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Climate Change and Society
“Adaptation – Genuine and Spurious: Demystifying Adaptation Processes in Relation to Climate Change”
Environment and Society – Advances in Research, Volume 1
Unintended Consequences: Climate Change Policy in a Globalizing World
Environment and Society – Advances in Research, Volume 3
“Climate Research and Climate Change: Reconsidering Social Science Perspectives”
Nature and Culture, Volume 4, Issue 2
Changes in the Weather: A Sri Lankan Village Case Study
Anthropology in Action, Volume 13, Issue 3
The Eschatology of Global Warming in a Scottish Fishing Village
Cambridge Anthropology, Volume 31, Issue 1
Climate Change and Politics
The Science-Politics of Climate Change in China: Development, Equity, and Responsibility
Nature and Culture, Volume 8, Issue 1
Bleu, Blanc…Green? France and Climate Change
French Politics, Culture & Society, Volume 27, Number 2
Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism in the Greenhouse Development Rights
framework
Regions and Cohesion, Volume 2, Issue 1
Welfare after Growth: Theoretical Discussion and Policy Implications
International Journal of Social Quality, Volume 3, Issue 1
Climate Change in Literature
Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Issue 2
'All These Things He Saw and Did Not See': Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy's The
Road
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Issue 2
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Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious
Demystifying Adaptation Processes
in Relation to Climate Change
Thomas F. Thornton and Nadia Manasfi
n ABSTRACT: In climate change discourse and policy, adaptation has become a critical
byword and frame of reference. An implicit assumption in much of the strategizing
is the notion that adaptation can be rationally planned, funded, and governed largely
through existing frameworks. But can adaptation really be managed or engineered,
especially given the significant unpredictability and severe impacts that are forecast
in a range of climate scenarios? Over millennia, successful societies have adapted to
climate shifts, but evidence suggests that this was often accomplished only through
wide-ranging reorganization or the institution of new measures in the face of extreme
environmental stress. This essay critically examines the concept of human adaptation
by dividing it into eight fundamental processes and viewing each in a broad cultural,
ecological, and evolutionary context. We focus our assessment especially on northern
indigenous peoples, who exist at the edges of present-day climate governance frameworks but at the center of increasingly acute climate stress.
n KEYWORDS: adaptation, Arctic, climate change, culture, development, indigenous peoples, vulnerability
Adaptation has become a key watchword and action frame in climate change discourse and policy.
In 2009, prior to the Copenhagen climate summit, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Kimoon referred to climate change as “the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family,” in
response to which it is “absolutely crucial that the world agrees on a comprehensive framework for
adaptation.” Yet adaptation is not clearly defined in the text of the landmark 1992 United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is mentioned only in relation to stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions at a level where adaptation of ecosystems, food production, and
sustainable economic development are all still possible (Article 2), committing parties to develop
adaptation programs (Article 4.1[b]), and encouraging cooperation in adapting vulnerable areas to
climate change (Article 4.1[e]) (see Ford et al. 2007; Schipper and Burton 2008; Smit et al. 2000).
But can adaptation really be managed or engineered, especially given the significant unpredictability, stress, and impacts forecast in various climate scenarios? Can infrastructure and
development projects simply be ‘climate-proofed’ as a matter of planning or ‘mainstreaming’
Environment and Society: Advances in Research 1 (2010): 132–155 © Berghahn Books
doi:10.3167/ares.2010.010107
Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious n 133
adaptation into existing frameworks? While successful societies have adapted to climate shifts
for millennia, often adaptation was achieved only through radical reorganization or innovation
in the face of destabilizing environmental stress. Or, as per Romer’s rule, new adaptations were
enabled by evolutionary changes that initially were selected in order better to maintain existing
patterns of life (Allaby 2004). In short, adaptation is often a blind process that can be viewed as
‘rational’ only in hindsight. As a participant in the 2009 15th UNFCCC Conference of Parties
(COP15) in Copenhagen suggested, “In order to say something about adaptation, you need to
have lived for 10,000 years.”
In the emerging mainstream climate change literature on adaptation, recognition of the
power of so-called autonomous adaptation has often been neglected in favor of what may be
termed ‘planned’ adaptation, that is, what humans must rationally do in order to reduce risk
and vulnerability. This perspective, perhaps fueled by a progressivist, ‘techno-fix’ bias, often
leads to the downplaying of ongoing processes of autonomous adaptation at the local level.
This point is made forcefully in a recent Commission on Climate Change and Development
report, produced by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which seeks to counter this bias
(Christoplos et al. 2009: 3):
[A]daptation should be built on efforts to more effectively support individuals, households,
and businesses as they struggle to adapt to climate change and … this should be done with
a deeper awareness of the social, economic, cultural, and political factors that frame their
actions, incentives, opportunities, and limitations for action … The poor adapt in ways that
are usually unnoticed, uncoordinated, and unaided by national governments, development
agencies, or international agencies. People draw on resources and support from these sources,
but they do it in ways that are rarely reflected in the formal mechanisms designed for poverty
reduction and climate adaptation.
This realization is perhaps the beginning of a potentially constructive ‘retrofitting’ (Head 2009)
of the concept of adaptation (long a part of biological and anthropological studies) to the considerable challenges that human societies face in the context of present and future climate change
and other drivers of cultural change, such as development and globalization (Liverman 2008).
This essay seeks to contribute to this constructive retrofitting by examining critically the concept of adaptation and related ideas such as mitigation, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity in
a broad cultural-evolutionary context, focusing especially on northern indigenous peoples, who
are at the margins of current climate governance frameworks but at the center of increasingly
profound climate stress. We review key themes in the adaptation literature with an eye toward
sharpening the conceptualization of adaptation as a process and, in the spirit of Sapir’s (1924) critique of the culture concept, highlight some genuine and spurious assumptions about the nature of
adaptation. The case of northern indigenous peoples is explored in detail because these groups are
on the front lines of climate change. Moreover, they are active not only in autonomously adapting
to profound climate stress and to rapidly changing and less predictable environmental conditions,
but also in shaping more just and efficacious national and international climate policies based on
diverse but comparable local knowledge, cultural practices, and adaptation processes.
Defining Adaptation
Adaptation has been defined in many ways, and its meaning has evolved over time and as a result
of consideration by scholars in different fields of study (Smithers and Smit 1997). In the biological sciences, adaptation refers to “genetic characteristics which allow individual organisms
134 n Thomas F. Thornton and Nadia Manasfi
to survive and reproduce in the environment they inhabit” (Smithers and Smit 1997: 133, after
Winterhalder 1980; see also Abercrombie et al. 1977; Lawrence 1995). Critically, the process of
adaptation requires variation or diversity in the fundamental building blocks of the organism—
genes in biological evolution—in order for environmental selection to operate successfully,
favoring some characteristics over others. As an aspect of evolution, adaptation also requires a
process of transmission through which those genetic characteristics that compete successfully
within a selective environmental context are passed on to future generations.
In the social sciences, cultural adaptation typically refers to the processes by which individuals and groups of people adjust their behavior and organization in response to changes in
their environment (Denevan 1983; Hardesty 1986; Smit et al. 2000). Like biological adaptation, cultural adaptation requires diversity in the fundamental building blocks of culture (ideas,
practices, etc.),1 as well as a system of reproduction (imitation, learning, etc.) and inheritance
(cultural transmission). At another level, human adaptation is strongly linked to environmental
extensity and diversity in that humans not only adapt to their existing environments but, when
not ring-fenced by environmental or political barriers, also seek new environments and niches
when their existing ones become too stressed or stressful.
Putting the biological and the cultural together, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) defines adaptation as “the adjustment in natural or human systems in response
to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities” (IPCC 2007). This definition conveys the dynamism of adaptation in relation
to both natural and human cultural systems. However, an awareness of the multi-scalar and
coupled nature of human and biological networks as socio-ecological systems (Berkes and Folke
1998; Gallopín et al. 1989) is critical to understanding both stimuli and responses to processes
such as climate change. When socio-ecological systems are linked through vast institutions
(e.g., global markets) and environmental processes (e.g., climate change), the adage that ‘all
adaptation is local’ proves false. Local adaptation may help a community-level socio-ecological
system make minor improvements while neglecting major regional or global environmental
forces and structural violence (Farmer 2003) that may be constraining or undermining it extralocally. Although a useful heuristic, in reality few socio-ecological systems are discrete or simply
joined; rather, they are nested and complexly linked. Young et al. (2006: 314) have particularly
emphasized globalization as a phenomenon in which “linkages between biophysical and social
systems across space and time produce surprising dynamics and novel emergent properties”
across socio-ecological systems. Understanding these linkages presents a formidable challenge
to researchers and policy makers in their efforts to assess resilience, reduce vulnerability, and
build adaptive capacity.
Until recently, adaptation was neglected by the UNFCCC in international climate policy
deliberations in favor of mitigation (Pielke et al. 2007; Schipper 2006). Reasons for this include
(1) the fear that focusing on adaptation might give the impression of resignation and weaken
the social will to mitigate; (2) the difficulty of incorporating and evaluating adaptation measures
into negotiations, considering the uncertainty of climate change impacts (Burton 2008; Füssel
2007; Kates 2000; Pielke 1998); and (3) the notion that adaptation costs can be significantly
compounded if mitigation is not attended to first (Stern 2007). However, the 2001 Marrakech
Accords developed funding mechanisms to assist developing countries in adapting (Adger et
al. 2003), and adaptation was included as one of the four pillars for any post-Kyoto Protocol
agreement in the 2007 Bali Road Map and Action Plan (Schipper and Burton 2008). International financial commitments to adaptation continue to rise, most recently as a result of COP15
and COP16 agreements to boost funding for mitigation and adaptation by up to $100 billion a
year by 2020, although which entities (including newly created ones) and initiatives will get the
Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious n 135
money has not yet been determined. To make the best use of adaptation funding mechanisms,
a better understanding of contemporary and historical processes of adaptation in relation to
climate change and other stressors in existing socio-ecological systems must be developed.
Climate change can impact the way that individuals interact with their natural and social
environments, possibly resulting in irreversible losses to a community’s cultural heritage (Adger
et al. 2009) or even the extinction of communities or segments of society. Alternatively, over
time, cultural adjustments, innovations, and the transmission of key ideas and artifacts to
younger generations may result in an enriched cultural repertoire with well-designed adaptations (Boyd and Richerson 2005; O’Brien and Holland 1992). Significantly, there is no guarantee that adaptation will happen on any level, or that adaptation at one level (e.g., community
environmental management) might not be maladaptive at another level (e.g., national security). In essence, adaptation is a blind, complex, dynamic, and contingent process. While politics
emphasizes the short-term view, human adaptation must be judged from a long-term perspective. Further, given the inherent uncertainty with respect to the future, a long-term view of past
socio-ecological systems that have adapted to climate change is a critical, yet underutilized, tool
in adaptation assessment and planning. Dearing (2008), for example, analyzes some 3,000 years
of erosion and land use, what he terms ‘slow’ environmental change processes, relative to ‘fast’
changes, such as monsoon intensity and flooding, in Yunnan, China. Such ‘historical profiling’
of landscapes requires a mixed methods approach that involves anthropological, geographical,
and environmental science investigations in order to map the ‘adaptive cycle’ on to the millennial record of climate, land, and resource changes.
In a recent critique of the climate change literature, Nelson et al. (2009: 272) note that “climate-change debates have historically focused on technologies and the elusive search for largescale, cookie-cutter solutions, leaving aside the important role that individuals, cultures, and
societies play in constructing and living out an adaptation dynamic” (see also Finan and Nelson
2009). Similar critiques have been leveled at the development literature (Escobar 1995; Ferguson 1994; Shiva 1989), and, as in the development case, a remedy is often seen in the advent of
‘community-based’ approaches in which local stakeholders take part in the process of determining their own futures. Yet existing national plans, whether promoting development or adaptation, typically have not paid sufficient attention to the critical role that local institutions play in
these processes, or how they link populations and policies in practice. As Agrawal (2008: 50)
observes concerning adaptation, “As a result, despite a stated commitment to grassroots involvement, the actual focus in national adaptation plans is on technical and infrastructure options for
adaptation, with little attention to their social and institutional context.”
Just as it is a mistake to reify techno-fix as the only viable mode of adaptation, it can be similarly wrongheaded to regard existing polities or institutions, be they states or local communities
or civic organizations, as the critical units of adaptation. Communities themselves can be adaptive or maladaptive and even multi-scalar, given modern communication, transportation, and
identity networks. Community-based approaches often neglect these dynamics. Similarly, states
have been reified as a political unit for adaptation. As the principal actors under the UNFCCC,
states are seen as the critical agents in mitigating and adapting to climate change. If one takes
the long view, however, states generally have evolved not so much to adapt to environmental
constraints but rather to transcend them—through expansion, military conquest, or trade. As
Carneiro (1970) hypothesized decades ago, states tend to develop in order to overcome conditions of environmental circumscription that limit organic processes of expansion and increase
resource competition, stress, and conflict among expanding populations.
In the circumpolar North, most sedentary communities today are the products of expanding or developing states that actively sought to demobilize hunting-gathering peoples in order
136 n Thomas F. Thornton and Nadia Manasfi
to exploit their territories and ‘civilize’ them through missionary work, education, collectivization, and other forms of economic rationalization and development. This process of state making
enabled Arctic states to colonize the so-called Fourth World (Hall 1988) of marginal ‘frontier’
lands and indigenous peoples in order to exploit new sources of industrial wealth, such as minerals, oil, and gas, as well as to secure their borders during the Cold War through militarization in
the interests of ‘national security’. Similar processes have enclosed mobile hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and swidden agriculturalists in other parts of the world. As a result, these communities
typically have become more environmentally vulnerable, more economically dependent on the
state and global economy, and less diverse and resilient in terms of their livelihoods and cultural
repertoires. While growing states have invested heavily in infrastructure to create certain kinds
of peripheral communities in order to facilitate national goals, these marginal areas are often the
first to suffer from divestment during economic downturns. In the Far North, as in other ‘frontier
environments’, this is manifest in the classic ‘boom and bust’ cycles of the natural resource economies, which bring not only short-term socio-economic vulnerabilities but often long-term environmental and politico-economic problems, or what is sometimes referred to as the ‘resource
curse’. This pattern is especially acute in Russia due to the sudden withdrawal of the state from
rural collectivization projects beginning in the 1980s, combined with the aggressive industrial
development of selective regions based on their natural resources (Crate 2006; Ziker 2002).
Anthropological studies suggest that the most resilient and adaptive social unit over long
periods may be the household rather than the community or state (Netting 1993; Netting et al.
1984). In the past, households and extended families have been the critical units for responding
to crises spawned by climate variability and cyclical environmental stresses, such as food and
water shortages. Households continue to adapt in patterned yet diverse ways to the stresses of
modern climate, food, water, and economic crises. Analyzing data over a 30-year period, West
(2009: 286) reports in his study of Mossi household organization in Burkina Faso that extended
households “persist because they are better adapted to conditions of heightened agro-climatic
risk brought on by regional desiccation. They are also better able to take advantage of opportunities to intensify agriculture.” A key to their adaptive capacity is the unique ability of households
to engage in processes of ‘extension’ and ‘fragmentation’ according to ecological constraints.
Modern communities and states often lack this flexibility, with the result that responses to environmental change can be more stressful, especially on the most marginal settlements and segments of the population. In the next section we look more closely at central adaptation processes
adopted by households and other social groupings.
Adaptation as Intersecting Processes
Cultural adaptation is an ongoing set of processes that must be viewed holistically over time.
Smit et al. (2000) present a practical way of classifying aspects of cultural adaptation based on
(1) who/what has to adapt (the system of interest), (2) what they have to adapt to (the stimulus), and (3) how they adapt (the processes and forms). The system of interest can vary from
a whole system or country to individuals or species. It may be adapting to long-term mean
climate variability, climate extremes, future climate change, or the risks and opportunities of climate stimuli, among other things. The adaptation process itself can vary in intent (autonomous,
planned), timing (anticipatory, reactive), temporal and spatial scope, and form (technological,
behavioral, institutional, etc.).
Given the dynamic and complex nature of adaptation and the bias of policy makers in favor
of certain contemporary units (states, communities) and modes of adaptation (e.g., techno-fix)
Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious n 137
over others, we favor a processual approach that revolves around eight key dimensions of human
adaptation without preference for a single social unit or mode. These dimensions are mobility, exchange, rationing, pooling, diversification, intensification, innovation, and revitalization.
While functional overlap may occur between these processes, each has a unique motivational
core that distinguishes it from the others. In addition, we emphasize a long-term view of human
adaptation that analyzes historical and contemporary processes at work and the convergence
and disjuncture between forces of environmental change and human livelihoods over long time
periods and multiple spatial scales. In the literature to date, the conceptual approach that most
closely mirrors ours is that developed by Halstead and O’Shea (1989), on how cultures manage
risk, and further refined by Agrawal (2008), in the context of rural institutional adaptation.
However, here we have expanded the discourse beyond modes of adaptation in primarily rural
contexts to a wider, more basic discussion of fundamental human adaptation processes.
We first define and characterize these adaptation processes and then assess how they are
playing out in autonomous and planned contexts in response to climate change in northern
indigenous communities and states. Table 1 provides an overview of the eight processes.
Table 1: Adaptation processes: Overview
Adaptation Process
Description
Mobility
Exchange
Rationing
Pooling
Diversification
Intensification
Innovation
Revitalization
Seasonal movement or permanent migration to avoid risk or in search of better
circumstances
Flow of material and symbolic goods and services between people
Controlling the circulation or consumption of limited or critical resources among
members of a group
Sharing or linking of assets (wealth, labor, knowledge) across social groups
Increasing the variety of food, income production strategies, specialization, etc., to
enhance livelihoods
Increasing the availability of resources by boosting their yield within a certain
space or time
New, unplanned method or technique that arises to address a certain need
Organized reconfiguration of ideology and practices to reduce stress and create a
more satisfying culture
1. Mobility. Whether through seasonal movements or permanent migrations, humans have
sought to avoid environmental risk and obtain better circumstances. Despite the development
of agricultural and industrial states and the decline of more nomadic modes of subsistence, such
as foraging and pastoralism, human migration has increased, largely as a response to economic
and environmental stresses and perceived opportunities in alternative environments. Richerson
and Boyd (2008: 877) observe that “migration has a profound effect on how societies evolve
culturally because it is selective. People move to societies that provide a more attractive way of
life and, all other things being equal, this process spreads ideas and institutions that promote
economic efficiency, social order and equality.”
Rather than being a source of conflict and instability, migration may act as an engine of social
change. Of course, this assumes voluntary migration rather than forced relocation or situations
that involve so-called climate and environmental refugees, who may lack choices about whether
or where to move. It also assumes that host societies have the ecological capacity and adequate
138 n Thomas F. Thornton and Nadia Manasfi
ecosystem services to absorb migrants in sustainable ways, as well as the institutional means
to adapt to potential socio-cultural ‘organization of diversity’ issues (Wallace 2009) posed by
immigrants. Involuntary relocations especially can lead to incalculable cultural disruption, loss
of livelihood, and increased dependency and stress (Oliver-Smith 2009). Presently, many such
migrants are being absorbed into highly exploitive industries and urban slums, which are neither
equitable nor sustainable. Unfortunately, under probabilistic scenarios generated in response
to climate models, this is a process that is expected to intensify. As a result, conflict between
migrants and residents in receiving areas may arise as a result of competition, ethnic tension,
distrust, socio-economic fault lines, and political instability (Reuveny 2007).
In the modern industrial context, human mobility is intricately regulated by institutions and
policies linked to immigration, transportation, and the enclosure of common lands into private
space or property. A lack of sedentism can be confounding to states seeking to improve security
or productivity through modernization, land use planning, and development. Nevertheless, it
may be short-sighted to view mobility as maladaptation simply because it poses potential shortterm social and political instabilities. As Agrawal (2008: 19) points out, mobility remains “a way
of life for large groups of people in semi-arid regions, and a long standing mechanism to deal
with spatio-temporal variations in rainfall and range productivity,” especially among pastoralists
(Niamir-Fuller 1999). Among northern indigenous pastoralists and foraging peoples, mobility
remains a key dimension of economic production and adaptation (Rees et al. 2008).
2. Exchange. Like the flow of people, the flow of material and symbolic (knowledge) goods and
services are a foundation not only of today’s global economy but of every economy in history.
Agrawal (2008: 21) observes that market exchange “is perhaps the most versatile of adaptation
responses … to environmental risks but also … for specialization, trade, and welfare gains that
result from specialization and trade at multiple scales.” Agrawal cites a recent spate of insurance
schemes to mitigate against weather-related damages among agricultural and pastoralist populations as an example of market exchange as a mode of adaptation.
A critique of the current dominant strategies of economic exchange is that the costs of exchange
are being born disproportionately by the world’s poor, underdeveloped, and thus most vulnerable communities, with negative consequences on their adaptive capacity. Their resources, natural and human, are being exploited at unsustainable rates in order to supply wealthier interests
with resources, goods, and services. In its more extreme form, this inequitable, asymmetrical
exchange (or negative reciprocity, as anthropologists refer to it) leads to a kind of ‘eco-imperialist’ expropriation, if not underdevelopment, of local environmental resources and ecosystem
services (and even carbon) by well-financed (often distant) interests at the expense of the poorer
local communities that depend on them for their livelihoods (Shiva 2008). The same is true of
the knowledge economy, wherein intellectual property, even when based on local and traditional knowledge, can be captured as private property through patents and other legal regimes,
or what Harvey (2005: 159) refers to as “accumulation by dispossession.”
3. Rationing. All human societies have developed schemes and technologies for allocating provisions and other limited or critical resources among their members. The fundamental objective
of rationing is to extend the supply of resources by controlling their circulation and consumption over time and space, and storage is among the most basic forms of rationing. The development of storage and preservation techniques has bolstered the resilience of households and
communities enormously by allowing the consumption of otherwise perishable resources, such
as fresh foods, over extended periods. Even among foraging societies with high mobility, these
techniques have been instrumental in reducing risk due to climate and resource variability, as
Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious n 139
evidenced by the widespread practice of caching foods among northern hunter-gatherers. The
stockpiling of critical resources, such as energy, seeds, or even genetic material, is a modern
means of utilizing storage to ration consumption (and conserve diversity) over time. In the case
of genetic banking, it is a way of preserving biodiversity for the future by avoiding extinction
due to present levels of consumption or destruction.
Rationing also can be applied to activities or elements that have a negative impact on critical resources or ecosystem services, such as pollution or overpopulation. Carbon capture and
storage, for example, is seen as a potential technological solution to reducing the ill effects of
carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere by rationing their release through sequestration. Cap-and-trade schemes are another potential means of controlling pollution (via the ‘cap’),
according to market-based principles. Rationing strategies are often productively linked with
systems of exchange or pooling. Population control by limiting birth rates is among the most
controversial of rationing programs, especially when it is applied coercively. Fortunately, there
are many means available for promoting sustainable population growth at the family, ecosystem,
regional, and national levels (Sachs 2008: 185).
Significantly, rationing does not by definition reduce consumption or pollution; rather, it may
simply redistribute it. Similarly, rationing schemes do not necessarily result in greater equity
among consumers or citizens. Population rationing programs, for example, may be nullified by
increased per capita consumption of resources, or they may exacerbate existing inequalities due
to differential values placed on children. Nevertheless, rationing remains among the most powerful adaptation tools that humans have developed for both limiting consumption and ensuring the
equitable distribution of resources, including ecosystem services such as clean air and water.
4. Pooling. At base, pooling is a form of holding, sharing, or linking assets across social groups.
Agrawal (2008: 20) defines it as “adaptation responses involving joint ownership of assets and
resources; sharing of wealth, labor, or incomes from particular activities across households, or
mobilization and use of resources that are held collectively during times of scarcity.” Adaptive
pooling assumes the ability to distribute or convert accumulated assets when needed in times of
environmental stress (Moench 2007).
Perhaps the most important asset that can be pooled is credible knowledge. Credible knowledge is information that has been critically assessed by and rendered meaningful to members
of a community. In the literature there is strong emphasis on improving the flows of information and scientific knowledge to communities. However, if the source of this information is not
considered credible, or if the information is not considered relevant in terms of on-the-ground
experience, such information pooling is unlikely to be successful. For example, regional weather
forecasts or climate predictions may be judged as non-credible at a local level due to their higher
incidence of error compared to local knowledge or monitoring techniques (cf. Strauss and
Orlove 2003).
How communities pool resources is partly determined by tenure arrangements. Tenure systems are a means by which human societies hold prerogatives over key resources such as land,
water, and knowledge. Tenure requires schemes for reckoning boundaries, access, and transfer.
Such systems may facilitate or inhibit pooling, and globalization raises linkage potentials, as
well as multi-level commons and tenure problems (Berkes 2007). Intellectual property tenure
systems, for example, often seek to prevent pooling of information without formalized exchange
or payment. As Brush (1999: 539) observes in the case of intellectual property patented through
bio-prospecting in indigenous communities, “The monopoly privileges that one community
can gain affect other communities that share the same knowledge and resources. If knowledge
and genetic resources collected under contract lead to a patentable product, communities that
140 n Thomas F. Thornton and Nadia Manasfi
are not part of the contract but have the same resources can be deprived of the opportunity to
commercialize their knowledge.” The monopolization problem also exists for material resources
and services, as evidenced by strategies to privatize access to critical adaptation resources such
as public land, water supplies, and utilities. Such schemes of accumulation by dispossession
undermine the pooling of common resources and, according to neoliberal critics, lead to the
“escalating depletion of the global environmental commons (land, air, water) and proliferating habitat degradations … [resulting] from the wholesale commodification of nature in all its
forms” (Harvey 2005: 160).
5. Diversification. Diversification is a form of risk management that typically refers to food and
income production strategies. But at a more basic level, diversification is adaptive because it
either introduces or maintains variations upon which future cultural adaptation processes can
act. Significantly, diversification does not negate specialization, except perhaps at the level of the
individual organism. Depending on the social unit, organic specialization may occur at various
scales. For example, in a household there may be a division of labor whereby a grandmother
specializes in child care or food preparation, or young males specialize in hunting mobile prey,
and so on. As with the other strategies, diversification is a hedge against uncertainty and a
means of maintaining the availability of critical resources, including money.
Too much diversification can be limiting or even maladaptive, especially if it means a loss
of knowledge and skills. Denevan (1983: 402) suspects that most diverse techniques of environmental manipulation are long present within a culture, perhaps as marginal or secondary
strategies, before widespread adoption occurs, as opposed to being introduced ‘Eureka style’
through radical innovation. When minority strategies are perceived to respond to an identified need, more widespread use of these already available techniques (or concepts) results. The
development of agriculture may very well have evolved along these lines, initially as a marginal
or subsidiary diversification strategy, subordinate to foraging, which was not adopted wholesale until it was perceived to be more adaptive due to changes in socio-ecological or environmental conditions (see Bellwood 2005; Richerson et al. 2001; Rindos 1984; Winterhalder and
Kennett 2006).
Niche theory holds that diversification in terms of livelihood may reduce competition and
resource stress within or between species inhabiting the same area or ecosystem. Due to mobility and cultural adaptation, humans are able to dwell in an extremely broad range of habitats and
are thus able to exploit a wide spectrum of niches. Niches and cultures may be co-evolutionary
and co-dependent, shaping each other in fundamental ways to the point that one cannot truly
exist without the other. Historical and anthropological studies suggest that ethnic and linguistic
diversification may be associated with niche specialization. For example, Barth (1956) shows
how niche specialization through partitioning (to reduce livelihood overlap) among the inhabitants of the rugged mountains and river valleys of northern Pakistan led to the formation and
co-existence of three distinct ethnic groups. As a result of climate change, fundamental niches
may also change, and there may be significant lags in the formation of realized niches, which
adaptation policies could address (Pidwirny 2006).
6. Intensification. Intensification is a means of increasing the utilization of resources by boosting
their yield within a certain space or time. Its inverse process is extensification, which typically
implies mobility (and is thus partially treated under that rubric above, rather than separately).
Agricultural intensification, through the Green Revolution and other technological and organizational innovations, has been a favored adaptive strategy for increasing food yields in conjunction with expanding populations. However, the dominant strategy of increased dependence
Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious n 141
on engineered seeds, irrigation, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and mechanization has been
criticized as maladaptive for its deleterious ecological consequences, such as soil erosion and
compaction, pollution, and loss of biodiversity, which have brought harm to a range of species
through habitat loss or degradation (see, e.g., Birdlife International 2008).
Intensification can also lead to centralization and reduced diversity. In the realm of food
production, this can be seen in the reliance on fewer varieties of agricultural seeds, developed
and patented by large multinational agribusinesses, which are considered more efficient in
maximizing yields and can be co-engineered with supplementary inputs such as fertilizers and
pesticides. Dependency on fewer seed varieties and their specific inputs can lead not only to
increased environmental impacts but also to greater vulnerability for local groups if the price,
supply, or efficacy of these non-local products is adversely affected.
These criticisms notwithstanding, intensification as a broad adaptive strategy need not, in
theory, be a zero-sum game for humans at the expense of other species or local diversity. Intensification may be achieved simply by improving efficiencies and making resources more usable,
for example, by reducing waste through consuming rather than discarding vegetable or animal
parts, or by using ‘waste’ to enhance environmental habitats (e.g., through fertilization). Among
northern reindeer-herding peoples, a flexible dynamic between intensification and extensification of grazing in relation to land and labor conditions has proven highly adaptive over time.
However, this flexibility has recently been compromised by reindeer ‘rationalization’ schemes
that trade flexibility for more rigid territorial regimes and greater dependency on state subsidies
or economic diversification (Beach et al. 1992).
7. Innovation. Innovation is perhaps the most cited but least understood of adaptation processes.
As noted in the discussion above on diversification, the seeds of adaptation are often born not
of true innovation but rather of shifts from dominant to minority strategies in the context of
environmental change. True innovation, akin to mutation in biological evolution and adaptation, is typically random and therefore very difficult to predict or plan. Thus, it is problematic
to rely upon innovation, whether technological, ideological, or organizational, to build adaptive
capacity. Still, there is no doubt about the significance of innovation in the history of adaptation.
Among Arctic indigenous peoples, for example, the invention of the toggle harpoon and float
had a major effect on the adaptation and successful spread of Inuit culture across the northern
Arctic coast of North America in conjunction with marine mammal populations, such as seals,
which could not be reliably secured with simple spears. While modern tools have replaced many
traditional technologies, the toggle harpoon persists because it retains numerous advantages for
landing large sea mammals from breathing holes or open water. Moreover, the tool itself continues to be adapted and refined (Arnold 1989: 81).
Selective forces perfected the toggle harpoon to the extent that it was adopted (and mechanized)
by the whaling (oil) industry in the mid-nineteenth century. However, as with many technological
innovations applied on an industrial scale, the mechanized whaling harpoon was overdeployed,
leading to a worldwide decline in whale populations, the eventual collapse of the industry, and the
whale rationing system that exists today through the International Whaling Commission.
Innovation within a system may affect vulnerability and resilience in unanticipated ways. In
the Middle East, Jordan illustrates a case of low system resilience that resulted in an inadvertent
transformation. An expansion of land use (extensification) combined with advancements in
agricultural technology (innovation) allowed agricultural output to increase. However, a lack of
proper resource management eventually resulted in land degradation and a weakening of the
socio-ecological system. It has been suggested that the agricultural system in Jordan ultimately
collapsed due to a period of climatic stress (Nelson et al. 2007).
142 n Thomas F. Thornton and Nadia Manasfi
8. Revitalization. Revitalization is a society’s capacity to adapt to environmental stress through a
structured reconfiguration of its ideologies, practices, and organization in order to reduce stress
and create a more satisfying culture (Wallace 1956). Revitalization theory as applied to social
movements has been criticized for, among other things, its reliance on the metaphor of society
as an adaptive ‘organism’ with a ‘homeostatic’ state (Harkin 2004), as opposed to a complex
‘panarchic’ system with multiple states (see Gunderson and Holling 2002). Yet there is no questioning the power of social movements to produce adaptive social change and more sustainable
livelihoods by redefining human priorities and codes for living. Wallace (1956) emphasizes that
such revitalization requires both reformulating old ‘mazeway’ patterns of cognition and routinizing new adaptive ‘codes’ for living. Often the new codes are defined by charismatic leaders at
the margins of society who can see beyond current cultural models. Obviously, this new vision
ultimately must be grounded in the material exigencies of life and successfully institutionalized
if it is to survive.
From the perspective of adaptation, revitalization is important because it allows humans to
achieve rapid social change in response to environmental shifts or stresses without recourse to
violence or competitive conflict. Frequently, revitalization involves syncretism wherein traditional knowledge and lifeways are constructively realigned to respond to contemporary socioecological constraints. For example, in Wallace’s (1956) prototypical case for revitalization—that
is, the Code of Handsome Lake movement among the Seneca Iroquois of New York—the prophetic leader’s vision included sanction for men to shift their productive roles in society from
hunting to agriculture (formerly dominated by women). This was consistent with evolving
material conditions that had resulted in declining game resources, decreasing land base and
access to traditional hunting areas, and the concomitant growth of sedentism and agriculture in
that area in the late eighteenth century.
Beyond social change, revitalization is an important means of restoring ecosystems and
reducing stress on human health. Civic agricultural and local food movements are examples
of efforts to revitalize selective aspects of traditional agriculture within a modern context of
valuing diversity, quality, sustainability, and connections to land, place, and community (Lyson
2004). Similarly, efforts to restore urban pedestrian and communal spaces for congress, passage,
and exchange may be seen as an attempt to revitalize healthy and sustainable aspects of urban
culture while at the same time reducing human stress brought on by poor design, short-sighted
planning, and mechanical obeisance to automotive transport. Revitalization is also evident in a
variety of ecosystems that range from forests to deserts. Also included are marine contexts with
efforts to restore important coastal habitats, such as wetlands, lagoons, reefs, and mangroves
(Berkes 2008), and critical ecosystem foundation species, such as herring, often using local and
traditional knowledge (Thornton et al. 2010). The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
calls for the adoption of measures to revitalize threatened species through reintroduction, combining ex situ sources with in situ measures for reducing the forces that drove them toward
extinction in the first place.2 Such repair efforts require social change and adaptive (co-)management (Berkes et al. 2007) in order to be successful in the long run.3 To the extent that they
can be effectively institutionalized and remain responsive to objective conditions, revitalization
processes are critical to socio-ecological adaptation.
