o eveyboy ele.

Bt te while,

the ik cpcity to cy wy o

wte i e p to the ll, thee i

ley ome plet eepge tht eem

to be the elt o the ik beig etoo mch Whe the wethe i wm, it

mell. A eby wte hole whee o chil-

e wim ow h lge bloom tht mke

it ble. Sevel epecte ge i the

villge w tht le ge o the ik i

ct ow, ll the villge wte pplie will

be pollte.

Cotiig to thow wte ow the

ik, i othe wo, oe ot leve eogho it o eveyoe to e withot hm to

the commity.

Wht we might hve me w odeacto ight to e the ik y wy we wt-e come ito qetio. The ik belog

to ll i commo. I oe to voi

coeqece o oe wt, eveyoe

who e it mt ow ccept ome limit.

Atmopheic ight, Sige believe, mt

ow be ice, ee, limite l-

locte.66

Whew. Sounds complicated.

It i. Tht why the eco thi chpte o thi pecil epot o

Development Dialoguee eeve ptly o look t how thi politic

h evelope.

OK, Ill wait or that. But right now cant you at least give me some idea othe political status quo? Who has been using the most dump space so ar? Whois most responsible or the current climate crisis?

A metioe t the begiig o thi chpte, the Noth i ove-

whelmigly epoible. Aew Simm o the New Ecoomic

Fotio pehp m p the ittio bet: Ecoomic pe-

powe hve bee ccel toy i thei ipopotiote occ-

ptio o the tmophee with cbo emiio they wee i theimil ity occptio o the teetil wol i coloil time.67

Fom 1950 to 1986, the US, with le th 5 pe cet o the wol

popltio, w epoible o 30 pe cet o it cmltive geehoe

The Birth o Atmospheric Rights


22/361


g emiio. Ii, with 17 pe cet o the wol popltio, w

epoible o le th 2 pe cet.68 I 2000, the US w emittig

20.6 toe o cbo ioxie pe peo, Swee 6.1, Ugy 1.6 Mombiqe 0.1.

I ct, it pobbly ot too of the mk to y tht the US loe i

cetly ig l l o the vilble globl mpig pce o gee-

hoe ge. To boow Pete Sige wo, to cotie to ct i

thi wy yet to ee commity vivl wol be to epive

othe o y e o it t ll.69

In short, industrialised societies are not only using more o the worlds carbon

dumping space than everybody else; theyre also using several times more thanis available or the use o all.

Tht bot the ie o it. So y ttempt to keep oil el i the go

i goig to hve to tckle itilie ocietieictio to oil el the eegy-poigte wy o livig they hve me poible.

So the days o petrol-uelled cars, coal-red electricity generation, and oil-basedair travel are limited.

Thee e ll ow et techologie, to be phe ot oo

poible.

Not an easy challenge.

No, bt ot impoible oe, eithe.

Where do you start?

Thee e plety o plce to tt, my o them will be i-

ce i thi pecil epot. Bt the impott thig to emembe

ow i tht i the tggle to tem the ow o oil cbo ot o thego, o oe i begiig om eo.

Mot hm expeiece mot hm chievemet h tke

plce i ocietie i which vey little oil, g o col i e. It i the

wol ich mioity tht h gow mot epeet o oil c-

bo; oly i eltively ecet time. A eve thei ictio c

be boke by ocil techologicl iovtio tht oly eqie

powel eogh politicl movemet to be et i motio.70

No i it oly e ciecy expet, commity ple evelop-

e o ol o wi eegy tht e poviig the mteil to eblegete iepeece om oil el. Jt impott e the my

ocil movemet with eep expeiece i eitig oil el extc-

tio o exploittio.


23/361


Globl wmig, te ll, it the t oil el cii. Col, oil

g hve bee ocite with eviometl egtio, mge

live, ebt,71 ocil coict w o log time, eltig i -tie cmpig o oppoitio.

Fo ece, explotio o ew oil g el h goe h i

h with ecochmet o people l with peptio to

ipoe them.

Extctio h lo povoke cetive eitce l l ove the wol, ,

om Eco to the Ri F Et, om Nigei to Bm, o-

il el copotio, lly bcke by govemet, hve tole o

cotmite locl l, oet wte while mively iceig

the ebt o cotie they wok i.72

Reig tpot hve boght thei ow legcy o impimet,

iee, ipoeio cotmitio. A polltio om i-

ti l powe plt big oil el h let mk o feig,

iee coict o fecte commitie o ove 150 ye.

Road built

through forest

in Ecuador to

extract oil (top).Oil spill in the

Ecuadorean

forest (bottom).


24/361


Not let, the militie qet o itilie ocietie o oil h

egee ecity, poioe live blighte politic o the

wol. Toy, w cotig cotle mbe o live billio ooll c be oght o the ke o ew moth o ye woth o

oil, ce oppoitio movemet wolwie.

The tggle to tbilie climte to top the wol bove-go

cbo mp om oveowig tke it plce oe moe pect

o thi log hitoy o coict. A it big ot leo ecoe i

tht hitoy: the ee to wy o levig col, oil g i the

go.

Thats not a lesson you oten see discussed in the newspapers or on television.No. I ct, mot bie politicl lee cotie to ct i it

oegoe coclio tht ll emiig oil, g eve col will

hve to be tke ot o the go, eve they poclim the gecy

o oig omethig bot globl wmig (ee box: Tyig to Hve

It Both Wy).

Women from coastal

communities inSongkhla, southern

Thailand, protest

against a gas pipeline

and separation plant

project that threatens

local fisheries,common land and

livelihoods.


25/361


Mot bie politicl lee pek i hmity col vive ll emiig

oil el beig tke ot o the go,

yet lo clim to be committe to ctio

o climte chge.

