Global Warming
One Planet, Many Worlds: The Climate Parallax – review
In One Planet, Many Worlds: The Climate Parallax, Dipesh Chakrabarty examines human interrelatedness with, and responsibility within, the Earth System from a decolonial perspective. Drawing on a diverse range of disciplines, this book is a critical intervention that considers perspectival gaps and differences around the climate crisis, writes Elisabeth Wennerström.
One Planet, Many Worlds: The Climate Parallax. Dipesh Chakrabarty. Brandeis University Press. 2023.
In One Planet, Many Worlds, Dipesh Chakrabarty addresses existing perspectival gaps and differences around the Earth System. This latter term can be understood from the International Biosphere-Geosphere Programme’s definition (7) as a system integrated with the planet’s physical, chemical, and biological processes, of which humans are a part. Chakrabarty makes the “globe/planet distinction” (3) to navigate the climate crisis alongside the Earth System. The parallax is a helpful yet critical concept highlighting how appearances change depending on where the focal point rests.
Climate awareness is not a new concern, and the distribution of adverse climate impacts is highly unequal
The case in point: climate awareness is not a new concern, and the distribution of adverse climate impacts is highly unequal. Chakrabarty asserts that failures to act in relation to the Earth System are evidenced not only by the climate crisis but also in energy extraction politics (eg, 9 and19) and global justice debates (eg, 43 and 79). In contrast, he cites Kant’s emphasis on the “categorical imperative” to follow moral laws, regardless of their desires or extenuating circumstances. Arendt is further emphasised in the case for collective action. But in the Anthropocene, argues Chakrabarty (invoking Kant and Arendt on ethics), there are many signs of how the approach to addressing the climate crisis risks being “bereft of any sense of morality” (6).
Chakrabarty’s research interests intersect with themes in modern South Asian history and historiography, globalisation, climate change, and human history
As a leading scholar of postcolonial theory, comparative studies and the politics of modernity, Chakrabarty’s research interests intersect with themes in modern South Asian history and historiography, globalisation, climate change, and human history. This book demonstrates his extensive commitment to communicating change through a socio-historical narrative. The text is multidisciplinary in scope, moving freely between the natural and social sciences and the humanities. The critical premise is the need to learn from what may appear complex and from what is multifaceted.
He deconstructs “global warming” and “globalisation” by differentiating their relationship to the Earth System (eg, 19-21 and 56). Chakrabarty argues that the Earth System can be delimited as “a heuristic construct” when used in Earth System Science (ESS), wherein scholars’ focus on monitoring geological and biological factors (3). Chakrabarty finds a more fruitful discussion from a continued historicisation of “global histories” and the “geobiological history of the planet” in the different meanings of the “globe” – including “the 500-year-old entity brought into being by humans and their technologies of transport and communication…a human-told story with humans at its center” (3). The discussion includes the COVID-19 pandemic (Chapter One), postcolonial historiographies around an “Earth system” (Chapter Two), and the need to reconcile what Chakrabarty refers to “as ‘the One and the Many’ problem that makes climate change such a difficult issue to tackle” (15) (Chapter Three).
The climate crisis is entangled with political factors, economic growth processes and capitalism, in part seen in the reverberating effects of natural resource extraction
Chakrabarty contends that the climate crisis is entangled with political factors, economic growth processes and capitalism, in part seen in the reverberating effects of natural resource extraction – what many scholars refer to as the Great Acceleration. Complementary notes expand such negotiations to Derrida’s “democracy to come” (60) and Hartog’s discussion on the elements of time and space that pose a particular political problem in the Anthropocene (22, 69, 74). Here, perspectives differ not only over whether Anthropocenic humans lie at the centre, but around the Earth System, which is one while also entailing many differentiated and interrelated processes (7-8). He states: “Any human sense of planetary emergency will have to negotiate the histories of those conflicted and entangled multiplicities” (16).
Many injustices and inequalities in the Anthropocene are repressed, too; he gives the example of how many longed for the pandemic to be over and for life to return to normal, yet when it came to vaccinations, this desire turned political (22). The pandemic shows, according to Chakrabarty, how we are “entwined with the geological – over human scales of time and space” (73).
He references Foucault’s biopolitics where “natural history remains, ultimately, separate from human history” (31), and more of a critique on modern political thought: “We are a minority form of life that has behaved over the last hundred or so years as though the planet was created so that only humans would thrive” (39). In contrast, the biologist Margulis combined three Greek words (hólos for “whole,” bíos for “life,” and óntos for “being”), in the understanding of the holobiont, the superorganism that hosts a myriad of other life, of which humans are a part (38).
Chakrabarty offers no essential framework to address the climate crisis. Still, he contends that the critical question remains how to navigate the present and respond alongside the Earth System.