All of the above adaptive processes involve technologies, learning, and institutions at various
scales, from the most basic households, using their members’ embodied technologies of ambulation and speech to navigate and communicate the lay of the land, to the most complex states or
multinational entities, which use supercomputers and other specialized tools to coordinate international transportation, model changes in climates, monitor trading, and optimize commodity
Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious n 143
exchange. The mixture of adaptive processes is complex and constantly changing, not only in
relation to environmental constraints, but also in relation to other adaptation responses. Thus,
adaptive processes must be understood as both drivers of change and responses to change.
Adaptation in Northern Indigenous Communities
The severity and disproportionate effects of climate change on communities of the Far North are
well known. In Alaska alone, a recent report by the US Government Accountability Office concludes that 31 villages “face imminent threats” from climate change, and that 12 have decided to
“explore relocation options” (GAO 2009: 12). However, as the report’s own title indicates, only
“limited progress has been made,” in part due to the fact that government bureaucracies remain
uncoordinated and unable to reassess their institutional priorities in relation to climate change
and adaptation needs. Instead, “In the absence of a lead entity, federal agencies individually
prioritize assistance to villages on the basis of their programs’ criteria, which do not necessarily
ensure that the villages in greatest peril get the highest priority for assistance” (ibid.: 36). The
magnitude of accelerated climate change impacts on Arctic communities has made them the
focus of intense scrutiny by national and global media, seeking to personalize and ground the
effects of climate change in real life (Henshaw 2009; Marino and Schweitzer 2009). Many see the
Arctic as being on the threshold or tipping point of major systemic transformations.
Arctic climate change impacts are driven by key physical and biological processes that are
increasingly well-documented (ACIA 2005; IPCC 2007; UNESCO 2009). The most important
of these are annual average temperature increases. In Alaska, the increase is 1.9 °C since the
mid-twentieth century, about twice the rate of the rest of the US. Temperature increases, in
turn, drive other environmental changes that include melting and retreating of snow cover and
changing snowpack structure; melting of large glaciers and ice sheets; retreating sea ice; permafrost degradation; changing river and lake ice magnitude, timing, and stability; changes in
precipitation; and increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Climatic changes and impacts of
this magnitude have not been experienced in the Arctic for over 100,000 years.
As a result, Inuit and other northern peoples find themselves in the position of having to
adapt to these unprecedented complex, interacting, and non-linear changes in short order. At
COP15, we carried out interviews with 12 northern indigenous leaders and representatives, many
of whom commented that their own households and communities were “already adapting,” but
that states and their governing institutions were not adapting or were not helping their communities to reduce climate vulnerabilities and build adaptive capacities rapidly enough.4 The major
literature on Arctic adaptation (e.g., Ford 2009; Ford and Furgal 2009; Furgal and Seguin 2006;
Furgal and Prowse 2008; Krupnik and Jolly 2002; UNESCO 2009) supports this perspective, as
do the major indigenous organizations, such as the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN 2008), the
Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC 2005; Watt-Cloutier et al. 2004), and the Russian Association of
Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON). The following statements are representative of recent
indigenous peoples’ climate change adaptation and vulnerability assessments in the Far North.
Canada
Interviews conducted [for an Inuit Circumpolar Council] indicate that despite the increased
difficulty in finding and harvesting big game and sea mammals due to thinning and less predictable sea ice, Inuit communities are persistent in maintaining their traditional diets. When
asked whether changes in ice conditions were affecting their traditional diets, respondents
spoke of having to travel farther or in a different month than usual; they spoke of dietary substitutions such as hunting more musk-oxen when the caribou migration shifted away from
144 n Thomas F. Thornton and Nadia Manasfi
their area, or they explained how melting permafrost has made the natural ice cellars used to
age and store meat less effective. (Smith 2009: 17)
A buddy of mine is into making little sleds out of aluminum, which you can use as a little
kayak or boat. If you’re out on the ice and you have to cross an open lead or something you
can use that … It’s combined as a little sleigh and, if you have to, you can use it as a boat. That’s
one way I can adapt. (John Keogak, interview in Smith 2009: 19)
And because the permafrost is melting, infrastructure is starting to become damaged … The
roads are starting to be … wobbly…
We’re also starting to see different insects and blackberries that never came up to our communities. Polar bears are starting to wander closer into the communities [and] wolves …
[T]he fact that lakes are starting to dry up a little bit is causing flora that used to grow to
not grow anymore, so different animals that used to come feed on that, like the geese, are
going farther away from the communities, so hunters have to travel farther. The moss that the
caribou feed on is starting to grow in different places, so the migration patterns are changing,
and again, hunters have to travel farther …
There needs to be a bridge between that gap [between scientific studies and traditional
knowledge] for mitigation and adaptation to be successful …
I’m only 20 years old but already the world that I was born into has changed so much …
I’m really not sure what will happen in the future. (Janice Grey, interview, 2009)
Alaska
In later years, my father noticed how the climate seemed to be changing, and he would comment on how spring came earlier and warmed up faster, making our whaling activities more
hazardous. We hunt from the edge of the shorefast ice in spring, and changes in the ice pack
have a big impact on our ability to participate in this traditional hunt. As time went on, even
us young folks could see the changes. The ice pack was shrinking, and shorefast ice was rotting earlier in the year, and the ice retreated farther out during the summer and stayed out
longer. It was almost like a rug was being pulled from under us. (Itta 2009: 207)
There are changes in sea ice conditions, changes in weather, changes in coastal erosion problems, river system anomalies.
Eighty percent of our communities in Alaska are living along the coast, and there are
examples of villages that are literally washing away because of the many storm surges and
erosion … There used to be a wall of ice that protected the villages, but now, because the ice
has changed, that is no longer there …
[I]t’s not the same as it used to be when we were much more nomadic communities than now.
Now we have our schools, our roads, and all these other things, so we can’t pack up our tents and
move quite as quickly. This has made a real difference in our ability to adapt in that way …
Some areas are looking at new [plants], new species, new food sources. They are relying
on new sources that are now available. In Alaska there is a whole industry now growing up
around shark fishing, and certainly this has not been the case historically in that area. You
learn to deal with species that were not there before or were in much smaller numbers …
The modern technologies are now also looking back at how our people used to live. For
example, in my community the house used to be subterranean, and now people are understanding why the homes were built in this fashion—they are the most ecologically friendly,
they are more energy-efficient … and all the things that modern technology is now looking
for. (Patricia Cochrane, interview, 2009)
Greenland
In Greenland, our Sila Inuk project focuses on Inuit hunters, asking them to document what
climate change effects they have seen over their lives and what information they have gleaned
Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious n 145
from their grandparents … Hunters speak of thinning sea ice that makes hunting much more
dangerous, changes to permafrost that alter spring run-off patterns, a northward shift in seal
and fish species, and rising sea levels with more extreme tidal fluctuations. One hunter told
us, ‘The sea must be getting warmer because it doesn’t freeze where it used to, even when the
air is very cold.’ Another said that the snow melts so quickly in the spring now that ‘it is as if
the earth just swallowed it!’ Many say their traditional knowledge is not as reliable as it was in
the past for predicting safe ice conditions. This is a great source of anxiety for Inuit hunters.
(Lynge 2009: 106)
Fennoscandia
The sensitive nature of the Arctic environment cannot sustain large numbers of people or
the wide-scale exploitation of energy resources … Changes in the flora, fauna and climate,
combined with the loss of entire living territories, will force indigenous people to seek new
ways of adapting …
In addition to climate change, indigenous peoples must accommodate other competing
land uses, such as oil fields, forest felling, tourism and mining … In reindeer husbandry, it
may lead to a reduction in herd sizes, the need to acquire additional food for the animals,
and changes in reindeer husbandry models and cultures. Continuous feeding will transform
nomadic reindeer herding, bringing it closer to domestic animal husbandry … If reindeer
herders have fewer reasons to travel within their environment, the use of environmental,
snow and climate terminology will become less important, along with the ability to navigate
within and read the environment … When reindeer no longer have some 300 plants in their
diet, the taste and fat content of reindeer meat will change and the fat will become unhealthy.
Due to climate change, the terminology and practical knowledge of nature and reindeer husbandry will decline and partly disappear. (Lemet-Klemetti Näkkäläjärvi 2009: 132, 140)
Russia
We have seen changes in nature and the climate, but it’s very different from one region to
another … [M]y region, Sakha Republic, is one of the coldest places in the world, where temperatures can go down to -50, -60, -70 degrees centigrade … In the tundra … we’ve seen that
in that place where a few years ago there were no trees or crops, now there are …
We’ve also seen variability in the temperature in the fall. Before in November there was
no rain, but now there is rain and the autumn is longer. After it rains, it can get very cold and
an ice layer develops, which makes it very difficult for the reindeer to get to the food below.
Also in winter it can rain and then it freezes—this is not good for reindeer health. We also
see that because of the warmer temperature, the rivers and lakes are open longer. Because we
are nomadic people, we are always moving with the reindeer, so we have to change our routes
and change the time of moving …
But when you try to change the route, there will be other reindeer herders, and you will
have the conflict between the reindeer herders and state enterprises of reindeer herding and
private reindeer herding, so there is no clear regulation of land use …
We have new legislation about land now which states that, as of next year, reindeer herders
need to buy or rent the pastures. But that is impossible because for one reindeer you need 300
hectares per year; so if you need to pay, you will need billions to rent …
One of the [adaptation] strategies is … when you get an ice layer, if you have a castrated
bull in the herd, it will be strong enough [to dig through the ice], whereas the rutting males
spend a lot of energy on getting the females and are weak and tired … [C]astrated males …
are strong and they can dig through the ice layer, and the females then have access to the
food. So you need to have castrates …
When there is a hot summer, we use the permafrost areas where the ice is open. This keeps
the insects from attacking the reindeer … because it’s colder there. But now with climate
change, the number of these places is falling. Other strategies include building shelters for the
146 n Thomas F. Thornton and Nadia Manasfi
reindeer to stay under in warm temperatures. We also burn moss to get the smoke that keeps
insects away, but there are new kinds of insects. (Mikhail Pogodaev, interview, 2009)
In the local context … pollutants take the form of thousands of empty metal drums, pesticides, radioisotope thermoelectric generators from lighthouses, and scrap metals abandoned
by industry and the military. Waste burial sites remain in the permafrost, and with the permafrost thawing, the danger from this waste increases.
The main result of all these problems is the depopulation of the North by the aborigines,
with the loss of the unique northern gene pool and circumpolar culture.
The most convenient ‘solution’ supported by the government is the displacement of
aboriginal peoples from traditional spheres of life and economic activity, moving them into
inhabited areas, and thus giving them the opportunity to receive unemployment benefits or
to become workers in modern industries. This is a painful process for northern aboriginal
peoples … In traditional economic activities reside the life and the future of the peoples of
the North … With the destruction of this way of life certain aboriginal peoples will disappear.
(Abryutina 2009: 168–169, 172)
Although not always couched in the same general terms, these perspectives emphasize the
key adaptation processes examined above. Table 2 illustrates how the perspectives map on to
these processes.
Table 2: Adaptation processes as applied to northern indigenous communities
Adaptation Process
Description
Mobility
•
•
Exchange
•
Rationing
•
•
Pooling
•
Diversification
•
•
Intensification
•
Innovation
•
•
Revitalization
•
Traveling farther to hunt sea mammals, collect plants, feed reindeer
Relocating or migrating away from land that is vulnerable to storms or
melting permafrost
Transfer of traditional knowledge (related to hunting, building shelters, etc.)
across generations
Reduction in the size of reindeer herds to accommodate competing land uses,
such as oil fields, forest felling, and mining
Caching food traditionally in ice cellar storage, but this faces disruptions
because of melting permafrost
Sharing new scientific knowledge and skills
Altering prey choice and diet breadth, such as hunting musk oxen when caribou
is not available, or shark fishing in Alaska
Use of castrates in reindeer herds
Feeding reindeer on smaller areas
Development of the hybrid aluminum sled-kayak
Invention of the toggle harpoon and float
Return to traditional knowledge, organization, and technologies, such as
semi-subterranean house structures and communal living arrangements for
resilience, cost savings, energy efficiency, etc.
Mobility is discussed in terms of increased risk to travel; increased need to travel farther due to
dispersals of wildlife populations (such as sea mammals), plants, or feed (reindeer); and increased
circumscription due to competition from other users (herders), dependence on infrastructure
(schools, roads, etc.), competing land uses (resource extraction or other herders), and even
Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious n 147
‘solutions’ to displacement, such as relocation or depopulation through outmigration. Exchange
and pooling are emphasized in terms of sharing new scientific knowledge, the reliability of traditional knowledge and skills and their transfer among generations, and sharing and tenure security over pools of subsistence resources. Rationing disruptions are caused by melting permafrost,
which renders ice cellar storage ineffective. Diversification is highlighted in the need to alter prey
choice and diet breadth and the use of castrates in reindeer herds. Intensification is discussed in
terms of reindeer feeding and corralling, rather than pasturing, and also in the ill effects of intensified resource exploitation, particularly hydrocarbon extraction from Arctic lands and waters, in
contradistinction to what is needed to reduce global warming. Innovation is highlighted in the
hybrid sled-kayak that allows for better navigation, given the expanding leads between ice floes.
Finally, revitalization is framed in terms of a return to traditional forms of knowledge, organization, and technologies. This is seen as part of an effort to re-empower northern indigenous
peoples to determine their own cultural path of adaptation and development in the context of
climate change, with appropriate support from larger socio-economic systems. Climate change
thus becomes a human rights and cultural sovereignty issue.
As this brief sample of Arctic indigenous perspectives makes clear in light of the eight processes of human adaptation presented above, households and communities are coping and
adapting in myriad ways. However, when these key processes are blocked, vulnerability and
exposure to risk are potentially increased. Obviously, it is too early to tell, in the dynamic Arctic
context, the extent to which some of the strategies, especially as concerns subsistence activities,
will prove to be viable means of adaptation in the long term. Davies (2008) emphasizes the difference between short-term coping strategies and adaptation strategies. Coping strategies entail
immediate measures that may help to survive an unusual decline in resources but may not be
sustainable in the long run. In contrast, adaptation strategies tend to spawn new cultural configurations that have evolved in response to changed conditions. Even still, as Romer’s rule suggests, pathways toward the maintenance of existing patterns may eventually serve as catalysts
for adaptation.
Indigenous peoples emphasize the disconnect between their own adaptation needs and the
responses and priorities of the state and other non-Native institutions, such as multinational
energy corporations and conservation organizations. Adaptive capacity could be enhanced
through further research into how key indigenous adaptation processes may be complicated
or put at risk by socio-economic policies or adaptation processes occurring at other scales. In
Arctic Alaska, this means assessing the foundational importance of sea ice habitats and Inuit
adaptations to marine mammals against the potential risks of policies that support (1) the intensification of offshore oil and gas development, (2) shipping opportunities to cope with dwindling domestic energy supplies or to exploit reduced transport costs through the Arctic seas,
and (3) restrictions on sea mammal hunting as a means of conserving populations through
rationing kills (see Itta 2009). Analyzing the nexus of climate and other socio-ecological impacts
and adaptation responses at the household, community, state, and other institutional levels over
time offers the best opportunity for reducing the so-called adaptation deficit and identifying
opportunities for coordinating adaptation policy across scales in the Arctic and elsewhere.
Conclusion
It has now become almost a cliché to point out that adaptation to climate change must happen
in conjunction with mitigation in order to cope with increasing environmental change, and that
adaptation should not be viewed as a stand-alone or single-sector, single-scale issue. Rather,
148 n Thomas F. Thornton and Nadia Manasfi
adaptation must be considered in the context of long-standing and evolving multi-scalar ecological, social, economic, political, and institutional circumstances (Adger et al. 2003; Nelson
et al. 2007; Smit et al. 2000; Smithers and Smit 1997). However, to date, adaptation in climate
policy has been poorly theorized and plagued by conceptual biases. We have emphasized critical
weaknesses in the present approach to adaptation that, unless addressed, may hamper even the
most progressive, multi-scalar institutional efforts to deal with escalating climate change.
We have stressed that human adaptation is not a single strategy but rather a set of diverse,
intersecting processes that may evolve autonomously or through planning in response to the
panoply of climatic and non-climatic stressors. Up to the present, conceptual work on fundamental human adaptation processes in the climate change context has been underdeveloped
with a few notable exceptions. As a consequence, analysts and planners often ignore key findings from long-term anthropological and geographical studies of adaptation, focusing too much
on too few institutions (modern states and communities) and processes (market exchange and
innovation in the form of techno-fix) at the expense of other units (households) and methods (rationing and revitalization). Successful adaptation strategies may entail interconnected
aspects of all of the eight major adaptation processes we have identified—and potentially more.
Even with a broader set of conceptual tools, putting adaptation theory into practice will remain
challenging because of the uncertainty of future climate change and its impacts and due to
the difficulty of evaluating and linking adaptation measures across scales and against shortterm and long-term costs and opportunities, as interpreted locally within the ‘limits’ of existing
socio-political entities (Adger et al. 2009).
By enlarging the typology of adaptation processes and creating a metalanguage to characterize and analyze diverse modes of reorganizing across cultures, we have sought to broaden the
discussion on adaptation processes as sources of resilience and adaptive capacity. Hopefully,
such an effort will serve to expand the scope of climate impact assessment and adaptation planning to address a range of processes that are currently neglected, taken for granted, or irreflexively viewed as maladaptive from a status quo perspective. Furthermore, adaptation policy and
funding should address not only future vulnerabilities to climate change but also past and current vulnerabilities and adaptive strategies to both climate variability and non-climatic stressors.
If adaptation funding (under UNFCCC and elsewhere) fails to enlarge its framing of risks and
adaptation processes, vulnerable groups, such as indigenous communities in the fast-warming
Arctic, are unlikely to be able to adapt successfully to future climate change or will be forced to
do so in ways that serve dominant interests rather than their own diverse and long-term needs
(cf. Adger et al. 2006; Barnett 2008; Burton 2008; Handmer 2008; Pielke 1998; Ribot et al. 2008;
Smithers and Smit 1997; UNDP 2002).
Some institutional innovations suggest that awareness of these links is improving, which is an
important first step. Newly formed ‘boundary organizations’ are attempting to coordinate adaptation processes across present sectors and scales. It is beyond the scope of this article to review
these institutional efforts in detail, but one example may suffice to illustrate the developments
and challenges faced. The United Kingdom Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP), which was
already established in 1997, is one of the earliest examples of such a boundary organization
(see Metcalf 2008). To date, the organization’s efforts have focused largely on building adaptive capacity as a prelude to specific actions, and some links to critical adaptation processes are
already apparent. For example, a major focus of the first phase of the UK’s national Adapting to
Climate Change Programme (2008–2011) has been on building adaptive capacity by developing a comprehensive evidence base of climate change impacts, raising awareness of the need for
and benefits of early action, and embedding the consideration of climate change into policies
and programs. UKCIP is playing a leading role by liaising between scientists, policy makers,
Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious n 149
and various stakeholders. The organization is thus effectively pooling information from various sources and developing it into credible knowledge that is meaningful to businesses, local
authorities, and other parties. Of course, it would be a mistake to assume that this capacity
building will automatically lead to adaptation action. UKCIP’s organizational and procedural
approach shows potential for achieving adaptation action across scales, such as with strategic
flood assessments, but it is still too early to tell how effective it will be in the long term.
Moreover, adaptation biases are evident. These include a reliance on bolstering existing infrastructure through techno-fix measures and a neglect of more socially transformative adaptation
processes, such as revitalization and, to a certain extent, diversification. It can be argued that the
greatest benefit would involve the introduction of new elements or significant restructurings
to society, instead of merely ‘shuffling around’ with or within existing features or structures.
Handmer and Dovers (1996) point out the human tendency to seek to maintain the status quo
or to return to it after a disruption, as opposed to being more open to major changes. This is evident in the specific example of the UK’s flood risk management option and in the country more
generally, where alterations in physical structures (e.g., building the Thames Barrier to protect
London and expanding the development ban in flood plains) are made rather than aiming for
changes in human behavior.
It could be argued that in the UK the limiting factors to major adaptation reside in the willingness of the government to change its policies and the public’s willingness to accept changes
to its lifestyle or standard of living. This contrasts with northern indigenous people, whose
resilience stems from being able and willing to change their lifestyle, depending on environmental conditions. In their case, the limiting factor is less their resistance to change than the
barriers imposed by governments (e.g., development on herding or hunting lands or forced
sedentism, etc.).
Climate change research reveals that the two groups’ fates are inextricably linked, however,
as a recent editorial in opposition to the expansion of the UK’s Stansted airport, written by the
president of Greenland’s Inuit Circumpolar Council, Aqqaluk Lynge (2007), makes clear.
What happens in Britain affects us in the north …
Most flights from Stansted are not for an important purpose. They are mostly for holidays
and leisure. Is it too much to ask for some moderation for the sake of my people today and
your people tomorrow? For the sake also of our wildlife and everything else in the world’s
precious and fragile environment …
Some might dismiss our concerns, saying: “The Arctic is far away and few people live
there.” That would be immensely short-sighted, as well as callous … [T]he Arctic is the
barometer of the globe’s environmental health. You can take the pulse of the world in the
Arctic. Inuit, the people who live farther north than anyone else, are the canary in the global
coal mine …
We are not asking the world to take a backward economic step. All we are asking is that
our neighbors in the south greatly reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. This does
not need big sacrifices, but it will need some change in people’s lifestyles. Is that plane trip
really necessary?
Lynge points out how the UK’s short-term strategy for economic growth conflicts with its
long-term strategy for greenhouse gas emissions reductions. His implicit suggestion that airplane travel must be rationed (or its deleterious effects as a mobility strategy otherwise reduced)
is consistent with a framework that is willing to contemplate rationing or diversification as an
adaptation strategy. Greenland itself is facing these contradictions in its own development and
responses to climate change (Nuttall 2009).
150 n Thomas F. Thornton and Nadia Manasfi
Unfortunately, many national and local adaptation plans are not contemplating the full range
of potential strategies or the implications of continued increases in consumption and emissions
on others who may be disproportionally affected and whose vulnerability may be increased by
such actions. Consequently, climate change is rapidly emerging as a human rights and environmental justice issue, as the statist framing of mitigation and adaptation measures often occludes
crucial moral, livelihood, and entitlement considerations of minorities (Caney 2009), such as
indigenous peoples of the Far North. However, gaining the moral and judicial high ground
alone will not win the struggle against climate change impacts. Only genuine adaptation can do
that. To transfer what Sapir (1924: 427–429) said about ‘spurious’ culture to adaptation:
As long as [adaptation] is looked upon as a decorative appendage of large political units, one
can plausibly argue that its [success] is bound up with the maintenance of the prestige of
these units … The national-political unit tends to arrogate [adaptation] to itself and up to a
certain point it succeeds in doing so, but only at the price of serious [adaptation] impoverishment of vast portions of its terrain …
… The minute increment of individuality which alone makes [adaptation] in the self and
eventually builds up [adaptation] in the community seems somehow overlooked. Canned
[adaptation] is so much easier to administer.
n ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank Patricia Cochrane, Janice Grey, and Mikhail Pogodaev for agreeing to
be interviewed during the UNFCCC’s 15th Conference of Parties in Copenhagen, Denmark, in
December 2009. Thanks also go to two anonymous reviewers and the editors for their helpful
comments on early drafts of the article.
n Thomas F. Thornton is Senior Research Fellow at the Environmental Change Institute,
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, where he also directs
the Environmental Change and Management MSc course. An anthropologist, he has written widely on human ecology, adaptation, local and traditional ecological knowledge, conservation, coastal and marine environments, conceptualizations of space and place, and
the political ecology of resource management among the indigenous peoples of the Pacific
Northwest and the circumpolar North. His most recent publications include “A Tale of
Three Parks: Tlingit Conservation, Representation, and Repatriation in Southeast Alaska’s
National Parks” (2010) and Being and Place among the Tlingit (2008).
Nadia Manasfi completed her masters degree in Environmental Change and Management
at the University of Oxford in 2009. A paper based on the results of her dissertation, “Finding the Balance: Challenges and Opportunities for Climate Change Adaptation in Different
Levels of English Local Government,” co-authored with Elizabeth Greenhalgh, is in press.
Following graduation, she conducted research on adaptation in indigenous communities
as part of an internship at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute. Her
more recent work with the German International Cooperation (GIZ, formerly GTZ) has
focused on climate change adaptation in developing countries, and she plays an active role
in advising partner countries on climate-robust development planning.
Adaptation—Genuine and Spurious n 151
n Notes
1. Dawkins (1989) proposes the term ‘memes’, an analogue of ‘genes’, as a fundamental unit of culture,
although such discrete units have yet to be mapped (Benitez-Bribiesca 2001).
2. Initiated by the United Nations Environment Programme, the CBD entered into force on 29 December 1993. Its three main objectives are (1) the conservation of biological diversity, (2) the sustainable
use of the components of biological diversity, and (3) the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits
arising out of the utilization of genetic resources. See http://www.cbd.int/.
3. See Gorman (1999) about a failed attempt to revitalize a threatened species, the Arabian Oryx.
4. Seven northern indigenous representatives from Alaska, Canada, Siberia, and Norway were interviewed between 8–12 December 2009 at the COP15 in Copenhagen. Five of the interviews were held
at the Bella Center and the other two at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Arctic Tent. The
interviews were conducted in English and lasted approximately 15–30 minutes. With the exception of
one interview that involved two interviewees, the interviews were conducted on a one-to-one basis,
and five were audio-recorded. The interviews were intended to discover any changes in weather/climate that the interviewees have noticed in recent years, what the impact of those changes have been
on their lifestyle and community, and what adaptation strategies, if any, the community has already
put in place. In addition, the interviewees were asked about support or challenges they have faced in
addressing climate change and what their hopes for COP15 were.
5. See Agrawal (2008) for recommendations regarding adapting institutions in poor, rural areas.
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Unintended Consequences
Climate Change Policy in a Globalizing World
Yda Schreuder
䡲
ABSTRACT: The cap-and-trade system introduced by the European Union (EU) in order
to comply with carbon emissions reduction targets under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Kyoto Protocol (1997) has in some instances led
to the opposite outcome of the one intended. In fact, the ambitious energy and climate
change policy adopted by the EU—known as the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)—
has led to carbon leakage and in some instances to relocation or a shift in production
of energy-intensive manufacturing to parts of the world where carbon reduction commitments are not in effect. EU business organizations state that corporate strategies
are now directed toward expanding production overseas and reducing manufacturing
capacity in the Union due to its carbon constraints. As the EU has been “going-it-alone”
with mixed success in terms of complying with the Kyoto Protocol’s binding emissions
reduction targets, the net outcome of the ETS market-based climate change policy is
more rather than less global CO2 emissions.
䡲
KEYWORDS: cap-and-trade, carbon constraints, carbon leakage, energy-intensive industries, EU Emissions Trading Scheme
International energy and emissions reporting entities present a bleak picture of the future of
climate change and project that a pathway to long-term stabilization of greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions concentrations in the atmosphere at around 450 parts per million will likely not be
achieved. In the 2008 World Energy Outlook—published annually by the International Energy
Agency (IEA)—global energy demand is projected to grow by 1.6 percent per year on average
until 2030, which translates into an increase of 45 percent over the same period. China and
India are expected to account for over half of the increase in energy demand while the Middle
East will emerge as a major new demand region (IEA 2008). The scenarios of future energy use
as presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 provide some
hope for mitigating emissions of GHGs but the apparent failure of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) under the Kyoto Protocol in curbing GHG
emissions creates doubt about how effective emissions reduction policies are (IPCC 2007).
Of the greenhouse house gases, CO2 is the major gas responsible for global warming because
of the immense volume in which it is emitted mainly from burning fossil fuel.1 Although some
of the trends predicted prior to the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis may have changed
somewhat, the fact that most of the growth of fossil fuel use will occur in non-Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries suggests that the overall predictions of climate change—a 6-degree Celsius rise by 2050 according to the 2012 IEA report—will
Environment and Society: Advances in Research 3 (2012): 103–122 © Berghahn Books
doi:10.3167/ares.2012.030107
104
䡲
Yda Schreuder
not significantly alter in the next few decades (BP Energy Outlook 2011). In fact, under current
policies, a doubling of CO2 emissions worldwide by 2050 is not unlikely. The Global Carbon
Project (2010) reports that carbon dioxide emissions rose 5.9 percent in 2010. The increase—a
half billion extra tons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere—stands as the largest increase in
any year since the Industrial Revolution and the largest percent increase since 2003. Researchers suggest that the high growth rate reflects a bounce-back from the 1.4 percent drop in emissions in 2009—the year the recession had its biggest impact—but the Global Carbon Report
suggests that little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse gas emissions reduction and
that combustion of coal accounts for more than half of the growth in emissions. In China alone,
emissions grew 10.4 percent in 2010, mostly attributed to the use of coal.
Debated presently—but not seriously considered at the time when the Kyoto Protocol was
first signed in 1997—is the recognition that national emissions reduction commitments have
little effect in a global economy driven by a rapid increase in foreign trade and foreign investment and organized around multinational corporations and international production networks
(Giddens 2009; Klein 2008; Koch 2011; Newell and Paterson 2011; Schreuder 2009). This naturally leads to questions about the merits of a market-based regulatory approach to curbing CO2
emissions as adopted by the Kyoto Protocol and implemented by the EU in 2005. As the Kyoto
Protocol was based on the premise that developed countries would assume the largest responsibility for the concentration of accumulated GHG emissions in the atmosphere, we now know
that a far greater share of CO2 currently emitted derives from production in emerging economies; India and China in particular.
This article assesses the forces that drive the global market economy and determine why
multinational corporations and in particular energy-intensive industries strategize to relocate
or outsource production to developing countries that are not subjected to GHG emissions
reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The discussion will focus on carbon leakage and
the expanded use of coal as a source of energy for electricity generation and manufacturing in
developing countries. The expanding economies of India and China, in particular, warrant specific attention because of their rapid growth in industrial capacity. The article’s title “Unintended
Consequences” refers to the notion that contrary to the Kyoto Protocol’s objective, global GHG
emissions have increased rather than been reduced, and, ironically, the implementation of the
EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) or cap-and-trade system may be partially to blame. Carbon leakage is the term used to describe how, due to emissions reduction policies in one part of
the world, enhanced emissions occur in other parts of the world with the net effect that overall
global emissions increase. The assessment of the impact of the implementation or the ETS on
carbon leakage is presented in the context of the rapidly expanding global economy under the
capitalist system of production since the 1980s when the World Trade Organization (WTO), the
World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) began to develop their policies under
the guidance of neoliberal policies promoted in Washington and London. The article forms a
case study of how market forces drive growth in the global economy and confront the limits of
growth to the Earth resource base and carrying capacity.
Climate Change Policy in a Globalizing World
While emissions have stabilized in some of the developed economies, international trade and
foreign direct investment by multinational corporations has shifted the source of CO2 emissions to developing countries (Schreuder 2009). We now recognize that the rise in emissions
from goods produced in developing countries (non-OECD) but consumed in industrialized
Unintended Consequences
䡲
105
countries (OECD) was six times greater than the emissions savings of industrialized countries
(Peters et al. 2011) and that relocation or shift in production of particularly energy-intensive
manufacturing played a key role in the redistribution of emissions.
The Kyoto Protocol recognized two groups of countries; Annex 1, which comprised most of
the industrialized countries, and non-Annex I developing countries.2 Annex I countries committed to legally binding reductions of greenhouse gas emissions of—on average—5.2 percent
below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012, with the US target set at 7 percent and the EU target
set at 8 percent. The Kyoto Protocol came into force on 16 February 2005 after 55 Annex I countries covering at least 55 percent of 1990 GHG emissions had ratified the treaty.3 The United
States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol and the Bush Administration officially withdrew from
the Kyoto Protocol shortly after the president’s inauguration in 2002. Russia was the last major
country to ratify the Protocol in November 2004. India, China, and Brazil ratified the treaty but
were not required to commit to emissions reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol as they
were classified as non-Annex I countries.
Whether it was fair or expedient to not submit developing countries to binding GHG emissions reduction efforts under the Kyoto Protocol has been discussed since the beginning of the
UNFCCC in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Clearly, as the largest share of historical greenhouse gases
originated in developed industrialized countries and as the per capita emissions in developing countries were still relatively low, developing countries were not eager to commit to binding emissions reduction targets during the Kyoto Protocol’s commitment period (2008–2012)
but should—according to the main parties of the UNFCCC—be encouraged to participate in a
meaningful and eventually significant way to help curb global emissions. From the start of the
negotiations in Rio de Janeiro, it was understood that the share of global emissions originating
in developing countries would grow as these countries implemented economic development
policies to meet their social and development needs. Annex I countries agreed that—as developing countries develop industrial capacity—they would help pay for and supply technologies
to them for climate change–related projects in order to encourage a more energy-efficient and
lower-emissions development path. This clause in the Kyoto Protocol was defined as the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) and through the linking of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme
(ETS) with the Kyoto Protocol, the CDM has been applied by the ETS as one of the major mechanisms by which countries could meet their agreed-to emissions reduction commitments.4
Critics of the Kyoto Protocol—including US government officials under the Bush Administration—had always maintained that since China, India, and other developing countries would
soon be among the countries contributing a major share to global GHG emissions, they should
come on board with binding GHG emissions reduction commitments for the post-Kyoto negotiations. Without carbon constraints imposed on developing countries, they argued, corporate industries in developed countries would lose their competitive position and would likely
expand production in non-carbon-constrained countries like China, India, and Brazil, or any
other country competitively positioned for foreign direct investment (FDI) or foreign trade. In
that case, there would be no net reduction of GHG emissions concentrations in the atmosphere
but just a shift in the geographical distribution of the source of emissions due to expanding
manufacturing capacity in the developing non-Annex I countries. The net result would be carbon leakage, which suggests an increase in overall global carbon emissions as a result of emissions reduction strategies and legislation in countries where climate change policies aimed at
CO2 emissions reductions apply.5 Whereas this may sound contradictory, in fact it is very logical
if we consider competitive forces in the global economy. Because CO2 reduction policies will
likely increase production costs in countries where abatement strategies are in effect, the market would shift production to nonabatement countries. This would be particularly the case for
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energy-intensive industries, which are defined as industries that use a relatively large amount of
energy per unit value manufactured and therefore produce high emissions relative to its useful
output.