Thee i o eviomet miite o

Eth tht will top thi oil om beig

poce, i Ci eviomet

miite Stephe Dio i Novembe

2005,73

eeig to poject to mie poce Albet t tht wil l oble

C CO2 emiio i the coe o

mkig vilble billio o itiol

bel o oil.74 Le th two week lte ,

Dio tol the elegte to the itetio-

l climte egotitio gthee i Mo-

tel tht climte chge i the igle mot

impott eviometl ie cig the

wol toy:

We kow tht the loge we wit, the

lge will be the chllege the m-

ge om climte chgemoe ctio i

eqie ow [i pit o] o ltimte

commo objective o tbiliig gee-

hoe g cocettio.75

Aco the Atltic, Bitih Pime Mii-

te Toy Bli bllie Membe o Pli-

met ito cqiecig i expio oBiti vitio ity, the ecipiet o

GBP 9 billio l biy i wive

el txe: H p o thi tble

how my politici cig potetil

electio t ome poit i the ot-too-

itt te wol vote to e chep i

tvel?

Bli, who the wet o to itch policy

to eqie hoebile to impove the

eegy e ciecy o home,76

whoemiiml ppot o eewble eegy

h bee eploe eve by commit-

tee o the Hoe o Lo,77 h ecetly

ietie climte chge pobbly the

igle mot impott ie we ce

globl commity78 emphie tht

the time to ct i ow.79 Sbeqetly, he

citicie the itetiol climte chge

ebte o elctce to ce p to elity

the pcticl ctio eee to tcklepoblem.80 Bli vitio policy me

tht hi govemet tget o cttig c-

bo emiio by 60 pe cet by 2050 col

oly be chieve i evey bit o mchiey

othe th eople hip toppe

pocig y emiio t ll.81

I the me ye, the Itetiol Eegy

Agecy (IEA), compiig the 26 mi oil-

comig tio, ecommee tht theglobl oil ity ivet usd 20.3 tillio

i ew cilitie by 2030, to voi highe

oil pice. The IEA the wet o to w

tht le the wol tke ctio to ece

eegy comptio, globl geehoe

g emiio will icee by 52 pe cet

by 2030. Thee pojecte te le to

te tht i ot tible We mt

chge thee otcome get the pletoto tible eegy pth, i Wil-

lim C. Rmy, the IEA Depty Exec-

tive Diecto.82

Oil compie ch BP Shell me-

while cotilly bot o icee, ot

ecee, efot to exploit ew

oce o oil el. My view i tht hy-

ocbo will be the blk o the eegy

pply o the ext 30 to 50 ye,83

i Joh

Trying to Have It Both Ways: More Fossil Fuels, Less Climate Change


26/361


Bowe, chie exective o BP. Yet Bowe,

who ovew witch o BP logo to

gee yellow tbt oe with thelog Beyo Petolem, poclim tht

globl wmig i el ee to be -

ee ow.84 Ro Oxbgh, he o Shell,

cocee i 2004 tht climte chge me

him vey woie o the plet.85

I 2005 pblictio, the Wol Bie

Cocil o Stible Developmet ot-

lie key e o te ctio o climte

chge, iclig e ciecy, cle e-egy, govemet ppot o eegy e-

ech evelopmet, techology

te to the Soth. It eglect to me-

tio y mee o phig ot oil

el beoe they e exhte.86

Filly, the Wol Bk, which h coit-

etly obeye the 1981 em o the US

Tey Deptmet tht it ply le ole

i the expio iveictio o glo-bl eegy pplie to ehce ecity o

pplie ece OPEC mket powe

ove oil pice,87 coe the Agt 2004

ecommetio o it ow eview com-

miio tht it hlt ppot o col extc-

tio poject immeitely phe ot

ppot o oil extctio poject by 2008.88

The commiio, chie by ome Io-

ei eviomet miite Emil Slim,

h poite ot tht ch extctive poject

i othig to pomote the Bk tte

miio o llevitig globl povety.

Fom 1992 thogh lte 2004, the Wol

Bk Gop ppove usd 11 billio i -

cig o 128 oil-el extctio pojecti 45 cotie poject tht will ltimte-

ly le to moe th 43 billio toe o

cbo-ioxie emiio, ge he

o time moe th the emiio ectio

tht igtoie to the Kyoto Potocol e

eqie to mke betwee 1990 2012.

Aothe usd 17 billio h goe o othe

oil el-elte poject. I 2004-2005,

the Wol Bk Gop pet usd 7.6 bil-

lio i oil el-iteive ecto (37 pe-

cet o it totl leig o the ye) with

oly mgil efot to e the climte

chge implictio.89 Moe th 82 pe

cet o Wol Bk cig o oil ex-

tctio h goe to poject tht expot oil

bck to welthy Nothe cotie. Bk

cig o oil el otpce eew-

ble eegy cig by 17 to oe.90 Some

o the bigget beeciie o Bk -ig icle Hllibto, the oil cotcto,

Shell, ChevoTexco, Totl, ExxoMobil,

othe oil el compie.91 Yet i

2005, the Bk w ige key ole i

tcklig climte chge by the G8 gop o

ecoomic powe. Let wok togethe o

climte-iely te, i Bk pei-

et, Pl Wolowit, oe o the chitect

o the US w o Iq.92


27/361


They hope to olve the poblem o the oveowig bove-go

cbo mp ot by cttig of the ow o oil cbo om e-

go, bt by cvig ot ew mp to pt it i.

Solemly, they popoe pkig cbo ioxie i hole i the go,

o liqeyig it ijectig it ito the bottom o the oce. I ll

eioe, they gget pttig the ext cbo i billio o ext

tee pecil ly gow o the ppoe. Withot y ee o bity,

they vocte competig o the extctio o emiig oil

el by mkig ext efot to ve them o e them moe e -

cietly; o by cttig ow o the e o othe geehoe ge like

hyooocbo o ito oxie; o by bilig moe wimill

th h bee oigilly ple; o by big of the methe thtcol miig elee the th jt vetig it ito the tmophee.

Politicl bie lee the go o to popoe mket o ex-

chgig ll o thee ppoely eqivlet thig o ech othe.

Thi i mket, they e the pblic, i which yo will be ble to

py the eviometl cot o cotiig to ill oil by cewig

i e ciet light blb, o o the cot o opeig ew col mie by

big the methe tht eep p ot o the me mie.

The mege i cle. Itilie ocietie c cotie to e p

oil el til thee e oe let woth ecoveig. Sbiie o

exploittio o oil el epoit ee ot be ece. No i thee

y ee to get tte ight wy o jt techologicl cltl

titio to ociety tht oe ot ee col, oil g.

