ICRLP Webinar Series: “The Global South in the Imagining of Climate Futures: A Conversation with Kim Stanley Robinson and ICRLP’s Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò”

Authored by Isabella Corpora, Research Fellow, Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy

Prepared for the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy.

Accounts of climate futures typically advance a Northern perspective. Individuals and communities in the Global South are too often portrayed solely as victims of a changing climate, rather than as active participants in the crafting of climate responses. In his new book, The Ministry for the Future, speculative fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson presents a picture of what the near future could look like, with the Global South on the frontlines not just of climate impacts but of climate action. A world is depicted in which an international subsidiary body, created out of the Paris Agreement, attempts to ride and direct this climate rollercoaster. The novel reviews potential impacts of climate change and how strife, economics, and human ingenuity and perseverance go hand in hand. Along with global governance, Robinson evaluates, among many other things, carbon drawdown techniques and the creation of a “carbon currency” as methods to make change. 

On March 23rd, 2021 Robinson joined ICRLP in a recent webinar to discuss his book alongside Olufemi Taiwo, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University and a Research Fellow with ICRLP, and Kate O’Neill, Associate Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley as the session’s moderator. Taiwo looks at issues of environmental justice using the tools and perspectives of political philosophy with a specific carbon removal twist. The discussion over the course of the webinar ranged from climate governance to shifting economic systems and why environmental justice considerations must be held paramount. 

Common but differentiated responsibilities

The Ministry for the Future opens in a near-future India in the midst of a climate change-induced catastrophe. The event and its aftermath drive, in the novel, a set of actions building from and strengthening the Paris Agreement.

During the webinar, Robinson and Taiwo considered the prospects of the Paris Agreement as a global pact to address a warming planet. The idea of “common but differentiated responsibilities” has come out of the international climate response regime as a recognition that developed countries have polluted the most throughout history, therefore should bear more of the responsibility for addressing climate change, such as with increased funding. Taiwo’s work evaluates this from a political philosophy stance, reviewing what he described as “distributive mechanisms and issues of justice”. He suggested that it’s not just present-day carbon pollution that is at the heart of differentiated responsibilities and impacts. Both colonization and the Industrial Revolution have had inequitable effects on developing countries, physically from emissions but also societally. These today have transpired as divisions between the Global “North” and “South”.

With this comes recognition of “climate colonialism”, an acknowledgment that developed countries continue to pollute at the expense of developing countries. Moral dilemmas and difficult tradeoffs arise in the efforts to avert climate disasters, made particularly acute in Robinson’s novel when carbon removal and solar radiation management methods come into play. A theme in the conversation between Robinson and Taiwo was, who is to say what types of technology can or cannot be implemented by Global South populations when attempting to combat an issue they didn’t create? In Robinson’s book, this complex set of social and political choices is represented by India’s unilateral use of SRM technology. In real life this is, among other things, exemplified by the Green Climate Fund, which has had a $200 billion target to allocate for green development goals yet is currently operating around $10 billion. Though western countries are attempting to remedy their climate mistakes, they aren’t as forceful or consistent with their promises, and it is the South that will bear the brunt of these shortcomings. 

Governance

Moderator O’Neill asked the speakers what kinds of geopolitical changes are needed to make a fairer system. 

The speakers reviewed how updated policy and global governance could help address these issues, and discussed ways policy can be shaped from a scientifically backed rather than politicizing perspective. When it comes to carbon removal, the speakers suggested that the discussion should be regarding just usage of the technology. As Taiwo pointed out, even governance structures can be looked at as technologies. The conversation pivoted to forms of governance that emphasize local participation, with the discussion of “community control” through a “citizens assembly” where experts describe issues to the people and they can make an informed decision on how to address the problem, mitigating decisions made solely by a select few corporations and their executives and shareholders. Taiwo also described privatization as a governance structure, pointing out that a social budgetary decision-making system could instead be formed with “participatory budgeting” where the public decides more directly what programs funding goes towards. 

