The Politics of Climate Change (35 page)

Innovation at all levels has to be a key aspect of the world's attempts to contain climate change, and this is as true of international relations as anywhere else. Somehow the slow plod of the UN-brokered negotiations will have to be energized by more immediate and practical interventions and ideas. Three sets of forces are in play in generating such possibilities. One, as stressed throughout this book, is the action of states, working individually, bilaterally or in larger groupings. For better or for worse, a great deal of power in world society still remains in the hands of states, and no other organizations approach them in terms of legitimacy. What the individual nations discussed above actually do, in their interaction with one another and with wider groups of states, will matter enormously.

So also will the responses of business, large and small. Here, as also discussed above in earlier sections, there is a very mixed picture. Some business interests, within the fossil fuel companies themselves and in other carbon-intensive industries, contribute in a fundamental way to the inertia that is causing the level of CO
₂
in the atmosphere still to rise. Yet the opportunities for more far-sighted entrepreneurs and innovators are huge.

The third influence, of immense importance, is the emergence of a diverse and fizzling global civil society, mediated
by electronic means of communication and by the ease of modern transportation. The stunning variety of new groups, local, national and transnational, that have sprung up across the world, offer multiple possibilities for influencing climate change policy in a positive and perhaps dramatically new way.

As an instrument of global governance, the UN may fall well short of what many of us (including myself) would like. Whether or not we can limit some of the most dangerous consequences of climate change will not be settled at the UN. Yet there are very good reasons why the UN climate change negotiations must continue, with all the frustrations they entail. The possibility of achieving a legally binding treaty on carbon reductions, involving at least the large majority of nations, has to stay on the table. The distinction between ‘legally binding' agreements and ‘voluntary' ones is less than it looks, because there are few sanctions available to back up international law when it is flouted. But a legally established treaty would have more chance of achieving compliance than a cluster of open pledges. That underlying indispensability of which Hannay speaks remains intact.

If concern about the dangers of climate change becomes more urgent and pressing than it is now – as
must
happen, at some point because of the very advance of global warming – coping with them could be a means of rehabilitating the United Nations itself. States' leaders might come to realize that not only can they not do without it, but that lack of effective global governance is a prime reason why those dangers have become so acute.

Industrial civilization differs from all previous types of civilization that have gone before. Even the most advanced, such as Rome or traditional China, were regional – they were only able to extend their influence over a specific corner of the world. They made use of inanimate energy, such as water or wind, but only in a relatively marginal way. Their impact on the natural world was considerable, but mainly confined to modifications of the landscape.

Our civilization is truly global in scope; and it couldn't exist without the inanimate energy sources that fuel it. For better or worse, modern industry has unleashed a sheer volume of
power
into the world vastly beyond anything witnessed before. I mean here inanimate power, but also the power of human organization – the complex social, economic and political systems upon which our individual lives now depend. Power cuts two ways. The Enlightenment thinkers saw such capabilities as essentially benign. Thus Marx wrote in a celebrated phrase: ‘Human beings only set themselves such problems as they can resolve.' Yet from the early days of industrial development there were those who saw the new powers as destructive or as threatening to escape the control of their creators.

The debate continues today and is unresolved. Our civilization could self-destruct – no doubt about it – and with
awesome consequences, given its global reach. Doomsday is no longer a religious concept, a day of spiritual reckoning, but a possibility imminent in our society and economy. If unchecked, climate change alone could produce enormous human suffering. So also could the drying up of the energy resources upon which so many of our capacities are built. There remains the possibility of large-scale conflicts, perhaps involving the use of weapons of mass destruction. Each could intersect with the others, as analysed in the previous chapter.

No wonder many take fright. Let's go back! Let's return to a simpler world! They are entirely understandable sentiments and have practical application in some contexts. Yet there can be no overall ‘going back' – the very expansion of human power that has created such deep problems is the only means of resolving them, with science and technology at the forefront. There will probably be nine billion people in the world by 2050 – after which world population hopefully will stabilize, especially if the least developed countries make significant economic and social progress. Ways will have to be found of providing those nine billion people with a decent way of life.

What hope is there that, as collective humanity, we will be able to control the forces we have unleashed? No clear-cut answer can be given, since there are so many contingencies, unknowns – and, yes, unknown unknowns – involved. What one can say is that risk and opportunity belong together; from the biggest risks can also flow the greatest opportunities, if collectively we can mobilize to meet them. Something of a quantum leap, however, is needed over the situation as it stands now.

To some considerable degree we are in the hands of our political leaders. It has become customary to be cynical about politics, but the political field retains its capacity to inspire. The use of political capacity, national and international, will be essential to coping with the dilemmas that confront us. Two countries, the United States and China, have the ability to make or break our chances of success. Of course, bilateral cooperation, even in this unique case, can only get us so far. If ever a problem called for multilateral cooperation, with every country in the world on board, climate change is it. As with
the internal policies of states, the ‘how' matters more than the ‘what'. Target-setting isn't going to have much impact, but many other forms of collaboration can do so. The sharing of scientific findings, technology transfer, direct aid coming from some nations to others, and a host of other collaborative activities are the way forward.

Within the industrial countries there are many political battles to be fought and won. The US is in prime position because of its large-scale contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and its gargantuan appetite for oil. It will be a colossal task to turn around a society whose whole way of life is constructed around mobility and a ‘natural right' to consume energy in a profligate way. Yet it isn't as hopeless an endeavour as it looks. Numerous states, cities and organizations within the country have not only been pressing for change but are leading the way in introducing it.

All governments face deep dilemmas in reconciling climate change and energy policy with sustaining popular support, especially in times of economic difficulty. Public support is likely to wax and wane, for reasons I have discussed. In order to cope, governments will have to resort to a range of strategies, while at the same time trying to foster a more widespread consciousness of the need for action. The habits and routines of everyday life stand in the way, but the key problem is the difficulty of getting people to accept that the risks are real and pressing.

Economic and political power in the international system is clearly moving from the established industrial countries of the West towards the newly developing states. It looks more and more possible that countries such as China, India and Brazil, rather than playing catch-up, could assume a leadership position in climate change policy, stepping into the vacuum left by the incapacity of the US to take the lead on a federal level. Although such nations, especially China and India, are a very long way away from breaking away from a carbon-intensive path of development, a major change in political orientation is occurring.

Technological innovation is one of the several jokers in the pack – the more so given the diversity of technologies vying for attention as we seek to shake free from our dependency
on fossil fuels. Much can be done to reduce emissions without further advance. Yet the realm of technology is the most important domain where the theorem applies that the very expansion of power that has created dangers for us can perhaps allow us to meet them. A new Dark Ages, a new age of enlightenment, or perhaps a confusing mixture of the two – which will it be? Probably the third possibility is the most likely. In that case, we all have to hope that the balance will be tilted towards the enlightenment side of the equation.