The market-based approach to climate change policy as designed under the Kyoto Protocol
and as later implemented by the EU was heavily influenced by political considerations at a time
when neoliberal policies—and in particular US policies—dominated international debates and
negotiations. The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987) had
issued the so-called Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, which promoted science and
technology and a free-market approach to sustainable development. In preparation for the UN
Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) also known as the Earth Summit, in
Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the Business Council for Sustainable Development —an international
group of CEOs representing the major global corporations—was formed to advise UNCED on
business and industry issues and to stimulate involvement by business in UNCED. Its leader,
Maurice Strong, became the secretary-general to chair the UNCED negotiations. Environmentalists saw the Business Council as representative of business interests in policy making and as
evidence of corporate hijacking of UNCED. Within a year of the Earth Summit, The Ecologist’s
edited volume, Whose Common Future? (1993) questioned the success and credibility of the
negotiations. Even though the meetings were perceived to be all-inclusive and broad-ranging,
it was clear that the corporate sector was a major player both in the formulation of the various
conventions and as actor in the negotiations. In the battle to save the planet, free market environmentalism was promoted and the corporate sponsors were given special access to the secretariat. The philosophy of the Business Council on Sustainable Development prevailed throughout
most of the deliberations and the desirability of economic growth, the market economy, and the
Western development model based on neoliberal principles were not questioned. UNCED thus
never had a chance of addressing the real problems of the environment and development relationship, according to the authors of Whose Common Future? (1993). The Earth Summit’s action
plan, Agenda 21, suggested ways to enable poor nations to achieve sustainable development,
but did not question the desirability of the rich nations’ pursuit of the same. So, the authors of
Whose Common Future? (1993) asked the question in whose interest we are promoting sustainable development, and who is managing it?
The recommendations for sustainable development as adopted by the UNCED in 1992 followed fairly closely the recommendations made by the WCED. In the Brundtland Report commissioned by the WCED sustainable development is defined as development that meets the
needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their needs. In Planet Dialectics (1999), Wolfgang Sachs questioned the recommendations of
the Brundtland Report and the support for the Western model of development as it is at odds
with both equity considerations in the present generation as well as sustainability of the Earth
resource base and carrying capacity considering future generations. Sachs poses that in a fundamental way sustainability is about global citizenship and argues that the principles of equity and
sustainability derive from equal access to resources and the global commons. In his critique of
the Earth Summit, Sachs claims that the call from the developing countries for a more equitable
share in global wealth creation and access to resources was translated in terms of the right to
development.
At the Earth Summit the leaders from the developing countries aligned with the business
community from the developed countries in their praise for economic development as the solution to all global environmental problems. The argument was that with higher levels of economic
development and technological know-how would come greater care for the environment and
more efficient use of energy, thus lower pollution and GHG emissions levels. As Sachs (2002)
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later stated, the quest for justice was firmly wedded to the idea of development; nobody had to
profoundly change, and all parties could turn to business-as-usual, a position amply borne out
in recent years. The authors of Whose Common Future? (1993) asserted that the UN-sponsored
Earth Summit was nothing more than a repeat of the development debates of the 1960s and
1970s. They maintained that mainstream solutions proposed at the Earth Summit would be
counterproductive because the Western economic development model was never questioned.
The US and EU proposals presented at the Earth Summit to combat global environmental crises, including the UNFCCC climate change policy proposal, recommended limiting population growth, stimulating free-market enterprise, and the application of Western technology and
transfer of this technology, know-how, and capital. The recommendations, according to the
authors of Whose Common Future? (1993) did not sound terribly convincing after decades-long
efforts to fight poverty, famine, and starvation by the same means. Repeated efforts to make
life for the majority of the population of the developing world more tolerable through programs such as basic needs fulfillment, human resources development and education, and now
sustainable development, obscure the real issue, which is that the introduction of the Western
development model has more often than not resulted in increased poverty and environmental
degradation (Harvey 2006; Peet 2007; Slater and Taylor 1999).6
Neoliberal Capitalism and the Limits to Growth
As Daly (1996) pointed out, economic growth can only proceed to the point where throughput
of matter and energy stays within the regenerative or assimilative capacity of the Earth ecosystems. Thus, ultimately, sustainable development has to be understood as “development without
growth” at a steady state, which requires a major geopolitical change and political-economic
adaptation. In pursuit of profit from business-as-usual economic growth, many believe that
capitalism in its present neoliberal form is unsustainable (Daly 1996; Harvey 2005, 2006; Klein
2008; O’Connor 1994; Porritt 2005; Schreuder 2009; Wallerstein 2000). Neoliberal capitalism
aims to render maximum profit at minimum costs and thus global competition drives many businesses to outsource to locations where labor costs are lower and where strict environmental rules
and regulation are not in effect (Chomsky 1999; Sen 1999; Stiglitz 2002 ). The absence of carbon
constraints and the abundance of coal as cheap energy source form two other reasons why relocation may occur; a scenario causing much higher levels of CO2 emissions than would have been
the case had the Kyoto Protocol and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme not been in effect.
In essence, it can be argued that an economic system built on profit and global competition
has caused an irreparable rift with the natural laws of life (Chomsky 1999; Harvey 2006; Klein
2008). Stern admits in The Economics of Climate Change (2006) that climate change policy under
the UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol shows clear evidence of market failure. In his persuasive expose,
Capitalism as If the World Matters, Porritt (2005) charges that the forces of capitalism and the
challenges of the biophysical limits to growth require profound transformations if we want to
avoid dramatic disruptions to life on earth. Arguing that capitalism in its present form is unsustainable, he asserts that only principles of sustainable development can provide the foundations
upon which to base the transformations necessary to the global challenges we now face. He suggests that core values like a sense of interdependence, empathy, equity, personal responsibility,
and intergenerational justice should be the guiding principles for a new world vision, but how to
channel national interests, individualism, materialism, greed, and pursuit of riches, into a more
sustainable lifestyle, remains the question. Such a transformation requires a major adjustment
or change from our business-as-usual approach to development and economic growth.
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The US directed neoliberal model of development has been the dominant model of global
economic development since World War II (Sachs 1999). Western development strategies and
capitalist interests and pursuits have become the guiding principles of most international negotiations (including the UNFCCC) and UN institutions like the WTO, the World Bank, and the
IMF. These institutions, initiated and supported by the US and the EU have formed the mechanism by which foreign investment and trade have been promoted. The so-called neoliberal principles have directed development—in particular since the days of Ronald Reagan and Margaret
Thatcher—under the banner of the Washington Consensus. The term Washington Consensus
was first coined in the late 1980s by John Williamson (1990) of the Institute for International
Economics; a research institution devoted to the study of international economic policy to promote a relatively specific set of economic policy prescriptions that were considered to constitute
a standard reform package recommended for countries in economic distress by Washingtonbased institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the US Treasury Department. The
policies the Washington Consensus promoted were policies pursued in Chile after the fall of
President Salvador Allende (Valdez 1995) and the oil crises of the 1970s but they became a set of
quite specific prescriptive dictates during the 1980s with the debt crisis in Latin America when
the IMF and World Bank signed on to them (Harvey 2006; Sachs 1999).7 The term neoliberalism refers to an intellectual and political movement that espouses economic liberalism as a
means to promoting economic development and securing political liberty. Inspired by Friedrich
Hayek and Milton Friedman, the movement is sometimes described as an effort to revert to the
economic policies of nineteenth-century classical liberalism based on Adam Smith’s and David
Ricardo’s ideas of national economic growth but, more specifically, it refers to the historically
specific reemergence of economic liberalism among economists and policymakers during the
1970s through 1990s—the period of the Washington Consensus.8
Neoliberalism is not a unified economic theory or political philosophy but it denotes neoclassical influenced economic approaches and libertarian political philosophies that portray
government control over the economy as inefficient, corrupt, or otherwise undesirable. It largely
rejects post–World War II Keynesian economics and—as pursued by the WTO, the World Bank,
and the IMF—has greatly advanced the interests of multinational corporations. Also, neoliberal
economic policies have led to rapid expansion of foreign investment in and trade with emerging
markets like China and India. As a result, both India and China have entered a period of rapid
economic growth. In the case of India, outsourcing of information technologies (IT) and financial services played an important role in the growth spurt. In China, rapid growth occurred in
industrial production, much of it through investments by multinational corporations for export
production. China’s real gross domestic product (GDP) has grown at around 10 percent per
year for the past decade and economic forecasts for further growth remain strong. Together
with strong economic growth, consumer demand is surging in both India and China because
of the growing affluence of an emerging urban middle class. With China’s entry into the WTO
in November 2001, the Chinese government made many specific commitments to trade and
investment liberalization that have substantially opened up the Chinese economy to investment
by foreign firms through FDI and foreign trade. Much of the investment has occurred in the
energy-intensive sector, which has contributed to the rapid increase in carbon emissions (EIA
2006).9
In both India and China, manufacturing capacity is fueled mostly by direct combustion of
coal. Predictions are that the growing energy demand could drive a fourfold increase in the
use of coal by 2030, which would result in a greatly increased annual emissions total. Together
with strong economic growth and increased consumer demand, India and China’s demand for
fluid fuels is surging as well. The EIA (2006) forecasts that China’s oil consumption will increase
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by almost half a million barrels per day, or over 40 percent of the total growth in world oil
demand in the next decade.10 Other rapidly growing developing countries in Latin America,
such as Brazil and Argentina, or Mexico and Chile, are also fast becoming large energy users
and carbon emitters. In terms of the increase in pressure on the carrying capacity of the Earth
ecological system as a result of the rapidly growing global economy, important questions arise
as to how the world’s ecosystems can withstand the ongoing increase in carbon emissions in
the atmosphere. The IPCC (2007) alerts us to the fact that carbon dioxide concentration in the
atmosphere has increased from a preindustrial value of about 280 parts per million to a rapidly
approaching critical figure of 450 parts per million. The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment conducted under the auspices of the United Nations concluded that the world’s ecosystems, ranging from water, soils, the biosphere, and the atmosphere, are seriously undermined
as the world’s rapidly developing countries are moving to center stage of the global economy
(World Health Organization 2005).
The EU Emissions Trading Scheme and Carbon Leakage
The best example of a failure of a market-based approach to climate change policy is the EU ETS
implementation of cap-and-trade. The implementation of the EU ETS provides an opportunity
to assess how the forces of corporate capitalism address and deal with carbon emissions reduction in a partially carbon constrained global economy. In analyzing the impact of EU climate
change policy, I focus on carbon leakage and the more prominent place of coal in fuelling manufacturing industries around the world leading to increased global emissions.
The EU ETS was implemented in 2005 and forms the cornerstone of the EU climate change
policy covering about 45 percent of total EU CO2 emissions. The ETS became the showcase
of the EU commitment to reduce GHG emissions. Since the EU ETS is linked to the Kyoto
Protocol’s Flexible Mechanisms, it also has a global reach and is considered the model for climate change policy worldwide.11 The ETS has been studied and analyzed by business groups and
environmental groups alike as both groups tried to influence policy makers by showing how
effective or ineffective or damaging the ETS was going to be on global emissions and industrial
competitiveness. Many considered the first phase of the EU ETS (2005–2007) as an experiment
or test case but as we are now approaching the end of the second phase of the ETS (2008–2012),
it is time to make up the balance sheet.12
Emissions trading or cap-and-trade was chosen as it promised to meet the EU GHG emissions reduction goal in the most cost-effective way (Ellerman and Joskow 2008; Hillebrand et
al. 2002). The ETS only covers CO2 emissions from large industrial and energy installations in
a limited number of energy-intensive sectors such as refining, coke ovens, cement, pulp and
paper, glass, steel and metal, and power generation. By establishing a market price for carbon,
EU policymakers envisioned that industrial firms in these sectors would make investments
based on reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency. Combined with a robust compliance system, emissions trading would ensure that emissions reduction targets would be met
and as such the ETS would comply with the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol targets. In
balancing effectiveness and competitiveness, complex, and sometimes perverse incentives were
entered into the scheme that contributed to a good deal of skepticism among the public.
The EU ETS introduced the national allocation of CO2 allowances, which permit particular
segments of industry to emit certain amounts of carbon dioxide. Each member state of the EU
had to first submit a National Allocation Plan (NAP). Based on the agreed-to Kyoto reduction of
CO2 emissions, each EU member had established its own reduction target. In the NAP, member
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states could specify which industrial sectors would be covered and which would be excluded.13
Furthermore, each country could specify how new entrants, closures and transfers or mergers
would be treated, and what kind of allocation methodologies would be used. In the decisionmaking process, industrial representatives, environmental groups, and other interested stakeholders had a good deal of influence, and the ultimate reason why some sectors were included
and others excluded was not always clear. Many believe that harmonization of the NAPs and better oversight is urgently needed for the EU ETS to gain credibility and for the scheme to become
the model for CO2 emissions trading. Even though the EU ETS will ultimately be judged based
on its effectiveness as a tool to reduce GHG emissions, the underlying rationale for choosing
emissions trading was based on economic considerations.
By implementing the EU ETS an attempt was made to account for a market externality (CO2
emissions) with a minimal impact on competitiveness. In theory, the market price of carbon
is driven by the abatement costs of CO2 emissions reduction, ensuring that the target reduction is achieved at the least cost. By creating a market price for carbon, investment would be
made in energy efficiency and better process technology. The ETS offered business flexibility to
achieve the objective by low-cost abatement or by allowing credits from the Kyoto Protocol’s
Flexible Mechanisms to be used for compliance. Correct allocation of the number of permits
per industry and installation was critical. The number of permits should be fewer than the
CO2 emissions reported in 1990, however, during the ETS first round most member countries
allotted a far greater number of permits than would serve the carbon market. During phase I
(2005–2007), allowances were allotted for free, which meant that there was hardly a price for
carbon and therefore no incentive to invest in energy efficiency or improved process technology.
At the end of the first phase of the ETS, the parties involved realized that the Kyoto Protocol CO2
emissions reduction scheme was not on target, which led to an intensive debate on the effectiveness of issuing free allowances and the desirability of auctioning carbon credits during the
second phase. By this time, the EU had begun a public debate on the wisdom of the EU goingit-alone policy as interested parties anticipated that higher energy costs would eventually affect
the Union’s global competitiveness and slow down investment in Europe with the subsequent
expansion of production to non-Annex I countries or the United States. This response, known
as carbon leakage, suggests that an increase rather than a reduction in global GHG emissions
would be the result.
As discussed earlier, carbon leakage is the term used to suggest an increase in overall global
carbon emissions as a result of emissions reduction strategies in countries where climate change
policies aimed at CO2 emissions reductions apply (Annex I) in instances where the producer
cannot pass on the increase in cost of production to the consumer. This is the case, for instance,
in aluminum production where prices are set on a global exchange, and where the manufacturer will want to locate production where carbon constraints are not in effect and where coal
is abundant and cheap. Thus, CO2 emissions reduction targets in some parts of the world may
have an effect on demand for fossil fuels with higher carbon content in nonabatement countries
(Sijms et al. 2004).
The lobbying group for energy-intensive industries began a public debate about the wisdom
of the EU’s going-it-alone policy from the very beginning, when the EU Commission began the
deliberations about the ETS targeting energy-intensive industries in 2001 (Alliance of Energy
Intensive Industries 2004, 2005). A cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions would
carry a carbon price and carbon would thus become a cost of production. Anticipating that the
EU economy under the Kyoto regime would become a carbon constrained economy, industry leaders lobbied hard to give specific direction to the implementation of an emissions trading scheme. The Alliance of Energy Intensive Industries has been the main lobbying group
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for the industry. It was argued that goods that contained more carbon or had been produced
with greater energy intensity would be relatively more expensive than goods that contained less
carbon or used less energy. Therefore, in a partly carbon constrained global economy, carbon
constrained countries would import goods from nonabatement countries where no carbon constraints applied. In November 2005, the Alliance issued a call for action on the part of the EU
to resolve these fundamental problems associated with the rise in energy prices as the position
of EU energy-intensive industries in the global market was seriously undermined (Alliance of
Energy Intensive Industries 2005). As the EU manufacturing industry was paying the price for
a hastily designed ETS, they argued, policymakers should take responsibility for the failure of
the scheme and solve the problem by reforming the ETS. The Alliance recommended that CO2
prices should be separated from power prices and that windfall profits on the part of power
producers should not be at the expense of energy-intensive manufacturers.14
Producers of energy-intensive products such as iron and steel, and aluminum manufacturers
have four choices in dealing with cost increases due to carbon constraints. First, they can invest
in more energy-efficient plants or process technology. If this is not an option then they can
buy allowances provided these are available on the carbon market at a reasonable price. If they
cannot afford to buy allowances or carbon permits to facilitate production then future business
prospects will be affected and market share of the company will fall. The fourth and final option
is to relocate production outside the carbon-constrained region. The latter, obviously, is the
most damaging as carbon leakage occurs mainly between Annex I and non-Annex I countries
of the UNFCCC and between those Annex I countries that have committed to CO2 emissions
reductions under the Kyoto Protocol and Annex I countries that did not ratify the Protocol and
therefore did not commit to binding emissions reduction targets (e.g., the United States). Carbon leakage may also occur among committed Annex I countries with high reduction targets
(like the West European EU members) and countries such as Russia, the Ukraine, and some
East-Central European countries, which experienced a decline in emissions due to stagnating
economic performance after the fall of communism (see Table 1).
Carbon leakage can be triggered by direct carbon costs (price for carbon allowance or carbon credits) and indirect carbon costs resulting from higher power or electricity prices. Carbon
leakage is likely to occur if carbon costs are high and cannot be passed on to the consumer via
higher product prices and if production is exposed to international competition and foreign
Table 1. Comparison of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 2005 (total, per capita, per GDP)
China**
European Union
Russian Federation
United States
Total
(in Mt CO2
equiv.*)
Per Capita
(in tons CO2
equiv.)
Per GDP
(in tons CO2
equiv. per
thousand US$)
Percent Change
in total greenhouse
gas emissions
(1990–2005; %)
4,963.1
4,953.5
2,289.2
7,241.5
3.9
10.7
15.9
24.2
4.1
0.5
6.5
0.7
31.7
–5.8
–23.0
18.6
* Mt CO2 Equiv.: Million metric tons of CO2 equivalent.
** China figures based on data from 2000.
Sources: Population: UN, Eurostat; GDP: IMF, World Bank; Greenhouse Gas Emissions: UNFCCC, WRI. Data
compiled by: Econsense (2007).
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trade (Alliance of Energy Intensive Industries 2004, 2005). Carbon leakage is less likely to occur
if the costs of carbon credits can be passed on to consumers or if products are highly specialized
and serve a regional market.
The occurrence of carbon leakage under the Kyoto Protocol is usually expressed as a percentage of CO2 emissions increase that results from an increase in emissions in a nonabating
country divided by the reduction of emissions by a country subject to an emissions reduction
target under the Kyoto Protocol. Thus a 20-percent carbon leakage rate means that 20 percent
of reductions in emissions in an abatement country are reversed as a result of increased emissions elsewhere. Measurement of carbon leakage is not an exact science as the increase in CO2
emissions in any one country as the result of CO2 abatement in another country is difficult to
separate from other factors, like lower labor costs, that may determine a market shift or a shift
in CO2 emissions. Still, by understanding the mechanisms through which carbon leakage can
occur, it is possible to assess the impact of climate change policies to some extent.
Various simulation models have been developed and numerous studies calculating CO2
induced costs increases have been made by industries and affected parties (Sijms et al. 2004).
Most estimates are derived from Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models, which are
economic models that use actual economic data to estimate how an economy might react to
changes in policy, technology, or other external factors. The equations often assume costminimizing behavior by producers and consumers. A CGE model database consists of tables of
transaction values, showing, for example, the value of coal used by the iron and steel industry
and is usually presented as an input-output table. However, these are static models and cannot
forecast the future. To account more fully for the effects of the anticipated market changes and
geographical distribution of energy-intensive production, trade, and carbon leakage, models
incorporating strategic interaction among firms producing energy-intensive products have
been developed using hybrid datasets based on the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) and
energy balances, prices, and taxes derived from IEA accounts, which created so-called GTAP-E
models (Babiker 2005; Weyant 1999).15 Results from the different models and estimates vary
greatly and have been the source of much controversy with regard to the economic impact
of the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol (Stern 2006). The typical CGE model estimated
values of carbon leakage due to the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol are at between 5 percent and 25 percent worldwide but some GTAP/IEA dataset-based models or GTAP-E models
predict carbon leakage rates as high as 130 percent (Babiker 2005). In the latter case, the Kyoto
Protocol would lead to a huge increase in global carbon dioxide emissions. In one study, it is
estimated that the United States will be the largest contributor to carbon leakage in 2020 if
the country decides not to participate in a Kyoto-type emissions trading scheme (Hamasaki
2007).
EU country and industry studies have identified the different industrial sectors most immediately affected by carbon abatement policies (Hamasaki 2007; Sato 2007; Weinreich 2009). These
studies calculated and identified both direct and indirect CO2 induced costs increases for various industrial sectors and found that by far the highest costs increases were incurred by the lime
and the cement industries (Weinreich 2009). However, because there is little or no international
competition and foreign trade involved in these sectors, the impact of cost increases due to
carbon pricing is insignificant. Less affected by the impact of carbon price but more vulnerable
to international competition is the iron and steel sector especially in coastal locations. The aluminum and aluminum products sector as well as basic chemical products, pulp, copper, glass,
dyes, and pigments are fully exposed to international competition and have experienced relocation effects of high carbon costs (Weinreich 2009). From these and other studies conducted, the
impact of trade liberalization is viewed as a major contributing factor to carbon leakage (Kuik
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and Gerlagh 2003; Sijms et al. 2004; Taylor and Copeland 2005). Abatement measures in Annex
I countries—under conditions of liberalized trade—changes geographical production and consumption patterns of manufacturing and energy production and will in effect increase CO2
emissions of non-Annex I and nonabatement countries through enhanced international trade
and global investment flows (CRU News, March 2006).16
Coal as a Global Energy Source
The 2008 market report of EURACOAL—the industry association representing the European
coal industry—documents that global coal production increased by over 200 million tonnes (mt)
during 2008, most of which was mined in China. In contrast, EU production was down from
previous years and Europe was the only region where coal production is decreasing according to
EURACOAL (2009). In fact, over the past decade, EU production has fallen by 35 percent in the
expanded EU-25 region and by 50 percent in the EU-15 region (see Table 2).17 At the same time
there has been an upsurge in EU coal import of 40 percent in just ten years. The combined effect
of EU regulations governing state aid for the coal industry, which expired in 2010, and the EU
ETS, which commits some 12,000 energy-intensive plants to buy carbon permits, are the major
reasons for the EU decrease in coal production and use for electricity generation. Coal emits
approximately twice as much CO2 as natural gas and the-cap-and trade regime favors the use
of gas in electricity generation as EU industrial emissions are capped, since 2008, at 20 percent
below 2005 levels by 2020 in order to reduce emissions more quickly.18
At the same time, the United States, China, and Russia are all increasing coal production
and are holding among the largest coal reserves, which suggests that if they do not commit to
drastic and binding emissions reduction targets, sharp increases in coal production and coal
use can be expected. In 2009, the prospect of regulating emissions via carbon trading—as the
Obama Administration promoted—alarmed coal-producing and steel-producing states in the
American Midwest, and congressmen from these states actively rallied against the Obama plan.
Presently, supporters of reducing GHG emissions in the United States bank their hopes on regulation of emissions through the Environmental Protection Agency.19 Meanwhile, for as long as
Russia, China, India, and other emerging economies are on the sidelines with respect to climate
change policy it is unlikely that the US federal government will go much further than what is
currently being legislated. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the EU going-it-alone cap-and-trade
policy will continue without a firm international Kyoto-type climate change policy in place as
unilateral climate change policy greatly diminishes the EU’s global market position.20
Table 2. Coal Production and Consumption at the end of 2008
United States
Russian Federation
China
European Union
1998
Production
Mt oil
equiv. 2008
Change 2008
over 1998 (%)
603.2
103.9
628.7
229.2
596.9
152.8
1414.5
171.5
–1.0
47.0
125.0
–25.2
1998
Consumption
Mt oil
equiv. 2008
Change 2008
over 1998 (%)
545.7
100.7
651.9
323.5
565.0
101.3
1406.3
301.2
3.5
–0.6
115.7
–6.9
Source: Data compiled from British Petroleum, Statistical Review of World Energy (2008).
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Both Russia and China have greatly expanded coal-generated electricity capacity. Today,
most of Russia’s energy is generated from gas but Russia’s domestic demand for coal is increasing
and the country’s government has decided to reduce gas consumption in domestic power generation and increase coal use in order to maximize gas exports. Russia trails China, the United
States, Indonesia, and Australia in terms of coal output but it is expected that the country will
heavily invest in improving the electric grid infrastructure and rail and port facilities in order to
improve the use of coal for energy generation. As a result, Russia’s supply of coal for domestic
use will likely rise from a current 130 mt per year to between 250 and 325 mt by 2020.21 This
will make Russia attractive for investment by foreign companies in energy-intensive industrial
sectors and is likely going to contribute to more carbon leakage.
Coal currently fuels over 40 percent of electricity worldwide and will play a vital role in electricity generation in the next few decades according to information from the World Coal Institute (2009). With availability of abundant, affordable, and geographically dispersed reserves,
coal is considered a secure and reliable source of energy worldwide. Coal prices have historically been lower and more stable than oil and gas prices and despite an increase in volatility of
the energy market this has essentially remained the case. Coal is therefore likely to be the most
affordable and reliable source of fossil fuel for power generation in many developing and industrialized countries in the foreseeable future. For energy-intensive industries, the impact of fuel
and electricity price increases and price volatility will have important implications for location
decisions and countries with access to indigenous energy supplies and affordable fuels from
a well-supplied market can avoid volatility and uncertainty, enabling them further economic
development and growth potential from a manufacturing industry.
International trade in coal reached 917 mt in 2007 accounting for about 17 percent of the
total amount of coal consumed (World Coal Institute 2009). Australia is the world’s largest coal
exporter with over 244 mt of coal in 2007 exported out of its total production of 323 mt. Australia is also the largest supplier of coking coal —used in iron and steel production—accounting for
53 percent of world exports. Consumption or use of coal for electricity generation is projected to
grow by 1.5 percent per year until at least 2030. Coking coal is more expensive than coal used in
electricity generation, which means that Australia is able to afford the high freight rates involved
in shipping coking coal over long distances. The largest market for Australian coal is Asia, which
currently accounts for over 50 percent of global coal consumption (World Coal Institute 2009).
Although China imports the largest share of Australian coal, other Asian countries that do not
have carbon fuel resources sufficient to cover their energy needs, also import Australian supplies to help meet their demand. Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, for example, import significant
quantities of coal for electricity generation and coking coal for steel production (World Coal
Institute 2009). According to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy (2008), coal has been the
fastest-growing major fuel and coal consumption grew by 3.1 percent in 2008. China’s share of
world energy consumption growth in 2007 was 52 percent much of it derived from coal with
more than two-thirds of global growth in coal consumption attributed to increase in coal consumption in China (see Table 2).
China has entered a period of rapid economic growth based on industrial investments by
multinational corporations for export production (Li 2008; Zang and Pearce 2012). Together
with strong economic growth that increases energy demand, consumer demand is surging also
because of the growing affluence of an emerging urban middle class. With China’s entry into the
WTO, the Chinese government made specific commitments to trade and investment liberalization, which substantially opened up the Chinese economy to investment by foreign firms. Much
of the investment has occurred in the energy-intensive sector, which has contributed to the
rapid increase in carbon emissions as manufacturing is fuelled mostly by direct combustion of
Unintended Consequences
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coal. The EIA has predicted that China’s growing energy demand could drive a fourfold increase
in the use of coal by 2030, which would translate into the largest growth in global carbon dioxide emissions (EIA 2006: table A-10). As carbon-emitting industries multiply at a rapid rate,
China is building on average one coal-fired power plant every week. Coal makes up approximately 70 percent of China’s total primary energy consumption and the country was both the
largest consumer and the largest producer of coal in the world in 2007 at 1,311 mt and 1,289
mt, respectively, or over 41 percent of the world total in both consumption and production of
coal. In addition, China records 114.5 billion mt or 13.5 percent of the world total of proven
coal reserves, which places it third in the world behind the United States and Russia (Table 2).
Opening up to foreign investment and foreign trade gave China a competitive advantage over
the more mature economies of the EU and the US. As the demand for energy has put China
on the fossil-fuel coal-based development path, the investments made and the infrastructure
developed will shape the manufacturing economy for several decades to come. China is currently not constrained by climate change policies and GHG emissions levels have increased over
30 percent above 1990 levels by 2005 (Table 1). It is likely that the trend will continue or resume
after the global recession ends.
The Impact of Cap-and-Trade Policies
on the Iron, Steel, and Aluminum Industries
If the metal industry trade publications are any clue, then the projected increases in coal consumption and carbon dioxide emissions are not far off. According to a report issued by the
American Iron and Steel Institute in 2006, worldwide production of steel increased by about 470
million tonnes during the preceding decade, with most of the expansion occurring in countries
that use less energy-efficient production methods and impose weaker environmental regulation
or enforcement (i.e., fewer carbon constraints). China’s share of world production of steel had
almost tripled from 13 percent in 1996 to 35 percent in 2006, a 316 percent increase (American
Iron and Steel Institute 2006). China’s steel export also tripled, increasing 309 percent between
1995 and 2005, and China is now the largest steel-exporting country in the world. India, similarly, is rapidly expanding its steel production capacity and export. Therefore, the American
Iron and Steel Institute report concludes that if measures to control carbon emissions do not
take international trade and environmental costs into account, then total global carbon emissions will increase dramatically (see also Sato et al. 2007).22 Meanwhile, the EU is the only major
region to show a drop in export of steel. The European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries (EUROFER 2009) reports that Europe’s steel production was only 198 mt in 2009 while
China’s production was more than double that at more that 70 percent of the growth in world
steel production expected to occur in Asia. Taking into account that carbon emissions by Chinese producers are far higher and more than double those of European producers, EUROFER
arrives at the conclusion that the EU ETS leads to carbon leakage to non-ETS countries. The
report notes that only about 30 percent of the world’s steel producing countries have signed up
to the obligations of the Kyoto agreement whereas 90 percent of all new capacity is being developed in the 70 percent not covered by a Kyoto obligation. The incentive for China, India, and
other rapidly developing countries to join a cap-and-trade system is greatly diminished under
these circumstances. Participating in a cap-and-trade treaty would mean affecting the economic
growth that has occurred due to competitive advantages of not participating in a binding and
targeted emissions reduction scheme. Key overseas competitors are reaping the economic benefits
as production cuts in Europe due to carbon constraints begin to take effect (EUROFER 2009).
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Evidence of the extent of carbon leakage from the EU to China is substantiated by various reports and predicted to be significant based on various projections of trade and energy
intensity of production (i.e., GTAP-E models).23 China has been expanding its market share
in energy-intensive manufacturing, in particular in the iron, steel, and aluminum industries
and Germany stands to be significantly affected by carbon leakage. As the most industrialized
economy of the EU-15, Germany is heavily dependent on export and trade exposure of particularly its iron, steel, and aluminum industry is substantial. The EUROFER (2009) has studied
the impact of emissions trading taking into account that steel is made in one of two ways: basic
oxygen furnace (BOF) primary production and electric arc furnace (EAF) production involving
recycling of scrap metal.24 Nearly 100 percent of emissions in the EAF process are indirect electricity-related emissions, whereas 90 percent of BOF production is direct (i.e., process-related)
emission and only 10 percent is indirect energy-related emissions. Products produced by the
EAF process (recycling scrap metal) compete mostly in regional markets and are therefore able
to pass on their production costs to their consumers. Conversely, the production of cold rolled
flat steel using the BOF process is competing in global markets.
The EU aluminum industry is most threatened by the implementation of carbon constraints.