Robinson offered a related but different view on the question of markets acting as governance. Recognition was made that the problem of climate change is already quickly unfolding before us, therefore market mechanisms, or a shift back towards Keynesian economics and emphasis on financial institutions, could do the job faster than a reconfiguring of the capitalist order. A “pairing” of issues could help with this, such as development with regenerative agriculture that could simultaneously have carbon removal aspects such as biochar or soil carbon sequestration. 

This brought about a larger discussion between Robinson and Taiwo: how does one make a radical shift of economics in their current economy, and who chooses? Much of the North, currently operating from capitalist or hybrid systems, is continuing to abuse the environment through engrained market mechanisms. Not is but what radical change is needed to save us from this mass extinction event? How does one come about implementing a new economic system in one that, normatively speaking, is already functioning? How desperate does the system need to become in order for change to be made? At this point in the webinar, Robinson postulated whether westernization and modernization are all simply “capitalism”, and if modernization can occur without capitalism. Taiwo believes it can. 

The future, semi-based on the response to COVID

These are big questions. Yet, Taiwo reminded us that humanity has already experienced any number of civilization-shaping social shifts. Colonialism affected lives and physical environments around the world. Oil companies have already reorganized the coastline of Louisiana to build refineries. Adverse impacts for a portion of humanity are nothing new. A similar point, noted the speakers, can be made about technological interventions in Earth systems. Humans have already engineered the climate through carbon emissions; carbon removal options might be thought of as a way of engineering out of what has actually been done for almost the past two hundred years. Taiwo and Robinson described how we are “aestheticizing” the climate issue rather than using the tools we currently have to handle it: we evaluate issues of justice that can arise, but with inaction, actually exacerbate those problems. Thus, a radical shift needs to be made, and it needs to be made in the next ten years.  

When asked about the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how the quarantine has affected emissions, both Robinson and Taiwo seemed on the same page. Vaccine distribution globally has been fairly inequitable, and the consequences for the rest of the world will backfire on the United States. This is similar to the climate crisis response, and where western countries occupy positions of power in global markets and political systems, their less egalitarian response will adversely affect them. Until social battles are met and reckoned with, we won’t be able to address the issue from the right framework. It’s going to take an assessment of the social systems and values of the North and the South to see the tools we have to generate change in a climate-altered world, and for consideration of the kinds of collective futures we want, or need, to build. 

Watch the entire webinar here.

Robinson and Táíwò responded in writing to participant questions that could not be answered during the event. To see questions and responses, click here.

 

The Hidden Politics of Carbon Removal and Solar Geoengineering

The Institute’s co-director, Simon Nicholson, teamed up with solar geoengineering governance expert Sikina Jinnah from UC Santa Cruz to study the fate of a resolution on carbon removal and solar geoengineering that was introduced at the UN Environment Assembly in March 2019. Nature Geoscience published their analysis last week. UC Santa Cruz’s Jennifer McNulty explains their paper’s significance:

At this point, the greatest danger of climate engineering may be how little is known about where countries stand on these potentially planet-altering technologies. Who is moving forward? Who is funding research? And who is being left out of the conversation?

The “hidden politics” of climate engineering were partially revealed earlier this year at the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-4), when Switzerland proposed a resolution on geoengineering governance. The ensuing debate offered a glimpse of the first discussion in a public forum of this “third rail” of climate change, according to Sikina Jinnah, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an expert on climate engineering governance.

In a commentary that appears in the current issue of Nature Geoscience, Jinnah and coauthor Simon Nicholson of American University describe the politics and players who appear to be shaping the discussion. Their analysis, “The Hidden Politics of Climate Engineering,” concludes with a call for transparency to help resolve questions of governance and “ensure that the world has the tools to manage these potent technologies and practices if and when decisions are ever taken to use them.”

“Twenty years ago, climate engineering seemed far-fetched—if not crazy—but these ideas are being taken more seriously today in the wake of widespread governmental failure to adequately reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jinnah. “The U.S is the biggest culprit in terms of shirking responsibility, but everyone is falling short.”

The Swiss proposal generated debate that revealed troubling schisms between the United States and the European Union. It also underscored the challenge of trying to establish governance for the two dominant geoengineering strategies—solar radiation management (SRM) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR)—at the same time, because the technologies present very different potential risks.

