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.

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:

CFFD campaign timelines and institutional memory in Canada

Amanda Harvey-Sánchez — who played a key role in the first Toronto350.org / UofT350.org divestment campaign — has written a detailed timeline of the campaign at the University of Toronto.

This kind of effort is especially valuable given the limits on institutional memory in the campus fossil fuel divestment (CFFD) movement. In part that’s because of how campaigns of student volunteers will experience constant turnover, though it is also the product of the informal style of organizing promoted by 350.org and implemented by most CFFD campaigns.

The closest document which I have a record of is from the SFU campaign, though it is much less detailed.

With student volunteers dispersing in all directions following graduation, and with few institutionalized structures to preserve knowledge between cohors of organizers, it has been especially useful to see some of the campaign debriefs which have followed divestment commitments. Climate Justice UBC (which I think is the new name / successor organization to UBCC350) released an especially good presentation about their campaign.