Although excluded from participation during the first phase of the EU ETS, the aluminum
industry is severely exposed to higher energy costs because of higher electricity prices and
because the price of aluminum is set at a global exchange. Half of the EU’s aluminum is produced by primary smelting and half by secondary smelting/recycling. The process of smelting
consumes over 15 megawatt hour of electricity per tonne of aluminum, which immediately
exposes the industry to cost increases due to energy price increases. As the industry is not able
to pass on the costs of abatement to the customer, the EU is losing market share. The industry
held 21 percent of world market share in 1982 but in 2010 the EU share of the global aluminum
market was to 10 percent.25
A New Scenario for Climate Change Policy in a Globalizing World
Although various considerations play a role in location decisions, a factor of increasing importance noted by corporate investors and policymakers is differential environmental costs and
regulatory burdens across national boundaries. Traditionally, environmental costs were external
to the cost of production but under the conditions of the Kyoto protocol and the EU ETS this is
no longer the case. Taking increased carbon costs and energy and electricity prices into account,
the cost of production—in particular energy costs for energy-intensive industries—are substantially higher in the EU than in most parts of the world. Simultaneously, the institutionalization
of a global free trade and investment regime under the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF
induces multinational corporations to relocate or shift production to countries where environmental regulations are less stringent and where no carbon constraints apply. Host economies
encourage the export of high-carbon content products to developed countries’ home markets
and have set up free-trade zones or export platforms for that purpose. The combined effect has
unintended consequences for climate change policy and is the driving force behind the increase
in consumption of fossil fuels, increases in CO2 emissions, and the development of a fossil fuelbased (or more specifically coal-based) infrastructure in developing countries. Despite the
efforts to curb global CO2 emissions through the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, global
carbon emissions have increased dramatically. While emissions have stabilized in some of the
developed countries, international trade and foreign investment by multinational corporations
has shifted the source of CO2 emissions to developing countries (Schreuder 2009).
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How to deal with and account for emissions embedded in products manufactured in nonabatement countries and exported to countries where carbon constraints are in effect remains
an unresolved issue. Under the current international trade regime guided by the principles of
the WTO, there is no compensation for the negative spillover effects of the shift in production
from abatement to nonabatement countries. In fact, any measure that would compensate for the
effect of the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol or the ETS in the context of the free-trade
and investment regime that is currently in place would likely be interpreted as protectionism in
disguise and would not be well received by the business community in the developing world.
Whereas we might think of introducing import taxes (tariffs) on high carbon content goods and
services or impose some other polluter pays principle on multinational corporations that relocate or shift production to noncarbon constrained parts of the world, in reality it would seem
unlikely that any measures will be taken by the same institutions that established the neoliberal
trade regime in the first place.
Derived from the same concern about unfair competition in a partial carbon-constrained
global economy, we might also consider a more sector-specific approach to emissions trading.
Different plants in a specific industrial sector in different parts of the world experience different
cost structures and energy-intensive industries in Annex I countries where carbon constraints
apply are most vulnerable to international trade if they cannot pass on the increased cost of production to their customers. Instead of accepting the business-as-usual response to competition
and shift production to nonabatement countries, a particular sector or industry could decide to
take action at the international level through global trade associations and pledge to achieve a
sectorwide goal of reducing GHG emissions through sharing best practice standards and stimulating increased energy efficiency and technology transfer. Sector- or industry-specific initiatives
could seek endorsement from national governments but because industry is not a party to the
UNFCCC, such a scheme has little chance of success. Furthermore, such a solution might alienate developing nations and undermine the cooperation needed to move negotiations forward.
One alternative to the problems associated with the current climate change policy regime is
to focus the frame of reference more specifically on the multinational corporation and ask the
question who is to blame and who is to pay, or who stands to gain from the carbon embedded
in imported goods manufactured abroad by multinational corporations. Is it the producer, the
consumer, or the shareholder who profits from the investments made abroad for the purpose of
avoiding carbon constraints (Schreuder 2009)? Full disclosure of ownership and full accounting of corporate activities throughout the production chain would be imperative under such
a framework. In other words, at every step in the production process we would need to know
how much CO2 is added to the product and the national GHG pool. This amount would then
be subtracted from the total amount of the country where multinational corporate production
occurs and be added to the corporate home country’s CO2 budget or the country to which the
product is shipped for consumption. Hypothetically, we could also attribute CO2 emissions on
a profit-rate basis. If a refinery in China operated by a foreign-owned multinational corporation generated 100 million tones of CO2 per year and if 50 percent of the profits are returned to
headquarters or to the multinational corporation’s shareholders, then 50 mt of CO2 emissions
should be accounted for and subtracted from the host country’s national emissions budget and
added to the home country’s CO2 budget. All this would require far greater transparency than is
presently the case and will likely be resisted by the corporate establishment. But unless we come
to realize that global climate change policy requires global cooperation, we will not make much
progress in global CO2 reduction efforts. As part of reaching global consensus and cooperation,
global corporations will have to restructure the way they operate in developing countries and
their share in increase in global CO2 emissions will have to be accounted for.
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Yda Schreuder
YDA SCHREUDER is a professor of Geography and senior policy fellow in the Center for
Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Delaware. She is the author of The
Corporate Greenhouse: Climate Change Policy in a Globalizing World (2009). She has also
written several articles on the topic—published in Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, and Energy and Environment; and has researched the implications of the UNFCCC climate change regime and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme on global shifts in production
of energy intensive industries. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Nature
Inc. Conference in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 2011.
䡲
NOTES
1. Greenhouse gas is a gas that allows high-temperature solar radiation to enter the Earth atmosphere
unhindered but blocks the lower-temperature reradiation of heat from the planetary surface causing the so-called greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases include carbondioxide (CO2 ), hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC), hydrofluorcarbon (HFC), nitrousoxide (N2O), methane (CH4 ), ozone (O3 ),
perfluorocarbon (PFC), sulphurhexafluoride (SF6 ), and water vapor. Of the greenhouse gases, CO2 is
the principal greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.
2. Parties to the UNFCCC are classified as: (1) Annex I countries, i.e. industrialized countries and economies in transition in East-Central Europe; and (2) non-Annex I countries, i.e. developing countries.
Annex I countries that ratified the Protocol have committed to reduce their emission levels of greenhouse gasses to targets set mainly below their 1990 levels. Non-Annex I countries are not required
to reduce emission levels but may participate in the Kyoto Protocol if they subscribe to the global
emissions reduction efforts. As parties to the UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol they can participate in the
Clean Development Mechanism. Setting no immediate restrictions under UNFCCC for developing
countries serves three purposes: (1) it avoids restrictions on their development, because emissions
are strongly linked to industrial capacity using fossil fuels; (2) developing countries can sell emissions
credits through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to Annex I countries that have difficulty
meeting their emissions targets; and (3) developing countries can receive money and technologies for
low-carbon investments from technologically advanced industrialized Annex I countries. Developing countries may volunteer to become Annex I countries when they are sufficiently developed. For
further detail see the website for UNFCCC: http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php/.
3. The Kyoto Protocol covers 194 countries including developing countries that subscribe to the global
emissions reduction efforts.
4. The CDM is defined in Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol, stating that Annex I countries can undertake
emissions reduction projects in developing countries (non-Annex I) for Certified Emissions Reduction (CER) credits that can be used for compliance with the agreed to emissions reduction target on
the part of industrialized Annex I countries.
5. Carbon leakage is usually expressed as a percentage of the CO2 emissions increase that results from
emissions increases in a nonabating (non-Annex I) country divided by the reduction of emissions by
a country subject to the emissions-reduction target under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol.
6. See also World Bank, World Development Report, 67, quoted in The Ecologist, Whose Common
Future? (1993: 111).
7. The coup against Allende had been backed by the CIA and was supported by the-then US secretary of
state Henry Kissinger. Allende’s successor, General Augusto Pinochet, called in a group of economic
advisors who had been trained by Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago. They advised the
general to transform the Chilean economy along free-market principles, privatizing public assets,
opening up natural resources to private investors, and facilitating foreign direct investment. Exportled growth was to replace import substitution, which until then had been the dominant model for
development in Latin America.
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8. Friedrich August von Hayek (1899–1992) was best known for his defense of classical liberalism. His
pioneering work in the theory and the analysis of the interdependence of economic, social, and institutional phenomena brought him great renown. He considered the efficient allocation of capital to
be the most important factor leading to sustainable and optimal GDP growth, and warned of harm
from monetary manipulation of interest rates. Milton Friedman (1912–2006) taught at the University
of Chicago for more than three decades and is best known for his research on consumption analysis
and monetary history and theory. As a leader of the Chicago School of Economics he influenced the
research agenda of the economics profession in the United States in the second half of the twentieth
century.
9. Energy-intensive industries include power generation, oil refineries, coke ovens, cement and concrete manufacturing, paper and pulp industries, glass and limestone, and steel and metals.
10. At present, China is the world’s third largest net importer of oil behind the United States and Japan.
Accordingly, carbon dioxide emissions from China and India have increased at an alarming rate,
but, whereas the total amount of carbon emitted by China and India is approaching levels of the
traditional industrialized countries, like Europe, Japan, and the United States, the per capita carbon
emissions rates are still far behind those of the more mature industrialized economies (World Watch
Institute 2006).
11. Under the Flexible Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, Annex I parties can contribute to their emissions
targets by investing in emissions-reduction projects in other Annex I countries (Article 6, Joint Implementation), or by undertaking emissions reduction projects in developing countries (non-Annex I),
defined in Article 12 as Clean Development Mechanism. Emissions Trading as defined in Article 17
of the Kyoto Protocol allows Annex I parties to acquire emissions credits from other Annex I parties
and use them for compliance under the Kyoto Protocol. See www.unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items.
12. The first phase of the ETS allotted free allowances for target industries; the second phase auctioned
allowances at a predetermined set price.
13. During the first phase, the aluminum industry was excluded from the ETS because it was fully exposed
to global competition. However, because of high indirect costs due to high electricity prices—as utilities were not excluded from the ETS and windfall profits were charged—the industry was severely
affected.
14. Windfall profits among energy providers occurred during the first phase of the ETS when the value
of CO2 allowances were passed on as opportunity costs even though the allowances were free and
electricity may have been generated from noncarbon sources. The situation was enhanced by the fact
that European power markets are not truly competitive.
15. GTAP is a global network of researchers and policymakers conducting quantitative analysis of international policy issues. It is coordinated by the Center for Global Trade Analysis at Purdue University’s
Department of Agricultural Economics.
16. Concern about the impact of the Kyoto Protocol on the US economy was clearly expressed in the
Byrd-Hagel resolution in the Senate in 1997, which opposed the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
Free trade would weaken the effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol and emissions reduction schemes,
according to US legislators and would bring harm to the US economy and to the global atmosphere.
17. EU-25 excludes Romania and Bulgaria, which were admitted to the EU in 2007 and only participated
in the EU-ETS since 2008.
18. Following the agreement among EU member states and the European Parliament, the EU ETS Directive was significantly revised, as part of the EU 2020 Climate and Energy Package in December 2008,
which established a 20 percent emissions reduction target by 2020 based on 1990 levels.
19. Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency has been authorized to control CO2
emissions for new power plants. Any new plant built in the United States cannot emit more than1,000
pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour. The vast majority of modern natural-gas plants meet that standard but conventional coal plants average upward of 1,800 pounds per megawatt hour. This effectively means that it will be impossible to build any new coal-fired power plant in the United States
that cannot capture and store its own carbon emissions. For the time being this means that there is a
moratorium on all new coal-powered plants.
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20. Setting ambitious unilateral EU emissions reduction targets while mitigation efforts in third countries
are limited should be discouraged according to the European Alliance of Energy Intensive Industries
March 7, 2012 statement in response to the EU Commission’s roadmap to a competitive low-carbon
economy by 2050. http://www.cembureau.eu/sites/default/files/documents/2012-03-07%20Alliance
%20statement%20low-carbon%20economy%20roadmap%202050.pdf (accessed 15 May 2012).
21. Reuters Business News, June 6, 2007 (accessed 9 June 2009).
22. A study conducted by researchers from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
confirmed this and calculated that between 1997 and 2005 higher levels of Chinese exports to the
United States increased total carbon dioxide emissions by some 720 million tonnes (Sato et al. 2007)
23. See the previous section on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and Carbon Leakage.
24. The European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries (EUROFER) website: http://www.eurofer
.org.
25. See European Aluminium Association: http://www.alueurope.eu/about-aluminium/facts-and-figures
(accessed 12 September 2012).
䡲
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Climate Research and Climate Change:
Reconsidering Social Science Perspectives
Jobst Conrad
ABSTRACT
The article provides a general overview of social sciences perspectives to
analyze and theorize climate research, climate discourse, and climate policy. First, referring to the basic paradigm of sociology, it points out the feasible scope and necessary methodology of environmental sociology as a
social science concerning the analysis of physical nature. Second, it illustrates this epistemological conception by few examples, summarizing main
results of corresponding climate-related social science investigations dealing with the development dynamics of climate research, the role of scientific (climate impact) assessments in politics, varying features and changes
of climate discourses, climate policy formation, and knowledge diffusion
from climate science. The receptivity of climate discourse and climate policy to the results of problem-oriented climate research is strongly shaped
and limited by its multifarious character as well as by their own (internal)
logics. The article shows that social sciences contribute their specific (conceptual) competences to problem-oriented research by addressing climate
change and corresponding adaptation and mitigation strategies.
KEYWORDS
climate research, climate discourse, climate policy, environmental sociology,
problem-oriented research
The purpose of this article is to point out major features of the social
sciences, and of environmental sociology in particular, in analyzing, reconstructing, and theorizing climate research, climate discourse, and
climate policy. This is done by sketching few of the key characteristics
as presented in the literature, and by indicating the potential contribution of the social sciences to the analysis and development of strategies concerning climate, and climate change in particular.
It is important to keep in mind that—according to the slightly extended basic paradigm of sociology—social phenomena and processes
can only be explained by analyses and theorems of related social sciences. The social sciences assume the possibility of sociality showing
regular features. They relate all kinds of facts and relations to the problem of social regularities; thus they see sociality as a genuine analytNature and Culture 4(2), Summer 2009: 113–122 © Berghahn Journals
doi:10.3167/nc.2009.040201
JOBST CONRAD
ical level and category of its own right, which cannot be reasonably
understood by other—for example, biological or psychological—levels
of analysis. Non-social facts and circumstances may influence social
phenomena, but either have to be conceptualized in social theory as
external boundary conditions or must be transformed into social facts
and circumstances in order to become socially relevant (Conrad 1998).
Environmental sociology, too, has to reproduce the difference between
(environmental) reality and its social (re)construction (see Daele 1996).
Thus, social science analysis is able in principle to explain the structure
and development dynamics of climate research, climate discourse, or
climate policy in terms of social theory, likely to be found in sociology of science and technology, in discourse theories, or in policy
analysis1, as indicated by examples below.
1. Two different dynamics shaped the development dynamics of climate research over the past 150 years, dominating before and after
around 1970. The first development dynamics is marked by lacking measurement data, still insufficient measurement devices, low
level of funding resources and societal interest, and lacking cognitive and social differentiation beyond traditional climatology. So
genuine climate science findings partly stemmed from scientific
amateurs and were more or less by-products of other geosciences,
particularly of an expanding meteorology. Different, partly speculative scientific climate (change) theories and models could not be
rigorously examined, and a global climate concept became dominant only during the 1960s (Conrad 2007, 2008a). The second development dynamics resulted from a positive interplay of diverse
influencing factors at different levels, such as expanding research
funding, large research programs, huge computer power and extensive, expensive measurement campaigns, (political) engagement of
prominent climate researchers, and public climate discourse. This
positive interplay induced a self-supporting research dynamics with
problem-oriented cooperation of different research fields (subfields
of physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology, meteorology, oceanography, geology, pedology, glaciology, palaeoclimatology) and of
different types of analysis (theoretical explanation, balloon, satellitebased and in-situ measurements, acquirement of proxy data, climate
simulations). This research dynamics focused on anthropogenicly
induced climate change as main reference point, resolved basic
scientific controversies, institutionalized climate research as a research field and prospectively even as a genuine academic sub114
CLIMATE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE
ject, and established permanent boundary organizations2 such as
the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) as well as
climate (impact) assessments.
2. As the comparative study of environment-related assessments
showed (cf. Farrell and Jäger 2005; Mitchell et al. 2006), scientific
assessments may have an impact on politics and society; however,
this is rather the exception than the rule, and their influence typically is an indirect one. Their addressees and audiences judge them
by differing criteria.3 For a scientific advice by (commissioned)
assessments to become influential will depend on its relevance,
credibility, and legitimacy. Frequently, there exist trade-offs among
these criteria. Here the (procedural) organization of the assessment
process with the inclusion and participation of many stakeholders
in the beginning (suitable focus and advancement of credibility)
and in the end (user-oriented framing of outputs) is of key importance. In this respect, the IPCC was quite successful (cf. Bolin
2007; Conrad 2009; Dessler and Parson 2006; Siebenhüner 2005;
Skodvin 1999).
3. In modern societies different parallel discourses (about climate
change) take place in different socio-functional systems such as
in science, in the political system, or in the media, showing varying discourse profiles and dynamics, and can mutually influence
each other by discourse interferences. Accordingly, the patterns of
communication reception and processing differ in various sociofunctional systems because discourses generate varying communicative risks such as loss of credibility, of legitimacy, or of market
chances (Keller 1997; Weingart et al. 2000, 2002). It is the recognition of definitions of reality and thus semantic conflicts about the
sovereignty of interpretation (Deutungshoheit) that are at stake in
discourses, which proceed in a thematically coherent track, that is,
in a story line. The discourse participants compete for the enforcement of specific problem definitions and therefore fight for discourse hegemony. For this purpose they enter discourse coalitions.
The resulting dynamics of the discourse depends on the cognitive
acceptability of arguments—their factual credibility; the trustworthiness of the arguing actors; and the positional acceptability of
discourse-related contents and objectives—the question how far
they strengthen or weaken personal or institutional positions (cf.
Conrad 2008b; Dahinden 2006; Hajer 1995; Huber 2001). Thus,
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climate discourses in science and politics not only took varying
forms as had to be expected, but also led to controversies differing
in substance (cf. Mahlman 1998; Miller and Edwards 2001; Rahmstorf and Schellnhuber 2006; Rayner and Malone 1998; Schneider
et al. 2002). For example, whereas temperature increase and its
anthropogenic cause were and could be further contested in politics until at least 2005, the scientific discourse was concerned with
their more accurate and differentiated investigation and related
methods of proof, but hardly with their validity.
4. Social discourses—as thematically focused and coupled sequences
of publicly visible arguments in varying contexts and framings—
reflect (dynamically changing) ideas and interests of participating
social actors and corresponding societal developments and changes.
In around 2007 the (public) climate discourse switched from being
science driven to policy driven, from understanding the earth system to decision and action, from proving anthropogenicly induced
climate change to effecting a cost-effective and fair stabilization of
climate. Public discourse furthermore shifted, as Reusswig (forthcoming) pointed out, from physics and natural sciences to economics and engineering sciences as lead disciplines in climate
(change) research; also from natural sciences, environmental policy and environmental movements to transdisciplinary problemoriented research together with a shift to the economic and political
system, to consumers, citizens and environmental movements as
key social actors, and finally, it shifted from alarmism versus skepticism and mitigation or adaptation to an adaptation-mitigation
mix, portfolio management as well as market and technological
versus social and political solutions of dealing with climate change.
5. Social science analysis is furthermore able to show that in conjunction with the (wave-like) growing discussion of climate change in
political and public discourse (cf. Downs 1972; McComas and
Shanahan 1999; Ungar 1992) interests of scientific actors, science
policy actors and climate policy actors became increasingly coupled. It should be mentioned that this coupling took place in the
wake of the ozone regime established in the 1980s (cf. Andersen
and Sarma 2002; Benedick 1991; Conrad 2008c; Parson 2003).
The coupling came along with climate policy intentions and activities of respected climate scientists (cf. Grundmann 2006; Grundmann and Stehr 2002), climate policy ambitions of UNEP (United
116
CLIMATE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Nations Environmental Programme), WMO (World Meteorological Organization) and ICSU (International Council for Science),
and the preparation and establishment of task-force panels and
boundary organizations between climate science and climate politics. The development and pattern of climate policy, which builds
its arguments on the natural science based facts and (causal) relations (Sachverhalte) condensed in the summary for policymakers
in the IPCC reports, is essentially reconstructed in terms of the social sciences (cf. Clark and The Social Learning Group 2001,
Miller and Edwards 2001, Oberthür and Ott 1999, O’Riordan and
Jäger 1996).
6. Scientific knowledge clearly matters in climate discourse and climate
policy, though with some time lag and with public and political
controversy based on scientifically no longer valid propositions and
arguments. Knowledge diffusion from climate research depends,
on the one hand, on the strength and clarity as well as on the social credibility of its results, and, on the other hand, on the effective
lobbying efforts of prominent climate scientists, the appropriate
framing and the fit of this knowledge to current (ongoing) policy
issues, the social resonance and relevance in the political system,
situational circumstances (like hot summers or missing winters),
and opening windows of opportunity. How much society believes
in the warnings of scientists depends on a complex interplay of
discourses (in different socio-functional systems), institutional consolidations, and historically contingent developments (Weingart et
al. 2002). For instance, concerning public climate discourse, scientific experts tend to have—via co-orientation of journalists—a
considerable impact on the thematization of climate change in the
media.4 Conversely, the contents of most media information is not
simply taken over by its recipients but interpreted and evaluated
by their pre-existing knowledge, attitudes, and cultural orientations
and preferences (cf. Peters and Heinrichs 2005, 2008).5
7.
As a result, social science analysis can (as fundamental research) contribute to sociological theory building or—within problem oriented socio-ecological research—participate in the (intraand multidisciplinary) combination of theoretical concepts and
models within a multidimensional framework of interpretation. Renouncing the aim of comprehensive substantive integrative theory
formation, the appropriate selection and combination of (subdisciplinary) theoretical modules depends on the situational problem
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JOBST CONRAD
structure and on the prevailing epistemological interest. In this
respect climate change is not different from other social problem
constellations such as health, poverty, or sports. Dealing with environmental problems, different (disciplinary) theories can thoroughly investigate conceptually clearly defined aspects relating to
them, thus contributing to their explanation and understanding: be
it models of metabolic balance-sheets to explain the social metabolism of streams of materials and energy in physical and chemical
terms (cf. Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl 2007), or climate models to
simulate and predict the level of sea rise (cf. Church and White
2006; IPCC 2007), or the assessment and calculation of the economic costs of mitigation of climate change versus non-action (cf.
Kemfert and Schumacher 2005; Stern 2007), or environmental law
and policy to establish mediation procedures in favor of an effective and democratic treatment of local environmental problems
(cf. Sands 1994; Young 1999, 2002), or environmental sociology
to analyze the dynamics and structures of climate discourse and to
improve environmental communication and discourse (cf. Peters
and Heinrichs 2005; Weingart et al. 2002).
As the above examples indicate, the social sciences not only can
contribute more to the analysis and development of climate adaptation and mitigation strategies than what is—often with an economic
bias—actually happening in this respect but they can also analyze
and explain additional aspects:
major features, developments and limitations of climate dis-
course,
the social context, embedding, development, and options of
climate policy,
the processes of knowledge generation and knowledge diffu-
sion in climate research,
the (changing) interaction dynamics of climate research, dis-
course, and policy.
Needless to say, this can be done for each research question with different approaches and theories, pointing to varying aspects and conceptualizations of the social dimension of climate problems.
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CLIMATE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Jobst Conrad received his PhD in theoretical astrophysics and his habilitation in technology and environmental policy. He directed and participated
in multidisciplinary research projects on energy policy, environmental policy, climate research, biotechnology policy, technological risks and social
conflicts, agriculture and environment, environment and security, and environmental management for companies in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Oslo.
Notes
1. This does not presuppose the claim to fully explain these real world phenomena by theoretical and analytical categories of the social sciences, but only to provide
theory-based concepts and models that help to understand their key features.
2. The concept of boundary organization is used here to designate such organizations in a descriptive manner whose structure and functional references explicitly
and recognizably refer to two socio-functional systems and therefore to transfer and
exchange processes between them (cf. Hiller 2009).
3. In this context it should be kept in mind that different national discourses and
governments may induce significant effects in different countries, as can be seen from
the comparison of Germany and the United States concerning the perception and impact of IPCC reports (cf. Grundmann 2007).
4. “Numerous content analyses of the media coverage show that scientific sources
have an exceptionally high status when it comes to the issue of climate change” (Peters and Heinrichs 2008: 17).
5. At least the German public has considered the threat posed by climate change
to be one of the most important risks (cf. Kuckartz and Rheingans-Heitze 2006; Zwick
2001).
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122
Changes in the Weather:
A Sri Lankan Village Case Study
Mariella Marzano
ABSTRACT: As the impacts of climate change are expected to increase, there is growing
concern in development contexts over how best to assist the poor and vulnerable to
adapt to such changes whilst ensuring environmental and livelihood security. Climate
variability is a persistent and progressively more worrying feature in the everyday
lives of individuals and communities in rural areas around the world and there is a
pressing need for comprehensive knowledge of the complex relationships between
humans, and between them and their environment. Thus there is a growing movement towards bridging the gap between top-down decision-making and more grassroots approaches that encompass local knowledge and experiences. Drawing upon
fieldwork in Sri Lanka, this article examines the potential of taking an indigenous
knowledge research (IKR) approach to understanding local adaptation to climate
change, specifically how local people are adapting their livelihood strategies to what
they perceive to be increasing variability in weather patterns. It also explores the prospect of indigenous knowledge networks as vehicles for rapidly sharing information
and building links between policy making and local reality.
KEYWORDS: Climate change, Sri Lanka, livelihoods, vulnerability, indigenous knowledge, adaptation, agriculture, communication
Introduction
One of the aims of rural development is to facilitate sustainable livelihood strategies in the
developing world whilst adopting an ecosystem
approach.1 As the impacts of climate change
are expected to increase, there is growing concern in development contexts over how best to
assist the poor and vulnerable to adapt to such
changes whilst ensuring environmental and
livelihood security. Ziervogel and Calder (2003)
posit that climate variability is a persistent and
progressively more worrying feature in the
everyday lives of individuals and communities
in rural areas around the world. Some studies
have highlighted major concerns about social
vulnerability in relation to the likely effects of
climate change (e.g. Adger 1999) whilst also
stressing the need for comprehensive knowledge of the complex relationships between
humans, and between them and their environment. There is also a concern that while governments are becoming increasingly aware of
the negative impacts of climate change (IUCN
et al. 2003) and thus more interested in adaptation strategies, it is necessary, as Rojas Blanco
(2006) argues, to bridge the gap between topdown decision-making and more grassroots
approaches, which encompass local knowledge
and experiences.
Adger et al. warn that ‘[c]limate change
is likely to result in societal impacts through
changes in water, natural resources, food systems, marine ecosystems and through the need
Anthropology in Action, 13, 3 (2006): 63–76 © Berghahn Books and the Association for Anthropology in Action
doi:10.3167/aia.2006.130307
AiA | Mariella Marzano
to cope with a changing regime of weather extremes’ (2003: 185). Drawing upon fieldwork
in Sri Lanka, this article explores the potential
of taking an indigenous knowledge research
(IKR) approach to understanding local adaptation to climate change, specifically how local
people are adapting their livelihood strategies
to what they perceive to be increasing variability in weather patterns. Briefly, IKR relates to
any knowledge held by a local population that
informs their understanding of the world (Sillitoe 1998b). It aims to achieve an in-depth appreciation of local experiences and objectives
and facilitates communication between local
people and outsiders (Thrupp 1989; Warren et
al. 1995; Sillitoe 1998b). Importantly, in the context of climate change, IKR is not limited to the
technical and environmental knowledge that
local people hold but also includes the sociopolitical and economic context in which this
knowledge is embedded (Sillitoe 1998a; Pottier
et al. 2003).
Using the Sri Lankan ethnographic data to
uncover adaptive strategies to climate change
is potentially limited because this research focused specifically on livelihoods and farmers’
decision-making with particular emphasis on
intercropping with rubber (Marzano 2002b).
However, the research involved recording cultivation practices in home gardens and smallholdings: places where local people are able to
integrate their own knowledge and experimentation with government-regulated advice (e.g.
for plantation crops). This allows us to explore:
(1) the ways in which local farmers use their
land and how factors such as soil variation and
microclimate influence their decision-making,
(2) whether farmers are already experiencing
what we might consider to be the effects of
longer-term climatic changes, and (3) other
sociopolitical and economic factors that contribute to the vulnerability of farmers.
Rojas Blanco (2006: 141) also emphasizes the
importance of building links between policymaking and local expertise as well as the sharing of information between local people and the
64 |
scientific community. Thus, this article touches
on the role of indigenous knowledge networks,
already in existence in parts of South Asia, and
how they can contribute in providing assistance
to people through sharing of knowledge. The
discussion allows a broad consideration of the
extent to which IKR can facilitate exchange between local farmers and the outside world and
the potential for IKR and associated networks
to promote rapid dissemination of adaptive
strategies to cope with future climate change.
Sri Lanka: Background to
Climate and Cultivation
Sri Lanka is predominantly a rural country with
a large proportion of the population relying on
farming as its main livelihood strategy. Many
villages across Sri Lanka rely solely on rain-fed
farming, and agricultural activities are highly
susceptible to variations in rainfall and temperature (Wanasinghe 2005). As with other countries in South Asia (such as Pakistan, India and
Bangladesh), Sri Lanka is thought to be particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change
(<http://www.defra.gov.uk>; IUCN et al. 2003;
Wanasinghe 2005).
Although Sri Lanka’s seasons depend on
the southwest and northeast monsoon, the island can be divided roughly into three climatic
regions: wet and dry zones and intermediate
zone between these (Ashton et al. 1997). The
district of Moneragala in southeast Sri Lanka is
divided climatically between the dry and intermediate zones with two cropping seasons:
the Maha season (the main cultivating season),
which generally runs from October to March,
and the Yala season from April to September.
The villages of Mediriya, Therrapahuwa and
Walamatiara are located in the ‘intermediate
low country’ region of Moneragala which was
considered, by farmers, to be infinitely better
(and wetter) than the dry zone. Although the
villagers in the study region would not be considered as vulnerable to the impacts of climate
Changes in the Weather
change as those in the dry zone or coastal areas
(where the impacts could be catastrophic), it is
necessary to record their experiences as they
learn to adapt against a backdrop of widespread
climate change, for as IUCN et al. point out:
Climate change and associated ecological changes
…pose threats to the viability of many economic
and social structures, even where people are not
displaced or in serious physical risk. This is particularly true where they will lead to decline in
the availability or quality of natural resources
such as water or land in which the livelihoods of
many poor people are based. (2003: 7)
Wanasinghe (2005) documents how recent
research has shown that the amount of rainfall
in Sri Lanka has gradually declined since at
least the 1950s and that drought now affects
most of the districts in the dry and intermediate zones. He states, ‘the anticipated climate
change, particularly in the dry and intermediate zones would have a negative effect on foreign earnings and the livelihoods, food security
and health of family members of small land
holders’(p. 7). Access to water influences many
aspects of a Sri Lankan villager’s life including
having enough clean water to drink and bathe
and for domestic use, but this article will primarily consider the potential impact of changes
in climate on farming. As agricultural endeavours are primarily rain-fed, and thus highly
climate-sensitive, the availability of water and
expectations of rain play a major part in farmers’ decision-making, particularly with regards
to what could or should be planted where and
when.
Cultivation Practices
Chena or slash-and-burn cultivation was abandoned in the villages under study when population numbers increased and land became scarce.
Now, in addition to keeping a home garden,
most people practice nonshifting highland cultivation on smallholdings. Johnson and Scrivenor differentiate between the Sri Lankan home
garden and smallholding stating that:
| AiA
The climate allows a wide range of plants to be
grown and at first impression a homestead garden is a confused, luxuriant, green multistoreyed
jungle…while there is much variation in the nature of smallholdings they are mainly distinguishable from homestead gardens by having
fewer species and by growing them on a commercial basis (1981: 49).
In the villages, cash crops are generally grown
in the watte (smallholdings, lit.‘garden’) which
are either extensions of home gardens or located in a separate part of the village, usually
on leased or borrowed land. The most important cash crop is batu or brinjal (a type of aubergine). Other vegetables and pulses cultivated
on smallholdings include chillies, okra (both of
which are sold if there is a surplus), bitter gourds,
pumpkins, onions, cowpeas, green gram, long
beans and yams. Herbs and spices are normally grown near the house in the kitchen garden where they can be watered and harvested
easily. Perennial cultivations include long-term
cash-oriented crops like teak or rubber and
medicinal and fruit varieties such as coconut,
banana, jak and tamarind. Wild species also
occur in home gardens and smallholdings, some
of which are valued for their timber or medicinal properties.
Paddy cultivation is largely restricted to nonirrigated or highland terraces. Some villagers
were fortunate enough to cultivate plots of between 0.5 and 2 acres with irrigated communal
‘colonies’ nearby. These terraces are often passed
down through the generations. An alternative
is for households to cultivate rice through a tenancy sharecropping system called andē where
the landlord provides the land and resources
and the tenant ploughs, plants, maintains and
harvests the paddy in return for half the crop.
However, some villagers have no access to
paddy terraces and so have to buy rice—their
staple food. Other subsistence crops include
kurakkan millet and iringu maize, both of which
can also be sold. The success of subsistence and
cash cultivation is dependent on the availability, and retention, of water and so many of the
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AiA | Mariella Marzano
discussions with farmers during my fieldwork
revolved around the properties and qualities
of soils on their land.
What Can the Soil Do For You?
Decision Making and Land Use
Clearly soil condition is not the only factor that
influences farmers’ decision-making but it is a
good example of the way in which villagers
use their knowledge of their land and environment to try to successfully cultivate vegetables,
rice and other income-generating species (Sillitoe 1998a). Limited space here precludes any
detailed discussion of soils in the region (but
see Marzano 2002b and also Ashton et al. 1997).
However, it can be discerned, through the field
examples discussed below, how villagers continually ‘adjust’ (Kates 2000) their strategies to
deal with diverse microclimates and with both
too much and too little rain.
While the basic colours of dumburu (brown),
ratu (red) and kalu (black) were frequently
mentioned by villagers in relation to soils, many
other variations in soils and their properties
were given to convey a more complete picture
of possible cultivation on any particular piece
of land . These included the capacity for water
retention, temperature regimes and whether
the soil was considered to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
For example, the following soil description, vali
kudugala missera, hondai passa naeae indicates a
mixture of sand with white stone that crumbles
easily; such a soil is not good. One farmer, Abeyasingha, pointed out that stony soil has poor
water retention as the ground dries quickly,
and is prone to drought. Another farmer, Seelavathi, related this poor water retention to the
temperature of the stones in the soil and how,
in the dry season, they became ooshnay (hot).
