Views: Climate Change

By Ellis Asher

[Photo by Melissa Bradley on Unsplash.]

Let's first agree that the perspectives I'm going to present will be ones based in at minimum in some level of truth.

Those who deny the evidence that the climate is changing over time are engaging in the conspiratorial, the arguments I am going to present are largely ones regarding the approaches to tackling it.

There are two main questions to ask regarding the approach to tackling climate change; when do we act, and at what cost?

Groups like Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain claim that the time for action is now, and that the cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of nearly any action.

This is why a representative argued in favour of Insulate Britain’s shutdown of roads on ITV’s Good Morning Britain last year.

However, Insulate Britain, as the name suggests, is only a UK organisation. As such it is not as concerned with the "green divide" between nations.

Developing nations such as India and Brazil are still experiencing the effects of industrialisation, the same process which lead to mass carbon emission since the 1800's.

In more economically developed nations, like the UK, France and Canada we are experiencing the inverse, de-industrialisation.

So, is it that simple? Is it just that some nations are going through good processes for carbon and others aren't?

Well, no, not at all.

It seems like most nations go through industrialisation in some form or another, and whilst help from already industrialised nations is speeding this up, what often seems to occur is that the most economically developed nations simply export their carbon footprint, by purchasing goods from economically developing nations experiencing this process.

There are also two positive arguments here, the first being that the economically developed nations purchasing the goods can then use wealth they "gain" by purchasing goods at a cheaper rate to invest in more renewable sources, while the economically developing nation uses the profits to invest do the same.

The second, alternative argument is that the market in the economically developed nation will actively choose more eco-friendly methods of production, leading to an increase in availability as the industry grows larger and more efficient.

This would have local effects as it would be even cheaper to manufacture on a local scale and thus would lead to the same result.

These are the positive perspectives; both entail the markets chasing demand and cutting out losses so can be hailed as realistic in the least but these approaches to closing the green divide are heavily criticised.

The cost of acting on a global level like this is unclear, however it is certainly magnitudes higher than the cost to just our nation alone, and makes our individual choices look rather insignificant in comparison.

You've likely heard of Greta Thunberg, for the unaware she is best summarised as a climate change speaker. She gathered international recognition when she went on strike from her school in Sweden, and since has been invited to talk at the UN, has feuded with presidents via twitter and has said "blah blah blah".

While a rather comical depiction of someone who has come to represent an entire movement, it isn't too far from the truth.

The critics of the arguments that the markets are the best chance we have to drive change generally propose something else instead.

If you follow the Thunbergian school of thought (rather ironic, no?) then you will likely be in favour of international restrictions forbidding CO2 emissions, at whatever detriment to the market may come.

This perspective has risks.

In the same way that proponents of it argue that many do not see the dangers of a looming climate catastrophe, many argue to impose the strictest sanctions would create a humanitarian catastrophe, where the existing structures that underpin our entire society would be curbed by government force.

However, what’s unique about Greta’s message is that being young, she, like many other students, will have to grow up and live her life in a world subject to an increasingly changing climate.

In other words, she is a part of the generation who are actually paying the price for inaction.

So, if we entertain both arguments, and hold that the markets won't sort the problem by themselves, and we can't be too strict on the markets, especially not internationally, what is there you can do?

The moderate position would be to mix both solutions, and rather than regulating the market, guiding it.

Investing in green energy has been the UK and USA's solution to the problem so far.

With democratically elected leaders that are too afraid to impose extreme measures, the introduce subtle variants, such as the carrier bag tax, rather than a large carbon tax or an electric vehicle subsidy, rather than an immediate petrol car ban, has proven more popular.

This is when we meet our next big name in climate, unofficial CEO of space, Elon Musk.

Musk, as the CEO of Tesla, the electric car company, has received a lot in grants from the US government subsidising their electric vehicles’ production, yet peculiarly, Musk opposed such kinds of subsidies publicly in 2021, in the interest of the national economy.

The reason I would label Musk’s position as more moderate however is that he believes that much more is attainable than many others think actually is.

He has stated on several occasions that ambitious solar power projects would be achievable, such as a one hundred by one hundred square mile solar farm in a “deserted corner of the US” that could meet the entire American power demand.

The core idea here is that we, as a species, may be able to invent our way out of climate change. With new breakthroughs in science happening all the time, it may be better to save the resources we have now so that they could be dedicated to a new way of combating the effects or the cause itself that may not have been viable, or even invented yet.

Optimistic? Certainly, however humans have invented their way to seemingly impossible things in the past.

The negative flip side to this would be that we could also do as we have done in the past and just adapt to the issue, and as the effects felt grow stronger, so does our adaptation, with things such as more extreme weather events becoming the norm.

Just as we are being told we will have to learn to live with Covid in our lives, for many places in immediate risk, people may have to learn to live with climate change.

As you have read, there are many arguments as to how we start to solve the climate change, mostly pinning on the cost of doing so, and when we do so, however there is perhaps the most important argument of all, which I have left until last to address.

Who exactly is “we”?

We have already discussed things such as the green divide between nations, however getting nations to agree to mutual climate action has so far proven difficult, and even less effective.

It is entirely unclear as to if the path we chose forward will be through large scale international co-operation, or targeted regional and national governance, with the former allowing for more coverage, the latter more efficiency.

What we do know is that there is just one path forward you can take personally, and that is individual action.

The climate crisis is vast, and complex, and the way forward isn’t entirely obvious, however one thing you can know are the choices you make in your own life.