Steve Rayner

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Steve Rayner Gwyn PrinsJames Martin Institute
for Science and Civilization

• THE WRONG TROUSERS
• RADICALLY RETHINKING CLIMATE POLICY

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THE WRONG TROUSERS
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THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

• Negative learning (Oppenheimer) - looking at
  consequences of organizing research around wrong
  scientific model
• Technological lock-in (Arthur David) - looking
  at how early adoption decisions constrain
  subsequent developments
• Wicked problems (Rittel Webber) - recognizing
  intractable, multi-attribute problems dangers
  of premature closure
• Uncomfortable knowledge (Douglas, Ravetz) -
  highlighting problem of the social construction
  of ignorance arising from institutional
  commitments
• Clumsy solutions (Shapiro) focusing on creating
  conditions for emergent solutions in face of
  contradictory certitudes

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CLIMATE POLICY IN THE BEGINNING

• Climate change will never be a major public
  policy issue 1986
• Too far in future
• Science too uncertain
• No obvious villain
• Sound diagnosis but wrong conclusion!
• Something for everyone in climate change!

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CLIMATE CHANGE THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT

• 3 decades of the European project (climate as a
  handy external threat to all)
• Margaret Thatcher as Green Goddess out to get
  the miners
• Prevalence of precautionary principle (avoid
  disaster)
• Focus on behavioural change
• 70-90 of UK population sees climate as a
  significant problem
• 70-90 sees the government as primarily
  responsible for action
• Recent adoption of Europe-wide 2020 emissions
  reduction targets but how realistic are they?

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CLIMATE CHANGE THE US CONTEXT

• 3 decades of decentralization
• George Bush Sr the Whitehouse effect
  highlighted (misrepresented) disagreement
• Prevalence of proportional principle (benefits
  and costs)
• Greater faith in technological change
• 60 sees climate as a significant problem
• Only 40 looks to the Federal government to lead
  response European failure to understand US
  political culture
• New optimism about Federal leadership

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GOVERNMENT POLICY CONFLICTS

• Possible cautionary tale re new optimism in USA
• The 3 major UK political parties are falling over
  each other to demonstrate their green credentials
• UK government has set itself a target of 60
  emissions reductions by 2050
• UK is falling well short of meeting its declared
  goals
• Personal carbon credits and two new runways
  emergence of carbon governmentality and moral
  posturing who is toughest on profligacy

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BUT AT LEAST EVERYBODY NOW AGREES

• But are they right? Or was Kyoto a case of the
  wrong trousers

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THE KYOTO PROTOCOL

• Important symbolic expression of global concern
• But profoundly flawed as instrumental arrangement
  for achieving emissions reductions (as distinct
  from controls)
• Was DOA in White House Clinton-Bush transition
  changed climate politics rather than policies
• Was Bushs repudiation a case of the bad guy
  doing the right thing for the wrong reasons?

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FAILURE OF THE KYOTO APPROACH

• Represents 14 years of negotiation only game
  in town
• 5 targets for industrialized countries have been
  watered down to about 2 in real terms, but are
  still falling short
• Little realistic assessment of the politics of
  ramping up to 80
• Has isolated and demonized the USA
• No viable strategy for engaging India and China
• Created CDM scams such as HFC combustion
• No sign of stimulating fundamental technology
  transformation
• Primarily addresses emissions mitigation not
  climate impacts

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LIFE AFTER KYOTO?

• Currently have important window to think about
  the future of climate policy after 2012
• Increasing recognition of Kyoto shortcomings
• Emerging new approaches and initiatives but
  could they be derailed?
• But what can we learn from the history of the
  design of the current climate regime?

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THREE AVAILABLE MODELS

• Stratospheric ozone regime
• Strategic arms reduction treaty
• EPA Acid Rain Program
• The first two are typical products of summitry

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STRATOSPHERIC OZONE REGIME 1985-7

• Reducing emissions of gases from industrial
  activity
• Convention protocols approach
• Targets and timetables
• Production controls
• Advised by Ozone Trends Panel scientists
• But possible dis-analogies include
• Small number of chemically related gases
• Handful of producers
• Availability of technical alternatives
• Smoking gun Antarctic ozone hole

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ALTERNATIVE LESSONS FROM THE OZONE REGIME

• Initial failure of aerosol protocol at Vienna
  led to more rigorous regime simple
  self-interest or science advisory processes?
• Was Kyoto the necessary analogue of the failed
  aerosol protocol or an avoidable distraction?
• Kyoto instituted production controls NOT
  emissions controls
• Cross-national consensus built at
  non-governmental levels UNEP, environmental
  groups, scientific organizations, firms, etc
• BUT Governments had negative reaction asserted
  top-down control
• Government fingerprints
• Intergovernmental not International Panel on
  Climate Change

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STRATEGIC ARMS REDUCTION TREATY 1982-91

• Gore was known primarily as national security
  wonk
• Problem framed as mutually assured reductions
• Targets and timetables
• Monitoring and compliance (harder for adaptation)
• But possible dis-analogies include
• Focus on single technology nuclear weapons
• Warheads under direct government control
• Only two parties
• No obvious conflict with economic development
  goals

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EPA ACID RAIN PROGRAM 1993

• Tradable SO2 allowances
• Offered economic efficiencies
• Required monitoring and compliance
• But possible dis-analogies include
• Response to very specific issue of coal
  transportation costs
• Initial permit allocation by auction
• Trading in like-for-like gases (SO2) not
  divergent baskets
• Legally enforceable contracts under one national
  authority

