Prof. John Barryj.barry@qub.ac.ukSchool of Politics, International Studies and PhilosophyQueens University Belfast

CLIMATE CHANGE: WHERE ETHICS, SCIENCE AND POLITICS MEET

The context •Increasing unsustainability of current carbon-based, high-energy and high-consumption development patterns and ways of life; •Coming up against ‘limits to carbon-fuelled capitalism’; •Climate change is not just a scientific question and problem – with human induced climate change it is a social, political and ethical question as well;•Uneven distribution of the causes of climate change and uneven and unjust negative impacts of climate change•THE defining issue of our time…is and will continue to shape the 21st century

’A safe operating space for humanity’

Humanity’s Top Ten Challenges for the next 50 years

1. Energy2. Water3. Food4. Environment5. Poverty6. Terrorism &

War7. Disease8. Education9. Democracy10.Population

2014: 7 billion people2050: 9-10 billion peopleSource: Nobel laureate, Richard Smalley

Climate change science Intergovernmental panel on climate change •Human activity, burning carbon/fossil fuels, deforestation, causing green house gas (GHG) emissions to increase leading to rise in temperature of the planet, leading to climate change •Principal GHG = carbon dioxide (CO2)

The positive relationship between CO2 concentrations and global temperature changes

Evidence for the warming of the earth’s climate Warming of the climate is occurring and can be observed by :

Increases in global sea and air temperatures

Widespread melting of snow and ice

Rising global sea level

Summary of the climate science1.On the time scale that we directly experience as humans, excess injection of CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels is causing an increase in the long-term global average temperature.

2.During the last one thousand years the atmospheric CO2 concentration and the global average temperature have been tightly correlated.

3.Over geological time scales extending back 800,000 years from the present, the atmospheric CO2 concentration and the global average temperature are highly correlated.

4. For the period represented by industrialisation these changes arise primarily because of the greenhouse effect due to humankind’s burning of fossil fuels for energy and creation of other greenhouse-active gases. 

The emission of CO2 since industrialisation began has elevated the

atmospheric CO2 to levels never seen during the preceding 800,000 years in the geological record. 

Warming relative to 1961-90

Mean January figures are predicted to increase by 1.5oC by mid century with a further increase of 0.5oC-1.0oC by 2075.

By 2050, the extreme south and south west coasts may have a mean January temperature of 8.0oC. By then, winters in Northern Ireland and in the north Midlands will be similar to those presently experienced along the Cork/Kerry coast.

July temperatures will increase by 2.5oC by 2050 and a further increase of 1.0oC by 2075 can be expected. Maximum July temperatures of the order of 22.5oC will prevail generally with areas in the central Midlands experiencing maximum July temperatures of 24.5oC.

Some impacts of climate change in Northern Ireland •increased frequency of intense precipitation events exceeding the capacities of wastewater treatment plants, sewer systems and flood defences

•dune coasts will suffer non-sustainable beach and front-of-dune erosion

•invasion of more southerly, warmth-loving species replacing cold-adapted species at the southernmost edge of their ranges •loss of unique communities and assemblages of plants and animals

•new diseases from warmer countries may arrive •increase in rodent borne diseases •increased rain and relative humidity may promote infectious disease transmission

Two factual assumptions (1)

Scientific consensus: we need to reduce global carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 to achieve global climate stabilisation at 2 degree above pre-industrial temperatures in order to avoid collective catastrophe (‘runaway climate change’).

Most of this burden lies with the industrialised countries. Average per capita emissions of most people in North/minority world much higher than what is required.

•Changes in climate are already happening and will continue to happen on a greater scale because of what has been emitted and will continue to be emitted even if we achieve 80% reduction by 2050.

•A disproportionate portion of the negative effects are and will be in developing countries and on the poor/vulnerable in the developed/minority world.

Two factual assumptions (2)

Climate change and carbon energy/fossil fuelsCarbon/fossil fuel energy system (coal, oil and gas) as the ‘flip side’ to climate change – main cause of carbon dioxide emissions (the principal cause of climate change)

Name one thing in this room not made in whole or part or transported here in whole or part without the use of carbon energy?

Energy historically important in agricultural, industrial and technological ‘revolutions’

‘If we were to add together the power of all the fuel-fed machines that we rely on to light and heat our homes, transport us, and otherwise keep us in the style to which we have become accustomed, and then compare that total with the amount of power that can be generated by the human body, we would find that each American has the equivalent of over 150 ‘energy slaves’ working for us twenty-four hours a day.’ (Heinberg in Giddens 2009: 36)

Energy and modern ways of life…how many energy slaves do you have?

The global economy and energyResource Processin

gExploitati

onRaw Materials Manufacturi

ngConsumption

Largely dependent on cheap oil.

