Rasmus Karlsson

Energy research within the UNFCCC : a proposal to guard against ongoing climate-deadlock

We propose that an international ‘Low-Emissions Technology Commitment’ should be incorporated into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiation process in order to promote innovation that will enable deep decarbonization. The goal is to accelerate research, development, and demonstration of safe, scalable, and affordable low-emissions energy technologies. Such a commitment should be based on three elements. First, it should operate within existing UNFCCC negotiations so as to encourage developed states to offer directed funding for energy research as part of their national contributions. Second, pledges should be binding, verifiable, and coordinated within an international energy-research plan. Third, expert scientific networks and participating governments should collaborate to design a coordinated global research and technology-demonstration strategy and oversee national research efforts. To this end an Intergovernmental Panel on Low-Emissions Technology Research might be established. This proposal offers some insurance against the risk that the political impasse in international negotiations cannot be overcome. The higher costs associated with low-emissions alternatives to fossil fuels currently creates significant economic and political resistance to their widespread adoption. To breach this impasse, a mechanism supporting accelerated energy research is needed that seeks to reduce future abatement costs, share experience and ‘learning-by-doing’ in first-of-a-kind demonstrations, and thus facilitate future widespread deployments. These actions will also assist in addressing inequalities in energy access. Policy relevance Over the past decade, global fossil-fuel use and associated carbon emissions have risen steadily, despite the majority of nations agreeing, in principle, to work to limit global warming to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial conditions (IPCC, 2014). Accelerated research, development, and demonstration of low-emissions technologies will be required for successful and economically efficient decarbonization of the global economy, but how can the current deadlock be broken? The UNFCCC does not contain adequate mechanisms to promote increased investment in research, so climate-governance institutions are not capturing the gains that could be achieved through a globally coordinated approach. Here, we outline reform proposals that would enhance both the economic effectiveness of global abatement efforts and the political feasibility of accelerated innovation.

Green political theory in a climate-changed world: between innovation and restraint

The implications for Green political theory of the international community’s failure to avert dangerous warming are evaluated. An emerging conflict is identified between the Green-romantic value of restraint and the Green-rationalist value of protection, between a desire to preserve biotic systems and a distrust of scientific solutions to problems that are intrinsically social. In response, approaches are outlined that can help to navigate the current period of overshoot beyond safe planetary boundaries by informing choices among bundles of environmental harms. An ethic of restraint, encompassing non-domination and post-materialist values, can validly be justified without reference to ecological catastrophe. Meanwhile, in respect of preservation from climate-linked harms, the need for cooperation in support of scalable abatement measures suggests the necessity of accelerated research into ‘breakthrough’, low-emissions energy technologies. However, since technophilic preservationism is incompatible with existing environmental ‘logics of practice’, this strategy must mobilise political support outside the traditional environmental movement.

Inverting sustainable development? Rethinking ecology, innovation and spatial limits

Over the years, two strands of thought on Sustainable Development (SD) have emerged, often identified as ecologism and environmentalism, respectively. This paper suggests that there exists a third rhetorically excluded option, namely large-scale industrial expansion into space. Access to raw materials found on the Moon as well as unfiltered solar energy would dramatically increase the stock of resources and energy while providing unlimited sinks for pollutants; thus satisfying two of the determining factors of sustainability. Traditionally, the dilemma of resource scarcity has been a concern for environmentalists calling for a reduction of energy and material flows. Correspondingly, the promise of space exploration has been limited to technological optimists whose economic framework rarely acknowledges any such scarcity. By reconciling the politics of scarcity with technological optimism, this paper proposes a unifying political vision for the 21st century.

Three metaphors for sustainability in the Anthropocene

This paper presents three different metaphors for sustainability in the Anthropocene. The first metaphor is the widely used notion of an ‘ecological footprint’, which offers a snapshot of what sustainability would require today using existing technologies. The second metaphor is one of a rocket taking off. Unlike the static footprint metaphor, this metaphor allows for the possibility that achieving a long-term sustainable trajectory might require entering a temporary state of even higher levels of unsustainability. Finally a third metaphor is presented, in which human civilisation is likened to an airplane and modernity to a runway. This metaphor suggests that sustainability can be achieved either by (1) a take-off into a post-scarcity space-faring civilisation or (2) a deceleration into a small-scale economy based on norms of frugality and simplicity. The third metaphor highlights the risk that insufficient political commitment to either trajectory might lead to (3) a catastrophic ecological overshoot.

Scalability and Realist Climate Insights

AbstractRecent scientific findings have underscored the need for a rapid global decarbonization. Yet, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise despite vast investments in small-scale renewable energy. Meanwhile, the prolonged international climate negotiations have yet to deliver effective mitigation action. By problematizing the issue of scalability and taking into consideration a realist analysis of international relations, this article suggests 1) that national transitions to a low-carbon economy can only serve as stepping-stones to global decarbonization if they contribute to the development of scalable technologies that are significantly cheaper than existing fossil alternatives and 2) that the current diplomatic gridlock can only be broken by technological innovation that severs the link between economic prosperity and greenhouse gas emissions, and thus also severs the link between decarbonization and military power.