Chakrabarty offers no essential framework to address the climate crisis. Still, he contends that the critical question remains how to navigate the present and respond alongside the Earth System. He suggests that multiple entry points for the reconfiguration of hegemonic “contemporaneity,” can be found in the writings of thinkers across disciplines – from philosophers, physicists and botanists to activists, marine biologists and anthropologists, including Hartog (69), Latour (71), Todd (95), Winter (96), Haraway (98), and Kimmerer (103). By deconstructing “the globe” he reimagines the contours of connective global histories, citing the impetus of “Haraway and Indigenous philosophers—to make kin, intellectually and across historical difference” (102). Charabarty’s text draws together all these ideas to unpack the asymmetrical patterns of time and space in the Earth System and make a case for global environmental justice. Overall, Chakrabarty’s work One Planet. Many Worlds makes a critical intervention on how to think about the climate crisis, deconstructing the present way of being within the Anthropocene.
Note: This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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A Just Energy Transition: Getting Decarbonisation Right in a Time of Crisis – review
In A Just Energy Transition: Getting Decarbonisation Right in a Time of Crisis, Ed Atkins argues for prioritising social over technical considerations in decarbonisation policies and sets out six principles for a just and sustainable transition. Focusing on the UK, the book makes a strong case for decarbonisation initiatives that centre community participation, worker inclusion and global equity, writes Sibo Chen.
A Just Energy Transition: Getting Decarbonisation Right in a Time of Crisis. Ed Atkins. Bristol University Press. 2023.
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As momentum for decarbonisation grows worldwide, how can the transition to renewable energy be made in a just and equitable manner? In response to this vital question of environmental politics, A Just Energy Transition by Ed Atkins is a timely contribution that delineates the multiple facets of the concept of a “just energy transition”. The book criticises the dominance of technical considerations over social and political ones in current policy discussions regarding decarbonisation. It urges greater scholarly and public attention to the elements that render decarbonisation unfair and undemocratic. Accordingly, its analytical focus is on “what a just energy transition should be” rather than “why such a transition is necessary.”
[A Just Transition] criticises the dominance of technical considerations over social and political ones in current policy discussions regarding decarbonisation
The book’s arguments are laid out in nine chapters. In Chapter One, Atkins contextualises the injustice inherent in the ongoing energy transition in the UK through a detailed account of how mounting energy expenses pose an urgent challenge to many households. With energy affordability having been largely overlooked in the development of renewable energy infrastructure thus far, many vulnerable and marginalised communities feel left “stranded” when renewable energy infrastructure is developed in their surroundings. Thus, Atkins argues that in order to achieve a just energy transition, protecting potentially “excluded” communities worldwide and offering them new possibilities for prosperity (like means to reduce living costs) is as important as phasing out fossil fuels.
Atkins contextualises the injustice inherent in the ongoing energy transition in the UK through a detailed account of how mounting energy expenses pose an urgent challenge to many households.
Chapter Two delves deeper into the operationalisation of a policy framework for just energy transition through an examination of the interrelationships between just transition, energy justice, and energy democracy. Recognising how current decarbonisation planning has been dominated by elite stakeholders, the chapter advocates for a government-led yet community-centred approach to the roll-out of renewable energy infrastructure. According to Atkins, this approach needs to prioritise the original “just transition” concept’s call for coalition building between climate activists and workers, marginalised communities’ call for participation in the decision-making process of energy projects and for the investments in renewable energy to engender structural and transformative reforms. To accomplish these objectives, energy transition initiatives should incorporate principles including distributive justice, procedural justice and recognition justice.
In subsequent chapters, Atkins details how different forms of energy injustice overlap and coincide with one another, drawing upon cases in the UK context. This analysis underscores the need for moving beyond thinking of opposition to renewable energy projects as “Not-In-My-Neighbourhood” (NIMBY)-ism. Instead, the opposition to and support for new landscapes resulting from decarbonisation by communities and residents reflects broader issues and narratives. Atkins outlines six rules that bring together the reduction of emissions, the support for vulnerable households, and the empowerment of communities.
First, he advocates for community-scale energy projects. While the imperative of decarbonisation necessitates the large-scale development of renewable energy projects, the placement of these projects in rural areas frequently gives rise to “green sacrifice zones” that inflict harm upon rural communities. To mitigate such distributive injustice, a just energy transition can include small renewable energy facilities directly benefiting their adjacent communities. These community-centred projects, supported by community investment as well as financial and technical aid from the state, enable the production of electricity that is owned by the local community and mitigate the negative effects of landscape disruption.
[Public] consultations tend to fail short in empowering people and communities in the decision-making process.
Second, he suggests that participation and voices of communities be amplified when developing new energy projects. Renewable energy projects commonly seek to obtain the support and approval of their host communities by means of public consultations. Yet, as evidenced by the local opposition to several wind turbine projects in the UK, such consultations tend to fail short in empowering people and communities in the decision-making process. Procedural injustice manifests itself when local residents are merely seen as passive recipients of reimbursement and compensation and bystanders of electricity generation, with little thought given to concerns such as energy access and landscape disruptions. Accordingly, community-level ownership ought to be considered in a just transition, as it not only fosters local support and buy-in but cultivates positive relationships among community members.