The tebility o thi ttempt to ecpe om the climte cii

the wy it exte thoe clic coict ove explotio, extc-

tio, eig, polltio, milititio, ebt iecity tht hve

bee ete o ociety eltiohip to col, oil g o moe

th cety will be the bject o mch o the et o thi pecil

epot. The ext chpte will ketch how cbo tig evelope

hitoiclly.

Gas flaring in Delta State,

Nigeria (top) and protests

(bottom).


28/361


1 J. T. Houghton et al., Climate Change: The Scientific

Basis, Cambridge University Press, 2001 estimates thatabout three-quarters of anthropogenic atmospheric

carbon dioxide increases are due to fossil fuel burning.Duncan Austin et al. put the figure at 70 per cent

(Contributions to Climate Change: Are Conventional

Measures Misleading the Debate?, World Resources

Institute, Washington, 1998). Land use change is thoughtto contribute most of the rest. See, e.g., Johannes J.

Feddema et al., The Importance of Land-Cover Change

in Simulating Future Climates, Science 310, 9 December

2005, pp. 1674 1678. The cumulative contribution of

fossil fuels to the excess carbon in the atmosphere is

growing, however. Although carbon dioxide is the mostimportant greenhouse gas, many other gases are also

significant, including methane, nitrous oxide, halogenatedcompounds and water vapor.

2 Jeffrey S. Dukes, Burning Buried Sunshine: Human

Consumption of Ancient Solar Energy, Climatic

Change 61, 2003, pp. 31-44.

3 Taro Takahashi, The Fate of Industrial Carbon Dioxide,

Science 305, 16 July 2004, pp. 352-3; Emissions Turning

Oceans Acid, Hostile to Marine Life, Environmental

News Service, 6 July 2005; Carol Turley, The Other

CO2 Problem, http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-6-129-2480.jsp; Rowan Hooper, Marine

crisis looms over acidifying oceans, New Scientist, 30

June 2005. See also C. L. Sabine et al., The OceanicSink for Anthropogenic CO2, Science, 16 July 2004,

;pp. 367-71 and C. Le Quere and N. Metzl, Natural

Processes Regulating the Ocean Uptake of CO2, in C.

B. Field and M. R. Raupach, eds, The Global CarbonCycle: Integrating Humans, Climate, and the Natural

World, Island Press, Washington, 2004.

4 See, for example, G. C. Hurtt et al., Projecting the

Future of the U.S. Carbon Sink, Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences 99, 1999, pp. 1389-94;

P. M. Cox et al., Acceleration of Global Warming Due

to Carbon-Cycle Feedbacks in a Coupled Climate

Model,, Nature, 9 November 2000, pp. 184-87; J.L. Dufresne et al., On the Magnitude of Positive

Feedback between Future Climate Change and the

Carbon Cycle, Geophysical Research Letters 29, 2002;

and Chapter 3.

5 Hans-Holger Rogner, Climate Change Assessments:

Technology Learning and Fossil Fuels How Much

Carbon Can Be Mobilized?, paper presented to

International Energy Agency Workshop on Climate

Change Damages and the Benefits of Mitigation, 26-28 February 1997, International Institute for Applied

Systems Analysis.

6 Robert L. Hirsch et al., Peaking of World OilProduction: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Assessment,

US Department of Energy, Washington, 2005, available

at http://www.hubbertpeak.com/us/NETL/OilPeaking.

pdf. For another view of the controversy see Jeremy

Leggett, Half Gone: The Coming Global Energy

Crisis, Its Conflation with Global Warming and theConsequences, 2005, http://www.lorax.org/~oilchange/

priceofoil.org/media/20051000_I_o_P.pdf.

7 Duncan Austin et al., op. cit. supra note 1.

8 United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration, NOAA Magazine, 15 July 2004, www.magazine.noaa.gov; Eugene Linden, Cloudy with a

Chance of Chaos, Fortune, 17 January 2006. Putting

all remaining fossil carbon into the atmosphere would

entail staggering concentrations of several thousand

parts per million.

9 Joint Science Academies Statement: Global Response

to Climate Change, June 2005, http://www.royalsoc.

ac.uk/displaypagedoc.asp?id=20742.10 Naomi Oreskes, The Scientific Consensus on Climate

Change, Science 306, 3 December 2004, p. 1686.

11 Tim P. Barnett et al., Penetration of Human-Induced

Warming into the Worlds Oceans, Science 309, 5732, 8

July 2005, pp. 284-287. See also Fred Pearce, Climate

Evidence Finds Us Guilty as Charged, New Scientist2503, 11 June 2005.

12 Tim Flannery, Monstrous Carbuncle, London Review of

Books 27 1, 6 January 2005.

13 Jeremy Leggett, The Carbon War: Dispatches from the

End of the Oil Century, London: Allen Lane, 1999.

14 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, Impacts of

a Warming Arctic, Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge, 2004. See highlights at http://amap.no/acia/Highlights.pdf. See also Elizabeth Kohlert, The

Climate of Man, The New Yorker, 25 April 2005.

15 Benito Muller, Equity in Climate Change: The GreatDivide, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Oxford,

2002.

16 Richard Black, Global Warming Risk Much Higher,

BBC News, 23 May 2006; Bala Govidasamy, Too Hot to

Handle, Science and Technology, Lawrence LivermoreLaboratory, Livermore, CA, June 2006, http://www.llnl.

gov/str/June06/Govindasamy.html.

17 Kohlert, op. cit. supra note 14.

18 Dick Ahlstrom, Worlds Starving Could Grow by

50m People, Irish Times, 6 September 2005; Fred

Pearce, Rice Yields Plunging due to Balmy Nights,

New Scientist, 29 June 2004; Glenn, Jerome C.

and Theodore J. Gordon,2005 State of the Future,

American Council for the United Nations University,Washington, 2005.

19 For views on whether global warming has already

resulted in stronger hurricanes, see P. J. Webster etal., Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration,

and Intensity in a Warming Environment, Science 353,

6 October 2005, pp. 1433-1436 and NOAA Attributes

Recent Increase in Hurricane Activity to Naturally


29/361


Occurring Multi-Decadal Climate Variability, NOAA

Magazine, 29 November 2005, http://www.magazine.noaa.gov.

