Dissertation extract: structural barriers to climate change action
Today I saw a Twitter post with some text that governments cut from the Summary for Policymakers from the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):
B6.4. Factors limiting ambitious transformation include structural barriers, an incremental rather than systemic approach, lack of coordination, inertia, lock-in to infrastructure and assets, and lock-in as a consequence of vested interests, regulatory inertia, and lack of technological capabilities and human resources. (high confidence) {1.5, 2.8, 5.5, 6.7, 13.8}
This accords with the section on structural barriers to climate action in my in-progress dissertation.
In response, I have released a draft section from my dissertation on the structural barriers that make controlling climate change so challenging. The barriers are essential for understanding why growing scientific alarm has not translated into adequate policy responses. It also raises questions for environmentalists working to control the problem, since part of the issue is their own opposition to fossil fuel alternatives.
Université de Montréal divesting
Students who were occupying the Roger-Gaudry Pavilion at the Universite de Montréal say the university has committed to divest from fossil fuels by 2025.
The development was first announced on Facebook, and I haven’t yet seen a formal release from the school.
Alley between self-storage and rail tracks
En route bientôt
My tickets are booked and I will be visiting Vancouver for the first time since January 2010 this summer from August 22nd to September 12th.
LUMBER
Grenadier Pond, High Park
Twisted branches 2/2
Rand on climate capitalism
As a practical matter, the democratic uproar needed to build whatever alternative economy [Naomi] Klein and the Pope have in mind is far greater than the upswell of the Climate Capitalism I’m proposing, which harnesses financial markets in the climate fight. Reengaging our political system to reform financial institutions like the World Bank, motivate the quantitative analysts (quants) on Wall Street, and redirect trade agreements to accelerate climate solutions is faster and more effective than waiting for something akin to Che Guevara’s revolución. I will admit that I simply don’t know what that revolution looks like. Nor how we manage a complex modern economy without market forces. Those who’ve tried (today’s Venezuela comes to mind) failed miserably. And none of the far-left socialist experiments of the past gave up growth — the primary bugbear in Klein’s view.
…
The trillions of dollars that sit in money markets and pension funds is the most powerful tool in our climate arsenal — if it can be redirected. We need to co-opt capital markets, not slay them. That capital is conductor for the rest of the economic orchestra. With it, we unlock the financial, engineering, and entrepreneurial might that can rebuild global energy systems. To think overwise is naïve — the supply chains are too complex, the scale of manufacturing and project development too big, and the degree of entrepreneurial innovation required too deep. Like it or not, we must harness the very market forces that threaten our planet, to save the planet.
Rand, Tom. The Case for Climate Capitalism: Economic Solutions for a Planet in Crisis. ECW Press, 2020. p. xxviii-xxix
Related:
- Environmental ‘extremism’
- Open thread: climate change and growth
- Climate: integrated left or post-partisan?
- Climate change and capitalism
- More on climate change and capitalism
- Is the Leap Manifesto at risk of easy reversal?
- A test cast for cross-partisan climate policy
- Anti-capitalist environmentalism
- Open thread: climate justice
- The marriage of climate and economic justice
- 2050 Post-Carbon conference, McKibben, and conservatives on climate
- Strident progressivism versus incrementalist centrism
- Cultivating a conservative climate movement
- Political coalition building and Canada’s antivax blockades