A notable advantage of community and public-owned renewable energy projects is their capacity to strengthen local economies. Stigmatisation affects communities grappling with energy poverty, as their lack of capacity to engage in energy transition initiatives (often attributable to substantial upfront infrastructure expenses) is misrecognised. Recognition justice entails respecting the variations among local stakeholders in terms of their motivations, priorities, experiences, and actions. Atkins thus calls for the foregrounding of community-centred energy schemes in local economies. Community Municipal Investments, which connect low-emission or renewable energy infrastructure to residents who require assistance, are a crucial tactic for advancing recognition justice.
Amid the escalating costs of energy, many households are unable to finance retrofitting projects designed to improve energy efficiency
A fourth priority is to provide for those most vulnerable to energy poverty. Amid the escalating costs of energy, many households are unable to finance retrofitting projects designed to improve energy efficiency. Recognising the vulnerability of these households while prioritising their needs fulfils the call for restorative justice. Given their substantial influence on the fundamental rights of households to heat and light, decarbonisation initiatives must prioritise energy availability, accessibility, and sustainability.
Atkins’ fifth call is to Ensure the participation and inclusion of workers. Providing better livelihoods and working conditions for workers is a key goal of the early advocates for just transition. In the UK, however, past, and current renewable energy projects have not fully realised this promise. As of now, the employment opportunities generated through decarbonisation are predominantly precarious, characterised by hazardous work environments and inadequate salaries in comparison to identical positions in the oil and gas sector. A long-term approach to green skills and employment that is attentive to worker-led action and voices is vital.
Ongoing decarbonisation initiatives in developed countries risk shifting the negative impacts of energy transitions to the Global South.
Lastly, the author stresses that a just energy transition in the UK must be achieved in a way that advances energy justice everywhere. Cosmopolitan (energy) justice, defined in the book as “linking low-carbon transitions to a broader understanding of global injustice(s)” (30), underscores that ongoing decarbonisation initiatives in developed countries risk shifting the negative impacts of energy transitions to the Global South. As evidenced by the escalation of illegal mining (eg, cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo and gold in Peru and Colombia) and waste disposal (eg, electronic waste dumped to countries such as India and Pakistan), the expanding demand for raw materials driven by renewable energy infrastructure poses a particular threat to the living conditions of communities situated on the periphery of global climate politics. To achieve an energy transition that incorporates the principle of cosmopolitan justice, decarbonisation needs to be reframed from a global perspective, reckoning with both the historical responsibility of developed countries for emissions as well as the entrenched injustices associated with colonialism.
Atkins’ advocacy for examining decarbonisation through the lenses of the urban-rural divide and global injustice offers valuable insights for future research development.
In sum, A Just Energy Transition elucidates the major theoretical discussions pertaining to the relationship between decarbonisation and social justice. Grounded in environmental justice theories, it proposes six principles crucial to accomplishing a just energy transition. The book’s discussion of the root factors of NIMBYism and the wide-ranging repercussions of energy poverty are comprehensive and convincing. Atkins’ advocacy for examining decarbonisation through the lenses of the urban-rural divide and global injustice offers valuable insights for future research development. Although the book’s exclusive focus on the UK restricts the generality of some of its arguments, it remains an informative resource for scholars and students intrigued by the political and social implications of decarbonisation.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
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We’re killing it.
Right-wing ranters in my Twitter timeline are pooh-poohing the whole climate discussion without doing their homework. So, here’s a little reader to aid and abet (sorry, early retired teacher and that all). Let’s start at the beginning:1. CO2 is measured at the Manua Loa station. Results are clear, robust, and stark: CO2 is increasing. And […]
Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do about It – review
In Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do about It, Erica Thompson explores how mathematical models are used in contexts that affect our everyday lives – from finance to climate change to health policy – and what can happen when they are malformed or misinterpreted. Rather than abandoning these models, Thompson presents a compelling case for why we should revise how we understand and work with them, writes Connor Chung.
Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do about It. Erica Thompson. Basic Books. 2022 (Hardback; 2023 paperback).
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“World is on track for 2.5°C of global warming by end of the century.” “US recession odds are falling fast.” “New wave of Covid predicted as UK’s return to school and social mixing hit.” Amidst the challenges of recent years, mathematical modelling has become an ever-more-important tool for understanding our world. Done right, this can empower us. Distilling complexity into bite-size pieces, after all, can be a key step towards changing things for the better.
Embedded within every model are certain assumptions about how the world works. Sometimes, they do the job. Yet, other times, our visits to model land go awry. Thompson fears that modern society never learned to tell the difference
Yet modernity’s faith in modelling has come with a dark side, suggests statistician Erica Thompson in Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do about It (Basic Books: 2022). Embedded within every model are certain assumptions about how the world works. Sometimes, they do the job. Yet, other times, our visits to model land go awry. Thompson fears that modern society never learned to tell the difference, and that as a result, we’re becoming trapped in a mirror-world of our own making.