20 David Cyranoski, The Long Range Forecast and T. P.Barnett et al., Potential Impacts of a Warming Climate

on Water Availability in Snow-Dominated Regions

Nature 438, 17 November 2005, pp. 303-310; Ocean

Warmth Tied to African Drought, New York Times, 24

May 2005.

21 Paul R. Epstein, Climate Change and Human Health,

New England Journal of Medicine 353, 14, 6 October

2005, pp.1433-1436.

22 Jonathan A. Patz et al., Impact of Regional Climate

Change on Human Health, Nature 438, 17 November

2005, pp. 310-318. See also Working Group on ClimateChange and Development, Africa Up in Smoke?, NewEconomics Foundation, London, 2005.

23 Jenny Hogan, Antarctic Ice Sheet is an AwakenedGiant, New Scientist, 2 February 2005. Sea level

changes will be complicated if the North Atlantic

thermohaline circulation shuts down. The plughole

effect of salty North Atlantic surface water sinking

toward the ocean bottom will abate, resulting in even

higher sea levels in Northern Europe, Greenland and

Canada, while there will be compensating loweringeffect on sea levels in other regions of the globe. See

Stephen Battersby, Deep Trouble, New Scientist 2547,15 April 2006, pp. 42-46.

24 Richard A. Kerr, A Bit of Icy Antarctica is Sliding toward

the Sea, Science 305, 24 September 2004, p. 1897.

25 J. T. Houghton, op. cit. supra note 1.

26 Satellite measurements analysed by the US National

Snow and Ice Data Center show 20 per cent less icethan when NASA took the first pictures in 1978 (Fred

Pearce, Climate Going Crazy, New Scientist 2531, 24

December 2005). Levels of Arctic ice are now at their

lowest levels in more than a century, prompting Inuit

hunters who depend on the regions game to file a

human rights complaint against the US government forhuman rights violations (Reuters, 29 September 2005).

27 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, op. cit. supra note 14.

28 John Pickrell, Soil May Spoil UKs Climate Efforts,

New Scientist 2516, 7 September 2005. See also David

Powlson, Will Soil Amplify Climate Change?, Nature433, 20 January 2005, pp. 204-5.

29 Fred Pearce, Climate Warning as Siberia Melts, New

Scientist 2512, 11 August 2005, p. 12.

30 Leggett, op. cit. supra note 13.

31 Ibid.

32 Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research,

An Update of Recent Research from the Hadley

Centre, UK, November 2000; Richard B. Alley, The

Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate

Change and Our Future, Princeton University Press,

Princeton, 2002 and Abrupt Climate Change,

Scientific American, November 2004, pp. 62-69;National Research Council, Abrupt Climate Change:

Inevitable SurprisesI, National Academy Press,Washington, 2002; Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,

Abrupt Climate Change, Columbia University, http://

www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/arch/; Richard A. Kerr,

Confronting the Bogeyman of the Climate System,Science 310, 21 October 2005, pp. 432-33.

33 Fred Pearce, Violent Future, New Scientist 2300, 21

July 2001. See also Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange, Third Assessment Report, 2001, Working

Group II, Section 2.6; A. A. J. Williams, D. J. Karoly and

N. Tapper, The Sensitivity of Australian Fire Danger to

Climate Change, Climatic Change 49, 2001, p. 171.

34 Fred Pearce, Faltering Currents Trigger Freeze Fear,

New Scientist 2528, 3 December 2005.

35 Alley, Abrupt Climate Change, op.cit. supra note 32;

Brian Fagan, The Long Summer: How Climate Changed

Civilization, Granta, London, 2004.

36 Kohlert, op. cit. supra note 14.

37 W. S. Broecker, Does the Trigger for Abrupt Climate

Change Reside in the Oceans or in the Atmosphere?,

Science 300, 6 June 2003, pp. 1519-1522.

38 Allison L. Perry et al., Climate Change and Distribution

Shifts in Marine Fishes, Science 308, 24 June 2005,pp. 1912-16; Fred Pearce, Dark Future Looms for Arctic

Tundra, New Scientist 2535, 21 January 2006; Lake

Algae Confirm Global Warming Link, New Scientist

2523, 29 October 2005, p. 19.

39 Peter Schwartz et al., An Abrupt Climate Change

Scenario and Its Implications for US National Security,

Department of Defense, Washington, October 2003;Eugene Linden, op. cit. supra note 8.

40 National Research Council, op. cit. supra note 32.

41 Douglas A. Kysar, Climate Change, Cultural

Transformation and Comprehensive Rationality,

Environmental Affairs Law Review31, 2004, pp. 555-590, pp. 563-570.

42 See, for instance, Jonathan Kohler et al., New Lessons

for Technology Policy and Climate Change Investmentfor Innovation, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change

Research, Norwich, 2005, http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/

publications/briefing_notes/note13.pdf.

43 See, for example, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur

Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) et al., North-South

Dialogue on Equity in the Greenhouse: A Proposal

for an Adequate and Equitable Global Climate

Agreement, GTZ, Berlin, 2004. For another argumenton discount rates, see also Kysar, op. cit. supra note 41,

pp. 578-85.

44 Kysar, op. cit. supra note 41, pp. 564-566.


30/361


45 Larry Lohmann, Whose Voice is Speaking? How

Opinion Polling and Cost-Benefit Analysis SynthesizeNew Publics, Corner House Briefing No. 7, 1998,

available at http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk. See alsoKysar, op. cit. supra note 41, pp. 570-78.

46 For various irrationalities associated with cost-

benefit analysis, see also Henry Richardson, Practical

Reasoning about Final Ends, Cambridge University

Press, Cambridge, 1994; Martha Nussbaum, The

Fragility of Goodness, Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge, 1986; John ONeill, Ecology, Policy andPolitics, Routledge, London, 1993; Elizabeth Anderson,

Value in Ethics and Economics, Harvard University

Press, Cambridge, MA, 1993; David Wiggins, Needs,

Values, Truth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987

and Mary OBrien, Making Better EnvironmentalDecisions: An Alternative to Risk Assessment, MITPress, Cambridge, MA, 2000.

47 Frank H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, HoughtonMiffl in, Boston, 1921, Part III, Chapter VII. See also

Box: Carbon Offsets and the Ghost of Frank Knight, in

Chapter 3 of this special report, pp. 160-161.