China and climate justice: moving beyond statism

China is the largest national source of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution causing climate change. However, despite some rhetorical progress at the 2011 Durban climate conference, it has consistently rejected calls to take on binding targets to reduce its GHG emissions. The Chinese Government has understandably argued that developed states are responsible for the predominant share of historical GHG emissions, have greater capacity to pay for the cost of mitigation, and indeed have an obligation to do so before China is required to take action. However, due to the explosive growth in its GHG emissions, China is now in a position to single-handedly dash any hope of climate stability if its position does not change. On the diplomatic level, other big polluters, particularly the United States, will not enter into new binding agreements to reduce substantially their own GHG emissions without a credible commitment from China. Challenging the “statist” framing of the climate justice, this article explores the possibility for China to take on a leadership role in climate change diplomacy in a way that allows it to maintain its long-standing principled resistance to binding national emissions targets while making meaningful progress toward combating the problem. Action by China’s rapidly growing affluent classes may hold the key to long-term climate stability.

Reducing Asymmetries in Intergenerational Justice: Descent from Modernity or Space Industrialization?

Normally, contractual conceptions of intergenerational justice regard the responsibility held by each generation as symmetrical. This article argues that the late modern society has created an asymmetry because of its unprecendented instrumental and destructive capacity. Historically unique risks such as thermonuclear destruction, global ecological deprivation, and resource depletion all point at this asymmetry and unequal distribution of responsibility between generations. Extending one contractual device used by John Rawls in line with what Brian Barry has suggested, this article analyzes the roots of the asymmetry and presents two political strategies to end it. The first strategy resembles the traditional deep ecological programme whereas the second holds an imaginative vision of a human future in space. Both strategies seek to reduce the influence present generations exercise on the level of opportunity available to future generations. The key normative argument is that intergenerational justice requires spatial and temporal limits on political action.

The high-energy planet

ABSTRACT A key part of the ecomodern discourse of a ‘Good Anthropocene’ is the vision of a ‘high-energy planet’ characterized by universal access to modern energy. Recognizing the crucial historical role that rising energy consumption has played in driving social transformations, ecomodernists imagine a future with substantial global equality of opportunity powered by clean and abundant energy. Whereas traditional environmental thinking has advocated land-intensive distributed forms of renewable energy, ecomodernists have argued that such technologies are fundamentally incompatible with a world in which 7–10 billion people can live modern lives. Instead, ecomodernists believe that only breakthrough innovation can overcome the current political and cultural polarization surrounding climate change and provide a unifying pathway towards climate stability. Yet, resurging populism and nationalism, but also the statist frame of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process, make such a future unlikely as rich countries remain focused on meeting their own domestic emissions targets rather than decarbonizing the global economy as a whole. As a consequence, overall political polarization is bound to increase as radical environmental voices will call for ever harsher demand-side reductions while technocratic elites may come to see solar radiation management as the only feasible way of preventing an irreversible destabilization of the climate system.

The environmental risks of incomplete globalization

Abstract As the liberal optimism of the long 1990s has faded into a world of growing inequality and resurging nationalism, there is less certainty about the prospects of economic convergence and global integration. Beyond the formidable human cost of maintaining a divided world, the possibility of incomplete globalisation also gives rise to a number of environmental risks. While environmental political theory generally sees strength in localism, history rather shows that a robust world trade system is crucial to offset local resource scarcities and that cosmopolitan norms of solidarity are essential for helping communities to rebuild after environmental catastrophe. In relation to climate change, statist thinking has led to a focus on non-scalable technologies and a silent acceptance of chronic poverty abroad as a way of avoiding a climate emergency. Contrary to such views, this paper argues that accelerating the transition to a fully integrated high-energy planet may more effectively mitigate Anthropocene risks.

Ecomodernist citizenship : rethinking political obligations in a climate-changed world

ABSTRACT Green accounts of environmental citizenship typically seek to promote environmental sustainability and justice. However, some green theorists have argued that liberal freedoms are incompatible with preserving a planetary environment capable of meeting basic human needs and must be wound back. More recently, ‘ecomodernists’ have proposed that liberalism might be reconciled with environmental challenges through state-directed innovation focused on the provision of global public goods. Yet, they have not articulated an account of ecomodernist citizenship. This article seeks to advance the normative theory of ecomodernism by specifying an account of ecomodernist citizenship and subjecting the theory’s core claims to sympathetic critique. We argue that state-directed innovation has the potential to reconcile ambitious mitigation with liberal freedoms. However, full implementation of ecomodernist ideals would require widespread embrace of ecophilic values, high-trust societies and acceptance of thick political obligations within both national and global communities. Ecomodernism’s wider commitments to cosmopolitan egalitarianism and separation from nature thus amount to a non-liberal comprehensive public conception of the good. Furthermore, ecomodernism currently lacks an adequate account of how a society that successfully ‘separates’ from nature can nurture green values, or how vulnerable people’s substantive freedoms will be protected during an era of worsening climate harms.