Waste Heat

Climate justice: the ethics of climate change Injustices of climate change

1/. Inequality/social justice: The poor and the vulnerable pay most for climate change They do not live high-carbon, high consumption ways of life but suffer the negative consequences of those of us (in the minority world) who do

Issue of socio-economic inequality central in the ethical implications of climate change

2/. Intergenerational injustice – passing on the earth and its climate in a worse condition to future generations

3/. Interspecies justice – the impacts of climate change on the non-human world, species, habitats and other natural entities and processes….who speaks for the trees?

Patz, Jonathan, et. al (November, 2005). Impact of regional climate change on human health. Nature, Vol. 438.

What does the evidence tell us about climate injustice in the UK?Low income households and other disadvantaged groups in the UK face multiple injustices as they:

•contribute the least to causing climate change through their emissions;

•are likely to be most negatively affected by climate impacts;

•pay, as a proportion of income, the most towards implementation of certain policy responses; Preston et al (2014) Climate Change and Social Justice: A Evidence Review

It is vital that ethical and political responses take account of the inherent inequalities in the ways people are affected by events

like floods  due (in part) to climate change

Lower income and other disadvantaged groups contribute least to causing climate change but are most likely to be adversely impacted by its effects• How disadvantaged a person or group will be with respect to potential losses in well-being will be a function of two distinct factors, their likelihood and degree of exposure to extreme weather events and their vulnerability.

•So… creating a less unequal society important to creating a more climate prepared and resilient society

© Environment Agency

The political challenge of climate change•Climate change scepticism and denial;

•Climate change as an ‘inconvenient truth’;

•Tackling climate change requires the decarbonisation of our economies and societies…and ways of life;

•Climate change – abstract and disconnected from everyday life….even as almost everything about our everyday lives impacts upon it

•Collective global action – problem of countries not willing to combat climate change if other countries do not do so as well;

•How to create and sustain a global agreement on reducing carbon emissions – major challenge for this year’s climate change talks in Paris, 30th November to 11th December 2015

Political Implications: the downsides of oil addiction

Political economy of carbon lock in

“despite concerns over global warming and peak oil and questions about the overall sustainability of our current civilization order, investors continue to see a future shaped by the owners and directors of hydrocarbon energy” (Di Muzio, 2012: 379)

Fossil fuel corporations have 5 times more oil and coal and gas in known reserves than climate scientists think is safe to burn. We have to keep 80% of their fossil fuels underground to avoid a 2% increase in global temperature.

“We need to leave oil, before oil leaves us”, Fathid Biriol, Chief Economist, International Energy Agency

Peak oil and energy insecurity

We need to rapidly decrease our dependence on oil, coal and gas

Not just electricity, but heating, transport and our food system is dependent upon a non-renewable, climate-change causing energy source

Cubic Mile of Oil/Year

Unburnable fossil fuels… there is about three times more fossil fuel in reserves that could be exploited today than is compatible with 2C, and over 10 times more fossil fuel resource that could be exploited in future.

In 2013, fossil fuel companies spent some $670bn (£443bn) on exploring for new oil and gas resources. Why they are doing this when there is more in the ground than we can afford to burn?

Science and politics – financial powerOur problem is not that we have too little fossil fuels but we have too much that if we burn it runs the risk of creating a ‘tipping point’ in the climate system leading to runaway climate change

To repeat: globally, a third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80 per cent of current coal reserves should remain unused from 2010 to 2050 in order to meet the target of 2 °C.

Financial experts, including the Bank of England and Goldman Sachs, have begun taking seriously the risk that expensive fossil fuel projects will be rendered worthless by future climate action.

So can understand why there is massive funding for climate scepticism, deniers as well as resisting, reducing government action on climate change

Three Great Challenges of the 21st Century

Energy, Climate, Food

The Perfect Storm

Humanity

It’s time to change

direction

Denial-anger and climate change – the grieving for our carbon-based ways of life?

Which stage are you at?

Conclusion - How are we to live? do good lives have to cost the earth? •Many of the solutions to climate change do not involve new technology •We have all the technology we need to meet the climate change challenge and indeed see it as an opportunity

‘Less is more’: beyond business as usual ‘techno-fixes’Doing less, driving less, consuming less, flying less, slowing down, cycling more, walking more, sharing more, reducing energy use, insulating our homes, using libraries rather than Amazon more, using public transport more…all of these will help combat climate change…without any new technology and …also create a new and better society, one that is less unsustainable and better at focusing on human flourishing not economic growth

But enormous political pressure for ‘business as usual’ to continue

‘Without vision the people perish’ – climate change as an opportunity to change society

After al, the end of the world as we know it…is not the end of the world

“The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war, but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and less wasteful.”

Wendell Berry, 1993