48 Evan Mills, Insurance in a Climate of Change, Science

309, 12 August 2005, pp. 1040-1044.

49 For example, an Oxford University programmeattempting to model climate change between 1920

and 2080, and run on thousands of home computersin Britain, had to be restarted in April 2006 after

modelers decided that one of the input files to the

model hadnt been increasing the amount of sulphate

pollution in the atmosphere (sometimes called theglobal dimming effect) as it should have done,

resulting in an unmasked and therefore exacerbated

warming. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/

climatechange/updates1.shtml.

50 Fred Pearce, Harbingers of Doom?, New Scientist

2457, 24 July 2004.

51 Paul N. Edwards, Global Climate Science, Uncertainty

and Politics: Data-Laden Models, Model-Filtered Data,Science as Culture 8, 4, 1999, pp. 437-472.

52 Paul N. Edwards, The World in a Machine: Origins

and Impacts of Early Computerized Global Systems

Models in Thomas P. Hughes and Agatha C. Hughes,

Systems Experts and Computers, MIT Press,

Cambridge, MA, 2000, pp. 221-254.

53 David Stainforth, Modelling Climate Change: Known

Unknowns, Open Democracy, 3 June 2005, http://

www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-climate_change_debate/2571.jsp; see also James M. Murphy et al.,

Quantification of Modelling Uncertainties in a Large

Ensemble of Climate Change Simulations, Nature 430,

12 August 2004, pp. 768-772.

54 George Myerson, Donna Haraway and GM Foods, Icon

Books, Cambridge, 1999, quoted in Hugh Gusterson,

Decoding the Debate on Frankenfood, in Betsy

Hartmann, Banu Subramaniam and Charles Zerner:Making Threats: Biofears and Environmental Anxieties,

Rowman and Littlefield, New Jersey, 2005.

55 Eugene Linden, op.cit. supra note 8.

56 Paul Brown, Islands in Peril Plead for Deal, The

Guardian, 24 November 2000, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,782560,00.

html.

57 United Nations International Strategy for DisasterReduction, Natural Disasters and Sustainable

Development: Understanding the Links between

Development, Environment and Natural Disasters,

Background Paper No. 5, Geneva, 2002, p. 3,

http://www.un.org/jsummit/html/documents/backgrounddocs/unisdr%20report.pdf. See alsoChristian Aid, The Climate of Poverty: Facts, Fears and

Hope, Christian Aid, London, 2006.

58 Michael Northrop and David Sassoon, Catching upwith Fiduciaries, Environmental Finance supplement,

November 2005, p. S40.

59 Paul Harremos et al., The Precautionary Principle in

the 20th Century, Earthscan, London, 2002, pp. 210-218.

60 Brian Fagan, op. cit. supra note 35, pp. xiv-xvi.

61 The End of the Oil Age, The Economist, 23 October

2003.

62 IPCC, Third Assessment Report, Cambridge, 2001,

WMO/UNEP, cited in Joseph E. Aldy et al., Beyond

Kyoto: Advancing the International Effort againstClimate Change, Pew Center on Global Climate

Change, Arlington, VA, December 2003, p. 34.

63 Malte Meinshausen, On the Risk of Overshooting2o C., Exeter, 2 February 2005, http://www.

stabilisation2005.com/day2/Meinshausen.pdf.

64 Steffen Kalbekken and Nathan Rive, Why Delaying

Climate Action is a Gamble, Centre for International

Climate and Environmental Research, http://www.stabilisation2005.com/30_Steffen_Kallbekken.pdf.

65 Peter Singer, One World: The Ethics of Globalization,

Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002, p. 27.

66 Singer, op. cit. supra note 65.

67 Andrew Simms, The Ecological Debt Crisis, Tiempo55, April 2005, p. 19. Simms notes that a decade after

the UNFCCC was signed, countries including the US

, Australia, Canada and many European nations are

emitting more carbon dioxide per person than they

were at the time of the 1992 earth summit. . . . in less

than two days, a US family uses the equivalent in fossil

fuels per person as a family in Tanzania will depend onfor a whole year (op. cit., p. 18).

68 Duncan Austin et al., supra note 1.

69 Peter Singer, op. cit. supra note 65.


31/361


70 See Chapters 3 and 5, as well as such recent works as,

for example, George Monbiot, Heat: How to Stop thePlanet Burning, Allen Lane, London, 2006.

71 Stephen Kretzmann and Irfan Nooruddin, Drilling intoDebt: An Investigation into the Relationship between

Debt and Oil, Oil Change International, Washington,

2005.

72 For recent documentation, see, for example, the

website of Oilwatch, http://www.oilwatch.org and

Platform, Pumping Poverty: Britains Department

for International Development and theOil Industry,

Platform, London, 2005, http://www.carbonweb.

org/documents/pumping_poverty_web.pdf; and BrettonWoods Project, Chad-Cameroon Pipeline: Corruption

and Double Standards, London, 2004.

73 See http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2005/11/17/1311486-cp.htmltarget=3D_

blank>Dennis Bueckert: CNEWS, 17 November 2005.

74 MacDonald Stainsby, Canada, the US, and the TarSands, Z Magazine, 31 December 2005, http://www.

zmag.org/.

75 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change, Conference of the Parties 11, Opening

Ceremonies: Speaking Notes for the Honourable

Stphane Dion, P.C., M.P., Minister of the Environment,

Montreal, 28 November 2005.

76 Paul Brown, Energy Effi ciency Targets Scrapped, The

Guardian, 18 July 2005.

77 House of Lords, Science and Technology Committee,

Renewable Energy: Practicalities, Fourth Report of

Session 2003-04, Volume I: Report, Stationery Offi ce,

London, 2004, p. 7.

78 Tony Blair, video address to the International

Conference on Renewable Energy, Bonn, 1-4 June,

2004.

79 Prime Ministers speech on climate change, 14

September 2004.

80 Tony Blair, Get Real on Climate Change, Observer

(London) 30 October 2005.

81 Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research,

Decarbonizing the UK: Energy for a Climate Conscious

Future, Exeter, 2005.

82 International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook

2005, Paris, 2005, http://www.iea.org/Textbase/press/

pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=163.

83 Darcy Frey, How Green Is BP?, New York Times

Magazine, 8 December 2002.