This, she suggested, makes it difficult to grow
banana in such soils, as the plants need considerable amounts of water.
To say that soil is seethala (cold) is also to infer that it is wet or moist. On one smallholding
66 |
in Therrapahuwa, planting decisions were made
on the basis of water retention as well as the
presence of stones in the soil. Dharamadarsa
planted his coffee near the stream (see Figure 1)
because the plants need moist soil. However,
he planted lime behind the house, towards the
mountain (in stony soil) as this citrus tree could,
in his opinion, tolerate dry land. Some of the
villagers from Mediriya have spread their cultivation to the elevated land across the Kumbukkan Oya river, most of which belongs to a
monastery. Jayasingha’s household leases three
acres directly adjacent to the river. He explained
that the brown, sandy soil there was seethala
which was ‘good’ because of water retention.
Furthermore such soil is not difficult to weed
or maintain. However, there are drawbacks as
such riverside soil is easily eroded, and they
had already lost an acre, including mature coconut palms and ancient kumbuk trees, to the
river. In some cases, the soil types in one area
were thought to have an impact on adjacent
smallholdings. Gnanawathi has two acres of
land, one acre of which she had planted with
rubber along with a number of short-term intercrops. However, the plants on one side of
the plot seemed taller and healthier than those
on the other side. I asked her why and she
pointed to the ‘unhealthy’ side where she described the soil as being made up of gal missera
karamati, a mixture of stones and clay, with kabook (hard sandstone) at around 1.5 feet deep.
The other side of the plot was made up of saluata pasa (sandy soil) with sium (fine, white sand)
underneath. Gnanawathi believed the stones
had come from the neighbouring land through
erosion.
The land in Walamatiara—a narrow village
wedged between the Kumbukkan Oya and
Therapahuwa Mountain—is characterized by
clay soils on one side of the road, near the river,
and sandy or loamy soil2 on the other side, near
the mountain, with wide variations in between.
Somalatha, whose smallholding is located at
the base of the mountain, highlighted how the
growth of plants behind her house where the
Changes in the Weather
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Figure 1: Smallholding in Therrapahuwa
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AiA | Mariella Marzano
soil is loamy is far better than in the front where
the land is clayey. The best attribute of the loamy
soil was said to be its pohora (fertile content),
referring to the topsoil that washes down from
the mountain. The clay soil, on the other hand,
becomes very sticky when it rains and if vegetables were planted there, the roots would
decay in the waterlogged soil. Somalatha also
outlined how the condition of the soil affected
her decision-making. While walking around
the smallholding she pointed to a plot near the
border between her land and that of her neighbour. She explained how the top layer of soil
was sandy but underneath it was sudu pata
makul (white clay). Following years of experimentation, she said, she had found that shortterm cultivation of crops such as cowpeas, long
beans, maize and kolu (a cereal) could survive,
if it did not rain too heavily. However, perennials such as coconut, banana and lime could not
grow because of their long roots which could
not tolerate the white clay. Villagers explained
to me that under atypical weather conditions,
for example during a prolonged drought, they
were forced to make different decisions in relation to which crops they planted and their
locations.
The Rains Play Havoc With the
Farmer: A Change in the Weather?
Although not couched in such terms as ‘longterm climate change’, many of the villagers I
spoke to were concerned about the apparent
increasing unpredictability of seasonal weather
patterns, some of which they linked to deforestation and government attempts to encourage agricultural intensification. One aspect of
the changing weather patterns that appeared
to preoccupy many farmers was the unpredictability and variability of the rains. When
discussing the difficulties facing them, one villager stated that the worst problem he faced
was a decline in rainfall and that he believed it
was worsening. Villagers were also concerned
68 |
about the variability of weather patterns and
the increased frequency of ‘extreme’ weather
events. After the hardships of a drought in
1998 there was generally considered to be too
much rain in 2000. Many villagers had genuine
worries that the weather was changing in ways
detrimental to their farming activities.
The centrality of rain is tied to Sri Lankan
folk beliefs and Buddhism. Most villagers talked
of the ‘seven-day rains’ named Duruthu that
occur in January after the poya (full moon) but
which they said had not occurred in the past
few years. In fact, rains were expected around
poya every month, and particularly during the
large peraheras (processions) held in Kataragama and Kandy, where, it was said, watercutting ceremonies3 would bring rain. Such beliefs were severely tested, though, as an extract
from my diary reveals:
In the evening I had an interesting conversation with
Danapala. He was talking about his paddy and how
he had drained all the water off to put weed killer onto
the grass while it was small. Fertilizer needed to be
put on as well but now there was no rain to fill up the
terraces. He said it would probably rain on poya day
(two days from now). I asked if he was worried. He
said yes and that it was difficult to be a farmer.
Other farmers also discussed their concerns
with the changes in rainfall and the implications this has for their decision-making:
- Before there was more rain. At the end of August it
would start and finish in February although it would
rain some other months as well.
- The problem is there is no water. We have to wait for
rain. If the rain fails farmers are disappointed. If there
was rain, paddy could be cultivated two to three times
[a year].
- There is a problem with rain. If there is not enough
and paddy is sown, it will be ruined. If vegetables are
planted instead and the rain comes in force the cultivation will become swamped and ruined.
During my fieldwork, villagers largely associated the unpredictable weather with the destruction of the local forest but also suggested
that poor watershed management had reduced
water availability. For this they blamed govern-
Changes in the Weather
ment policies which first attempted to settle the
once sparsely populated Moneragala region by
encouraging entrepreneurs to exploit timber
and then, later, urging farmers to grow sugarcane for processing at a large nearby factory
(Lakshman 1997; Marzano 2002a). Sugarcane
turned out to be unprofitable and was largely
abandoned by farmers but, as one villager explained, Sugar cultivation increased the cutting of
forest; next guinea grass came. When large trees are
cut, young plants also die…there is no food on the
mountain and no water.
Drought periods can be alleviated with the
help of large agricultural wells but these are
expensive to sink and demand costly motors
and pipes. Subsidies and loan schemes are available but, as one farmer pointed out, the ability
to repay is not assured and there is a risk that
equipment can be repossessed along with the
money already deposited.
The year before fieldwork there had been a
severe drought in Moneragala. By the time I arrived in 1999, people were waiting for droughtrelief payments from the government. Nobody
seemed sure when they would come and, as I
never heard anything more about it during the
remainder of my sixteen-month stay, I cannot
say whether the relief ever arrived. By the time
of the 1999–2000 Maha cultivating season,
farmers were complaining that there was too
much rain at the wrong time and it was damaging the paddy, then at the ‘flowering’ stage
and sensitive to such weather conditions. As
one villager said, ‘the rains play havoc with
the farmer’. Such discussions surrounding the
rain highlight the vulnerability of farmers who
practice highland or rain-fed cultivation. Problems arose during extended droughts or periods of too much rain at the wrong time of year.
Unpredictable and variable rainfall, coupled
with limited water availability, impacts on both
on- and off-farm decision-making.
Villagers try largely to adapt, almost on a
weekly basis, to the rains, both in terms of cultivation and whether they engage with other
livelihood strategies. For example, Sunethra
| AiA
and her husband had cleared an area of their
land and burnt the weeds with the intention of
ploughing and planting pumpkin but they had
to abandon this because they could not plough
for lack of rain. During prolonged dry periods
when farming is not possible, many village men
turn to mining for precious gems4, an activity
that is illegal without a licence. Other livelihood strategies adopted when cultivation fails
include making and selling bricks, collecting
and selling firewood, (illegal) logging, labouring and masonry work. Some villagers were
lucky enough to have a government job. The
lack of a secure water supply, coupled with uncertainty surrounding the weather, means that
villagers have continually to experiment and
adapt their agricultural practices in relation to
the prevailing weather. As most rural people are
directly dependent on natural resources for their
livelihoods, the potential of climate changes to
reduce the availability and suitability of these
resources has serious implications for villagers
who are already vulnerable (IUCN et al. 2003).
The impacts of climate change on cultivation
practices must also be placed within a social
context and, as the IUCN et al. point out, ‘Any
consideration of the need for adaptation to help
poor communities to adjust to the effects of climate change must take account of all [the] different forms of vulnerability’ (2003: 6).
What is Vulnerability?
Much has been written about the predicted impacts of climate change, including temperature
change, drought, flooding and sea-level rise,
which all have the potential to seriously threaten
people’s social and environmental well-being
(<http://www.defra.gov.uk>; Ribot et al. 1996).
In some South Asian countries, climate change
brings increased risk of flooding and sea-level
rise whilst other countries can expect severe
water stress and drought (Huq et al. 2003). Of
course, many countries such as Sri Lanka with
a wide diversity of bioclimatic regions could
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AiA | Mariella Marzano
experience all these effects to some degree.
Exposure to the effects of climate change will
contribute not only to the vulnerability of biodiversity but also to the vulnerability of individuals, communities and nations (IPCC 2001;
IUCN et al. 2003; Brooker et al. 2007).
There is also a considerable literature on assessing the vulnerability of people and their
associated abilities to adapt to the impacts of
climate change (see, for example, Ribot et al.
1996; Adger 1999; Kates 2000; Adger et al. 2003;
Huq et al. 2003; IUCN et al. 2003; Schröter et al.
2005; Rojas Blanco 2006). Adger (1999: 249) defines vulnerability as ‘the exposure of groups
or individuals to stress as a result of social and
environmental change, where stress refers to unexpected changes and disruption to livelihoods’
(see also IPCC 2001: 89). Resilience, the opposite of vulnerability, represents the ability of
people to withstand the impacts of trends and
shocks (IUCN et al. 2003). The effects of climate
change, such as unpredictable and variable rainfall, can add further stress to individuals, households and communities who are already sociopolitically and economically vulnerable (see,
for example, Marzano 2002a). IUCN et al. (2003)
highlight that resilience, and therefore a secure
livelihood, is determined by access to assets
(e.g. social, natural, human, physical and financial assets, as defined by the sustainable livelihoods framework; see Pretty 1999) and external
services. They define these services as ‘those
provided by flood control, coastal protection
and other infrastructure, transport and communication, access to credit and financial systems,
access to markets, emergency relief systems
and others’ (IUCN et al. 2003: 6).
A key factor emerging from the literature,
and from the experiences of villagers in Sri
Lanka (see below), is that individual livelihood
choices are dynamic and situated (as well as
constrained) within changing sociopolitical, economic and environmental circumstances (Adger
1999; IPCC 2001). Cohen (1997) highlights that
any national response to climate change will
be influenced by other issues such as the global
70 |
economy, political realities and regional issues.
He adds that ‘if climate warming occurs, governments and their constituents will need advice on how to adapt to the new climate’ (Cohen
1997: 296). Yet, as Rojas Blanco (2006: 141) reports, local communities are often best placed
to develop solutions likely to work at the local
level because they are already reporting the effects of climatic variations in their regions and
responding as best they can. But they are infrequently, if ever, consulted.
Responding as Best They Can: The
Social Context of Livelihood Choices
It seems that the Sri Lankan villagers are generally coping with the current variability in the
weather they are experiencing, although some
are better off than others, having better support systems in place, including access to social
networks (see Marzano 2002a; Adger et al. 2003).
Huq et al. (2003) highlight that while some adaptations by local people will be planned, others will be a spontaneous reaction to changing
circumstances related to resource use or economic constraints. The problems that villagers
face are diverse. Moneragala has been described
as one of the poorest and least developed regions of Sri Lanka (Marzano 2002a,b) and villagers struggle not only with water but also with
other issues such as access to land, the availability of labour, health issues, the control of pests
and diseases, the problems of marketing and,
more generally, the political legacies of colonialism and civil war.
Land
Lack of suitable land is a major issue for the
villagers in Mediriya and Therrapahuwa. The
former is densely populated, while rocks and
large boulders dominate the land around Therrapahuwa. Most households solve the problem
of lack of land by sharecropping, leasing land
or finding a landowner who will lend land free
Changes in the Weather
of charge. Terms of land access reflect the varying power of individual households to press
their claims. Whilst the majority of households
have some form of permit for their land from
the local council, some do not and have been
waiting years for the issue of permits. Without
a land permit, households cannot participate
in government programmes and are excluded
from institutional credit and subsidies. Agreements between tenants and landlords are similarly precarious, particularly with the popular
practice of informal verbal arrangements over
land access. A number of cases were cited to
me where a landowner had agreed to allow a
villager to farm uncultivated plots but once the
land had been cultivated, reclaimed it. The difficulties that farmers face in securing land has
considerable bearing on the livelihood strategies they employ.
Labour
Scarcity of labour affects farmers’ decisions
over prioritizing daily activities. Certain strategies are adopted to cope with the lack of available labour such as attam, sharecropping or
allowing others to cultivate and maintain your
land. Labourers can be found but they are few
in number and may be too expensive for many
household budgets. A male labourer costs Rs150
per day (roughly 77 UK pence in 2006) and the
employer must pay in advance and provide
two meals, tea and areca nut.
Health
The livelihood strategies of villagers are also
influenced by the state of their health. Moneragala has always had a reputation for vectorborne diseases such as malaria. One villager
told me how, long ago, Moneragala used to
have the nickname Muppanne5 and there was a
saying, ‘Do not point your finger at Muppanne
lest the fever travel up your arm’. Currently
the land pits left by mining are considered one
of the prime causes of malaria, which afflicts
| AiA
many villagers repeatedly, particularly during
the rainy season when the pits are filled with
water. Most villagers blamed malaria on the
unpredictable weather. Its affects can have devastating consequences for households, being
worse for people with limited access to social
networks. As Thompson points out, ‘[p]eople
suffering from malaria are unable to go out
and tend to their assets. Equally, people without assets are vulnerable to malnutrition and
disease and are less likely to be able to afford
essential treatments and health services’ (1998:
203). Climate change, through global warming,
is likely to expand the range of vector-borne
diseases like malaria and water-borne diseases
such as cholera (IPCC 2001).
Pests and Diseases
The protection of crops from pests and diseases
is an ongoing and expensive struggle for Sri
lankan farmers. They use chemical pesticides
(behet, ‘medicine’) on a number of different crops
but with variable success rates. Attacks by wild
animals such as birds, squirrels, monkeys and
wild boar cannot be prevented, unless a household guards its crops constantly, which demands labour. For example, during the last
stages of paddy growth, a period which attracts
birds, rats and other pests, household members
will spend substantial periods of time rigging
up scaring devices and watching for attacks.
Farmers also need to be on guard against such
pests as panuwa (worms) that burrow into vegetables such as brinjal and okra; a stem borer
that invades banana plants, moving from one
plant to the next; and a beetle that eats coconut
palms from the inside. A virus that attacks lime
and orange trees has almost wiped out varieties that were once widespread and thriving in
Moneragala district and farmers believe there
is no preventative measure. This ongoing struggle with diseases and pests is likely to be exacerbated by climate change which may alter
both their development and survival as well as
the susceptibility of their hosts (FAO 2005).
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AiA | Mariella Marzano
Markets
There is a market every day in some part of the
district. The most popular with villagers is the
Medagama market on Thursdays and Moneragala market every Saturday and Sunday. Some
farmers take their produce to Moneragala market but many transport it (by bicycle or threewheeler) to Nakkala Junction where most
of the buying and selling occurs before lorries
arrive to transport the produce to other markets. It takes time and effort to transport produce to market and a number of middlemen
and -women operate in the region buying fruit
and vegetables, sometimes at low rates. One
‘trick of the trade’ involves the middleman or
-woman agreeing to sell a farmer’s brinjal at a
set price but then returning from market saying that it sold for less money than originally
agreed. The farmer then has to accept less
money without knowing whether his brinjal
was actually sold at this price or not. Villagers
also suffer from gluts in the market, and lack of
control over pricing decisions can affect livelihood strategies (Marzano 2007). General difficulties with farming have led to large changes
in the choices that young Sri Lankans make.
Only 1 percent of school leavers want to go
into farming because of the risk, lack of markets and no guarantee of year-round income
(Official from Monergala Agricultural Department, pers. comm.).
Political Legacies
Although there has been a growing interest in
indigenous knowledge and the role that local
people can play in rural development in Sri
Lanka (see for example SLARCIK 1996), Karunayake (2001, cited in Wanasinghe 2005) emphasizes that resources are still controlled and
managed by the state bureaucracy and local
power groups. Farmers are subject to the political structures that exist in Sri Lanka, influenced
by a long history of colonialism, neoliberal policies, the continuation of paternalistic attitudes
72 |
and the rise of partisanship. Levels of mistrust
and suspicion are high following two traumatic
insurgencies and over two decades of civil war,
which now threatens to erupt again following
the devastating Tsunami in 2005 (Brow 1988;
Spencer 1990; Moore 1992; Woost 1993; Alailima
1997; Marzano 2002b). These broader, political
issues are all pervasive and have tangible effects on an individual farmer’s vulnerability
and resilience. It is likely that they will only be
exacerbated by the additional impact of likely
climate change. How can farmers’ knowledge
of their land and its capabilities, and their ability to be flexible and adaptive (often in response
to factors outside their control) be harnessed
when facing the realities of climate change given
this complex situation and the problems associated with the sustainability of rural development in Sri Lanka? Rojas Blanco (2006) suggests
a form of information exchange where local
communities are informed of the consequences
of climate change from a top-down perspective, and vice versa, that local people are involved
in policy-related decision-making processes.
Indigenous Knowledge Research
and Networks
Indigenous knowledge research has the potential to provide a link between local knowledge
and experiences and the scientific or policydriven community (Sillitoe 1998b; 2000). Its emphasis is on working closely with local people
and situating their knowledge of the environment, and of climatic variability, in the wider,
sociopolitical context within which they make
their livelihood choices. Indigenous knowledge
research can feed into the growing methodological toolboxes that are being developed to
identify vulnerability to climate change, particularly where there is a call to recognize, as
was discussed in relation to Sri Lankan farmers,
the heterogeneity and fluidity of local experiences, skills and knowledge and the importance
of placing this knowledge within a social con-
Changes in the Weather
text (see for example Schröter et al. 2005: 576–
77 for their ‘five criteria for vulnerability assessments’). Importantly IKR sets out to make links
between local people’s understanding and experiences and those of outside researchers or
policy-makers. Moreover, the inclusion of local
people’s knowledge of resource availability
and accessibility is likely to increase the impact
and relevance of climate change research (Sillitoe 1998a). For example, at the national level
there is growing concern in Sri Lanka over foreign exchange earnings for export crops such as
tea and rubber and the possible impacts of climate change on the economy. These crops are
cultivated on large, government- and privatelyowned plantations, but also on smallholdings
across the island (Wanasinghe 2005). It is on
the smallholdings that climate change impacts
are most likely to be recognized.
Cohen (1997: 302) has argued for the importance of local people’s environmental knowledge
but adds that little of this valuable information
has reached the mainstream discourse on global
climate change. However, it is also necessary
for the reverse to happen—for global information on climate change to reach local farmers in
an accessible format. Ziervogel and Calder (2003)
discuss how seasonal forecasts can be made
more available and accessible to vulnerable
groups. They state:
Because climate is only one stress on livelihoods,
the impact of seasonal forecasts requires assessing not just agricultural activities that might
change in response to forecasts, but the multiple
dimensions of rural livelihoods that constrain
the uptake of information, have secondary effects and determine the system’s ability to handle future stress. (2003: 403)
Indigenous knowledge networks are also
potentially vehicles for rapidly sharing information and building links between localities.
They have the capacity for representing and
communicating local issues and could be used
to facilitate the exchange of adaptive strategies
and sustainable technologies between regions
which may, through climate change, experience
| AiA
similar agroclimatic conditions. An example
would be the development of floating gardens
in Bangladesh (see <http://www.itdg.org>), a
technology that involves fashioning rafts out
of water hyacinths on which people plant vegetables. Such technology will gather importance
in the face of rising water levels, particularly as
a way of ensuring food security for poor farmers. In other areas, indigenous knowledge which
has already evolved to deal with drought-prone
conditions may be invaluable to farmers who
now face increasingly unpredictable rainfall. Importantly, exchange of information and ideas
will provide a support mechanism for farmers
who are currently developing coping strategies which may not be adequate in times of
rapid climate change (Sillitoe 1998b; Adger et
al. 2003; Wanasinghe 2005).
Currently, Indigenous knowledge networks
work at the local level. Indigenous knowledge
resource centres are found in many countries
across the world including South Asia, Bangladesh (BARCIK), India (CARIKS) and Sri Lanka
(SLARCIK). There is also a variety of networks,
such as the Climate Action Network in Bangladesh and Development Alternative in India,
which may involve local or regional NGOs but
are generally unconnected to government or
administrative networks. It is important to explore the potential and obstacles to not only
linking these networks across countries but
also bridging the gap between indigenousknowledge and government networks to learn
lessons from past and present strategies of
adaptation to climate change and develop appropriate solutions for the future.
Concluding Remarks
The growing concern surrounding the likely
impacts of climate change on vulnerable and
poor people highlights the necessity for twoway communication between the worldwide
discourse on global warming and grassroots
experiences of local people trying to cope with
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AiA | Mariella Marzano
the changes and vice versa. As Adger et al. point
out, ‘all societies…need to learn to cope with the
changes that are predicted—warmer temperatures, drier soils, changes in weather extremes
and rising sea levels’ (2003: 180). Many countries around the world, including Sri Lanka,
face increased risk from changing weather regimes from the catastrophic to the less obvious
but equally significant changes that are thought
likely to occur and that will render local populations vulnerable to livelihood shocks and
stresses (<http://www.livelihoods.org>). The
necessity to devise ways to adapt to current
and predicted climate changes is becoming increasingly inescapable and there are calls for
inclusion of local people in global discussions on
adaptation as they represent the ‘lived reality’.
The lived reality of Sri Lankan farmers in
the villages of Mediriya, Therrapahuwa and
Walamatiara is one in which the availability of
water influences every aspect of daily living
and the livelihood choices that are made. Water is a valuable resource for these farmers who
depend on the rain for their subsistence and
cash crops. In order to cope with changes in
the prevailing weather, farmers use their intimate knowledge of their land, including soil
properties, to adjust to the unpredictability of
rainfall. However, perhaps even more important in the context of this article, Sri Lankan
farmers are also concerned about the longerterm changes that they are witnessing for
themselves. The extent to which farmers have
the resilience to withstand the environmental
effects of climate change is also contingent on
the other sociopolitical and economic realities
that impact on their daily existence. This article discusses issues of access to land and
labour, health, market opportunities and a political environment influenced by a colonial
past and war-torn present. Adger et al. (2003:
186) highlight that there is an emerging research agenda focusing on identifying key factors that determine resilience and emphasizing
a focus on learning from past and present experiences. Indigenous knowledge research can
74 |
document these experiences, situating them
within the social context in which they occur,
an important factor if adaptive strategies are to
work in a sustainable manner. However, for
adaptive solutions to be sought there must be
efficient and accessible methods for sharing
and dissemination of knowledge and ideas. Indigenous knowledge networks can provide a
vehicle for such information flows and create a
support mechanism that may bridge the gap
between top-down global and national decision-making on adaptation and more grassroots approaches where people learn to adjust
in order to survive.
Acknowledgements
The ideas for this article came out of detailed
discussions on IKR with Paul Sillitoe. I am also
grateful for the help and advice provided by
Dave Carss, Mabub Alam and Monzurul
Mannan.
Mariella Marzano is a Research Associate in
the Department of Anthropology, University of
Durham and Centre for Ecology and Hydrology,
Banchory. Her research interests are in environmental anthropology, sustainable development
and interdisciplinarity with regional foci in South
Asia and Europe. She currently works on issues
surrounding biodiversity monitoring and conservation and human–wildlife conflicts in Europe.
(Mariella Marzano, 43 Old Elvet, DURHAM,
DH1 3HN, England. E-mail:
[email protected])
Notes
1. The phrase ‘ecosystem approach’ was first
coined in the early 1980s, but found formal acceptance at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992
where it became an underpinning concept of
the Convention on Biological Diversity, and
was later described as: ‘a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living
Changes in the Weather
2.
3.
4.
5.
resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way’.
Villagers explained that loamy soil was a grey
colour, loose and fertile because it was made up
of earth, sand and decomposing matter (litter
layer). However, because of soil erosion this
layer would only remain up to a year after the
jungle had been cleared.
Although there are a number of versions of the
origins of this ceremony, Fernando describes
the diya kapuma (water-cutting ceremony) as
originally a rain-making ceremony and associated with agricultural practices (2000: 142, see
this book also for further details on this ritual).
Mine pits can be land-based or dug in the river.
The types of gems found in Sri Lanka include
varieties of sapphire, ruby, moonstone, amethyst,
garnet and topaz.
The villager was not sure what Muppanne meant
but thought that as Mul is ‘chief’ and Pahana
translates as ‘stone’, the name might have been
used to refer to Moneragala as a ‘principal
boundary’.
References
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The Eschatology of Global Warming in a
Scottish Fishing Village
Joseph Webster, Downing College, Cambridge
In Gamrie, an Aberdeenshire fishing village home to 700 people and six millennialist
Protestant churches, global warming is more than just a ‘hoax’: it is a demonic conspiracy
that threatens to bring about the ruin of the entire human race. Such a certainty was
rendered intelligible to local Christians by viewing it through the lens of dispensationalist
theology brought to the village by the Plymouth Brethren. In a play on Weberian notions
of disenchantment, I argue that whereas Gamrie’s Christians rejected global warming
as a false eschatology, and environmentalism as a false salvationist religion, supporters
of the climate change agenda viewed global warming as an apocalyptic reality and
environmentalism as providing salvific redemption. Both rhetorics – each engaged in a
search for ‘signs of the end times’ – are thus millenarian.
Keywords: millenarianism, disenchantment, climate change denial, crisis, Christian
fundamentalism, prophecy
Introduction
How do eschatology, millenarianism and apocalypticism come together to form a
coherent sense of the near (Guyer 2007) and distant future? And how do these visions
of future worlds inhabit the here and now? In this article, I argue that certain popular
expressions of the climate change agenda – such as the Christian ontology encountered
in the Scottish village of Gamrie – can be understood as a kind of millenarianism.
More than this, I also argue that such millenarianism necessarily references the realm
of materiality. Hurricanes, EU log books, famines, fishing nets, barcodes and global
floods – these are the material ‘signs’ that the world is soon to end according to the
shared imaginings of climate activists and Christian fundamentalists.
My argument here is that what appear to be (scientific) ‘ways of knowing’ may
be mapped onto (religious) ‘ways of believing’, which allows us to view certain
expressions of Christianity as a kind of science (cf. Harding 2000; Keller 2005) while
also, perhaps less expectedly, viewing certain expressions of climatology as a kind of
Christian millenarianism. By engaging in such comparison, I am implicitly offering
a methodology for fostering future dialogue between climate change ‘activists’ and
climate change ‘deniers’.
Cambridge Anthropology 31(1), Spring 2013: 68–84 © Cambridge Anthropology
doi:10.3167/ca.2013.310106
The Eschatology of Global Warming in a Scottish Fishing Village
Forging such a dialogue, however, contains its own contradiction, built as it is upon
a shared rhetoric of crisis, which, by positing an utterly imminent apocalypse, actually
seeks to shut down rather than open up lines of communication. One solution might be
to develop a ‘language of perspicuous contrast’ between climate activists and Christian
fundamentalists by formulating environmental and evangelical concerns ‘as alternative
possibilities in relation to some human constants at work in both’ (Taylor 1985: 125).
One such ‘language’, I suggest, is the eschatological search for ‘signs of the times’ within
the human constant of the material realm. As such, far from the apocalypse existing
as an utterly transcendent (cf. Cannell 2005) and ethereal ‘future deliverance’ into
‘heavenly rest’ or ‘a world-wide funeral’ (Bloch 1991: 90; cf. Bloch 1986), the eschaton
is experienced – by ‘fundamentalist’ Christians and climate activists alike – as alive,
in the here and now, through the materiality of everyday life. But first, some context.
Millenarianism in North-east Scotland
Between 2008 and 2010 I spent fifteen months living in Gamrie, a small fishing village
in north-east Aberdeenshire – home to 700 people and six churches – attempting to
answer the rather blunt question: Why is there so much religion going on in such a
small place? Of the six Protestant churches in Gamrie, one is an evangelical Church of
Scotland, four are loosely referred to as Brethren, and one is a Free Presbyterian Church
of Ulster – the denomination established by the Rev. Ian Paisley. All six churches, as well
as being influenced by J.N. Darby’s strongly millenarian dispensationalist eschatology1
(cf. Harding 2000), have also adopted the theology and politics of Christian Zionism.2
This corner of the north-east coast of Scotland is dominated by the fishing industry,
while also containing dozens of churches and meeting halls, the majority of which are
Brethren, Pentecostal or independent evangelical. It is within this context of Scottish,
non-conformist (and often somewhat ‘fringe’) Protestantism that my research among
Christian fishermen took place.
In Gamrie, global warming is more than just a ‘hoax’ – it is a demonic conspiracy
that threatens to bring about the ruin of the entire human race. My Christian friends
in the village were certain of this because they viewed their world through the lens
of a pre-tribulational pre-millennialism,3 stating that the present existed as ‘the last
of the last days’. The end of the world was imminent; all ‘true Christians’ would soon
be ‘raptured’ from the earth, and the Tribulation – an horrific period of worldwide
demonic rule – would follow, ending in the battle of Armageddon and Judgement Day.
The signs of all of this, my friends told me, could already be seen. Swine flu, the British
MPs expenses scandal, the growth of Islam, the global recession, homosexual ministers
in the Kirk (Church of Scotland), legislation to allow gay marriage, the relaxing of
Scottish licensing laws, higher rates of divorce, the spread of heroin addiction among
the young – all of these were held up as clear evidence that the Devil was attacking
Scottish society in every way possible.
Crucially, the recent increase in such attacks, my informants told me, was because
‘the Devil knows that his time is short – that Jesus is soon coming back’. As a result,
Christians were to expect life to become increasingly difficult. Persecutions of those
adhering to ‘Bible principles’ would become the norm – a fact well documented, I was
Cambridge Anthropology • 69
Joseph Webster
told, by the Christian Institute, an evangelical lobby group who fought court cases
involving issues of religious liberty. During such times of persecution, ‘God’s faithful
remnant’ would become ever smaller, as mainstream denominations, like the Church
of Scotland, liberalized to the point of becoming apostate.
Yet it was not only those in the larger urban churches of Edinburgh, Glasgow and
Aberdeen who were imagined to constitute this ‘falling away’ from ‘the truth of the
Gospel’. So, too, people in Gamrie – particularly the young in their teens, twenties and
thirties – were abandoning the village Kirk and Brethren halls in large numbers. For
young families, Sunday was no longer ‘the Lord’s Day’ but their own, filled with ‘secular
work’ (typically fishing for men, and housework and childcare for women) as well as
‘worldly leisure’ (day trips, shopping, television, family time). My older Christian
informants felt such departures keenly: their own children had failed to ‘convert’ to the
faith, I was told, ‘having decided to reject Christ’.
Gamrie’s elderly Christians had only one chance left: to transfer their evangelistic
efforts from their (now grown-up) children onto their grandchildren. These youngest
of souls – toddlers and pre-teens – were understood as the only future the religion of
Gamrie had. ‘We’re only old ones left now Joe, and we’re dying off,’ my friends would
explain. ‘If the young ones don’t come in, we’ll have to shut the door’. This numerical
decline, as well as being a sociological reality that my informants readily identified
as such, was also said to be a spiritual reality and a ‘sign of the end times’. As God’s
‘faithful remnant’ became ever smaller, so too did the impact of their ‘gospel witness’.
With increasingly fewer voices left to ‘proclaim the message of born-again salvation’,
more and more ‘lost souls’ were being claimed by Satan, who, ‘in this present day
and generation’, was growing ever more powerful. Such was the acute nature of the
problem of ‘born-again’ demographic collapse, a situation that was turned into an utter
emergency by the fact that, eschatologically speaking, time was running out.
While this reality was painful for my informants, it was by no means surprising.
Indeed, their reading of biblical prophecy explained with prefect clarity and accuracy
the situation of spiritual crisis they found their village and their nation to be in:
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers
of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent,
fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures
more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from
such turn away. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. (2
Tim. 3: 1–5, 12–13)
This was a well-remembered and much discussed passage of scripture, and was also the
key text of many sermons. A frequently offered refrain in such sermons was ‘we’re not
living in first Timothy days; we’re living in second Timothy days!’ Judging by the solemn
agreement of congregants, I came to realize this temporal placement of the verses of
2 Timothy (or ‘Second Timothy’) alongside the present was deeply significant for my
informants. Biblical time had been conflated with the present via these prophetic texts.
One key way this conflation took place was by searching for ‘signs of the end times’.
70 • Cambridge Anthropology
The Eschatology of Global Warming in a Scottish Fishing Village
Such signs confirmed to my friends that, not only were they living through ‘the last
of the last days’, but that, as a group of Christians who formed part of ‘God’s faithful
remnant’, they were themselves at the epicentre of the unfolding of the eschaton. As
God’s heralds they continued to faithfully ‘send forth the glad tidings’ of the Gospel by
proclaiming the need to be ‘washed in the blood’ of Jesus. As God’s watchmen, they
remained vigilant against the attacks of the Devil, warning all who would listen of his
soul-ruining schemes, while also ‘scanning the skies’ day by day, eagerly anticipating
the bodily Second Coming of Christ and their own resultant deliverance into heaven.
I want to focus the rest of my analysis on this role of ‘watchmen’ that many of my
friends assigned to themselves, and want to do so by paying attention to one specific
‘demonic plot’ that Gamrie’s Christians were at particular pains to expose – that of
global warming and climate change.