The core problem? That it’s all too easy to approach models as sources of objective scientific fact. Yet “[s]uch naive Model Land realism,” Thompson warns, “can have catastrophic effects because it invariably results in an underestimation of uncertainties and exposure to greater-than-expected risk.” “Data, that is, measured quantities, do not speak for themselves,” and at nearly every stage of finding the story, the world finds ways of seeping in.
It’s all too easy to approach models as sources of objective scientific fact.
Let’s say, for example, you want to know how climate change will impact GDP. A preeminent tool for doing so is the DICE model family. As recently as 2018, its factory settings concluded that global warming of 4˚C by 2100 would reduce global economic output by only around 4%. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, meanwhile, has warned that such warming would bring about “high to very high” planetary risks “in all reasons for concern.” So how does one conclude that a world of cataclysmic weather, of cities swallowed up, of climate-driven refugee and food crises would barely register in the economic metrics?
First, there’s what’s fed into the model: since costs and benefits of building a solar farm or passing a clean energy regulation don’t play out all at once, one must instruct a model how much to value the present versus the future. This variable (one of many dials to which DICE is highly sensitive) is called a “discount rate,” and no amount of math can hide the fact that it’s ultimately a moral judgment. As its main creator, Yale economist and Nobel laureate William Nordhaus, has himself written, “[t]he choice of discount rates is central to the results” – DICE can be made to say just about anything depending on what inputs are chosen. Relatedly, there’s what’s not fed into a model: models are informed by pre-existing knowledge. As a consequence of history, less economic and climactic data are readily available from the developing world, for instance.
Models are informed by pre-existing knowledge. As a consequence of history, less economic and climactic data are readily available from the developing world
Then follows the construction of the model itself. As economist Nicholas Stern and co-authors point out in a recent paper, certain presumptions of rational actors, of market efficiency, and of exogenous technological progress are embedded into DICE’s fundamental wiring. More broadly, Thompson notes, DICE takes as granted that “the burden of allowing climate change can be quantitatively set against the costs of action to avoid it, even though they do not fall upon the same shoulders or with the same impact.
Models are by nature parsimonious: their utility derives from reducing complex phenomena to a much smaller set of parameters. Yet the real world is full of higher-order impacts (good and bad) beyond what gets specified in the math
Then, there’s how results are generalised to the world at large. Models are by nature parsimonious: their utility derives from reducing complex phenomena to a much smaller set of parameters. Yet the real world is full of higher-order impacts (good and bad) beyond what gets specified in the math. And when models set the bounds of what’s possible, viable, or optimal (DICE, Thompson points out, is enshrined in policy analysis pipelines at some governmental and intergovernmental agencies), nuance risks being lost in translation: “The whole concept of predicting the future can sometimes end up reducing the possibility of actively creating a better one.”
None of this is to say that DICE is useless. Assumptions, even simplistic ones, are necessary for making decisions about complex phenomena. But at the same time, they indelibly embed the modeller in the modelled, and we get nowhere by ignoring this reality.
Thompson isn’t the first to point out that model-making is a deeply human endeavour. But it is in these case studies of present-day debates in the modelling community, as informed by first-hand expertise, that her work really shines. Alongside DICE, Thompson deftly pries open black box after black box in cases ranging from financial markets to public health to atmospheric dynamics, finding in each case that turning morality into a math problem doesn’t purge the human touch. It only buries it just below the surface.
Models emerge as ‘tools of social persuasion and vehicles for political debate’ as much as they are quantitative processes
Models emerge as “tools of social persuasion and vehicles for political debate” as much as they are quantitative processes. And since “we are all affected by the way mathematical modelling is done, by the way it informs decision-making and the way it shapes daily public campaigns about the world around us,” it becomes a real challenge for modern democratic society when models are insulated from understanding or accountability.
The easiest response at this point might be to surrender – to declare that the ineffability and complexity of the world makes mathematical modelling inadequate. And yet… there’s also the pragmatic reality that, amidst compounding crises, models have quite simply proven useful. The empirical record has largely vindicated scientists’ (and, for that matter, literal fossil fuel companies’) climate predictions. Energy system simulations from Princeton played a key role in passing the Inflation Reduction Act, one of the most globally significant pieces of climate legislation to date. And modelled pathways from the International Energy Agency are playing key roles in guiding a rapid buildout of clean energy – and in challenging fossil fuel expansion.
How does one ensure that, in grappling with the social nature of modelling, the baby isn’t thrown out with the bathwater?
History, after all, is full of seemingly progressive (and indeed radical) critiques of objectivity, scientific consensus, and expert practice that end up merely reinforcing the status quo: just take the long history of social constructivist scholarship being used by allies of the tobacco and fossil fuel industries to support and justify their misinformation campaigns. Meanwhile, the climate denialist camp has long had the reliability of climate modelling in their sights. So how does one ensure that, in grappling with the social nature of modelling, the baby isn’t thrown out with the bathwater? It’s a tough needle to thread, yet something Thompson manages to do with grace. Just as there is “a problem in trusting models too much,” she writes, “there is equally a problem in trusting models too little.” Although “failing to account for the gap between Model Land and the real world is a recipe for underestimating risk and suffering the consequences of hubris,” she counters that “throwing models away completely… lose us a lot of clearly valuable information.”