84 John Browne, Beyond Kyoto, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2004.

85 Shell Boss Fears for the Planet, BBC News, 17 June

2004.

86 World Business Council for Sustainable Development,

Sharpening the Focus for Action A BusinessPerspective, WBCSD, 2005, http://www.wbcsd.org/.

87 Jim Vallette et al., Wrong Turn from Rio: The WorldBanks Road to Climate Catastrophe, Institute for

Policy Studies, Washington, 2004, p. 5.

88 Ibid.

89 Jon Sohn et al., Mainstreaming Climate Change at the

Multilateral Development Banks, World Resources

Institute, Washington, 2005.

90 Ibid.

91 Jim Vallette and Steve Kretzmann, The Energy Tug of

War: The Winners and Losers of World Bank Fossil Fuel

Finance, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, 2004,pp. 21-26.

92 See http://web.worldbank.org.


32/361


33/361

Chpte 2

Me i the USAA hot hitoy o cbo tig

In which the surprising story is told o how corporations, academics, governments,United Nations agencies and environmentalists united around a neoliberal ormarket approach to climate change emanating rom North America.

I the pce o ew ece, ew om o globl ieqlity h

bptly become politiclly impott. A itilie mioity

h bee how to be oveig the eth bility to clee the t-

mophee o exce cbo othe geehoe ge. Awkwly,

thi ieqlity h te ot to be oe tht thete vivl itel

iclig, ltimtely, the vivl o the ich.

So whats to be done?

By whom? A bot wht? Difeet people ee the cii i ife-et wy.

Nothe elite ce oe et o poblem. How e they goig to e-

e powe pivilege ove globl goo they eve h to com-

pete o beoe? How e copotio ociety goig to cope with

the ew thet to oil-elle itil tcte? How bet might

copotio ie the wve o the climte cii, eekig ew o

iovtio eiig ew et? Wht efect will ifeet ki o

politicl ctio o climte chge hve o ccmltio ite-

egiol ecoomic competitio? How c the politicl et thte to ollow o om vio climte ite be eithe cotie

o exploite?

Sothe elite e cocee bot omewht ifeet qetio.

How c the climte cii be pevete om beig e yet -

othe exce o phig ie the log-thwte clim o Sothe

cotie to itilitio the wol welth? How might it

be tome ito oce o politicl levege? Wht e the bet

ttegie o elig with ticipte cttophe eomoly

icee ow o eviometl egee?A with evey ew itetiol evelopmet, ll ie e eyeig

ech othe ctioly, ceti how the ew coitio will fect

thei epective tig.


34/361


Sounds like a amiliar story.

Ye. Bt i elite ttite e peictble, ome o the ie e ew.

Globl wmig it thet like tht o ooe epletio o eve

cle wepo. It ct be xe withot bo ocil politicl

chge. It implictio o copotio e my-ie, bt thet-

eig o the lget eegy compie the eegy-iteive pi-

vte ecto geelly. Het o ll, thi epot will ge, vet-

ig the wot efect o climte cho i likely to etil emoctic

mobilitio.

Fo globl elite, pticlly i the Noth, thee elitio e i-

evitbly he to tomch th the thet poe by globl wmig

itel. The ciece ctio-like pecte o mpt petom, col-

lpig giclte owe cotlie i eily tmpe, i the

elite imgitio, by the moe mi-wechig teo o le eegy

e, le cetlitio, lowe tpot, mot tggeig o ll

le ieqlity.

But isnt it also the case that political and business leaders are simply in denialabout the urgency o the climate crisis?

Nothe eviometlit ote like to y o. Bt the lt chp-

te h ggete, mot elite, with little help, c qite well img-

ie wht lie i toe i geehoe g level cotie to ie. Wht

they hve i clty with i cceptig politicl ctio tht i comme-

te with the poblem.

You mean they know whats happening, but lack the political will to do any-thing about it.

It ot elly lck o politicl will. I ct, thi chpte wil l oc-

met, my lee the pivte copotio techoccie

tht chel thei choice hve pl o politicl wil l o el-ig with the climte cii, jt they hve plety o politicl will o

tyig to t y othe cii to thei vtge. The poblem i tht

lmot ll o thi will i iecte tow techicl, iomtiol o

mket xe ette to hl o emoctic itittio.

Th US peiet Geoge W. Bh opely poclim the ee o

the US to bek it ictio to oil oly to popoe techologicl

xe ch eqettio o cbo om col-e powe plt,

bioel moe cle eegy.5 Si Dvi Kig, the UK gove-

met chie cietic vie, w tht climte chge i thetgete th teoim oly to embce ome o the me techol-

ogie, pl emiio tig, oltio.6

Technological fixes are

tempting.


35/361

made in the usa a short history of carbon trading 33

The 1992 Fmewok Covetio o Cli-mte Chge w ot egotite pimi-

ly to ece geehoe g emiio bt

the pt o wie bgi betwee

ich poo cotie, competig e-

egy iteet govemet ce with

gowig ecoomic poblem mkig i-

vetmet i the te iceigly moe

eetil bt lo moe i clt.1

Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, 1994

It i moe ppopite to expli the -

te o the picipl elemet i climte

policy t both tiol itetiol

level i oe me tht wht i ivig

the leig tte m i thi eg

i the coce to cete ew ite o cpitl

ccmltio, the th oc o g-

gegte GDP gowth the impct o

climte policie o ch gowth.2

Karine Matthews and Matthew Paterson, 2005

Etblihig obt globl egime o -eig climte chge i compble

to the cetio o the itetiol te

egime e the Wol Te Ogi-

tio.3

Michael Zammit Cutajar,ex-Executive Secretary

o the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change, 2004

Acceptce o [the cbo tig povi-

io o the Kyoto Potocol] epeet

ticle o ith, ith i the ee mket

ith i the poce o globlitio. It et

o ieologicl tce.4

Mick Kelly, Climatic Research Unit,University o East Anglia, 2000

You talk about xes as i there was something wrong with them. But whatswrong with xes? Isnt that what we want to x the climate crisis?

The poblem i tht ch xe ot x. They pomie to elive

the wol om the wot ge o climte chge while levig

eveythig ele politic, commece o oth jt it i. Bt

i ct, the et o thi pecil epot will emotte, they o the

oppoite. They leve the coe o climte chge jt it i while ex-

cebtig the ieqlitie tht will hve to be ee i the ie

i to be toche o t ll.

