Transcript Global politics in a carbon-constrained world

Australia, Malaysia and the
coming politics of climate
change
Malaysia-Australia Dialogue on Asian Futures,
Universiti Sains Malaysia, 12-16 August 2009
Richard Tanter
Nautilus Institute
[email protected]
Outline
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What policy outcomes ought we to be aiming for?
Reminder: Mitigation and adaptation
Climate change as a case of the species of “global
problems”
Climate change as a “security problem”
Global politics in a carbon-constrained world
REDD as a paradigm of destructive
interdependence
Psycho-social and problem definition frames for
conflict and cooperation
Requirements for an adequate framework
1. What outcomes should we government and civil society - be
aiming for?
• Near-term consequences non-lethal
• Adequate recognition of complexity and
understood consequences
• Based on knowledge of complexity adequate
to understanding both the problems and their
solutions
• Mitigating rather than exacerbating play of
fantasies and their political manipulation
• Outcomes based on shared character of
problems and necessary cooperation for just
anf effective solution
2. Characteristics of mitigation and adaptation (Bosello et al, 2007)
Mitigation
All systems
Adaptation
Selected systems
Scale of efforts
Global
Local to regional
Life time
Centuries
Years to centuries
Lead time
Decades
Immediate to decades
Effectiveness
Certain, in terms of emission
reduction; less certain in terms of
damage reduction
Generally less certain, especially where local
knowledge of likely climate-related changes
is weak
Ancillary benefits
Sometimes
Mostly
Polluter pays
Typically yes
Not necessarily
Payer benefits
Only a little
Almost fully
Administrative
scale/implementi
ng bodies
(Mainly) National
governments/international
negotiations
(Mainly) local managers/authorities,
households (& community organizations)
Sectors involved
Potentially all
Primarily energy and transport in
high-income nations, forestry and
energy in low/middle-income nations
Monitoring
Relatively easy
Benefited
systems
More difficult
3. Climate change as a case of the
species of “global problems”
Characteristics of global problems:
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Effects are potentially universal;
Effects are cascading;
Complex/non-linear;
Highly inter-related;
Causes and effects may be separated by time and geography;
Solutions/strategies may be separated;
Knowledge ranges from open knowledge to classified
information;
• Knowledge is multi-disciplinary/inter-disciplinary;
• Solutions must be multiple, interlinked, and close to
simultaneous to avoid destructive feedback
Global problems - one list:
Jean-Francois Rischard, High Noon: 20 Global
Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
• Sharing our Planet: Issues involving the
global commons
• Sharing our humanity: Issues whose size and
urgency requires a global commitment
• Sharing our rulebook: Issues needing a
global regulatory approach
4. Climate change as a “security issue”
• Booming field:
– different players/interests/definitions of “security”
– almost all deeply flawed
– Three main groups:
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Informed enthusiasts
Academic sceptics
(>>Academic adaptation approaches as compromise)
Systems approaches
• Comprehensive list of studies, Nautilus Institute:
Climate change and security - analysis, Nautilus Institute
http://www.globalcollab.org/Nautilus/australia/reframing/ccsecurity/cc-sec-policy/
Informed enthusiasts
• Key official document:
– Energy, Security and Climate - Security Council open
debate, April 2007; especially the UK concept paper.
• Best to date:
– The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National
Security Implications of Global Climate Change, Center for a
New American Security, November 2007
Age of Transitions, CSIS, 2007
- three plausible climate scenarios
S cenario
Expect ed
S evere
Catastro phic
Time span
30 ye ars
30 ye ars
100 ye ars
Warming
1.3 o C
2.6 o C
5.6 o C
S ea level rise
0.23 metre s
0.52 metre s
2.0 metres
•Lead authors now Obama senior White House, NSC, Defense and
CIA, plus climate specialists.
• Severe scenario motif: “massive non-linear events in the
global environment give rise to massive non-linear societal
events”.
•Looking for security consequences of plausible futures.
–Most to date based on probable futures
–in fact levels of uncertainty in CC predictions are high, and have
turned out to be conservative
Problems with the enthusiasts
• Sentence structure: too many
– “could/may/possibly/might lead to …”
– “imagine if …”
• i.e. weak modelling of CC-security impact
relationships
• Suspicion that political agenda drives demand for
definition of the field
• Still limited models of indirect and adaptation
consequences.
Academic sceptics
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Follows from 1990s critiques of environmental security:
– Statistically-based evidence not present
– Causal chains too long; excluding nothing
Central criticisms of enthusiasts:
– “based on speculation and questionable sources”
– “difficult to substantiate given data constraints”
– “focus on possible scenarios in the future, which are inherently
difficult to test”
• Best of sceptics: Barnett and Adger:
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Vulnerability varies with extent of dependence on “natural resources
and ecosystem services”, sensitivity of those resources, and adaptive
capacity
“Environmental change does not undermine human security in isolation
form a broad range of social factors”
Best of the sceptics:
Jon Barnett/Neil Adger
• shifted to institutional adaptation robustness/vulnerability focus, with
conflict theory/human security emphasis;
• Vulnerability not identical with insecurity
• Vulnerability varies with extent of dependence on “natural resources
and ecosystem services”, sensitivity of those resources, and
adaptive capacity
• “the more people are dependent on climate sensitive forms of natural
capital, and the less they rely on economic or social forms of capital,
the more at risk they are from CC”
• “Environmental change does not undermine human security in
isolation form a broad range of social factors”
Problems with some of the sceptics
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Reliance on past as baseline
– “There is no precedent in human history for a global disaster
that affects whole societies in multiple ways at many different
locations all at once.” J.R. McNeill, Age of Transitions
Analytic approach seems to militate against holistic
requirements
Conflict and security research models are not wide
To date not a lot of attention to complex interactions of CC with
trade, economic structure, culture (religion), urban structure,
public health
Adaptation as new conflict variable not yet on agenda
Purchase on vulnerabilities of advanced industrial systems?