Still a purely theoretical strategy, SRM would involve altering planetary brightness to reflect a very small amount of sunlight away from the Earth to create a cooling effect. One well-known proposal is to inject tiny reflective particles into the upper atmosphere. “The idea is to mimic the effect of a volcanic eruption,” said Jinnah. “Many people are scared of its planet-altering potential, and rightfully so.” When a team at Harvard University announced its intention to do a small-scale outdoor experiment, the public backlash was swift; amid calls for a more inclusive process, the project timeline was pushed back to include input from a newly established advisory board.

By contrast, CDR has to this point been relatively less controversial. Carbon removal strategies include existing options like enhancing forest carbon sinks, and more technologically far-off options such as “direct air capture” strategies that would suck carbon from the atmosphere. CDR is baked into many climate-modeling scenarios, largely in the form of bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). BECCS involves the burning of biomass for energy, followed by the capture and underground storage of emissions.

“Climate engineering experts are not talking about this as a substitute for greenhouse gas emission reductions,” emphasized Jinnah. “The potential of climate engineering is to lessen the impacts of climate change that we’re going to experience regardless of what we do now.”

Debate reveals areas of concern

To piece together their account of what happened at the UNEA-4 meeting, Jinnah and Nicholson interviewed attendees, reviewed documents, and scoured online comments. Their analysis highlights several areas of concern, including:

  • Disagreement among countries about the current state and strength of SRM governance
  • The domination of research by North American and European scientists
  • The need to “decouple” governance of SRM and CDR
  • A significant split between the United States and the European Union over the “precautionary approach”

The key functions of governance include building transparency, fostering public participation, and shedding light on funding. Jinnah noted that governance can also provide what she called a “braking” mechanism to avoid what some call a “slippery slope” toward deployment.

Significantly, the Swiss proposal, which Jinnah and Nicholson describe as “modest,” suggested a preliminary governance framework that drew strong opposition from the United States and Saudi Arabia. “The United States  wants to keep its options open, and it certainly doesn’t want the United Nations telling it what it can and cannot do,” observed Jinnah.

The lack of transparency around climate engineering makes it difficult to get a comprehensive picture of who’s doing what, and where, said Jinnah, but academic scientists in North America and Europe are leading the effort to explore SRM technology; CDR is already attracting private investment. Little is known about the extent of China’s activity in climate engineering.

“Very little is happening in the developing world, which is problematic because they will experience the most dramatic impacts of climate change and have the least institutional capacity to cope with it,” said Jinnah. “Some countries are facing an existential crisis and could potentially—potentially—want to see climate engineering. Or they could oppose it, because they want the focus to be on emissions reduction. But we don’t know, because governments haven’t articulated their positions.”

Jinnah bemoaned the lack of collaboration with developing countries and expressed a desire to see them build their capacity to engage with the policy and politics of climate engineering.

The debate also underscored some of the differences between SRM and CDR in terms of potential viability and deployment, prompting Jinnah to observe that “decoupling” them might break the logjam and foster greater progress on parallel tracks.

The United States favored a far less “precautionary” stance than the European Union, which has historically opted to protect the environment in the absence of scientific certainty, as it did on the issue of genetically modified foods. As one of the few countries with an active SRM research program, the United States appeared eager to preserve the status quo and “leave its decision space unchallenged,” Jinnah and Nicholson wrote.

An important step forward

Despite the breadth and depth of disagreement that surfaced at the meeting, Jinnah sees the debate as a necessary first step. “As a researcher, I think this debate was an incredibly important step forward, because you can’t study the politics of this issue without data, which in this case is countries articulating their positions on this controversial issue,” she said.

“Research is needed so we can better understand our options,” she emphasized, then added: “I’d rather not live in a world that thinks about solar radiation management, but unfortunately that’s not our reality.”

You can find Sikina Jinnah and Simon Nicholson’s paper, “The Hidden Politics of Geoengineering,” on the Nature Geoscience web site: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0483-7