Thi chpte will itoce thi bject by ketchig the hitoy o

the pocee tht tppe o cil itetiol ctio o climte

chge withi US-tyle mewok o eolibel policy. It wil l g-

get tht ew ecloe movemet h ome o thee ite-

like ttegie, o ltetive, ech o which itect with

ote eioce the othe.

What Is International Climate Policy About?


36/361


The rst strategy wok to ehpe o ppe etig o the cli-mte poblem o tht pblic ectio to it will peet le o politi-

cl thet to copotio. The second strategy ppel to techologiclxe wy o bypig ebte ove oil el while helpig to

p iovtio tht c eve ew oce o pot.The third strat-egy ppel to mket x tht ece the popety ight o hevyNothe oil el e ove the wol cbo-bobig cpcity

while cetig ew oppotitie o copote pot thogh te.

The kowlege xOe cott theme o climte politic ove the lt 20 ye h bee

the ttempt to egiee pblic ectio to globl wmig o tht it

will peet ewe politicl thet to, moe oppotitie o,

copotio thei politicl cliet. Some copotio, ptic-

lly i the US, ty to ey tht hm e chgig the climte t

ll. Othe opely ckowlege the thet while tyig to eom-

lte it i wy tht beet them.

So the big companies are arguing among themselves about global warming?

Ye, bt o othe level the ifeet ie e wokig i imil

iectio. Fo exmple, moe egeive ctio i the oil i-

ty, wokig pblic opiio mily withi the US, my pomote the

view tht the climte it chgig o tht it itle to ty to o

ythig bot it. Othe ctio, wokig wolwie, my ge

tht thee i cietic bi o ctio bt e the ciece i wy

tht help them tee itetiol geemet tow techologicl

mket xe tht peeve the ieti o oil el-iteive i-

tie. The boe otcome i the me: etechmet o copo-

te powe ove cbo mp.

It sounds like the good cop bad cop technique o police interrogation. Its as i,like the proverbial bad cop, industry activists within the US go straight or thethroat o any international agreement on climate change while, like the goodcop, their colleagues outside the US deend such agreements, hoping to cajoleand squeeze them into giving them what they want. Have the people who denythat humans are causing the climate to change gone as ar as the pro-tobaccolobby used to go in rejecting the evidence?

Thee e cetily ome pllel with pevio ce o ppeio

o cietic eviece, bt the tgoit i the climte ebte emoe meo the ie moe complicte.

The helth efect o tobcco (ome o which wee otice e-

ly 1602),7 wee come thogh exteive eech i the 20th


37/361


cety, bt it w ot til 1970 tht the Sgeo Geel helth

wig h to be iplye o evey cigette pck ol i the US.

Dicio o climte chge ciece ollow omewht imil

bt mch moe complex twitig tjectoy. Althogh the t

expltio o how cbo ioxie c ct geehoe g i

lly ttibte to the get Sweih cietit Svte Ahei i

1896,8 the geehoe eth logy w e ely 1827 by

the Fech polymth Je-Bptite Foie9 the tem itel me-

tioe by US cietit Thom Chmbeli i 1906.10 I the 1950,

egl ie i level o cbo ioxie i the tmophee beg to be

ocmete, i the 1970 eie o tie by the US Dept-

met o Eegy icee coce bot poible globl wmig. I1975, cietit till weet e whethe the eth w wmig o

coolig, bt 10 ye lte, t the t mjo itetiol coeece

o the geehoe efect t Villch, Ati, climtologit we o

ie o globl me tempete which i gete th y i m

hitoy i the t hl o the 21t cety p to oe-mete ie

i e level.

At tht poit, with the help o ig-hgy eech boie,

lme US govemet move eegeticlly, i the wo o oe

obeve, to pt climte cietit bck i thei cge.11

How?

It woke to hit the cete o gvity o egge cietic iqiy

ito climte chge om iepeet cemic the Uite N-

tio Eviometl Pogmme to techicl beccie moe

cloely tie to govemet. Thee icle the Wol Meteoo-

logicl Ogitio the Itegovemetl Pel o Climte

Chge (IPCC), which w ome i 1988.12

The scientific

debate over

societys effects

on the climate hassome similarities

with past debates

over tobaccos

health effects.


38/361


How did that help the US?

The Nothe-omite ciece beccy tht elte w i-

ceigly epeet o mltitiol eech ig13 w

bject to get el o US iece, with my US o cil -

ige to commet o evey t epot poce.14

Deigte the tk o poviig govemet iplomt with -

thoittive bt tie toy lie ecibig climte chge, the

IPCC tlly tee to homogeie cottig view ow-

ply cotovey. Ue pee om policy mke to y exctly

how b thig might get, it lo got ito the bio hbit o eo-

mltig ietemicie igoce cetitie o mee

ik o pobbilitie.15 Thi tce w el i givig ome policy

mke the mbe they wte ttctig moe eech -

ig, bt it lo ecoge the otio tht govemet copo-

tio col ely ctio til moe eitive elt wee i.

Thats hardly evidence that the IPCC was under the thumb o the US gov-ernment.

It wt. It impott ot to oveimpliy. Bt thee h lwy bee

ee i which the IPCC h helpe hpe climte poblem

oltio i wy tht mke them moe cceptble to powel gov-

emet copotio. A moe cocete exmple might be the

IPCC epoe to iplomt eqet to look ito the poibility o

toig cbo i tee oil wy o competig o cbo

ioxie emiio.

I suppose youre going to say that the IPCC was under a lot o pressure to giveits stamp o approval to the idea o trading trees or smoke, because thats whatNorthern countries needed in order to continue using ossil uels.

Well, it cetily te tht by 2000, whe the IPCC bmitte it377-pge epot o Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry,16 co-tie ch the US, Jp, C, Atli, New Zel

Nowy h bee peig h o ome time to be llowe to cot

hge mot o the cbo oke p by thei oete l git

thei itil emiio. My Nothe cotie wee lo kee

o beig llowe to by polltio ight om cbo-bobig o-

ety poject bo.