More transparency and intentionality about the role of expert judgement, Thompson suggests, might help close the ‘accountability gap’ between the models and the humans acting on them
This may be the book’s most valuable contribution: it’s ultimately a call not to abandon model land altogether but instead to become better travellers. This begins with seeing the social nature of models as a feature, not a bug. More transparency and intentionality about the role of expert judgement, Thompson suggests, might help close the “accountability gap” between the models and the humans acting on them. Similarly (echoing a rich literature in the philosophy of science), she notes that greater institutionalised diversity of methods and standpoints might result in fewer unseen biases and blind spots.
Ultimately, this book is a plea for humility. It’s wrong, Thompson tells readers, to presume that we’ve somehow created the capacity to transcend the limits of human rationality. Instead we must realise that “taking a model literally is not taking a model seriously,” as Peter Diamond noted in his Nobel acceptance speech – that only by cultivating an ethos of responsibility can we truly treat our creations with the care they deserve.
Such a conclusion may be uncomfortable, but it’s also deeply pragmatic advice for better modelling, better truth-seeking, and better public reason in an empirical age. Modellers, scientists, policymakers, and more would do well to take it to heart.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
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Q and A with David Stainforth on Predicting Our Climate Future: What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and What We Can’t Know
We speak to David Stainforth about his new book, Predicting Our Climate Future: What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and What We Can’t Know, which argues for a re-evaluation of how we go about the study of climate change in the physical sciences, the social sciences, economics and policy.
You can watch a public LSE event with David Stainforth to launch the book from October 2023 on YouTube here.
Predicting Our Climate Future: What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and What We Can’t Know. David Stainforth. Oxford University Press. 2023.
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Q: Where did the idea for the book come from and what were you setting out to do in writing it?
Between 2000 and 2015, I became aware that my perspective on what we should be trying to do in climate change science wasn’t at all reflected in the practice of research in research institutions. It seemed to me important to write something that would engage people with all the fascinating challenges that exist in understanding the problems of climate change. Doing so, I hoped, would help make clear the separation between what we know and what we don’t know.
Many big, fundamental, questions – philosophical, mathematical, physical, and economic questions – about climate change tend not to be examined, probably because of the urgency for society to act.
If I was a sixth-former now, I would certainly see climate change as an important issue for society, but I’m not sure I would be passionate about trying to understand it. That’s because it appears that we already understand it, although in fact we don’t. Many big, fundamental, questions – philosophical, mathematical, physical, and economic questions – about climate change tend not to be examined, probably because of the urgency for society to act. My book addresses these questions. I would love for my book to stimulate high-school students and undergraduates across diverse disciplines to say, actually, there’s something really fascinating to get my teeth into here; something that humanity hasn’t yet understood.
Of course, none of this undermines the importance and urgency of acting on climate change, but acting and understanding need to go hand in hand.
Q: What are the limitations of scientists’ understanding of the climate system? How do these affect our ability to predict how the climate will change?
The central issue is complexity and there are two aspects of complexity that create a barrier to predicting what the climate future will look like.
The climate system is made up of many components – the atmosphere, the oceans, land ecosystems, ocean ecosystems, biogeochemical systems, the cryosphere etc. Many of these can be broken down further into subsystems, and all of this is before you get into the social aspects. The first aspect of complexity is simply how these many disparate components interact.
Certain types of system, like the climate system, have real barriers to predictability because what happens in the future can be very sensitive to the state of the system today. This is what’s meant by the “butterfly effect”.
The second aspect of complexity is more mathematical. Certain types of system, like the climate system, have real barriers to predictability because what happens in the future can be very sensitive to the state of the system today. This is what’s meant by the “butterfly effect”. At the same time, the relationship between our models and reality is unclear: how close does a model have to be to reality for it to be able to tell us something about how reality will behave? That’s a difficult question to answer; it might be that our models could represent reality very closely, but still provide unreliable predictions. This is something that Erica Thompson has named the “hawkmoth effect”; it’s something we haven’t really begun to study.
These types of complexity affect how we should be designing our climate models and what sort of experiments we should run with them.
Q: What do Global Climate Models (GCMs) do and what are their limitations?
Global Climate Models break down the atmosphere and ocean into grid points and at each grid point they solve the equations of motion to tell us how things change over time. This is what’s known as a reductionist approach to modelling, and it allows us to work out what the state of the atmosphere or ocean system might be at some point in the future. Solving the equations on a computer can typically only tell us how things will change over about 10 minutes, so you’ve got to repeat the process millions of times to get information for 100 years ahead.
There are lots of elements of the climate system that can’t be modelled [in a reductionist] way, either because we don’t know what the fundamental equations are or because the processes take place on scales that are far too small to include in the models.