‘Green is the new Red!’
Noel, a young Irish preacher in Gamrie’s Free Presbyterian Church, was concerned
about humanity’s misplaced sense of control over their own environment: ‘Man wants
to be in control and thinks he is in control of the future of the planet’, Noel told me,
describing how this produced a warped ‘saviour mentality’ among environmentalists:
‘we’ve got to save the planet and save mankind’, he imitated. Noel elaborated to me his
scientific and theological views on climate change. Man emits carbon when he breathes
and when his body rots. There was no real cause for concern, therefore, because carbon
emissions were a natural part of life and death as laid down, post the Fall, in Genesis 3:
9: ‘for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’.
I asked Noel whether he felt that reducing greenhouse gases was an issue of ‘Christian
stewardship’; surely because God had put humans in charge of the planet, I reasoned,
it was our job to tackle climate change? To my surprise, he rejected the very notion
of stewardship – such ideas assumed humans had more control and power over the
environment than they actually did. It was God, not man, who remained in ultimate
control over the planet. Furthermore, the Bible clearly stated that the whole of Creation
was groaning, as in the pains of childbirth. Indeed, the environmental problems we saw
today were a direct cause of God’s curse laid down upon Creation at the point of the
Fall, and not the result of recent human activity. ‘Green is the new Red!’ Noel jeered,
arguing that environmentalism had eclipsed communism as the most popular paradigm
for allowing humans to imagine that they could provide their own way of salvation.
The conversation ended on a dark note, with Noel describing how the world would
end, not in a flood caused by melting icecaps but by fire from heaven. ‘They’re saying
it’s getting hotter, but I don’t think they know just how hot it’s going to get!’ he said, with
a knowing laugh.
‘Keep a Constant Watch!’
Donald, the local Kirk minister, originally from the Isle of Lewis, was also a climate
change sceptic, and preached the following from his pulpit:
Cambridge Anthropology • 71
Joseph Webster
People all over the world put their trust in stocks and shares and yet we see a world
limping on from crisis to crisis … We know we are living in the last of the last days
… Did any of us wake up and say, ‘Could He come back today?’ … His return will
be unannounced apart from those signs that we read in the Word of God … Climate
change! It’s the new religion! They are going to save the world on their own terms! …
People will say, ‘Oh, why isn’t He coming? We’ve been waiting for two thousand years’
… He is keeping His promise and we can see signs in our day: earthquakes, famines,
nation against nation, family breakdown. And we are not blind. We see the signs. And
surely His words are the words that we build our faith and trust [upon] … We need to
be watching out! Keep a constant watch! … We know that these things we see with our
eyes will disappear like a vapour …
The whole world seems to be rushing to climate change! But if you listen to these
debates there is … nothing of God [in them] … So the message for us is to stand firm
in the truth … The final ruler of the world will be a counterfeit Christ … but every plan
that is in opposition to God will ultimately fail…. A great day of judgement is coming …
You see, climate change, this is the new Gospel! Are we spending more time and effort
on the climate change agenda than we are on proclaiming the Gospel? They are trying
to save the world!
Millenarianism and Scots Fishermen
What kind of a world do Donald and Noel live in, in order for all of this to be so? While
neither man was considered a ‘local’, both men led churches in the village, and both, as
did the Brethren, favoured strongly millenarian theology. Crucially, the vast majority of
Gamrie’s Christians were fishermen, the village being dominated by the industry since
its foundation in the 1700s. Noel’s and Donald’s comments, then, speak to wider fears
about the insecurity of life at sea. Fishing was a ‘risky business’ in every sense; it was
dangerous, dirty, exhausting work, and, despite offering great financial reward, catches,
prices and profits fluctuated enormously. ‘We have to thank God for every fish that he
puts in our nets’ was a common statement among Gamrie’s Christian fishermen.
Such a reality cast God as a kind of divine paternal breadwinner, being both
‘protector’ and ‘provider’ – the ultimate agentive force in a world of uncertainty. I
have argued elsewhere (Webster 2012) how this male mode of kinship with the divine
required local fishermen to learn how to display emotional characteristics typically
associated with women and children: submissive obedience, needy dependence and
willing indebtedness. The performance of such emotional states, required by God of
His (male) people, was embraced as a spiritual sacrifice, allowing men more completely
to conform to the will of God by having their prototypically masculine sins of pride
and self-reliance ‘put to death’ through living a life of humble faith. Acquiescence, then,
emerged here because it was God – and not one’s fellow creatures – who was imagined
as demanding this sacrifice, ostensibly leaving no man in a position of greater (or
lesser) authority in relation to other men in the church.
This horizontal status equivalence collapsed, however, when a change in the
authorship of this sacrificial demand occurred. That ‘strong’ and ‘powerful’ fishermen
were now being asked to become humble by abandoning themselves to (ostensibly)
this-worldly ‘powers and principalities’ was received with grave concern. It was not God
but other men who now required Gamrie’s fishermen to show submissive obedience.
72 • Cambridge Anthropology
The Eschatology of Global Warming in a Scottish Fishing Village
But who were these men, from which ‘principality’ did they emerge, and what powers
did they wield? Asking such questions in the field elicited characteristically frank
responses: the men who controlled the industry were scientists, environmentalists,
politicians and bureaucrats, who – taken together – formed a key part of the evil empire
of the European Union, and its Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
But how did these imaginings relate to the functioning of political structures?
It should be noted at the outset that the Scottish fishing industry was very tightly
regulated by ‘Brussels’ (locally synonymous with the EU), who laid down far-reaching
legislation on many aspects of the catching and sale of fish. Boats were required to hold
both species licences and quota certification, regulating which fish could be landed and
in what quantities. The size of net mesh was also set by the CFP in an attempt to halt the
catching of juvenile species as a way of safeguarding the reproductive viability of future
stocks. To the chagrin of my informants, however, the precise rules about how wide net
mesh had to be were constantly changing to reflect new scientific data. Measurements
also differed depending on where a boat fished and what species it was attempting to
catch. As a result, old nets had to be adapted (a time consuming process) or new nets
purchased (at great expense) to comply with EU regulations.
During my fieldwork, an additional layer of control was imposed on the industry.
The ‘days at sea’ scheme introduced a new quota by delineating a maximum number of
days that any fishing vessel could be at sea in any given season. Time spent steaming
to and from fishing grounds was included in this calculation, meaning that half a day
or more might be lost at the beginning and end of each trip. For the two Sabbatarian
skippers I went to sea with, short six-day trips (so as to be onshore for Sunday worship)
already meant significant time and fuel was spent steaming to and from fishing
grounds. Where this inefficiency was compounded by new ‘days at sea’ legislation, my
friends’ suspicions that the EU was against the fishing industry in general and Christian
fishermen in particular were very much confirmed. My friends were left to ‘humble
themselves’, not through obedience to ‘God’s perfect plan’ but by submitting, as they
saw it, to the whims of ‘bureaucrats in Brussels’ – men, I was told, who knew little about
fishing and nothing of a life at sea.
But for Gamrie’s fishermen, the greatest evidence that these ‘big men’ of the EU
had motives outside environmental conservation was seen in the working of the
traditional ‘species’ and ‘total allowable catch’ (TAC) quota systems. While justified for
the bureaucrats as methods for protecting marine environments to ensure sustainable
fishing, they often created the problem of ‘throwbacks’ (also known as ‘discards’).
‘Throwbacks’ referred to the situation where vast quantities of dead fresh fish had to be
dumped back into the sea because boats either did not hold the required species licence
or had already fulfilled their TAC. Waste on such an industrial scale again raised the
suspicions of Gamrie’s Christians, who, after all, were to ‘keep a constant watch’ for
signs of the imminent arrival of both God and the Devil.
This problem of ‘throwbacks’ was just such a sign. ‘The Evil One’, I was told, was
seeking control of world food supplies in order to impose a global famine which would
then be used by the Kingdom of Satan as a weapon to compel humankind to ‘bow
the knee’ by engaging in blasphemous and soul-ruining worship of the Devil. Further
evidence of this diabolical plot was said to be found in the EU’s setting of minimum
Cambridge Anthropology • 73
Joseph Webster
prices for every species at market. Fish not making its minimum price was sprayed
with red dye and turned into pet food or fertilizer. In such instances, skippers and crew
simply had to stand by – embarrassed and angry – while portions of their hard-won
catch were desecrated with indelible pigment, scattered with paper tickets emblazoned
with the word ‘withdrawn’, and then dragged into a corner of the market to be removed
once all ‘saleable’ fish had been dealt with.
My informants were left with few doubts: in Gamrie, every fisherman knew that
what was really wrong with the fishing industry was not the decline in fish stocks caused
by over-fishing but the decline in fishing fleets cause by over-regulation. The ‘signs’,
Christian friends asserted, could be ‘read’ by any who cared to look. Despite regularly
bringing in huge hauls of prawns which went on to achieve good prices on the market,
skippers were still going bankrupt, boats were still being sold off, and crews were still
facing redundancy. Where complaints of ‘red tape’ and Brussels mismanagement were
shared between all the fishermen I met in Fraserburgh, what was most distinctive about
my encounters with Christian fishermen was the way that bureaucracy was experienced
as ‘demonic attack’ (Webster in press).
With ships required by law to host EU and scientific observers, to fill in detailed
log books itemizing catches and throwbacks, and to label every box with a unique ID
number and barcode prior to sale, Gamrie’s Christian fishermen began to see CFP
legislation as ‘the mark of the Beast’, spread by its Antichrist and handmaiden of the
Devil, the EU. For my friends in Gamrie, God’s call to sacrificial obedience and humble
dependence was being usurped. In this context, ‘man-made’ and ‘demonically inspired’
attempts to force God’s people to ‘bow the knee’ in submission to ‘earthly principalities’
were both resented as emasculating and rejected as satanic.
Conspiracy and Lies
But why reject the notion of climate change as a lie? In what sense is global warming
a demonic conspiracy? One of the first places to which my informants turned when
answering such questions was the Bible, and specifically to the story of Noah’s ark. As many
Sunday-school pupils know, after forty days and nights of rain, the global flood waters
receded, and Noah and his family exited the ark, whereupon God made a covenant with
mankind never to destroy the earth with water again, a promise sealed with a perpetual
reminder – God’s placing of each rainbow in the sky. ‘They go on about global warming
and the icebergs melting, but we know we don’t have to worry about that’, Helen, a female
congregant, told me, as we stared out to sea from her patio steps. ‘God is in control’, she
said with a confident stare. Any suggestion to the contrary was rejected as a blasphemous
reoccurrence of Satan’s very first act of temptation – asking Eve, ‘did God really say?’ –
and so calling into question the (literal) trustworthiness of the ‘living word’ of the Bible
(cf. Crapanzano 2000: 119). Helen’s certainty was shared by the other Christians in the
village: rising sea levels were an impossibility because God had covenanted not to allow
it. Scripture was true and God kept his promises; of that, my friends were certain.
But what of global warming? As Noel’s comments indicate, Gamrie’s Christians
generally considered environmentalist fears about atmospheric temperature rises, in
an ironic twist, as dangerously optimistic. Not only would the world get hotter, but it
74 • Cambridge Anthropology
The Eschatology of Global Warming in a Scottish Fishing Village
would be burned to a cinder by fire from heaven, again, as prophesied in the Bible. ‘I
don’t think they know just how hot it’s going to get!’ Noel had said. Crucially, however,
it was God, and not man, who was said to be the agent of this future change. It is in this
sense that global warming and climate change were seen by Gamrie’s Christians as a
false eschatology that provided an alternative account of the end of the world to the one
outlined in scripture. More than this, global warming could be seen as an inversion of
the biblical account as my friends read it, describing how the world would be destroyed
by water (as opposed to fire) because of the actions of man (as opposed to God). Of
greatest concern, however, was the inverted solution that the Christians of Gamrie saw
being offered by those most convinced by the global warming ‘crisis’ – a solution, they
argued, that once and for all revealed its diabolical intent.
Having lent Noel my copy of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim 2006),
his feedback was informative. Condemning it as blatant propaganda, he told me he
had done some research about the film online and had been horrified by what he had
learned. The DVD, he told me, was being distributed to schools in America free of
charge as an educational tool and Al Gore himself was going on lecture tours around
the world as a way of ‘spreading his message’. It was clear that Noel was deeply reviled
by what he had seen and read. Yet his discomfort, it seems, was produced not by a
sense of the utter difference between the message of Christianity and the message of
climate change science but, in Douglas’s (1966) terms, by their anomalous and therefore
polluting similarity. Where modern Christian fundamentalism had, much to the
chagrin of secular evolutionary biologists, long appropriated the ‘intellectual apparatus
of science’ (Harding 2000: 215), it now seemed that the tables had been turned.
Indeed, it was climate science that stood accused here of having co-opted the
‘rhetoric and paraphernalia’ (ibid.: 215) of ‘born-again’ Christianity and Christian
millenarianism. It was this mixing of languages – the blurring of the methods and modes
of environmentalism and apocalypticism – that destabilized the received categories
through which the cosmos was apprehendable for the Christians of Gamrie. This,
furthermore, was precisely how local Christians defined heresy, as an insidious mixing
of truth with falsehoods. The Devil, I was told, was ‘very subtle’, seeking to pollute gospel
principles and methods by assimilating them into his own demonic agenda. Thus, Al
Gore’s DVD (his ‘message of salvation’) was being distributed to schools as bibles once
were. Gideons International had, it seems, found a rival in Paramount Pictures.
It is in this sense that such similarity was anomalous and polluting, producing, as in
fundamentalist imaginings of the Antichrist, a kind of heretical counterfeit non-truth
designed to undermine the prophetic scriptures. This fitted, importantly, with a broader
set of ‘fundamentalist’ rhetorics present in American (and global) evangelicalism.
Biology classrooms no longer taught creationism but evolutionism; school assemblies
no longer offered corporate Christian prayers but personal ‘moments of reflection’,
offered in silence ‘so as not to offend anyone’. Such changes, I was told by informants
who shook their heads in disbelief, were now enshrined in law – prayer and the Bible
had been ‘banned’ and ‘made illegal’. To make matters worse, what had filled this
vacuum was a truly sinister godlessness: Al Gore now toured the world on a ‘crusade’,
just as Billy Graham once had in days gone by, evangelizing the masses all the same –
but presenting a very different message of damnation and deliverance.
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A New Apocalypticism?
Noel, then, was at least partially mistaken: green was not the new red – that is,
environmentalism was not the new communism, despite its own strongly millenarian
tendencies (Slezkine 2011) – but the new apocalypticism. It is, however, difficult to
ignore the sense in which my informants had identified a central aspect of climate
change discourse, namely that it provides an unequivocally millenarian account of the
soon-to-occur end of the world – by way of a global flood, no less. In order to better
understand Noel’s and my other my informants’ sense that climate change existed as a
rival eschatology, consider these closing words from An Inconvenient Truth:
Do you see that pale, blue dot? That’s us. Everything that has ever happened in all of
human history has happened on that pixel. All the triumphs and all the tragedies; all the
wars, all the famines; all the major advances. It’s our only home. And that is what is at
stake, our ability to live on planet Earth. To have a future as a civilization. I believe this
is a moral issue. It is your time to seize this issue; it is our time to rise again to secure
our future. There’s nothing unusual with what I’m doing with this. What is unusual is
that I had the privilege to be shown it as a young man. It’s almost as if a window was
opened through which the future was very clearly visible. Future generations may well
have occasion to ask themselves, ‘What were our parents thinking? Why didn’t they wake
up when they had a chance?’ We have to hear that question from them, now. Are you
ready to change the way you live? The climate crisis can be solved. (Guggenheim 2006)
The substance of the documentary’s millenarianism goes well beyond these
concluding remarks. Gore describes the effects of personal tragedy in almost
identical terms to those in which the Christians of Gamrie (Webster in press) and
many evangelicals globally (Crapanzano 2000; Harding 2000) describe their bornagain conversion. This ‘conversion’ to the climate change agenda, for Gore, comes at a
moment of potentially world-ending crisis, with the near-death of his son:
It just turned my whole world upside down and then shook it till everything fell out. My
way of being in the world – it just changed everything for me. How should I spend my
time on this earth? … The possibility of losing what was most precious to me. I gained
an ability that maybe I didn’t have before … That which we take for granted might not
be here for our children. (Guggenheim 2006)
Having gained this new, privileged and quasi-prophetic knowledge – ‘a window
… through which the future was very clearly visible’ (ibid.) – it became obvious to
Gore that the signs of the coming environmental catastrophe were everywhere and
could be read, just as Gamrie’s Christians asserted, by any who cared to look. Graphic
descriptions of hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, famines, droughts, mosquito plagues
and new diseases are given alongside dire warnings of melting icecaps and 100 million
soon-to-be-created refugees of global climate flooding. Gore’s narrative, all the while, is
interspersed with images of landscapes ravaged by deforestation and opencast mining,
and grisly pictures of streets littered with dead bodies. ‘We didn’t ask for it, but here it
is’, Gore states; ‘It’s like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation’ (ibid.). With this
last point at least, Gamrie’s Christians seem to agree.
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Clearly, I am not the first to point out the convergence of rhetoric between
environmentalism and apocalypticism. Hulme, in Why We Disagree about Climate
Change, analyses at some length what he calls ‘the myth of Apocalyptic climate change’
(Hulme 2009: 345), where ‘the linguistic repertoire of the Apocalypse draws upon
categories such as “impending disaster”, “approaching tipping points”, “species wiped
out”, [and] “billions of humans at risk of devastation, if not death”’ (ibid.: 345). For
Hulme then, ‘the myth of climate change as Apocalypse … appeals to our instinct of
fear about the unknown future, [and] … also acts as a call to arms’ (ibid.: 347). Such
linguistic borrowing is, according to Hulme, both bad science and a cause for concern:
I feel uncomfortable that climate change is widely reported through the language of
catastrophe and imminent peril, as “the greatest problem facing humanity”, which seeks
to trump all others … I believe that such reporting both detracts from what science is
good at revealing to us and diminishes the many other ways of thinking, feeling and
knowing about climate. (ibid.: xxxiii)
I have already stated clearly that I am in agreement with Hulme regarding the
occurrence of this linguistic borrowing. Yet, where Hulme (as a geographer undertaking
policy-engaged research) feels ‘uncomfortable’ with such reporting, as a social
anthropologist of religion I view the same trend not with (normative) discomfort but with
(relativistic) curiosity. I am also unconvinced that this rhetoric necessarily ‘detracts from
… science’ and ‘diminishes … other ways of … knowing’ (ibid.: xxxiii). Indeed, where we
take seriously Hulme’s insightful suggestion that we treat climate change as an ‘idea’ and
a ‘social phenomenon’ (ibid.: xxv), we free ourselves from such discomforts and anxieties
by treating climate science not (only) as a positivistic capturing and measurement of
reality, but (also) as a prophetic search for ‘signs of the end times’.
Given this freedom – and to the extent that Christian dispensationalism may be
conversely treated as a positive science and not just as prophetic speculation – might there
actually be further agreement between climate activists and Christian fundamentalists?
In hearing Gore’s apocalyptic message, we are left to conclude, along with his audience
– as among Gamrie’s gospel preachers and their congregants – that what we face is a
choice between good and evil. ‘I believe this is a moral issue. It is your time to seize
this issue’ (Guggenheim 2006), Gore reminds us. A moral issue perhaps, but also, for
environmentalists and evangelicals alike, surely this becomes also an issue of salvation?
Indeed: ‘Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, “What were our
parents thinking? Why didn’t they wake up when they had a chance?”’ (ibid.).
It is this ‘waking up’ – this hearing and heeding of the warning that all is not well
with the world – that constitutes the climate change agenda, in the imaginings of my
Christian informants, as a humanist gospel of self-salvation. ‘They are going to save the
world on their own terms!’ Donald exclaimed from his pulpit. The final challenge and
exhortation of An Inconvenient Truth – ‘Are your ready to change the way you live? The
climate crisis can be solved’ (ibid.) – seems to be offered, then, in broad agreement with
Donald, sharing the same sermonizing tone, lacking only his sense of outrage at what
was locally thought to be a perversely godless eschatology and soteriology. The result
of such millenarian rhetoric, my Christian friends told me, was that denying climate
change had replaced denial of the existence of God as the most outrageous blasphemy
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commonly imaginable. Furthermore, within this environmentalist soteriology – as with
the Gospel proclaimed from Gamrie’s pulpits – the world was said to be doomed to
destruction as a result of a certain kind of human inaction, that is, a failure to commit
to carbon emission targets as opposed to the message of ‘born-again’ salvation.
Intriguingly, as in more ‘conventional’ Christian millenarianism, those warning of
a climate apocalypse occasionally made their own highly specific predictions regarding
the actual date of the end of the world. The New Economics Foundation, for example,
has launched a campaign website built around a large red clock that is ticking down
to ‘the point of no return’. ‘We have 100 months to save our climate. When the clock
stops ticking, we could be beyond our climate’s tipping point, the point of no return’, the
website warns (New Economics Foundation 2012). At the time of writing, the ticking
clock had reached 49 months – 1,380 days – or, more specifically, 33,120 hours and
21 minutes. The solution offered by the website, as among Gamrie’s Christians, was
two-fold: to ‘take action’ (to change the way you live; to be ‘born-again’) and to ‘tell the
world’ (to campaign; to evangelize).
Enchanted Plasticity: ‘Links in an Eternal Chain’
So strong is the millenarian narrative surrounding climate change, then, that we
see a conflation in the very methods of rhetoric deployed by certain expressions of
salvationist religion and climatology. ‘We’ve got to save the planet and save mankind’,
mocked Noel, imitating what he saw as the man-made communist utopia of today.
‘Climate change! It’s the new religion!’ echoed Donald, ‘but if you listen to these debates
there is nothing of God’. It was this conflation of rhetorical methods which set the
alarm bells ringing for Gamrie’s Christians, a conflation typified, I have argued, by the
missionary zeal of Al Gore. Crucially, however, the prophetic certainty with which the
gospel of environmentalism was spread was seen in Gamrie as a lie, as a kind of anticertainty. Forbys, a retired fisherman and member of the Open Brethren, explained:
The day we are living in, there’s a lot of things about preserving the earth. This world’s way
of thinking is beginning to realize that things is wearing out … [but] since sin entered
[the world], everything has gone downhill … At the Rapture, there will be no flaws. These
are all links in an eternal chain. It’s all from God … Glorification is [in the] future but it’s
certain, it’s certain.
Forbys, like Noel and Donald and Helen, had a certainty very different from the one they
imagined was being presented by the environmentalist agenda. Theirs was a certainty
that we were living in the last of the last days – a fact that made long-term carbon
targets not meaningless but rather a demonic denial of the inevitability of the imminent
apocalypse. ‘The climate crisis can be solved’ (Guggenheim 2006), Gore’s film assures
us, and this in direct contradiction of my friends’ assurance that the world was soon
to end in fire. Worse still, many of my informants believed that Man, in a repeat of the
Fall, sought to take the place of God by replacing Christ with themselves as the means
of their own salvation. Remember, then, the ticking clock, counting down to ‘the point
of no return’ – ‘we have 100 months to save our climate’ (New Economics Foundation
2012). All such attempts could only be inspired by the Devil and his lies: after all, the
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Bible predicted this too, my friends told me, saying how the Prince of Lies would rise in
the last days and fool ‘the lost’ into embracing a false gospel and a false Christ.
While speculation that Albert Arnold Gore Jr. might be the Antichrist was confined
to Christian conspiracy websites,4 and not something my informants entertained,
what was agreed upon was that strong public support for the climate change agenda
was a ‘sign of the end times’. The Devil was both immanent and imminent, that is,
he was materially ‘close at hand’ – in EU log books, boxes of withdrawn fish and
DVDs distributed to American schools – while also being temporally ‘soon to arrive’
– in Kyoto Protocol summits, CFP conferences and environmentalist protests. It was
these material objects and political happenings that both pointed to and constituted
– through a kind of symbolic obviation (Wagner 1978, 1986) – the unfolding of the
eschaton in the lives of my informants.
Such signs were necessary but not sufficient – they formed a part but not the whole
of the representational economy (Keane 1997, 2007) of Gamrie’s ‘end times’ imaginings.
During my fieldwork, I regularly attended Bible study for young Brethren Christians
in the area. The study itself – all about the Rapture, the Tribulation and the end of the
world – was based on Tim LaHaye’s ‘Left Behind’ series. Each study consisted of several
readings from the Book of Revelation, over which detailed commentary was provided
(notably, as in An Inconvenient Truth) by way of a complex slide-show presentation.
Among slides showing border disputes between Israel and Palestine, dispensationalist
charts itemizing the timetable of the apocalypse, and a news story of a leopard raising
a baby baboon as precursory evidence for the harmony of the future millennial state,
was a map of the world covered in dark red dots. These dots, we were told, represented
epicentres of recent earthquakes. There was a sharp intake of breath around the
room. To be sure, there did seem to be lots of dots, and therefore, presumably, lots
of earthquakes. Scientists, we were told, had been observing global seismic activity
and had recorded a dramatic increase. The general consensus that emerged during our
evening of study was that, as ‘soundly saved’ Christians interested in the end times, such
evidence should neither surprise nor trouble us – on the contrary, it should excite us.
The theological logic at work here is straightforward: Jesus was coming back soon,
of that we could be sure, because the signs of his return were so obvious, even to the
‘unsaved’. Indeed, as I argued above in my analysis of Noel’s objection to An Inconvenient
Truth, Gore himself had mentioned several such signs – hurricanes, tornadoes,
droughts, famine, disease: ‘It’s like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation’
(Guggenheim 2006). The only falsely identified sign, according to my informants, was
a global flood. Earthquakes were very much a part of the unfolding eschaton, along
with UN summits, EU treaties and Scottish Fisheries Association talks. None of these
happenings was said to be ‘secular’; none was outside the remit of sign-searching.
Christian dispensationalism, a product of divine revelation received through the
prophetic scriptures, was also a positivistic science. Many of my friends in the Brethren
were avid followers of ‘Creationist science’, and regaled me with detailed accounts of the
latest geological and hydrological evidence that the world was, at most, 10,000 years old.
Whenever I betrayed a sense of being unconvinced I was invited to attend ‘Christian
conferences’ where ‘eminent scientists’ would present archaeological evidence for, among
other things, a literal historical reading of Noah’s ark. I didn’t need to take their word for
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Joseph Webster
it, I was told, because the scientific evidence would speak for itself. The similarity here
with Harding’s analysis of a Creationist science museum in America is striking:
The museum’s ostensible goal, to take people back for God, was thus complemented by
several other projects: to take science back for God and to discredit evolution as science,
to reveal its sinister implications, indeed, to align evolution to the devil himself … [Thus]
rather than reconciling science and religion, creation science appeared to appropriate
science, to submit it to the Bible. Its premise was that, if the Bible is true, the geology,
archaeology, and history will provide evidence for its truth against any nonbiblical
position. Creation science thus rhetorically performed an act of cultural domination. It
subordinated science to the Bible. (Harding 2000: 216–17)
My argument, then, is not only that the same processes were occurring in Gamrie –
with climate change being aligned ‘to the devil himself ’ (ibid.: 216), and, more generally,
science being submitted to the Bible – but that the reverse processes were said to occur
– namely, that climate science was appropriating apocalypticism and Biblical tropes of
an imminent end. What is going on, it seems, is more than just an over-egging of the
climatic pudding, but rather a real (existential) convergence of commonly separated
‘ways of knowing’ and ‘ways of believing’ in the very materiality of the search for signs
of the end times.
Such a conflation of science and millenarianism was possible because, for the
Christians of Gamrie, life was both modern and enchanted. As I have argued elsewhere,
by enchantment I refer to how life was ‘made alive with a kind of magic’ (Webster in
press) – a magic that conflated sign and referent, thereby linking their actions to the
universe and its functioning in real and enduring ways. What my friends read in books
and watched on TV, where they bought their groceries, how they participated (or refused
to participate) in elections, how and when and where they fished – all these happenings
mattered not only in the ‘here’ but also in the ‘hereafter’. Even falsely identified signs
(such as a global flood that God covenanted never to allow) were brought within this
enchanted cosmology in a way that rendered them part of ‘real’ existential experience
(Wagner 1978: 34; Keane 1997: 20). The ‘non-event’ of a flood that would never (and
could never) happen thus became a ‘real event’ in the telling – a demonic conspiracy, a
false salvationist religion, a blasphemous lie, a fulfilment of prophecy.
‘These are all links in an eternal chain’, Forbys said. Such links, fusing, as they did
for my friends, the realms of immanence and transcendence into an eternal chain of
dispensationalist time, is the marker of what Weber refers to as ‘inwardly genuine
plasticity’ (Weber 1978a: 148), giving back to life its sense of meaningfulness. For
Weber, and surely also for the Christians of Gamrie, my actions matter for the same
reason that the actions of those around me matter: because they both emerge from a
coherent and unified expression of ultimate value (Weber 1978b: 356). Weber posits
that, for ‘pre-moderns’, the source of this ultimate value (what we might want to call
transcendence) is a sense of connectedness to the ‘organically prescribed cycle of
natural life’ (Weber 1978b: 356), what we might want to call immanence. Thus, the
‘cosmological rootedness’ (Webster in press) of pre-moderns – that is, their sense that
their lives were unavoidably implicated in the real functioning of the universe and
its contents – mirrors my own argument about Gamrie’s Christian cosmology. The
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cosmological rootedness of my informants, then, came not from any pre-modern value
of seedtime and harvest, but from the ultimate value of millenarianism – of searching
for ‘signs’ of the Second Coming of Christ.
I have argued that many such signs, as ‘ways of believing’, were found within the
modern politics and economics of Scottish fisheries and the climate change agenda. Yet
the end result remains strikingly similar to that experienced by Weber’s pre-moderns –
a sense of enchanted plasticity, where all of life is not disaggregated and separable but
connected and indivisible. The EU, fishermen, scientists, Al Gore, environmentalists,
earthquakes, Israel, leopards – and the happenings that surround them – become
collectively conflated into a totalizing experience of millenarian enchantment, of God
and the Devil’s near-presence and imminent arrival within the realm of everyday life.
Crucially, the same was occurring, I have argued, within the rhetorical ‘ways of knowing’
of climate activists and scientists. The quest to compile evidence for climate change –
found in heightened carbon dioxide levels, global temperature increases, ice-shelf retreat,
rising sea levels, the greater frequency of extreme weather events – also constituted a
striving to identify ‘signs of the times’ as evidence for the soon-to-occur apocalypse.
Conclusions
Much of my argument, then, comes down to questions of agency: who is acting, and
for whom? The Christians of Gamrie have their own answer to this question, provided,
I have tried to show, as part of a world that is defined in terms of theological certainty
and economic and political uncertainty. My friends knew they didn’t have to worry
about a global flood, but they were anxious about the fortunes of the fishing industry in
the ‘near future’ (Guyer 2007). Yet even uncertainties surrounding the price of prawns
or the nature of EU fishing quotas came to be framed within the certainty that the world
is soon to end in fire and that humans cannot save themselves. All my friends could
do, they told me, was faithfully fulfil their dutiful calling to be fishers of both prawns
and men, guarding against the Devil’s lies while watching and waiting for the ultimate
certainty of the Second Coming of Christ.
Crucially, this eschatological narrative – what I have referred to as millenarianism –
was not something that my informants had (or claimed to have) a monopoly over. The
‘unsaved’ also proposed imaginings of a future cataclysm, spreading their message, my
friends told me, as if it were a ‘new religion’. For some commentators, such a state of
affairs, while very real, appears strange:
And so think about the strangeness of today’s situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were
still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever.
Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here
to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes… [with] life on
earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the earth, and
so on. So the paradox is, that it’s much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than
a much more modest radical change in capitalism. (Žižek in Taylor 2008)
For Žižek, this ‘strangeness’ seems to emerge from the same tension that exists between
religious fundamentalism and the notion of ‘belief ’, whereby: ‘“Fundamentalism”
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enacts a short-circuit between the Symbolic and the Real, that is, in it, some symbolic
fragment (say, the sacred text, the Bible in the case of Christian fundamentalists) is
itself posited as real (to be read “literally”, not to be played with; in short, exempted
from all dialectic of reading)’ (Žižek 2006: 386).
Yet, for the Christians of Gamrie, this obsession with ‘cosmic catastrophes’ offered
little surprise. This was the case in their own religious lives because the dispensational
theology of their millenarian Christian heritage made spiritual catastrophe –
experienced as an ongoing battle between God and the Devil – an eminently everyday
reality. Their ‘fundamentalist’ cosmology contained no ‘strangeness’, then, because there
was little (if any) sense of a gap between the Symbolic and the Real whereby a shortcircuit might be enacted. But what of the millenarian imaginings of the ‘unsaved’ – of
climate activists and climatologists for example? Such false visions, I was told, of which
climate change was only one, were schemes of the Devil to lead ‘lost souls’ further away
from ‘the gospel of born-again salvation’. As a satanic lie, global warming contained no
truth, I was assured, but this did not mean that it contained no power; its power, like
the power of the Devil and his demons, was imagined to be great indeed.
Among Gamrie’s Christians, then, the climate change agenda – as a discourse that
engaged in sign searching, evangelistic crusading, and even, in some cases, apocalyptic
date setting – was appropriated, along with many other signs, back into the realm of
the enchanted, thereby being made ‘alive with a kind of magic’ (Webster in press).
Here, then, the Symbolic became the Real. Earthquake mapping, leopards, net mesh,
withdrawn boxes of fish, documentary DVDs – all these became signs of the ‘end times’
constituting the arrival of the eschaton not as an experience of pure transcendence
(Cannell 2005) or death (Bloch 1991), but as one of immanence and imminence. Yet,
local treatments of climate change as one such sign, did not, I have argued, emerge from
a sense that global warming was part of God’s providential judgement (‘as in the days
of Noah’), but from a sense that, as a non-event, it was nothing more (and nothing less)
than a demonic conspiracy. And, as my friends constantly sought to remind me, such
times were clearly prophesied in scripture – ‘wars and rumours of wars’, ‘famines and
earthquakes’, ‘and many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many’.