So pehp it holt be complete pie tht the IPCC epot

povie the US it llie with jt the coclio they eee.The poblem w tht the epot h to bo oml t o

techicl igo i oe to o o.

Under pressure

from policy makersto say exactly how

bad things might

get, some scientists

got into the dubious

habit of reformulating

indeterminaciesand ignorance as

probabilities.


39/361


What do you mean?

Deyig wig om the Itetiol Ititte o Applie Sy-

tem Alyi tht the IPCC wok to te col ot be coi-

ee eqte i hlig the cetitie elyig the cbo-

ccotig poblem th the Kyoto Potocol,17 the tho -

me withot eviece tht emovl by ik col veibly

compete o emiio by oce. Accoig to oe tho, the

l e pel eve coiee whethe the ecey cbo c-

cotig pocee wee ctlly poible o ot (ee Chpte 3).

Ate the epot cme ot, oe biem pel membe po-

clime tht thee wee o techicl poblem let with the ie o

tig emiio o tee.18

It qickly emege tht the pel h boght little o the vilble

kowlege elevt to oet cbo ccotig to be o it elib-

etio. Tho o elevt pee-eviewe eeece wee mi-

ig o eoettio, the hitoy o oety evelopmet poject,

pet eitce, oet commo egime, iveto behvio,

o o. While the pel obeve tht it i vey i clt, i ot impo-

ible to itigih chge i biotic cbo tock tht e iectly

hm-ice om thoe tht e ce by iiect tl

cto,19

it ile to w the logicl coclio tht it wol be veyi clt, i ot impoible, o cotie to clim ceit o chge

i oet oil.20 Ioiclly, it ell to o-cietit UN elegte

om Sothe cotie ch Ug, Key, Ti G-

teml to ie cietic qetio tht the expet pel h eglect-

e, bot oet t, oppotity cot o cbo oety, ccotig

o efect o oil el e, icot te, o oth.

Are you suggesting that somebody bribed the whole panel to come up with thepolitically correct response?

No, o coe ot.

Are you saying that this panel o dozens o reputable experts and business-people was somehow incompetent?

Not t ll. Thei techicl qlictio wee ote impeive.

You mean that someone intimidated them, then?

Nothig o ce. The wy iece wok e lly moe btle

moe powel. Mot o the tho o the epot wee litewith eviometl coltcie, mitem oety o ecoom-

ic ititte o cltie, ity ocitio, o cil gecie

govemet-e eech itittio. My w cbo ofet


40/361


eech pomiig etepie o thei itittio. Thee-

qte hile om the Noth, eve moe woke t Nothe

itittio. Ove hl o the tho eito o the chpte exm-iig the techicl poibility o cotie climig cbo ceit o

itiol l oet ctivitie withi thei boe wee om

the US, C o Atli the thee cotie mot ctive i e-

mig ceit o wooe l.21

At the me time, the pel icle o epeettive o iigeo

people who live i o epe o oet, o o commitie iectly

fecte by plttio poject. It icle o epeettive o com-

mitie mge by oil-el polltio tht wol be licee by

oety ofet poject, who lo wol hve h icetive to iito bette ciece. To the mile-cl tl cietit ecoo-

mit who omite the pel, it w likely to be imply give tht

thee wee vt ege l i the Soth (bt ot the Noth) tht

col be tke ove o cbo poject withot l o oet be-

ig ege elewhee elt; tht poject evelopmet gecie

col o wht they pomie; tht it wol be ey to etemie

om itt o ce whethe poject ctlly ve cbo. The

pel membehip w lgely mimtche with the poblem it i-

vetigte.

So youre saying that o cial climate-mitigation science is contaminated withpolitics?

No. To y the ciece i cotmite wol imply tht it b-

oml ittio o ciece to be eble, cotie motivte

by politic.

Bt it ot boml. It voible. No wol c exit i which

policy c be ciece-le withot ciece beig policy-le t the

me time. No wol ch wol be eible. No wol it be e-ible to live i wol i which people believe ch wol w

poible o eible.

What are you suggesting?

Jt tht it wol be cotctive o cietit policy mke to

ce the elity tht moe ciece both cotitte i coti-

tte by pticl om o politic, Sheil Jof, Poeo o

Sciece Pblic Policy t Hv, pt it.22 It wol be helpl o

eveyoe imply to mit tht both the we cietit give theqetio they k the wy they wok e iece by ig,

by policy mke jolit qetio, by mket ieologie, by

cltl bckgo, by ie, by choolig ll the et.


41/361


Why would that be helpul?

Ackowlegig exmiig thee lie o iece the th

climig tht goo ciece i omehow imme om them wol

give ll ie icetive to be moe we o wht ki o politic

i ivolve i y pticl eech cheme, wht the coe-

qece e. It col help eoc pblic ttetio o the impotce

o wokig to cete eviomet i which thee c be cietic

commitie tht k iteetig vie qetio o coce to

wie ge o iteet i emoctic ociety, e ot phe

too h ito tyig to povie impoible ecpe ote o ow

elite o iveigle ito e-e eech pogmme, mgig

mitke ct o el-eceptio. Sch commitie wol be bleto wok mog gop o pee who wol llow ecoge

them to qetio eceive wiom, to mke toble o eolibel

octie whe the cietic ee ie, to hve the choice ot

to we evey policy mke o jolit em with ove-

implictio.

But what would make that possible?

Pobbly the oly wy to mke pce o ciece le etie by

eolibelim i to wok git the omice o eolibelim i thewie ociety. Fieig the poblem by climig to be ble to coje

p objective ciece otie y ocil cotext it optio. A

ciece chol Simo Shckley college obeve, cietit my

well ccept politicitio o climte ciece give wy

to cope cotctively with ch politicl elity.23

I othe exmple o the itepeettio o politic climte

iqiy, poig om the US well-ogie ocil ciece

eech iteet elte i othoox ecoomit cptig mch

o the ge o the IPCC Wokig Gop III, chge with e-ig poible epoe to globl wmig.24 The hitoicl ocil

oot o climte chge wee igoe, wee goot eoce

o tcklig climte chge. Ite, techoct oect eegy e,

moelle the te globl ecoomy, collecte ocioecoomic t

eee o mgemet oltio toye with the ie o ig

cot-beet lyi to help mke eciio bot climte chge.

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