But there are lots of elements of the climate system that can’t be modelled that way, either because we don’t know what the fundamental equations are or because the processes take place on scales that are far too small to include in the models. Examples include how ecosystems absorb and release carbon dioxide and how clouds and rainfall form. For these components there are various different ways to approximate the processes at play, but it’s not easy to know how reliable these approximations are. And because all aspects of the climate system affect all the other aspects of the climate system, this means that the model predictions can’t simply be taken as predictions of reality.
Q: Why do we rely so heavily on GCMs for climate prediction and policy development today? Is there a danger in relying too heavily on these models?
When we study climate change, we don’t have multiple climates to examine. The time scales and the system are defined: it’s our real-world climate system that we’re interested in, and how it will change through the 21st century. We are doing an experiment on the real climate system through humanity’s emissions of greenhouse gases, but we’ll only ever get one result, and that will come too late to be of much use to us. The models enable us to study what we can’t study in reality – for instance, multiple possible scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions. But we need to always remember that we’re studying a model, not reality. The power, the detail and the ubiquity of the models encourages us to avoid asking the big questions about how the model predictions relate to reality – whether what they’re telling us is actually what we think will happen.
When we study climate change, we don’t have multiple climates to examine. The time scales and the system are defined: it’s our real-world climate system that we’re interested in, and how it will change through the 21st century.
Research on climate, particularly with models, has grown out of work on weather forecasting. The reliability of weather forecasts over the last 20 to 30 years has massively improved, principally because of these models. But in the shift from weather forecasting to climate forecasting, we are dealing with a fundamentally different problem. In weather forecasting, we don’t need to get the whole of the climate system right: it’s mainly just about simulating the atmosphere. Furthermore, we repeat the weather forecasting process three or four times a day, so we can compare the model’s predictions against what happens in reality. That means we can test whether our models are doing a good job in a way that is impossible for climate predictions
With climate, you need to bring in many other elements of the climate system, including oceans and ecosystems, and we don’t have the same possibility to verify the results. This puts us in a very different domain, but the problem is that it doesn’t feel that way. It feels as though weather forecasting and climate predictions are very similar because they use similar, related models. This represents a barrier to using the models effectively to help us provide reliable information about future climate.
Q: Why do you argue that greater diversity of climate models rather than greater “realism” of climate models should be the goal for better climate prediction?
Aiming for realism tends to take us to higher and higher resolution models. These models represent atmospheric behaviour better and they look more realistic, but this lulls us into a false sense of security. Despite the “realistic” appearance of these models, we can’t tell if they are accurate because we’ve never observed the planet in the warmed state that we’re interested in.
High-resolution models also take a lot of computing time to run, and consequently they remove the possibility of exploring other uncertainties such as how we represent the carbon cycle or biogeochemical processes. There’s a substantial risk therefore that we adapt society to be resilient to the changes in our models, when what might actually happen could be very different.
If […] we were to address different ways of building our models and of accounting for the many uncertainties, this would give us a diversity of predictions.
If instead we were to address different ways of building our models and of accounting for the many uncertainties, this would give us a diversity of predictions. Having a better understanding of the wide range of different changes that could plausibly happen would enable us to be better prepared and is, in my view, crucial to building a robust response to climate change.
Q: How does the separation between disciplines, which approach the issue in very different ways, hamper our understanding of, and ability to act on, climate change?
Assessments of the economics of climate change and of the consequences for our societies, for our wealth, for our welfare etc., often don’t take sufficient account of the uncertainties in the physical science. There is a real need for economists to understand the processes of the physical sciences better.
Assessments of the economics of climate change and of the consequences for our societies, for our wealth, for our welfare etc., often don’t take sufficient account of the uncertainties in the physical science
However, if we want the physical climate sciences to help us prepare effectively for our future world, then we need to ask, what are the questions that are being addressed by agricultural scientists, by city planners, by economists and by policy makers. Only when we are clear what kind of information is being sought, can we direct the physical sciences in a useful way. At the moment, the physical scientists set the questions and pass on the resulting information to social scientists rather than focusing their experiments and models on what social scientists and society need to know most.
We are stuck in a traditional approach which is not serving society well.
Q: How could we enable greater interdisciplinary research around climate change?
We require big changes in how we do climate change research. We need to be a lot clearer about what we’re trying to address and how the connections between disciplines work. I think that means high-level change to how we study the problem.
Historically climate change research has been very siloed, as academia generally is. There is a need for the research funders to grasp the nettle of wholesale change and for universities and research institutes to come together and create career paths that enable people to research across disciplinary boundaries.
There is a need for the research funders to grasp the nettle of wholesale change and for universities and research institutes to come together and create career paths that enable people to research across disciplinary boundaries.
I don’t think the importance of multidisciplinarity for understanding fundamental features of the threats posed by climate change has been fully recognised. There are still many funding calls that are essentially answer-driven. It’s a “tell us what will happen to this bit of the system” approach, but that’s not what climate change is. You can’t tell what’s going to happen to one aspect without connecting it with everything else. It’s a big, complex problem and needs to be addressed as such.