Thus, while considerable disagreement exists between ‘Christian’ and ‘climate’
apocalypticism, most especially regarding the nature of the existential threat posed,
there was also marked agreement. This agreement, I have argued, is contained within
both ‘ways of knowing’ and ‘ways of believing’ about climate change that became
conflated within the material search for ‘signs of the end times’. In observing such a
conflation we find an opportunity for what is seen as ‘local’ belief-as-knowledge to
dialogue with a ‘scientific’ knowledge-as-belief deemed to be from elsewhere. The
opportunity might be seen as one of not only bringing ‘them’ to us, by viewing religion
as a type of folk science, but of bringing ‘us’ to them, by viewing (certain expressions
of) climatology as a kind of millenarianism.
Fostering this kind of dialogue – this language of perspicuous contrast (Taylor
1985: 125) – may be of real benefit, not only insofar as it allows us to step back from
viewing climate change as a ‘problem’ in need of a ‘solution’ (cf. Hulme 2009: 330), but
also in freeing us from the straightjacket of ‘applied’ and ‘policy-driven’ research that,
as a primary goal, seeks to achieve a ‘real-world impact’ by bringing about ‘behavioural
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change’. We can then return to the prior and properly anthropological task of doing
ethnography – including of scientific and religious beliefs and practices – and producing a
comparative analysis of what makes humans and their socialities similar to, and different
from, each other.
We are left to return to the specifics of one such analysis, with a sense in which
millenarianism – the positioning of the present and near future as the last of the
last days – exists as a shared experience or point of contact between climate change
‘believers’ and climate change ‘deniers’. Importantly, such points of contact go well
beyond a shared rhetoric of ‘belief ’ and ‘denial’, of ‘evangelism’ and ‘activism’, of ‘saving’
the soul and ‘saving’ the climate. The most significant point of contact – the ‘human
constant’ that Taylor (1985: 125) calls us to identify – is found in the very act of
searching for ‘signs’ that the end is near. This act concerns not so much the obsession
‘with cosmic catastrophes’ (Žižek in Taylor 2008) per se, but with the kinds of material
relationships that such sign-searching instantiates. It is in this material practice – in
mapping earthquakes, in measuring net mesh sizes, in monitoring carbon emissions –
that the world and its contents come to be collectively experienced as enchanted (‘made
alive with a kind of magic’). It is millenarianism, then, that enchants certain kinds of
Christianity and environmentalism – via acts of sign searching – by granting to them
what Weber refers to as ‘inwardly genuine plasticity’ (Weber 1978a: 148). The result,
in important respects, is the same: this-worldly human existence, despite being unified
by a deep sense of the interconnectedness of persons, places and things, is nonetheless
affirmed as that which will soon come to an end.
Notes
1. Millenarianism refers, in rather general terms, to a belief in an impending cataclysm that will bring about
some kind of social or religious transformation. It is related to the more specific idea of millennialism,
which posits that, as part of the unfolding ‘end times’, Christ will instate a one-thousand-year rule of
paradise on earth. Dispensationalism is a Protestant theology that offers a history of the cosmos. Invented
by John Nelson Darby (the nineteenth-century founder of the Plymouth Brethren), this doctrine states
that world history consists of chronologically successive ‘dispensations’ or ‘ages’. These ‘ages’ are said to be
distinguishable from each other on the basis of God’s changing relationship to humankind, and include,
among others, the Edenic Age, the Mosaic Age, the Church Age, the Millennial Age and the Eternal State.
Eschatology refers to theologies of the ‘end times’ – that is, the end of the world.
2. Christian Zionism refers to the belief of some Christians that the state of Israel (as established in 1948)
is a direct fulfilment of Biblical prophecy. Such a belief typically also includes a belief that the end of
the world will not occur until all the Jewish peoples of the world are gathered into the borders of Israel
and convert, en masse, to Christianity.
3. Pre-tribulational pre-millennialism is a type of Christian millennialism. It typically states that Christ’s
bodily return to earth – to ‘rapture’ all born-again Christians to heaven – is utterly imminent.
4. The reasoning here is that each part of Gore’s name contains six letters, thus making it possible to
produce 666, the number of the Beast.
References
Bloch, M. 1986. From Blessing to Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bloch, M. 1991. Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
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London: Routledge.
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Punctuated Time. American Ethnologist 34, no. 4: 409–450.
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Princeton University Press.
Hulme, M. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
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Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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University of California Press.
Keller, E. 2005. The Road to Clarity: Seventh-Day Adventism in Madagascar. London: Palgrave
Macmillan.
New Economic Foundation. 2012. 100 Months and Counting. <http://www.
onehundredmonths.org/> (accessed 28 November 2012).
Slezkine, Y. 2011. Was Bolshevism a Religion? Unpublished paper given at the workshop
‘Memory, Religion and Revolution’, University of Cambridge.
Taylor, A. (dir.) 2008. Žižek! ICA Films.
Taylor, C. 1985. Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers vol. 2. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Wagner, R. 1978. Lethal Speech: Daribi Myth as Symbolic Obviation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Wagner, R. 1986. Symbols that Stand for Themselves. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Weber, M. 1978a. Science as a Vocation. In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (eds.) H.H.
Gerth and C. Wright Mills, 129–157. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weber, M. 1978b. Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions. In From Max Weber:
Essays in Sociology (eds.) H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, 323–361. Oxford: Oxford
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Joseph Webster is Isaac Newton-Graham Robertson Research Fellow in Social
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The Anthropology of Protestantism: Faith and Crisis among Scottish Fishermen (PalgraveMacmillan).
84 • Cambridge Anthropology
The Science-Politics of
Climate Change in China:
Development, Equity, and Responsibility
Jost Wübbeke
ABSTRACT
China has argued that developed countries should take the lead in international climate change mitigation, while developing countries should be allowed to realize their economic development and implement voluntary
measures. This position may seem purely political. However, this article
shows that Chinese science also contributes to constructing the perspectives
of development, equity, and responsibility. Chinese climate models, emission graphs, and graphs of future emissions are presented to show that these
scientific inscriptions contain and coproduce these values in conjunction
with political inscriptions. The findings demonstrate that scientific inscriptions are essential to stabilize the Chinese climate network, and that political practice cannot separate scientific facts from political contestation over
climate and development.
KEYWORDS
actor-network theory, China, climate change, development, historical responsibility, science-policy interface
Introduction
China has argued that developed countries1 should be responsible for
leading climate change mitigation, while developing countries should
mainly realize their economic development and implement voluntary
measures according to their abilities. This view of development, equity, and responsibility appears purely political, and, indeed, many
Chinese experts feel that climate change in China has changed from
a scientific issue to a totally political one (Ge and Fang 2010). In contrast, China’s National Climate Change Program has emphasized the
relevance of scientific research and technological progress (NDRC
2007). Decision making increasingly relies on advice from the growing scientific network.
Nature and Culture 8(1), Spring 2013: 8–29 © Berghahn Journals
doi:10.3167/nc.2013.080102
THE SCIENCE-POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHINA
This apparent contradiction between climate change as political
issue and climate change as scientific issue is actually no contradiction:
climate change is neither a purely scientific nor a solely political issue, but both. Science and politics, together and simultaneously, determine how we understand and act on climate change (Miller 2004).
Even in science, facts can be constructed in many different and often
contradictory ways. Fact making is a social practice like any other and
is linked to social issues. Controversies over scientific issues are thus
often inseparably connected to political contestation. Put in more theoretical language, scientific assumptions about nature (the external
world of objects) and ideas about social order are “coproduced”
(Jasanoff 2004a; Latour 1993). Consequently, this article argues that
Chinese climate science and political climate elites together produce
the Chinese values of development, equity, and responsibility.
Many scholars have analyzed Chinese climate policy (see, e.g.,
Harris 2011a; Fang 2010; Heggelund 2007; Heggelund et al. 2010;
Lewis 2007; Stensdal 2012), usually describing the historical evolution of China’s positions and policies or assessing their appropriateness. This article focuses more on the discursive processes underlying
the national position by emphasizing the relevance of scientific work.
From these arguments and the findings of this paper, it follows that
several issues need to be reconsidered: first, policy should include
scientific facts as connected to, and not separated from, the political
dispute over climate change and development; second, policy should
discuss the contribution of science to national positions; and third,
science itself should discard its self-perception of neutrality and make
explicit what it has to say about development.
I begin with a short theoretical overview of coproduction theory
and the sociology of translation. The main part of the article shows
how scientific and political devices, or “inscriptions”, contain and
promote the values of development, equity, and responsibility. Climate models, carbon dioxide emission graphs, future emissions, and
official documents and speeches are analyzed as inscriptions.
The Coproduction of Nature and Politics
Science and Technology Studies (STS) challenge the traditional view
of science as objective and disinterested (Hacket et al. 2007; Latour
and Woolgar 1979; Latour 1993; Pickering 1984; Shapin and Schaf-
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fer 1989; Bloor 1976). It is an illusion to regard science as a perfect mirror of reality (Forsyth 2003: 18). After all, scientific facts are also produced by humans, and this production of facts is a social practice like
any other (Latour 1999, 2004). Based on this argument, STS seeks to understand the processes of fact making. This critique is explicated in the
rejection of the “dualist gap” that maintains a clear distinction between
“nature” and “culture”. Nature is seen as the material world of mute objects, the “world out there”, which is ideally accounted for by science.
Culture, by contrast, is the realm of human society and values (Latour
2004). Against this traditional perspective, many STS scholars argue that
there is only one reality, where nature and culture, objects and subjects,
are unified. As scientific facts are produced within this reality, their own
reality is relative: they may become more or less real, depending on
their capacity to enlist networks of humans and materials (called “enrollment”). Emphasizing this relative reality, Serres (1982) also calls
them “quasi-objects.” They appear to be objects of an external reality,
but are still subject to the social consensus of humans and materials.
Since nature and culture belong to the same reality, their production occurs simultaneously. Scientific quasi-objects give an account
of nature, but concomitantly make assumptions and claims about the
social order. Similarly, political disputes are often also scientific controversies. This interrelation of science and politics is termed “coproduction” (Jasanoff 2004a, 2004b). The idiom of coproduction addresses “[h]ow we characterize the connections between the human
capacity to produce facts and artifacts that reconfigure nature, and the
equally human ability to produce devices that order or reorder society” (Jasanoff 2004a: 14).
Climate change is a good example of coproduction. Scientific
work provides “the basic conception of nature that underlies international politics” (Miller 2004: 6). Scientific quasi-objects about the nature of climate change mobilize a certain possible order of society.
Whether science attributes climate change to human greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions or to solar radiation leads to very different models
of social order. Similarly, whether science perceives dangerous climate change as occurring at a 2°C or 3°C rise in global temperature
will have very different effects. The case of “Climategate” and recent
public scrutiny of the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) show how a scientific controversy links in with different positions about the social order (Beck 2012). Measuring temperature, creating curves of carbon dioxide emissions, and scenarios
represent a nexus of scientific and political practices (Edwards 2001).
10
THE SCIENCE-POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHINA
Actor-network theory (ANT) provides a specific view on coproduction (Latour 1993, 1999, 2004, 2005; Law and Hassard 1999;
Law 1986, 1991). According to ANT, coproduction occurs through
networks of nonhuman and human actors. These networks delegate
many practices and quasi-objects to humans or material things. For
instance, the public rule against driving too fast might be delegated to
the policeman, who keeps track of car speeds. In the next step, the
work of the policeman might be translated into a speed bump (Latour
1999). That speed bump in turn prescribes and transforms practice.
These things are also called “inscriptions”, because practice is inscribed in them. ANT scholars argue that human society would not be
durable without inscriptions: “[T]echnology is society made durable”
(Latour 1991: 103). “If nothing is said or inscribed … then nothing
acts” (Callon 1991: 140; Murdoch 1997: 329). Callon (1991) distinguishes between four kinds of inscriptions: texts, technical artifacts,
human beings, and money. Here we will concentrate on graphical representations and texts. In this analysis, inscriptions are seen as means
to stabilize the reality of the Chinese perspective of development, equity, and responsibility. Expressed in more theoretical language, these
inscriptions support the assembly of a network of development, equity, and responsibility by enrolling new scientific allies, for example,
calculations and figures.
ANT uses the concept of the “reference” to denote what is created
through the circulation between various inscriptions. For instance, the
rule against speeding is first packaged into the simple sentence “do
not drive too fast,” then is inscribed into the policeman, and finally
into the speed bump. These translations mean that it “circulates” among
these inscriptions. The rule, which is the reference in this case, has
been held stable, as the basic message of not speeding has been preserved throughout the circulation. It is still the same rule. However, it
is also transformed at the same time, because it takes on different
forms in various inscriptions and thus appears different. Compared to
the rule as sentence, the rule as speed bump changes the underlying
script: “The driver modifies his behavior through the mediation of the
speed bump: he falls back from morality to force” (Latour 1999: 186).
Each inscription adds something new to the reference and stabilizes
its relative reality.
Additionally, the reference performs the function of communication between different social worlds, such as scientists and politicians.
Star and Griesemer (1989) and Kwa (2008) use the term “boundary
object” to describe concepts that cross disciplinary or professional
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JOST WÜBBEKE
boundaries. Boundary objects are here empty signifiers that enable
communication and cooperation among these actors, since they can
easily change their content and character, uniting actors with different professional languages, skills, and purposes. The concept of the
boundary object is perceived as complementary to the reference in
ANT. This function of the reference is to hold together the network
through providing a common point of reference that is circulated between social worlds (and their inscriptions).
This theory framework joins several similar analyses that focus on
the formation of scientific networks and hegemonic discourses in climate science (Mayer 2012) or examine the IPCC’s tightrope act between science and politics (Miller 2004). Beck (2012) has argued that
the IPCC’s resistance to acknowledge the political prescription of climate research is one of its major problems. It refuses to understand
that the authority of scientific work is based not on objective facts but
on its credibility, its capacity to create trust. The present article adds
to this literature by showing how science is engaged in a national discourse over development. Furthermore, it complements works of environmental politics and discourse analysis (Hajer 1995) through a
stronger focus on the role of material things in the stabilization and
transformation of discourses.
Development, Equity, and Responsibility in China
In Chinese climate science and politics, the values of development,
equity, and responsibility function as a reference that circulates through
various inscriptions of the climate network. While being circulated, its
central position remains stable: carbon-based development relies on
a necessary amount of GHG emissions in history, and these should be
allocated on an equal basis. The developed countries are historically
responsible for most of today’s climate change situation and should
thus take the lead in international mitigation efforts, whereas developing countries should be allowed to take measures according to
their own capabilities (He et al. 2004: 13). China claims the right to
the same path of development, as a “responsibility for cleaning up after development” rather than “redefining development” (Bina 2011:
61, emphasis deleted). Most developing countries have requested that
developed countries decrease their carbon emissions by 40 percent
by the year 2020 and 95 percent by 2050, against 1990 levels. For
their “overuse” of development space, it is only fair that the devel12
THE SCIENCE-POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHINA
oped countries should offer technology transfer and funds for the developing countries (He et al. 2009: 50–51). This position has become
a hegemonic discourse in China. Alternative discourses calling on
China to take greater responsibility and emphasizing less equity and
development have remained marginal in the domestic discussion. For
example, Hu Angang’s proposal that China should accept internationally binding emission targets had only minimal impact (Hu and Guan
2009; Wübbeke forthcoming).
The reference of development, equity, and responsibility circulates among hundreds of inscriptions. Media reports and pictures are
particularly powerful inscriptions (Mayer and Arndt 2009). Further examples of inscriptions in daily life would be teaching materials for
schools, lifestyles, etc. In the field of science, the attribution of local
disasters to climate change would be another. In this analysis, I examine four particular inscriptions: climate change models, emission
curves, future emission curves, and official documents and speeches.
The last comes from politicians, while the first three are scientific.
However, all four show political as well as scientific content. Each
contains the values of development, equity, and responsibility, and
holds them stable. At the same time, each inscription adds something
new to the reference: climate models add the quasi-object of anthropogenic climate change; emission graphs add the concept of accumulated per capita emissions (APCE); future emission curves add emission budgets; and official speeches and documents add the Chinese
interpretation of common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR). All
these transformations extend and stabilize the Chinese climate network. Moreover, the inscriptions draw on the transformations made
by each other. Figure 1 shows the circulation of the reference among
the inscriptions, and how these transform the reference.
There are other similarly important inscriptions, but these four are
particularly appropriate for two reasons: their widespread scientific-
Figure 1 Circulation and transformation of the reference “development, equity, and responsibility” in four inscriptions. Source: Author’s
own drawing.
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political elements give a very clear account of the functioning of the
Chinese climate network; and they are readily accessible.
The Chinese climate network is organized around the National
Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which leads and coordinates the National Leading Group on Climate Change, which in
turn encompasses some twenty ministries (Yu 2008). Climate science
in China is concentrated within semigovernmental research institutes
and a few universities.2 The scientific network is small, and institutionally and financially partly dependent on government agencies. However, science is more than a mere supplier of legitimating instruments
for political rhetoric. Chinese climate science has become increasingly relevant in recent years. Through the participation of scientists
in decision-making processes, politics has come to accept the substantive conclusions of science. In some instances, science has even
been able to impact on concrete policy action (Wübbeke 2010: 36).
Thus, the reference is not a hierarchical reference that is handed
down from politics to science. Science and politics constitute and are
constituted by a common discursive space. Science can contribute
not only to a change of policy preferences but also to the production
of current preferences.
The reference flows from the political realm to science via research funding, research plans, and institutional orders. It flows from
science to politics through the powerful National Advisory Committee, which brings together scientific expertise and provides scientific
advice on fundamental aspects of climate change policy. The Chinese
Meteorological Agency and the Ministry of Science and Technology
are transmission belts for research. The media and the reporting system of the Chinese political system are further mechanisms of circulation. Government agencies and their affiliated research institutes
communicate through working meetings and internal bulletins along
the institutional hierarchy (Wübbeke forthcoming).
Climate Models
Chinese climate scientists have accepted the international scientific
community and the IPCC’s basic scientific findings about climate
change. The most influential and government-sponsored reports, the
first National Climate Assessment Report (MoST 2007) and the Evolution of China’s Climate and Environment (Qin et al. 2005), use Chinese as well as foreign climate models. The two reports observe a
strong linkage between human GHG emissions and global tempera14
THE SCIENCE-POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHINA
ture increase since at least 1950: “Under full consideration of the factor of solar radiation, the results of the models including natural and
human influences [to temperature increase] are closest to the observed real status” (MoST 2007: 89).3 Chinese scientists believe that
climate change will have serious impacts on the highly vulnerable national environment and economy (MoST 2007: 248).
Chinese climate models alone do not carry the reference of development, equity, and responsibility. Because the climate models
present aggregated figures of anthropogenic emissions and natural
factors, there is no judgment about the historical and national distribution of emissions. However, like most other climate models, they
establish a link between economic behavior and climate change.
Therefore, they indicate that the form of human behavior matters for
tackling global climate change—what is commonly referred to as
“mitigation”. This finding does not imply any specific kind of human
behavior, nor does it necessitate an emphasis on development and
equity. However, this framing of climate change is a necessary condition for interpreting the nature-human nexus as a development issue.
It creates the potential for formulating the concept of development in
the context of climate change (as, again, any model may potentially
do). Yet, climate models can concern development, equity, and responsibility in connection with other inscriptions. In the National Climate Assessment Report, the chapter that precedes the climate models
describes historical emission curves by country. Seen in this context,
climate models concern not only anthropogenic climate change but
also changes brought about by a particular group of countries.
Moreover, climate models can transform the reference through
the concept of uncertainty. The National Climate Assessment Report
acknowledges that knowledge about the “real” status of climate change
is limited (MoST 2007: 101, 168). Most Chinese scientists agree that
there is considerable uncertainty in climate science, but that the general findings and climate models should be trusted. A minority argue
that the developing countries cannot be required to act according to
uncertain findings, since their economic development is at stake.
They suggest halting political efforts until more evidence has been
collected (Ge and Fang 2010: 39). This is not a mainstream position,
but Chinese science is aware that uncertainty can be a measure to
defy international commitments. In one scientific publication, the authors suggest using uncertainty as a “last weapon of defense” if the
developed countries should try to force China to commit to binding
targets (Dai and Ren 2004). Chinese climate science thus might pack
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the concern for development into a stronger emphasis on uncertainty
if political pressure becomes too strong.
Historical Emission Curves
Emission curves are particularly suited for establishing notions of social order because emissions can be presented and arranged in many
different ways. Although, in the traditional view of science, such
graphs are supposed to present an “objective” truth about the relationship between humans and nature, they construct truths about
how this relationship can and should be ordered. Equity and responsibility for climate change may vary with the timescale in question
(Harris 2011b: 223). For instance, the Kyoto Protocol is based on absolute annual carbon emissions by country. Therefore, the data both
reflect and constitute a particular perspective: the state as the legitimate unit for dealing with climate change and absolute emissions as
a legitimate indicator to talk about mitigation.
Similarly, Chinese emission curves constitute a certain reality.
Through the graphical use of curves, the reference becomes “visible”
and is easily understandable and portable. Inscribed into emission
graphs, the reference appears as embedded in the objectivity of the
emission data itself. Finally, the emission curves make it possible to
measure development, equity, and responsibility, and to allow for intertemporal and international comparison.4
Interestingly, Chinese academic publications on climate change
rarely use graphical comparison of current absolute annual carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions of countries, nor is it usual to find graphs that
show the development of absolute Chinese CO2 emissions in history
alone. This is quite contrary to practice in the West, where media frequently shout at China as the “world’s biggest CO2 emitter.” What the
curves in Chinese publications do is to compare China’s emissions
path with that of today’s developed countries from a historical perspective, and/or on the basis of per capita emissions. The emission
curves establish development, equity, and responsibility in terms of
accumulated per capita emissions (APCE). Figure 2, a typical graph,
contrasts CO2 emissions in China, the EU-27, and the United States
from 1850 to 2010 (Hu et al. 2009: 25). It shows that, historically,
Chinese emissions remained significantly lower than in the EU and
the United States, but have risen rapidly since the 1970s to an equal
level. According to the accompanying text, “the unceasing acceleration of Chinese industrialization and urbanization, the rapid improve16
THE SCIENCE-POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHINA
Figure 2 Greenhouse gas emissions: China, the EU-27, and the
United States. Modified with permission from Hu et al. (2009: 25).
ment of people’s average life quality … lead to an increasing growth
of greenhouse gas emissions in China” (Hu et al. 2009: 25).
Figure 3 shows the development of per capita emissions by country from 1850 to 2000, with each curve ending at the peak of per capita
emissions. We see that the developed countries very early reached the
peak of carbon-based development—the amount of carbon emissions
necessary for industrializing. Japan and South Korea arrived at the peak
later; China is still moving toward its future peak. The accompanying
text says: “Human industrialization and the rapid increase of carbon
emissions are closely connected” (Hu et al. 2009: 33).
Figure 3 Per capita CO2 emissions of selected states in the process of
industrialization. Modified with permission from Hu et al. (2009: 33).
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Figure 4 shows the accumulated GHG emissions of the EU-27,
the United States, and China. We note that China accumulated significantly less carbon emissions between 1850 and 2005. According to
the accompanying text, “the accumulated emissions from U.S., Europe and other industrial countries have had the largest impact on climate change” (Hu et al. 2009: 33).
These three graphs constitute a particular reality of development,
equity, and responsibility. They show, first, that to understand the nature of anthropogenic climate change, one needs to focus on a time
period of at least 160 years. Relying on the inscriptions of climate
models, this data collection leads to the argument that today’s status
quo is due to excessive CO2 emissions from the industrialized countries, which were able to develop earlier than China. Second, they
imply that carbon emissions are an unavoidable by-product of industrialization, until a certain peak of development has been reached.
Environmental damage is an unavoidable effect. The APCE figures indicate that, for each country, a certain amount of emissions is necessary in order to develop. Third, China has had lower emissions than
others, but has been emitting more in recent years. The developed
countries have already concluded the process of their development;
it is only natural and just that China should be heading along the
same path. In this regard, “not the equity of annual emissions at a certain point in the present or future is important, but the accumulated
emissions of the past, present, and future” (Pan and Chen 2009: 205).
The graphs constitute the argument that the right to harm the environ-
Figure 4 Accumulated greenhouse gas emissions from China, the
EU-27, and the United States, 1850 to 2005. Modified from Hu et
al. (2009: 33).
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THE SCIENCE-POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHINA
ment for the sake of development must be equally distributed among
states. The right to emissions, “the carbon emission space,” is a necessary right of development (He et al. 2009: 48).
Chinese experts see APCE as the concrete expression of CBDR.
Therefore, they employ the legitimacy that has been produced
through political inscriptions (see section “Political Documents and
Speeches”). According to Ding Zhongli and colleagues (2009: 1009),
“‘APCE’ can best express the principle of ‘common but differentiated
responsibilities’ and the norm of equity and justice.” Chinese experts
see the right to emit as an existential human need and a basic right
for sustaining a certain level of life quality and dignity. National emission rights must be allocated on the basis of the sum of the population and their basic human needs. The right to a “basic” amount of
emissions, in contrast to the “luxury emissions” of the developed
world, carries overtones of a basic human right to emissions
grounded in the equity of all human beings (Pan 2008: 36–37). Pan
and Zhu calculate that, in order to satisfy basic energy needs with regard to food, clothes, accommodation, basic sanitary and electricity
services, transport, education, etc., one Chinese would have an energy need of 1.92 tons of oil equivalent (toe) per year (the actual figure for 2010 was 1.8 toe). Under the Chinese energy structure of
2003, this would equal to 5.69 tons of CO2 per capita (Pan and Zhu
2006: 27–28).5 In contrast to the common top-down approach, which
sets a global cap on CO2 emissions according to estimates of the maximum bearable amount of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, this
understanding takes a bottom-up perspective, where the basic needs
of each human and the size of population determine the amount of
global emissions.
Future Emissions
Future emission curves describe ideal paths of emissions and their
distribution among countries. They connect the measurability and
comparability of APCE with the Chinese interpretation of CBDR,
translate historical responsibility into postulations as to future behavior, and make this explicit in form of policy proposals. Future emissions are the logical consequence of APCE: because historical
emissions have not fully corresponded with the concept of an equal
APCE, this will have to be done in the future. With future emission
curves, Chinese experts have designed their own interpretations and
approaches for international emissions management after Kyoto.
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They distinguish between two approaches: “APCE convergence”
(renjun leiji paifang qutong) and “contraction and convergence” (jinsuo qutong) (Meyer 2000). The contraction and convergence approach
(figure 5), popular in the West, claims to unify carbon emissions at a
certain point in the future. As noted by He et al. (2009), there is only
one point of intersection between the emission curves of Annex I
countries and non-Annex I6 countries: when emissions converge in
2050. He et al. (2009) argue that this target of emission contraction
restricts the developmental space of developing countries, since the
historical emission curves of today’s developed countries have been
much larger, whereas the developing countries still have to commit to
the same reduction targets. In contrast, the APCE convergence approach (figure 6) shows two points of intersection. The first one marks
the end of “overemission” of the developed countries and the beginning of “overemission” on the part of the developing countries. Chinese experts insist that the area below these curves should be the
same. However, if the target of maximum 450, 550, or 650 parts per
million (ppm) of atmospheric CO2 is not to be exceeded, they argue,
then the developed countries have already used up their amount of
APCE and have “occupied” the APCE reserved for developing countries. According to these calculations, the developmental space of developing countries between 1850 and 2050 accounts for only 27
percent of that of the developed countries (He et al. 2009: 48–52).
Figure 5 Distribution of emission space according to “contraction
and convergence”. Modified from He et al. (2009: 48).
20
THE SCIENCE-POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHINA
Figure 6 APCE convergence paths of Annex I countries and nonAnnex I countries. Modified from He et al. (2009: 49).
The carbon budget proposal of the Research Center for Sustainable Development puts APCE convergence into a proposal for international governance (Pan et al. 2009). The basic idea is that each
country is entitled to use a historical carbon budget, calculated on the
basis of absolute population. They propose a time frame from 1900 to
2050. Most developed countries have already exhausted their full
budgets, with a “budget deficit” amounting to about 500 gigatons of
CO2, whereas the surplus countries have a budget surplus of 990 gigatons of CO2. In view of these budget deficits, the authors propose
greater international trade in emission rights, where the developing
countries pay for the “historical overdraft” and future emissions of the
developed countries. If one ton of carbon emission is priced at US$5,
the amount to be paid to the developing countries would be around
US$1572 billion, plus technology transfer (from 1900 to 1989). However, they contend that the price for the historical transfer for the time
period after 1990 should be higher, since the developed countries
knowingly emitted excessive amounts of CO2. For the whole process
of historical and future transfers, they calculate transfer payments of
US$4150 billion (Pan et al. 2009).7
Political Documents and Speeches
The most important role of political inscriptions is to provide widespread definitions of the reference and circulate these beyond their
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own professional world. They enroll allies that further stabilize the existence of the reference. Chinese official documents and speeches often make reference to development, equity, and justice. The reference
is inscribed in expressions such as “historical responsibility,” “high
per capita emissions of developed countries,” “luxury emissions,” or
the “right to development.” The whole set of beliefs is translated into
the Chinese view of CBDR. At the Copenhagen Summit, Premier Wen
Jiabao said:
The principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” represents the
core and bedrock of international cooperation on climate change and it must
never be compromised … Developed countries must take the lead in making
deep quantified emission cuts and provide financial and technological support to developing countries. Developing countries should, with the financial and technological support of developed countries, do what they can to
mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change in the light
of their national conditions. (Wen 2009, translation from English website)
Wen provides a definition of development, equity, and responsibility,
and loads the Chinese understanding onto a principle that is common
sense in the international climate negotiations (although its interpretation is disputed). Through linking the CBDR as inscribed into the
UNFCCC with his own interpretations, the international law appears
to support Wen’s positions of development, equity, and responsibility.
The reference becomes reified as a general value that enjoys the support of the international community and international law. China is
simply acting according to this law. Whereas science and expertise
translate the referent into a necessity from the view of objectivity, Wen
Jiabao here makes it a legal fact that seems internationally accepted.
As noted by Xie Zhenhua, head of the Chinese delegation to the
conference of the parties of the UNFCCC:
The developing countries mainly insist that the historical accumulated emissions of developed countries are big and their current per capita emissions
are high. They should bear the main responsibility for causing the climate
change. (Xie 2010)
Climate change negotiations, he submits, are a “fight over the right to
development.” In addition to CBDR, Xie enrolls here the whole group
of “developing countries” to agree on this principle of development,
equity, and responsibility of the developed countries to go ahead with
climate efforts.
The argumentation of political documents connects with the inscriptions of emission curves and APCE. Wen Jiabao cites figures from
scientific inscriptions:
22
THE SCIENCE-POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHINA
In the past 200 years, the emissions of industrialized countries account for
80% of global emissions. If CO2 emissions are the direct cause for climate
change, then it goes without saying who should assume responsibility. (Wen
2009)
Similarly, the Chinese Climate Change Proposal notes that 9 percent
of the world’s total CO2 emissions from 1950 to 2002 came from
China (NDRC 2007); and according to the white paper on China’s
policies and actions on climate change, China accounted for only 8
percent of emissions from fossil fuels between 1904 and 2004, or
ninety-fourth in the world (State Council 2008). These figures here apply the concrete quantification of APCE. Without being able to draw
on these scientific inscriptions, the inscription of development, equity, and responsibility into political documents would certainly become a less convincing and less real argument.
Conclusions
This article has shown how the coproduction of climate change works
in the Chinese context. Development, equity, and responsibility are
inscribed in scientific and political practices. They circulate among
various inscriptions that transform their existence: climate models
provide the scientific basis for potentially connecting the development
issue with global warming; emission curves realize visualization, quantification, and comparison; future emission curves take APCE into the
future and provide policy proposals; and political speeches enshrine
and disseminate definitions and enroll political allies. Moreover, the
inscriptions draw on the transformations by other inscriptions: political speeches employ APCE constructions and concepts of anthropogenic climate change, while emission curves connect graphical
presentations with the principle of CBDR. It does not make sense to
separate the scientific from the political aspects of climate change,
because the discursive reality of development, equity, and responsibility is an imbroglio of models, graphs, proposals, and speeches.
Enrollment does not necessarily lead to mobilization, however.
The enrolled allies might resist their involvement in the network, and
stabilization of the quasi-object might prove problematic, contrary to
the discursive “architecture” of the Chinese climate network presented
here. China has successfully mobilized other developing countries in
common position papers and in cooperation in the Ad Hoc Group for
the Modelling and Assessment of Contributions of Climate Change
23
JOST WÜBBEKE
(Ellermann et al. 2011). However, China failed miserably in its climate diplomacy at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, when it could not
manage to mobilize the alleged international consensus over the
CBDR principle.
The findings of this article have several important implications for
policy. First, scientific quasi-objects participate fully in the controversy
over development and climate change—making it necessary to open
up objective “facts” for political discussion. Second, in order to understand a country’s position, we must include the contribution of science
to the hegemonic discourse. Third, science itself will need to change
its self-perception of being neutral and detached from political dispute.
Regarding social science research, it is insufficient to analyze the
science-policy interface solely in terms of scientific influence on policy. This perspective recognizes the relevance of science only if it successfully causes a policy change. However, science often contributes
to discursive constructs where categories of change alone are not
helpful. The coproduction idiom can help social science research on
climate change get a more realistic account of scientific work. Beyond the STS community, policy analyses of climate change could
benefit greatly here. In particular in the natural sciences and science
management, awareness of the implications of their own research
could strengthen its authority and credibility. Moreover, the coproduction idiom offers fresh perspectives on Chinese climate policy,
beyond the question of scientific independence. Although the contribution of science in China lies also in promoting change, its creative
role in producing the hegemonic discourse of current climate policy
should not be underestimated.
