As
the clock winds down on current efforts to avert an impending Greek default, it
seems timely to consider the role of deal making in decisions that have
far-reaching consequences. The Greek situation has produced extraordinary
volatility on stock and bond markets through May and June 2015. Whilst the
macroeconomic outlook for many European stocks would seem positively bullish,
cognitive attention has been drawn to a relatively minor contributor in terms
of GDP and anticipation of future risks from the no-win scenario of Grexit. In
psychology, this might be referred to as perception narrowing; enhanced focus
on a more immediate problem than the overall picture.
So,
this prompts the question more generally of how, in a game when there are at
least some certainties of a negative outlook, players can be drawn to act in
the short-term interest. There is, of course, a wealth of literature in this
field, but the parallels to the international negotiations on climate change
are perhaps worthy of some note.
It
was interesting to see the business-focused media outlet, Bloomberg, publish on
June 24th an infographic (www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/)
that spelled out more clearly, and in a format accessible to all, the
overwhelming case that greenhouse gas emissions from the activities of global
society are the cause of recent
global warming. It is interesting
because this is not an article hosted by the left-wing press. It makes
reference to NASA-GISS based data produced by Kate Marvel and Gavin Schmidt as part of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison
Project “Phase 5”, where climate models are being tasked with attempting to
reproduce climate trends of the past 150 years or so, to see just how well they
can do it. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear: climate change is happening
and human activities are having an effect. The models reproduce recent changes
convincingly and those same models estimate truly astonishing change for the
future if emissions are not curtailed.
Deal
making is currently taking place in the run-up to the next annual UNFCCC
Conference of the Parties (CoP) in Paris in December. As with Greece, once
again, eyes will turn to the international political negotiating teams for the
hope of some sort of deal that might allow our global society to take on a more
certain trajectory and allow better anticipation of future climate change. I
choose those words carefully. Global warming through to the end of the century
is a near certainty. Past emissions from the burning of fossil fuels remain in
the atmosphere for considerable time, continuing to heat the planet, even after
activities below may have changed. Climate models have often come in for
criticism from some for the ranges of “uncertainty” presented. It is taken that
this means there is little certainty in the trajectory of future climate. This,
however, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what climate models do. Like
an expensive calculator, they tell you what climate is likely to result from a
set of instructions they are given as to how people are living their lives. If
we burn fossil fuels wildly and move things (and ourselves) unsustainably then
we provide those instructions to the model and it tells us a range of future
outcomes. Those instructions are known as “scenarios”. What this means is that
the importance of the negotiations in Paris this year is not that a deal to cut
carbon emissions is achieved for its own sake, but rather that it provides far
less uncertainty in terms of the likely future “scenario”. Climate models
should then be able to provide a narrower range of forecasts, allowing for
better potential to make long-term cost-saving adaptations.
Political
decision making, however, is obliged to consider more than scientific output.
It must consider, among others, the influence of lobbying groups and the
broader interests of the constituencies its selected few represent. I was
recently fortunate enough to enjoy an assessed presentation from a masters
student on our MSc in
Sustainable Environmental Management, studying for the
module on Climate Science and Policy. I was struck by the truly excellent
representation of ideas that the student had learnt through sessions with Prof. Iain Stewart on the role for
appropriate channels of communication of climate science. The argument made was
that, despite the overwhelming evidence from science, many people are too
distant from the process of science to really believe its offering. Instead, our responses are informed by our
values and attitudes, themselves informed by our experiences through childhood,
our parenting and our current situations. To that end, the argument presented
was that religion and faith structures have a vital role in both ultimately
shaping values and attitudes towards environmental management but also in terms
of driving political settlement.
How
timely it is, then, that just last week (June 2015) Pope Francis released his
keenly anticipated Encyclical on climate change. In the text, he describes the
moral obligation on political leaders to find agreement given that the poor and
vulnerable are likely to suffer most from its effects. Through the Encyclical
Pope Francis is calling upon not just the political representatives, but also 1.2
billion Catholics to respond to climate change. Whilst, of course, some will
find the instruction a hard buy to reconcile with more individual or immediate
concerns, the intervention should undoubtedly prove more influential than
another academic text on the climate science.
The
religious intervention is simply another voice in the chorus of opinions by
which international negotiators will necessarily be influenced in the coming
months. The short-term interests of some must of course be recognised. In a
similar frame to the situation with a potential Grexit from the Euro, where
overwhelming evidence points towards the negative effects of a no-win scenario,
those voices will be heard and pose general risk. Perhaps the most uncanny
parallel between the two deals is that the short-term will always pose volatility
that overrides the fundamentals. Notwithstanding, the deal to be struck in
December 2015 in Paris, will provide greater certainty in the future climate
scenario, and perhaps, therefore model projection, regardless of whether the
outcome limits or accelerates the rate of climate change.
Dr Tim Daley
Director of Plymouth University’s Institute for
Sustainability Solutions Research and Lecturer on Climate Science and Sustainability
through the Department of Geography.
Follow Tim on Twitter @DrTimDaley
No comments:
Post a Comment