As a starting point we need funding – 10, 20 million pounds – for a centre that can bring truly diverse researchers together from philosophy to physics to economics, and give them the stability of five to 10 years to work on these problems together. That’s the starting place for better information about our climate future. It’s also the starting place for training a cohort of experts who have both the breadth and depth of knowledge to be able to build climate resilient societies and communicate what climate change risks actually look like.
Note: This interview gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The interview was conducted by Anna D’Alton, Managing Editor of LSE Review of Books.
Main Image: Arctic sea ice by Kathryn Hansen / NASA on Flickr.
A Just Transition: Making Energy Poverty History with an Energy Mix – review
In A Just Transition: Making Energy Poverty History with an Energy Mix, NJ Ayuk argues that Africa can address “energy poverty” and become a global energy leader by developing a mix of non-renewable and green projects. Alejandra Padín-Dujon is unconvinced by Ayuk’s proposal of a “just transition” for African countries which relies on scaling up fossil fuels and lacks any real engagement with renewable energy or climate-focused policy.
A Just Transition: Making Energy Poverty History with an Energy Mix. NJ Ayuk. Made for Success. 2023.
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In 2021, the International Energy Agency stated that there should be “no new investment in fossil fuel supply projects” if containing global warming to 1.5ºC above preindustrial levels – a crucial threshold for human welfare – is to remain a possibility. With greenhouse gas-reducing initiatives on the rise, the concept of “just transition” has become increasingly prominent. “Just transition” refers to the greening of markets in economically inclusive ways, taking climate action while ensuring that vulnerable people are not left behind.
One might be forgiven, then, for assuming that Cameroonian oil and gas attorney NJ Ayuk’s book A Just Transition: Making Energy Poverty History with Natural Resources – grounded in Africa – would reckon with socioeconomically inclusive energy decarbonisation in Africa. It does not. This glaring omission is especially disappointing given the book’s potential to address a dearth of literature on just energy transitions in African countries. Ultimately, Ayuk’s work capitalises on public interest in this knowledge gap, though he does very little to bridge it.
In A Just Transition, Ayuk touts the importance of encouraging and scaling up fossil fuel extraction and use.
In A Just Transition, Ayuk touts the importance of encouraging and scaling up fossil fuel extraction and use. He expresses trepidation about renewable energy while he pays lip service to climate priorities. He likens renewable energy in Africa – often tenuously – to failures of foreign food aid and continued energy poverty. Ayuk writes that one day,
African countries will be in a position to install more and more solar panels and wind turbines—not as primary sources of power or as alternatives to fossil fuels, but as complements to the gas-burning TPPs [thermal power plants] that make sure the lights can always stay on” [emphasis added].
Strikingly, inconsistently, and more sensibly (given the title), Ayuk writes in an earlier chapter that “Africa ought to develop its gas reserves, but with the goal of replacing gas with renewable energy in stages.”
Perhaps a better title for the book might have been Generally Against Transition – but alas.
Very little of A Just Transition is dedicated to renewable energy at all: the text is primarily an apologia claiming that oil and gas will deliver Africa from energy poverty.
Very little of A Just Transition is dedicated to renewable energy at all: the text is primarily an apologia claiming that oil and gas will deliver Africa from energy poverty. In fact, only one short chapter out of 23 in total sets aside this fixation to address arguments for and against (read: against) the rapid development of renewables in Africa.
As this section of the book is the most pertinent to the question of interest – just energy transition in Africa – let us touch upon Ayuk’s major claims about renewable energy:
- Renewables will fail to address energy poverty.
- Renewable energy projects cost more than most African countries can pay, both in terms of upfront costs and subsidies thereafter.
- Renewable energy infrastructure requires more technological capacity than the continent currently has.
- As intermittent energy sources, solar and wind power require expensive battery storage solutions.
(As a “bonus” claim: Ayuk affirms that green hydrogen is the best alternative energy. He neglects to explain clearly that hydrogen is only classified as “green” if zero-carbon renewables and nothing else are used to synthesise it – making the development of green hydrogen entirely dependent on the development of wind power, solar power, etc.)
None of these are especially new arguments, whether for countries in Africa or for developing countries in other regions that feel squeezed by dual pressures to develop economically and decarbonise – all with minimal financial support from wealthier countries
Mostly, Ayuk’s reservations are policy and technological questions: how can foreign actors, domestic policy, and public-private partnerships reduce the upfront costs of renewable energy projects and help ensure proper maintenance?
Mostly, Ayuk’s reservations are policy and technological questions: how can foreign actors, domestic policy, and public-private partnerships reduce the upfront costs of renewable energy projects and help ensure proper maintenance? What forms of capacity-building are needed in domestic workforces to facilitate the rise of “future-proof” jobs? How can World Trade Organization intellectual property rights policies be reformed to facilitate greater tech transfer to Africa? These are big, but not intractable problems.
