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on Dec 19, 13 • posted by rhoggett •

Guest Blog: Radical emissions reduction strategies – the missing links?

Radical emissions reduction strategies – the missing links?

Katy Roelich and John Barrett– Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds

We’ve just attended a very thought provoking conference, organised by the Tyndall Centre, which intended to provide an evidence base for developing radical mitigation strategies. We think that this is the right question and were pleased that the Tyndall Centre had started the process of addressing this issue. However, even they admitted that among the many magnificent contributions there was a conspicuous shortage of strategies. Despite coming out more convinced than ever that we need to start radical action now, we’re not sure we’re any closer to knowing what that action is.

On reflection, a few things really struck us about ability to describe radical reductions strategies (with apologies for wilful misinterpretation of some of individually inspiring presentations);

We have a very good handle on the scale of change that is needed. There is still plenty of debate about how much risk we’re willing to take, what constitutes dangerous climate change and how we should share a carbon budget out. However, to some extent, no matter what your position on these issues the underlying challenge is the same – the scale of annual reductions we need are somewhere between two and four times higher than anything we’ve ever achieved before – that’s big and it’s urgent.
We’re very good at describing the necessary future technological system(s). There is debate about whether biomass is carbon neutral and whether nuclear power is desirable but we can describe an energy system that would be low/zero carbon by 2030/40/50. So we can (eventually) do it technically. But we can’t articulate how to change from where we are now to this mythical future system. It’s complex and involves people so a description of the technical system alone is not a strategy.
We can also describe what is wrong with the current social, political and economic system. Neither citizens nor politicians are stupid but the inertia in the system is considerable. There are many powerful and organised vested interests who are very content with the current system and who contribute to this inertia. Unless we create an alternative and equally powerful and organised movement we are unlikely to be able to contest this power. But what alternative do we coalesce around, how do we avoid simply transferring power from one undesirable group to another and how do we start change in such a complex system? We need to work out what alternatives might be and how change might happen.
There are some phenomenal examples of radical action. Some people aren’t waiting for the political system to change or for infrastructure transition to happen. They are getting on with change in their own house/fire station/community. But this is very difficult and is happening at a microscopic scale. How do we make this bottom-up action easier and how do we ensure that it will lead to change at the necessary speed and scale.

So as scientists, activists and policy makers we are doing some things very well but there seems to be several gaps between these beacons of hope that mean the parts won’t add up to the (radical) whole. Technology change in the scale and direction we want won’t happen without social, political and economic change (Unruh 2000). We need to stop dealing with the two issues separately and find ways of describing socio-technical system change. There is an emerging field of work in transitions theory that has a real contribution to make but needs to move from the theoretical to the practical.

One of the most fundamental gaps seems to be between knowing what is wrong with the system now and what part of it needs to be in the future. Tools or approaches are needed to support and inform decisions in the face of real uncertainty about how parts of the system might change or about how effective interventions might be. What do we need to do now to leave options open for radical change in the future if our fragmented efforts now don’t make a dint on rapidly increasing emissions (and the rapidly diminishing cumulative budget)? There are tools and approaches used in field such as adaptation to a changing climate that could really help fill this gap but we need to start applying them soon (Walker et al. 2013).

Demand management is potentially a more expedient way of reducing cumulative emissions (Barrett & Scott 2012), but relying on piecemeal, bottom-up activity to address demand will not be easy or sufficient. Political system needs to create a more supportive environment for this action to allow more of it. However, this needs to be supported by some sort of overarching framework to accelerate change and to ensure that action at smaller scale adds up to change at the radical scale. This framework might be a tax on individual emissions or some form of quota but it needs to be done in an equitable way and in a strong enough way to drive real change.

In a shameless plug for our new project, these are exactly the issues that we aim to tackle in our new End Use Energy Demand Centre; UK InDemand (http://www.ukindemand.ac.uk/). We would welcome your thoughts on this and our future outputs.

References

Barrett, J. & Scott, K., 2012. Link between climate change mitigation and resource efficiency: A UK case study.Global Environmental Change, 22, pp.229-307.

Unruh, G.C., 2000. Understanding carbon lock-in.Energy Policy, 28(March), pp.817-830.

Walker, W.E., Haasnoot, M. & Kwakkel, J.H., 2013. Adapt or Perish: A Review of Planning Approaches for Adaptation under Deep Uncertainty. , pp.955-979.