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THE THREE MODELS COMBINED TO REINFORCE A NARROW
PROBLEM FRAMING

• Climate change is essentially a problem of
  limiting emissions adaptation has been
  consistent poor cousin
• Emissions mitigation is a global commons problem
  requiring consensus among 170 countries too
  many cooks!
• Climate change is a discrete problem that can be
  solved independently of broader development
  imperatives
• Climate policies should not disrupt economic
  assumptions either development (China) or
  competitiveness (USA)
• Improvements in scientific understanding will
  lead to policy consensus underestimates role of
  values

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WICKED PROBLEMS

• Identified by Horst Rittel in late 1960s as
  characterizing social problems
• Contrasted relatively easy challenges of public
  health engineering in late 19th early 20th
  centuries with late 20th century urban planning
• Also compared puzzle-solving in mathematics
  natural science with complexities of social
  policy
• Noted challenges of increasing heterogeneity
  value conflicts in modern society

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CHARACTERISTICS OF WICKED PROBLEMS

• Symptoms of deeper problems
• Little room for trial error learning
• Lack a clear set of alternative solutions
• Characterized by contradictory certitudes
• Involve entrenched interests
• Persistent insoluble
• Coping not solving
• Feasibility not optimality

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CLIMATE CHANGE AS A WICKED PROBLEM

• UN FCCC objective is to stabilize atmospheric
  greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that
  would prevent dangerous anthropogenic
  interference with the climate system
• No agreement on meaning of dangerous or
  interference
• Climate change is a symptom rather than a problem
• Product of massively overdetermined energy
  industrial system
• Industrialized world can protect itself through
  adaptation
• Richer is safer! California earthquakes and
  Florida hurricanes no barrier to migration
• Poor in marginal environments will suffer first
  more concern with future than present

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SEARCH FOR TRANSCENDENT AUTHORITY

• Idea that science compels agreement on action
• Leads to unattainable expectations of science
  (The Platinum Standard)
• But, The data never speak they mumble
• Surfeit of science is indeterminate (eg, US NAPAP)

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THE REDUCTIONIST TRAP

• Climate debate is latest manifestation of
  long-running clash of world views
• Reduces What kind of world do we want? to
  climate climate to CO2 and CO2 to just one
  number 450ppm
• Carbon pricing becomes the silver bullet

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ITS THE DEVELOPMENT PATH STUPID(OH! MIND
THE GAPS!)
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UNCOMFORTABLE KNOWLEDGE
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CONFIDENCE IN MODELING
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ITS STILL THE DEVELOPMENT PATH STUPID
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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

• Kept off climate policy agenda by US China
• Requires diversified approach by multiple actors
• Emphasises benefits rather than restraints
• Focuses on building resilience rather than
  economic efficiency

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NO TECHNOLOGICAL FIX BUT NO FIX WITHOUT TECHNOLOGY

• Assumption behind trading is that new energy
  technologies will become more competitive as
  fossil prices rise but where will new
  technologies come from?
• Reverse global collapse of energy RD funding
  10 countries fund 95 of RD, (new UK government
  investments)
• Create conditions for accelerated capital
  turnover in energy
• Focus on energy modernization benefits health
  economic - rather than fossil fuel limitation
  (China EU)
• Consider benefits of international competition as
  well as cooperation and coercion (EU and USA)
• Expand technological options including
  geo-engineering the next taboo for climate
  puritans Branson initiatives recognize lack of
  options for aircraft

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ZEN AND THE ART OF CARBON CYCLE MAINTENANCE
(Rayner Malone 1997)

• Emphasized importance of learning to manage under
  conditions of ignorance and unpredictability
• Suggested that diversified strategies would be
  necessary to alter overdetermination of energy
  and industrial systems
• Specifically
• Design policy instruments for real world
  conditions rather than make world conform to
  idealized model (a global carbon market)
• Incorporate climate thinking into routine
  decision processes (now called mainstreaming)
• Take a regional and local approach to climate
  policy making and implementation (emerging
  bottom-up initiatives)
• Use a pluralistic approach to decision making
  (most policy thinking still focuses on national
  governments)
• Direct resources to protect the most vulnerable
  (adaptation still resisted)

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LIFTING THE TABOO ON ADAPTATION (Pielke, Prins,
Rayner Sarewitz 2007)

• Unacceptable topic for many years
• Vulnerability to climate impacts are increasing
  for reasons unrelated to greenhouse gas emissions
• Present arrangements under Kyoto frame adaptation
  expenditures as costs of failed mitigation
• Rich countries can avoid paying costs of
  adaptation in poor countries by enhanced
  mitigation efforts
• Available level of MAFs are desultory
• Adaptation in developed countries could be part
  of public mobilization strategy

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TIME TO DITCH KYOTO (Prins Rayner 2007)

• Clumsy solution using silver buckshot
• Abandon universalism and focus mitigation efforts
  on the big emitters (Gleneagles Climate Process)
• Allow genuine emissions markets to evolve from
  the bottom up
• Make wartime levels of public investment in
  energy technology RDD - 80bn/year for USA
• Increase investments in adaptation comparable
  to mitigation efforts
• Work the problem at the appropriate scales
  provinces, states, cities
• Confront the object and draw nigh obliquely
  Montreal Protocol has had more impact on climate
  than fully implemented Kyoto

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RAISING CARBOBN COSTS VERSUS LOWERING TECHNOLOGY
COSTS
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CONCLUSIONS

• Significant opportunities are opening up for a
  more diversified approach
• Essential to learn the lessons of premature
  closure
• Science cannot cut through Gordian policy knots
• Carbon trading is probably part of the solution,
  but will likely be through bottom-up linking of
  national/regional systems
• A diversified strategy is desirable to find
  leverage points to change complex overdetermined
  energy/industrial systems
• Significant new investment in energy and other
  technologies is required
• A new emphasis on adaptation and geo-engineering
  is essential

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THE ALTERNATIVE