5. Global politics in a carbonconstrained world
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some assumptions - unless a climatic tipping point
is reached early with “visible” socio-ecological major
consequences:
– Technically efficacious mitigation efforts will be
inadequate in our lifetime
– dependent on spatial/national/class location,
conscious, planned adaptation efforts will be
inadequate and widely perceived as unjust
– some adaptation processes will have highly
negative consequences, with uneven degrees of
local, or geographically or sectorally constrained
vs universal impacts
Global politics in a carbon-constrained
world: best parallel = Cold War, but …
• no historical precedents for carbon-constrained world
• global bio-physical systemic driver, with lethal socioecological consequences differentially distributed
• global system imperatives will penetrate and shape
domestic national politics
• cross-cutting formations of interest and resentment
• reluctant and incipiently failing interdependence
• more nuclear weapons and nuclear energy
• carbon policing missions: disposition to carbonregime intervention
• new version of “the west vs the rest”, but cross-cut by
contested multipolarity
6. REDD politics as a paradigm of
destructive interdependence
• REDD: Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Destructive forest practices
• REDD Plus - Bali Action Plan:
“Policy approaches and positive incentives on issues
relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and
forest degradation in developing countries; and the
role of conservation, sustainable management of
forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in
developing countries”.
• basic model = industrial/rich countries
purchase carbon emission reduction credits
by paying developing/tropical rainforest
countries to avoid deforestation or
plant/manage forests
• to be established as global institution under
UNFCC at Copenhagen? Market or fund?
• already pilot schemes, aid projects, carbon
credit trading, and widespread consequent
crime and unrest
• existing and planned rich country emissions
reduction schemes highly dependent on huge
REDD Plus plans
REDD problems
• Some variation dependent on scheme structure
• Cross-national institutional interdependence for
viability of national carbon regimes
• Criminal/fraud possibilities very high
• Sub-prime carbon: carbon derivatives markets
• With best will, very hard to implement:
• Buyer country view: failure of compliance on a
massive scale, and exacerbation of existential threat
• Seller country view: imposition of ecological debt;
external exacerbation of social tensions
• Carbon-complicance “aid” and intervention
7. Psycho-social and problem
definition frames for conflict and
cooperation
Capacity for highly negative psycho-social dynamics re
climate change impacts and “responsibilities”.
– existential and intangible (?) character of threat;
parallel to Cold War structure of nuclear terrors
– denial, projection and scapegoating central
mechanisms’
– political utility and resource (Bush/Howard)
– religious expressions
– already in play: “first world” and “third world”
examples displaying root senses of threat
– salient to enforcement of carbon regimes - and
resistance
Mal-adaptation as a feedback element
• treat mitigation an early, relatively straightforward,
form of adaptation
• Adaptation not necessarily positive
• Mal-adaptation experiences
– Perceptions and “reality”
– blindspots
• Will definitely feedback into system
Mal-adaptation possibility: AustralianSoutheast Asia energy adaptation
• SEA countries and Australia adapting to climate change by
shifting nuclear energy issues
• Indonesian, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Phillipines, nuclear
power proposals
• Australian uranium expansion; waste import proposals; uranium
enrichment advocacy
– last now justified by likely NE Asian and possible SEA
nuclear proliferation
• regional response to Australian arms spending and doctrine,
now amplified by Australian nuclear developments.
• Perfect vicious circle feedback system unless altered
intentionally by rectification of perceptions and avoidance of
maladaptive responses.
Reframing Australia Indonesia security
relations through shared global problem
solving: strategic goals?
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To document the impact of climate change on the two
societies
to map the impact of climate change on the security
relations between the two countries
to develop policy responses by both government and
civil society in both societies and between them.
to develop a model of bilateral policy responses to
shared global problems potentially applicable to other
cases.
• Against a background of recurring crises in Australia’s
most sensitive security relationship, the aim is to
explore security aspects of relations between Australia
and Indonesia based on new communities of shared
interests to face the challenges of emerging global
problems faced by both societies.
• The key hypothesis is that global problems manifest in
the fabric of the two societies, and whose causes lie
beyond their national systems, not only will generate
deep security challenges but also new possibilities of
cross-border communities of shared interest.
• The secondary hypothesis is that this process will
enhance the capacity to manage the difficult bilateral
problems already evident by placing them in a context
of larger security collaborations.
Layered frames for analysing bilateral
security impacts
• bio-physical and social-ecological systems under
consideration
• historically formed relationship between the two
societies and states
• intentional collective efforts to address actual and
expected climate change through mitigation of
greenhouse gas generation and release, and
adaptation to specific patterns of climate change
• Reframing Australia-Indonesia security
– http://www.globalcollab.org/Nautilus/australia/reframing
• Mapping Causal Complexity in Climate
Change Impacts and Responses Australia and Indonesia
– http://www.globalcollab.org/Nautilus/australia/reframing/ccsecurity/mapping/
• Australia-Indonesia nuclear dynamics
– http://www.globalcollab.org/Nautilus/australia/reframing/austind-nuclear