The biggest outstanding question is a speculative and slippery one: can renewable energy address severe and widespread energy poverty on the continent?
The major intervention Ayuk considers – and dismisses – is decentralised energy “mini-grids” or “micro-grids” powered by wind or sun, which he claims are too expensive to install and too inconsistently upkept. These are real issues, and they can be addressed through microfinance, investment by regional development banks, government subsidies, and innovative policy solutions.
Truthfully, the question of whether renewables can end energy poverty in Africa is a false one. Posing it as an if question – particularly when the African continent is systemically under-researched and suffers from significant gaps in data collection – is a deft rhetorical move that permits the response, “We can’t bet on it because we don’t have the evidence.” Certainly, evidence supporting the potential developmental contributions of fossil fuels abounds, even when the benefits percolate inequitably through society. 250 years have passed since the inception of fossil fuel-driven development: the Industrial Revolution. That is a lot of evidence.
Ultimately, the “question” of renewables in Africa must be posed not through the lens of if or when, but how.
Ultimately, the “question” of renewables in Africa must be posed not through the lens of if or when, but how. Indisputably, Africa emits very little in greenhouse gases – a nearly negligible amount in the context of global output. However, rapid population growth and ongoing economic development mean that investment in fossil fuels in the region could become globally significant.
The COP28 international climate conference this year will feature another showdown of epic proportions surrounding the terms fossil fuel “phase-out” versus “phase-down.” “Phase-in” isn’t part of the global vocabulary.
More importantly from a regional economic development perspective, the world is decarbonising, and fast. Already, the EU is imposing tariffs called “carbon border adjustment mechanisms” on imports from countries with high carbon intensity to protect its own green policies from decay. The International Energy Agency, as cited above, is calling for a total end to new fossil fuel extraction. The COP28 international climate conference this year will feature another showdown of epic proportions surrounding the terms fossil fuel “phase-out” versus “phase-down.” “Phase-in” isn’t part of the global vocabulary.
Ayuk prefers to speak in generalities about “Africa,” picking a handful of case studies per chapter to illustrate a broad point about 54 countries. In this way, his rhetoric paints a picture of a continent unified by suffering and neglected business potential.
Neither does the author, by and large, acknowledge that Africa is a vast continent composed of rural, urban, more prosperous, and less prosperous societies, all with different electricity grids, economies, and institutional structures. Ayuk prefers to speak in generalities about “Africa,” picking a handful of case studies per chapter to illustrate a broad point about 54 countries. In this way, his rhetoric paints a picture of a continent unified by suffering and neglected business potential. This is an attractive image to the foreign and well-intentioned businessperson – in fact, A Just Transition topped the Wall Street Journal bestsellers list – though it is antithetical, in its simplistic victimhood, to the anti-colonial framing Ayuk experiments with early on:
I’ve begun to wonder whether there isn’t a whiff of colonialism about the prospect of African countries remaining on hold, pining for solar panels and wind turbines until such time as they are allowed access to solutions handed down from on high.
One would think, to read Ayuk, that Africa is a monolith; that fossil fuels are not regressive, but futuristic; that oil and gas have not historically been colonial ventures; and even that green policy is foreign – that there are no African environmentalists.
What Ayuk fails to acknowledge is that energy poverty must be addressed through renewables
Ultimately, what Ayuk fails to acknowledge is that energy poverty must be addressed through renewables, and stalling will only make future economic sacrifices worse. Any set of countries, however entrepreneurial, that gambles its future on fossil fuels today will lose.
Note: This review gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
Image credit: Milieudefensie on Flickr.
Carbon Taxes
As an economist, one of the biggest frustrations of discussions over climate policy is that we know pretty well what to do - tax carbon (or set up a system of tradable permits, which has similar effects), and that doing so will not be harmful to the economy. People and firms respond to incentives, and a carbon tax will motivate people to find the lowest-cost ways to reduce emissions. People are clever and the cost of reducing emissions will likely be much less than many envisioned.
Eduardo Porter's column about British Columbia's carbon tax is yet another illustration of this; he writes:
In
2008, the British Columbia Liberal Party, which confoundingly leans
right, introduced a tax on the carbon emissions of businesses and
families, cars and trucks, factories and homes across the province. The
party stuck to the tax even as the left-leaning New Democratic Party
challenged it in provincial elections the next year under the slogan Axe
the Tax. The conservatives won soundly at the polls.Their
experience shows that cutting carbon emissions enough to make a
difference in preventing global warming remains a difficult challenge.
But the most important takeaway for American skeptics is that the policy
basically worked as advertised.British
Columbia’s economy did not collapse. In fact, the provincial economy
grew faster than its neighbors’ even as its greenhouse gas emissions
declined.“It
performed better on all fronts than I think any of us expected,” said
Mary Polak, the province’s environment minister. “To the extent that the
people who modeled it predicted this, I’m not sure that those of us on
the policy end of it really believed it.”