Jost Wübbeke is a PhD student and lecturer at the Environmental Policy Research Centre and the Graduate School of Global Politics at Freie Universität
Berlin, Germany. His dissertation deals with environmental and resource
regulation in the Chinese mining and metals industry. His research interests
include energy governance, mining and social and environmental issues,
and climate change policy in China. He is interested in international relations theory and science and technology studies. He has published several articles and reports on China’s climate policy, rare earth policy, acid
rain, Chinese foreign policy, and international relations theory and natural
resources. Address: Ringbahnstr. 66, 12099 Berlin, Germany. Email:
[email protected].
24
THE SCIENCE-POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHINA
Notes
1. In this article, the term “developed countries” is used, for convenience, to refer to the industrialized or “Western” world, in contrast to the “developing” or “Third
World” countries.
2. “Science” here refers both to the natural sciences, like meteorology and
physics, and to the social sciences, like economics and political science.
3. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are done by the author.
4. In an innovative project for measuring equity of emissions, Teng et al. (2010)
transferred the Gini Index, which is an indicator of income inequality in a society, to
the issue of carbon emissions inequality by developing a global “Carbon Gini Index”
(tan jinni xishu). With different starting years of the APCE, this global Carbon Gini
Index amounts to 0.7 (1850–2006 and 1900–2006), 0.67 (1950–2006) or 0.6
(1990–2006). Thus, between 60 percent and 70 percent of global emissions space has
been unequally distributed (0 = totally equal distribution; 1 = the most unequal distribution).
5. This would be higher than the world average, but still lower than Europe and
the United States. China has already passed this threshold.
6. Annex I parties to the UNFCCC, mostly developed countries, have committed
themselves to reduce CO2 under the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and other obligations.
Non-Annex I parties, mostly developing countries, do not have obligations for emissions under the UNFCCC.
7. Interestingly, the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU; 2009)
offers a similar budget proposal. The major difference between the two approaches is
the aspect of historical responsibility. The WBGU proposes two options, “historical responsibility” and “future responsibility.” “Historical responsibility” takes into account
the time frame from 1990 to 2050. According to these calculations, the United States
already has a huge budget deficit and Germany a budget deficit near zero. However,
according to the authors, this approach is politically not feasible, so they propose a
“future responsibility” of the carbon budget from 2010 to 2050. Under this option, the
developed countries would have no budget deficit, but would face pressure to bring
their high per capita emissions in line with their budget. Another difference is that the
WBGU’s approach allows only for a partly free use of the budget, since states should
be required to meet certain emission paths until 2020, to ensure that the budget is not
overused in the future (German Advisory Council on Global Change 2009). This comparison shows that historical responsibility in China is more seen as referring to emissions throughout the nineteenth century, while Western approaches underemphasize
this point.
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29
BLEU, BLANC…GREEN?
France and Climate Change
Éloi Laurent
Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économiques, Sciences-Po
The Heat-Wave of 2003
During the first four days of August 2003, temperatures recorded by Météo
France increased dramatically from approximately twenty-five degrees celsius
to thirty-seven, and remained as high as thirty-six or thirty-seven for the following nine days. The duration, intensity, and geographical reach of the 2003
heat-wave (“canicule”) that struck most of France were without precedent, at
least since temperatures were first recorded in Paris in the mid-nineteenth
century. According to Météo France, overall, the summer of 2003 was two
degrees hotter than in previous record years, 1976, 1983, and 1994 (as shown
in Figure 1). While, according to international rankings, France has one of the
best health care systems in the world,1 the heat-wave still resulted in the
deaths of 14,800 people, an increase of more than half from the previous year
according to INSERM2 (2,000 people died on August 12 alone).
It was probably in the summer of 2003 that many French people first discovered or realized the importance of the issue of climate change by experiencing first-hand its potentially devastating impacts even on rich and
relatively equitable societies endowed with an extensive welfare state system.
While climate change cannot be directly linked as a cause of the 2003 heatwave, Della-Marta, et al., among others, show that the number and intensity
of hot days and heat-waves exhibit a clear and disturbing upward trend in
Europe from 1880 to 2005.3 As a matter of fact, France was hit by another heatwave only three years after 2003, between 11 and 28 July 2006. Only second
to that of August 2003 in intensity but geographically much more limited, it
was still responsible for an over-mortality of 2,000 people.4
French Politics, Culture & Society, Vol. 27, No. 2, Summer 2009
doi:10.3167/fpcs.2009.270209
France and Climate Change
143
Figure 1. France climate, 1910-2007. Deviation in degrees Celsius from
normal temperature (average 1971-2000)
1,5
Heatwave of 2003
1,0
0,5
0,0
-0,5
-1,0
-1,5
19
10
19
13
19
16
19
19
19
22
19
25
19
28
19
31
19
34
19
37
19
40
19
43
19
46
19
49
19
52
19
55
19
58
19
61
19
64
19
67
19
70
19
73
19
76
19
79
19
82
19
85
19
88
19
91
19
94
19
97
20
00
20
03
20
06
-2,0
Source: Météo France.
French Attitudes Towards Climate Change
If one embraces the scientific consensus, the French are right to worry about
the effects of climate change on their country. According to Météo France,
France became on average one degree warmer over the course of the twentieth
century (a little bit more in the southwest and a little less in the north), and
this warming is higher than the globe’s as a whole (around three-quarters of a
degree).5 What is more, the warmest ten years have all been recorded after
1988. As with all developed and temperate countries, climate change has
already disrupted and damaged France’s ecosystems,6 and will continue to do
with increasing force in the future, even if the impact may be less dramatic
than in poor and tropical countries.7
A way to take stock of French concern regarding climate change is to compare French responses to those from other nationals in world opinion polls.
This can be done synthetically using data from a recent survey of opinion surveys on climate change compiled by World Public Opinion (2007).8
A BBC poll of September 2007 suggests that French people may be the
most well-informed about climate change when compared to other Europeans, North and South Americans, Asians, and people living in the MiddleEast. Sixty-two percent of French people say that they have heard “a great
deal” about climate change against a world average of 35 percent. A Pew Center poll of June 2006 confirmed this pattern ranking the French in the top
144
Éloi Laurent
three of countries where people say they have “heard of global warming” (the
first two countries being Japan and Great Britain).
This relatively high level of awareness is accompanied by a relatively high
level of concern. A Pew Center poll of May 2007 found that “global warming
is a very serious problem” for 68 percent of French respondents, while the corresponding figure is 47 percent for Americans, 57 percent for Italians, 45 percent for Britons, and 40 percent for Russians. A 2006 German Marshall Fund
poll already found that 60 percent of French respondents thought of global
warming as an “extremely important threat,” while 53 percent of Germans, 39
percent of Dutch, and 46 percent of Americans thought similarly.
French people are also seemingly more inclined to think that climate
change calls for resolute public action. The same BBC poll of September 2007
just mentioned found that 85 percent of French respondents believed that it
was “necessary to take major steps very soon to address climate change,” a full
twenty percentage points above the world average. A 2006 World Public Opinion poll similarly found that 78 percent of French respondents believed that
“global warming is a serious and pressing problem” and that “[we] should
begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs” while only 43
percent of Americans, 32 percent of Russians and 69 percent of Australians
shared this view.
Even within the European Union, a more homogenous gathering of developed countries sharing similar environmental values,9 the French commitment
to action on climate change is clearly perceptible. The latest Eurobarometer
poll measuring Europeans’ attitudes towards climate change suggests that 84
percent of French people are inclined to view climate change as a “very serious
problem,” while 75 percent of EU 27 respondents shared this view on average.10
This survey also suggests the French are more likely than their European counterparts to separate most of their waste for recycling, and to reduce their consumption of energy and water and disposable items.
These results are largely concurrent with previous Eurobarometer publications on Europeans’ attitudes towards environmental issues. More surprising,
perhaps, is the fact that even if the French may be marginally less enthusiastic about the EU than their fellow Europeans (see standard Eurobarometers),
they are also more “environmentally European” than others in the EU. That is,
the latest Eurobarometer on Europeans attitudes toward the environment
found that “French respondents are significantly more likely than their fellow
Europeans to prefer that decisions on environmental issues are taken jointly
within the EU than by their national Government. The figure for France is ten
percentage points above the EU average of 67 percent.”11
Given such numbers, it seems fair to conclude that the French are more
concerned about climate change on average than the people in other countries
in the developed world in general, and in the EU in particular, and are also
more willing to countenance action, whether at the national or European
level, in order to mitigate climate change.
France and Climate Change
145
Contrary to other countries, like Canada, this heightened concern finds
partial translation in France’s relatively laudable performance in terms of cutting greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
French Performance in Mitigating Climate Change
Under the Kyoto Protocol, the former EU 15 countries benefit from a “bubble”
agreement whereby they can share the burden of reducing greenhouse gases
emissions among themselves (the overall target being a reduction of 8 percent
of GHG emissions levels in 2008-2012 compared to 1990 levels). One means
of assessing France’s performance in terms of mitigating climate change is to
compare France’s performance in 2006 to its target for 2008-2012. In this light,
the French performance looks encouraging, as the year 2006 saw a decrease of
3.5 percent of emissions as compared to 199012 (after a decrease of only about
2 percent for the 1990-2005 period as a whole). This performance looks even
better when population increase and GDP growth are taken into account.
Compared to the rest of “Annex I”13 non-European countries, French performance in terms of GHG emissions since 1990, very close to the average for
the EU 15, is certainly worthy of praise, especially when Canada or Australia
are considered (Table 1).
Table 1. GHG emissions, in millions of CO2 equivalent tons
Evolution 1990/2005
UE 15
France
Japan
USA
New Zealand
Canada
Australia
-2%
-1,9%
+ 6,9%
+ 16,3%
+ 24,7%
+ 25,3%
+ 25,6%
Target 2008/2012
-8%
0%
-8%
-7%
0%
-6%
-8%
Source: United Nations.
Yet the comparison with other EU countries, both large and small, suggests a
certain degree of inertia slowing progress along France’s path to sustainable
development. According to the European environmental agency, both the
United Kingdom and Germany managed to reduce their GHG emissions
more significantly than France14. In fact, from 1990 to 2005, Germany reduced its share of EU 15 GHG from 28 to 23 percent while France’s share
remained constant, at 13 percent. Table 2 shows that France’s performance
when compared to the rest of the EU is much less impressive than when compared to Annex I countries.
146
Éloi Laurent
Table 2. Top 10 polluters in the EU 27 (representing more than 80% of
GHG emissions)
Member state
Germany
United Kingdom
Italy
France
Spain
Poland
Netherlands
Romania
Czech Republic
Belgium
Share of EU 27’s total
GHG emissions
Evolution
1990-2005 (%)
Kyoto target
(%)
GHG per capita, in tons of
CO2 per capita for 2005
19,3%
12,7%
11,2%
10,7%
8,5%
7,7%
4,1%
3,0%
2,8%
2,8%
-18,7%
-15,7%
12,1%
-1,9%
52,2%
-32,0%
-1,1%
-45,6%
-25,8%
-2,1%
-21,0%
-12,5%
-6,5%
0,0%
15,0%
-6,0%
-6,0%
-8,0%
-8,0%
-7,5%
12,1
10,9
10,0
9,1
10,2
10,5
13,0
7,1
14,2
13,8
Source: European Environmental Agency.
Certainly it remains true that France has a lower GHG emissions level per
capita than any other developed EU country and that the country is on track
to meet its target. Yet this is largely the product of the country’s strong reliance
on nuclear power that currently produces around 80 percent of France’s electricity. The contribution of the energy sector to climate change is thus much
lower in France than in the EU 15 (Tables 3 and 4), and it is getting lower. Yet
this should not obscure the opposite evolution of transports and housing, the
two sectors that account for almost half of France’s total GHG emissions and
whose emissions for the period 1990-2005 have increased respectively by 26
percent and 18 percent (according to CITEPA, CO2 emissions have increased
by 5 percent since 1990 due to road transportation alone). Such increases call
for a renewed effort in terms of public policy to mitigate climate change in
France, as “nuclear complacency” has arguably somewhat dampened environmental resolution.
Table 3. France’s GHG emissions by sectors, 1990-2005
Transports
Industry
Agriculture
Housing
Energy
Waste
Total
Share of the sector
in 2005
Evolution
1990-2005
26,5%
20,7%
18,9%
18,5%
12,8%
2,5%
100%
+ 21,8%
-19,4%
-11,1%
+ 15,2%
-10,3%
-11,7%
-1,9%
Source: Institut Français de l’environnement
France and Climate Change
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Table 4. EU 15’s GHG emissions by sectors, 1990-2005
Share in
2005
Energy without transport
Transport
Agriculture
Industrial processes
Waste
59,1%
21,0%
9,2%
7,9%
2,6%
Change
1990-2005
-3%
+ 26%
-11%
-11%
-38%
Source: European Environmental Agency
The “Grenelle Environnement”15 or the
Uneasiness of Being Truly Green
The central policy instrument in France’s arsenal to mitigate climate change
before 2007 was “the Plan climat,” adopted in 2004 and updated in 2006, aiming to achieve the “factor 4,” that is, the fourfold reduction of GHG emissions
by 2050 (a 75 percent decrease from 1990 to 2050). Given France’s emissions
path, this objective (requiring a reduction of emissions of 30 percent as early
as 2020, the new EU objective adopted in March 2007) obviously requires a
renewed political ambition. Although the subjects touched by the so-called
“Grenelle environnement” were much broader than just climate change, it
can be said that climate change was precisely the centerpiece of this innovative institutional and policy process.
“The first success of the Grenelle is that it took place.”16 This candid governmental assessment says much about the political risk the government took
when in May 2007 it instigated under the authority of Jean-Louis Borloo (Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Planning and Development), Dominique
Bussereau (Secretary of State for Transport), and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet
(Secretary of State for Ecology) the first environmental negotiations ever to
take place in France between five “colleges”: the State, trade unions, employers, NGOs, and local jurisdictions. The original idea of convening all actors of
the environmental scene to agree on a new action plan can be traced back to
Nicolas Hulot’s Pacte écologique,17 which called for “a national mobilization,”
an idea picked up by Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet and suggested by her to Nicolas Sarkozy during his presidential campaign.18
The negotiations took place over three months, between July and September 2007, and led to a total of 276 propositions that were then opened, for
a further month, to public debate. The final and difficult political bargaining
took place during four round tables organized on 24 and 25 October 2007 by
the Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Planning and Development. The conclusions of the “Grenelle” presented by Nicolas Sarkozy in a speech at the
Elysée Palace on October 25 bear the mark of final trade-offs, especially regarding the implementation of a “carbon tax” (see infra).
148
Éloi Laurent
It is, of course, too soon to evaluate the political dynamic of these innovative negotiations, but some general remarks can already be made. NGOs were
the most ambitious negotiators, at times strategically pressuring other parties
by temporarily leaving the table.19 Unsurprisingly, the MEDEF (the major
French employers association) called for “moderation” and “flexibility,” especially with regards to environmental taxation, and insisted on the European
dimension of policies, so that the competitiveness of French firms would not
be adversely affected. Moreover, the state was itself divided at times between
the energy and technical mastery of Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, and the more
political and consensual approach of Jean-Louis Borloo.
Specific points of conflict were mentioned in the various preliminary
reports. The most important one was clearly nuclear energy, with NGOs calling for the end of the EPR (European pressurized water reactor) program and
“fourth generation” reactors (going beyond the EPR technology) and the closing of the La Hague nuclear waste factory, while other parties strongly opposed
such suggestions. The future development of bio-fuels was also a point of conflict between some NGOs and business interests, with the former demanding
an assessment of the environmental impact of bio-fuels (a call vindicated by
the later publication of alarming studies by the World Bank on the impact of
bio-fuels on commodities prices). Finally, the cultivation in open fields of
GMOs (genetically modified organisms) also opposed NGOs and business delegates, with the latter calling for the development of GMOs and for the compliance of France with European legislation (Sarkozy explicitly rejected such
ideas in his closing speech).
After the conclusion of negotiations, thirty operational committees
worked from the end of 2007 until two law projects were drafted in the spring
and summer of 2008, “Grenelle 1” and “Grenelle 2” (the “Grenelle 3” referring
to the budget of the Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Planning and Development for 2008/2009). The first law project translates the general guidelines
of the “Grenelle” into law, but it is the second one, designing the instruments
and tools of public action in order to put principles into practice, that has
rightly become a focus of public attention.20
As regards climate change, the “Grenelle” defined three objectives: setting
France on the “factor 4” course; increasing renewable energy production by 20
million equivalent oil tons by 2020 and making renewable sources of energy
account for at least one fifth of total energy consumption by that date; and
opening up sector-based projects to reduce GHG emissions of buildings by 38
percent, and by the transportation sector by 20 percent in 2020.
The major issue at stake in trying to achieve those objectives is the reform
of environmental taxation. Because of the nature of France’s GHG problem,
action at the European level (the “energy-climate” package was adopted in the
final hour of the EU French Presidency of 2008) can only do so much. The
European Union trading scheme, or European carbon market, created in January 2005 to conform to the Kyoto Protocol, does not include transports or
France and Climate Change
149
housing, nor will the European environmental regulation applicable, for
instance, to cars be decisive in reducing French GHG emissions.21 It is, rather,
national taxation that is the best available environmental and economic
instrument.22 And France must make progress in this domain. Indeed, while
France initiated the first water and pollution taxes, it is now lagging behind its
EU neighbors in terms of environmental taxation (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Environmental taxation in France and the EU, 1995-2005, as a
percentage of GDP (lower bars) and as a percentage of total fiscal
revenues (higher bars)
Source: Eurostat
Yet the “Grenelle 3,” that is to say the budget project of the Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Planning and Development for 2008/2009, does not mention a possible “carbon tax” (or “energy-climate contribution” in the
“Grenelle” parlance) and offers instead an astute but fragmented system of
self-financing through the creation of subsidies. The taxation project under
consideration would include extending the principle of bonus-malus23 but
not, unfortunately, sending a clear price signal to consumers and producers
through a tax on carbon, that would include energy and be aimed at transportation and housing, the two most pressing issues for France in terms of climate change. Of course, so-called “command and control” policy (i.e.,
regulation through standards and norms and control of compliance) is still
available, but it is less efficient economically,24 and it is difficult to see how
such an approach could alone attain some of the very ambitious objectives set
by the “Grenelle.”
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Éloi Laurent
Moreover, the carbon tax was an explicit proposition of workgroup six of
the “Grenelle” and the subsequent round table seemed to leave little room for
manoeuvre to the government which could choose between: “stating the principle of the creation of an climate / energy contribution at the outset and refering it to a workgroup to study the conditions under which it could be
introduced; or … deciding on the study of a climate / energy contribution
before validating its creation.” The parties involved added that “the workgroup that examines the feasibility and conditions of implementation of the
climate / energy contribution will have to submit its conclusions by spring
2008 at the latest.” But as these lines are written, the project of a French carbon tax is only beginning to be seriously considered in governmental circles.
Short Term Versus Long Term
The “Grenelle” process was undoubtedly the important public success required by the French government to convert an emerging national consensus
on climate change into public action, and to preserve and develop the “environmental comparative advantage” of the French economy beyond reliance
on nuclear energy.
The massive vote in favor of “Grenelle 1” on 21 October 2007, with 526
representatives voting for the legislation (with only four votes against and the
representatives from “Les Verts,” ironically enough, abstaining) suggested a
wide consensus supporting the general principles contained in the text. Yet,
some among the “Grenelle” participants (notably the Nicolas Hulot Fondation) believe that key points of the “Grenelle” agreement are missing from the
“Grenelle 1” (chief among them the institutions of a “climate-energy contribution,” that is a carbon tax, cf. supra).
Moreover, judging from the debate, it hardly seems unrealistic to expect
strong resistance to major elements of the global project of the “Grenelle” on
the difficult path now lying ahead of it in Parliament. The “Grenelle 1” essentially sets objectives and targets, but the moment of truth will come with the
“Grenelle 2” in an even more unfavourable economic context. Indeed, the
current financial, economic and social crisis poses a serious threat to the kind
of long-term investments France would need to commit to in order to implement the core of the “Grenelle environnement” program; and France is not
alone in this perilous situation.
The global financial meltdown threatens to aggravate the ecological crisis because it undermines the fiscal resources and willingness of states to push
for reform at the very moment when the consensus among citizens in favor
of sustainable development is at its strongest, and when national, European,
and global agreements are attempting to translate this consensus into laws. A
scuttling of this crisis would represent the victory of the short term over the
long term.
France and Climate Change
151
Therefore, a strong and coordinated political response must be found
among European countries to answer both crises. It is now clear that the financial panic is being fed by the risk of economic recession, on top of the banking collapse. This is why a “green new deal” must be launched, targeting
initially housing and infrastructure-development more generally. To address
the other most preoccupying problem—transportation—a “carbon tax”
should be implemented at the national level accompanied by an equivalent
reduction of labor taxation boosting employment when most needed. Since
the recapitalization and refinancing of the most affected parts of the banking
sector is inevitable, states should also commit themselves to invest all benefits
from their shares and guarantees in sustainable development.
It will be the crucial responsibility in 2009 of the European and French
governments to resist the pressure to cut back on sustainable development, so
the travails of a short-sighted financial industry do not damage the prospects
for sustainable human development for decades to come.
ÉLOI LAURENT is a senior research fellow and scientific advisor at OFCE (Sciences-Po Center for Economic Research). He teaches in the master of public
affairs program at Sciences-Po, the Bing Overseas Program in Stanford University, and in the Collège des hautes études européennes (La Sorbonne). His
most recent book is La Nouvelle Écologie politique (co-authored with Jean-Paul
Fitoussi, 2008).
Notes
1. See, for instance, the various editions of The World Heath Report by the World
Health Organization.
2. Denis Hemon et Eric Jougla, “Surmortalité liée à la canicule d’août 2003: suivi de la
mortalité (21 août - 31 décembre 2003), causes médicales des décès (1 - 20 août
2003),” http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/rapports-publics/044000531/
index.shtml.
3. P. M. Della-Marta, M. R. Haylock, J. Luterbacher, and H. Wanner (2007), “Doubled
Length of Western European Summer Heat Waves since 1880,” Journal of Geophysical Research 112 (2007). The authors remark that “over the period 1880 to 2005 the
length of summer heat waves over Western Europe has doubled and the frequency
of hot days has almost tripled.”
4. “Canicule de l’été 2006 : une surmortalité significative, mais inférieure à celle attendue,” Institut de Veille Sanitaire, 3 May 2007, http://www.invs.sante.fr/presse/
2007/communiques/canicule_030507/index.html.
5. According to Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, the warming of France’s climate during
the twentieth century started to manifest itself with the canicule of 1911 that
claimed 40,000 lives. See Histoire humaine et comparée du climat: Le réchauffement de
1860 à nos jours (Paris: Fayard, 2009).
6. The governmental body in charge of monitoring the impact of climate change in
France is the Observatoire national sur les effets du réchauffement climatique
(ONERC), whose reports are available at http://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/-ONERC-
152
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Éloi Laurent
.html. In particular, the ONERC maintains a very useful database on indicators of
climate change in France http://onerc.org/listAllIndicators.jsf.
On the differentiated impact of climate change according to geography and
development levels, see the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, available at
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm.
“International Polling on Climate Change – A WorldPublicOpinion.org Analysis,”
6 December 2007, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/dec07/CCDigest_
Dec07_rpt.pdf. The analysis includes polls from the BBC/GlobeScan/PIPA, the Pew
Research Center, GlobeScan, WorldPublicOpinion.org/Chicago Council on Global
Affairs, the German Marshall Fund, and Eurobarometer.
The reference to sustainable development was introduced in the European Union
fundamental law as early as 1997, in the Amsterdam treaty. For an analysis of the
“European preference for the environment,” see Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Éloi Laurent
and Jacques Le Cacheux, “La stratégie environnementale européenne,” Revue de
l’OFCE 102 (2007).
“Europeans’ attitudes towards climate change,” September 2008, European Commission, http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_300_full_en.pdf.
“Attitudes of European citizens towards the environment,” Results for France,
March 2008, European Commission, 3, http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/
archives/ebs/ebs_295_sheet_fr.pdf.
The CITEPA (Centre Interprofessionnel Technique d’Études de la Pollution Atmosphérique) is the official institution responsible for collecting data on GHG emissions in France and communicating them to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change. For the latest inventory, see “Inventaire des émissions de gaz à effet de serre en France au titre de la Convention cadre des Nations
Unies sur les Changements Climatiques,” Rapport national d’inventaire, Centre
Interprofessionnel Technique d’Études de la Pollution Atmosphérique, December
2007.
In the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the developed countries party to “Annex
1” are subjected to legally-binding individual targets.
Greenhouse gas emission trends and projections in Europe 2006, European environmental agency, http://reports.eea.europa.eu/eea_report_2006_9/en.
The French government now uses the expression “Grenelle environnement” in
preference to “Grenelle de l’environnement” and we conform to this usage in this
article. (The abbreviation “Grenelle” will also be used here, as it is in the French
pubic debate). “Grenelle” refers to the “rue de Grenelle” in the ministers district in
central Paris, where the historical negotiations and agreements following the unrest
of May 1968 were concluded between the Government and trade unions, but never
came into force. In recent years it has become common in French political debate
to refer to negotiations involving the state and civil society as “Grenelle de” (the
current government recently launched the “Grenelle de l’insertion” to reform
poverty policies or the “Grenelle de la presse” to reform media financing).
Taken from the “General presentation of group reports prior to the public debate,”
http://www.legrenelle-environnement.fr/grenelle-environnement/IMG/pdf/
mini_ecol_chapeau_propre_gb.pdf. The English website of the “Grenelle” contains
many useful summaries and translations of official reports: http://www.legrenelleenvironnement.gouv.fr/grenelle-environnement/spip.php?rubrique112, see in
particular http://www.legrenelle-environnement.gouv.fr/grenelle-environnement/
IMG/pdf/HS-8pGrenelle-Anglais.pdf.
The original text is available at http://www.pacte-ecologique.org/ The Fondation
Nicolas Hulot, bringing together a number of qualified experts on environmental
issues, has become a very useful source of information and analysis on French environmental issues, http://www.fondation-nicolas-hulot.org/.
France and Climate Change
153
18. See “Les dessous du Grenelle de l’environnement,” Le Monde 2, 26 September 2008.
19. Again, see “Les dessous du Grenelle de l’environnement.”
20. As these lines are written, the text of the “Grenelle I” legislation is public and being
debated and amended in Parliament, but the text of the law project “Grenelle II” is
still being discussed and drafted in executive circles and set to be discussed in the
spring of 2009. As for the “Grenelle III,” see infra.
21. On the European strategy against climate change, again see Fitoussi, Laurent and Le
Cacheux, “La stratégie environnementale européenne,” 2007.
22. See Éloi Laurent and Jacques Le Cacheux, “Grenelle de l’environnement: Peut-on se
passer d’une nouvelle fiscalité écologique ?” Lettre de l’OFCE, 23 October 2007.
23. A “bonus-malus” already exists for personal cars: it consists of imposing a fine for
the purchase of a vehicle emitting more than a given limit of GHG for its category
(as defined by European regulations), and the according of a financial bonus
accompanying the purchase of a vehicle respecting the regulation. The government’s idea, under fire from members of the Parliament, would be to gradually
extend this tax system to other consuming goods.
24. Once again on this point, see Laurent and Le Cacheux, “Grenelle de l’environnement.”
ARTICLES/ARTÍCULOS
Divergent principles, development
rights, and individualism
in the Greenhouse Development
Rights framework
Kenneth Shockley
Abstract: The likelihood that the poor will suffer disproportionately from
the effects of climate change makes it necessary that any just scheme
for addressing the costs and burdens of climate change integrate those
disproportionate effects. The Greenhouse Development Rights (GDRs)
framework a empts to do just this. The GDRs framework is a burdensharing approach to climate change that assigns national obligations
on the basis of historical emissions and current capacity to provide assistance. It does so by including only those emissions that correspond
to income exceeding a development threshold. According to the GDRs
framework, this development threshold considers the right to develop to
be held by individuals rather than the nations in which those individuals find themselves. The article provides a critique of this framework,
focusing on three concerns: First, in generating national obligations the
GDRs framework collapses significantly different moral considerations
into a single index, presenting both theoretical and practical problems.
Second, the framework relies on a contentious and underdeveloped conception of the right to develop. Third, the framework’s exclusive focus on
individual concerns systematically overlooks irreducibly social concerns.
The article concludes by pointing to an alternative approach to balancing
development against the burdens of climate change.
Keywords: capabilities, climate change, equity, ethics, Greenhouse Development Rights, individualism, responsibility
As a result of climate change people will suffer, their opportunities will be
hampered, and their autonomy will be infringed upon. Whatever ethical
framework is invoked, these all constitute potential ethical harm. MoreRegions & Cohesion
doi: 10.3167/reco.2012.020101
Volume 2, Issue 1, Spring 2012: 1–24
ISSN 2152-906X (Print), ISSN 2152-9078 (Online)
over, this harm is likely to be distributed in a manner that does not reflect
historical responsibility for the people’s contribution to its cause. These
ma ers of distribution and responsibility point us to the injustices associated with the burdens of adapting to or mitigating climate change. These
injustices, whether spelled out as ma ers of fairness or otherwise, constitute another ethical dimension of climate change. This further potential
harm, and the states of affairs that give rise to it, makes it vital that we generate a fair means of distributing both the burdens associated with adapting to a world ravaged by climate change and the costs of mitigating our
effects on the climate system. The focus of this article is on one prominent
and promising, but ultimately inadequate, framework for distributing
these burdens and costs. My concerns in what follows are broadly ethical,
but involve ma ers of implementation and integration with existing political realities, as well as ma ers of coherence and theoretical viability.
Climate change clearly involves a set of particularly difficult practical and theoretical problems. Problems of scale, both temporal and geographical, compound our inability to grasp the nature of the problem;
problems of coordination, at both the personal and national levels, confound our ability to act; and problems of uncertainty shake our notions
of responsibility and justice, notions upon which responses to climate
change depend. Moreover, traditional paradigm cases for moral or ethical
consideration typically involve one agent’s doing something praiseworthy
or blameworthy to another agent in the context of a set of (reasonably)
clearly articulated moral principles. Yet in the context of climate change,
the action performed is removed in space and time from its effect; there
is no simple, unified blameworthy or praiseworthy agent (but rather a
collection of individuals performing what would otherwise be innocuous
actions), and there is no clear and established institutional means of instantiating, enforcing, or even articulating the relevant moral principles.
Together, these make the ethical dimensions of climate change difficult to
tie to our usual ethical paradigms, and therefore to our practical and political reasoning. These problems constitute what one prominent theorist
has aptly described as a perfect moral storm: climate change “involves
the convergence of a number of factors that threaten our ability to behave
ethically” (Gardiner, 2006, p. 398). Without a tie to these usual paradigms,
it is hard to be motivated by the ethical dimensions of climate change,
even as we acknowledge its ethical significance.
Apart from these broadly theoretical concerns, at the practical level
one of the most significant ethical challenges associated with addressing
climate change comes from the need for those in the developing world to
emit as they develop, and the related thought that any restriction on their
emissions would constitute an ethically unjustifiable constraint on their
2
Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
development. Without delving too far into the nature of development, it
seems clear that, for example, those countries suffering from unstable or
dysfunctional medical, educational, and political infrastructure should
not be restricted from producing the emissions necessary to advance
those infrastructures to some minimum level of functionality. Given the
aforementioned ethical challenges we face with respect to climate change,
then, how should we address these legitimate concerns about development in the face of greenhouse gas reductions? Clearly, ma ers of justice
and a concern for the least well off play a role. As we address the substantial burdens of both mitigating and adapting to climate change, we
must consider the fairness of our actions, both in terms of accommodating
those in need of assistance or aid—as we adapt to a future changed by a
destabilized climate—and in terms of distributing benefits and burdens
in accordance with what has been done—as we a empt to mitigate our
effects on the climate system. With these issues of fairness in mind, the
Greenhouse Development Rights (GDRs) framework a empts to balance
the need to reduce overall emissions against the right to a minimum level
of emissions necessary for basic development (Baer, Athanasiou, Kartha,
& Kemp-Benedict, 2008). And it a empts to do so within a framework that
can generate practical policy initiatives. Moreover, the GDRs framework
is worthy of examination not only because of its noble a empt at balancing some of the gravest problems facing the world today, but also because
it is being adopted by several organizations as a practical means by which
to demonstrate and characterize the developed world’s debt to the developing world, while addressing its specific concerns.1
A er briefly introducing the GDRs framework and some of its advantages, I will consider three challenges to it: First, the principles underlying,
and justifying, the responsibility and capacity components of the central
metric used by the GDRs framework (called “RCI”) are remarkably different, injecting a significant theoretical tension. Second, GDRs rely on a
conception of emissions, rooted in what it is to have a right to develop,
that is not only in tension with that used by the largest emi er (and to that
extent a crucial party to any binding international agreement), but also
flirts with internal inconsistency. Third, no ma er how laudable the GDRs
framework’s focus on intranational variations may be, the individualism
of the approach effectively minimizes aspects of development that are not
easily reducible to individuals. A caveat is in order: while there are important differences in the roles played by notions of justice, conceptions
of fairness, individual and collective responsibility, different accounts
of shame and blame, and even the standing of future persons and their
relation to the sort of moral justification that policies addressing climate
change must face, the three points I will raise below will largely allow
Shockley • Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism
3
us to put these concerns to one side. I will highlight those that do reappear, and can only wish for the time and space to be more inclusive of the
many moral considerations that arise in these debates (Gardiner, 2004).
Moreover, I will not address here the many interesting normative differences between adaptation (reducing the impacts of climate change) and
mitigation strategies (minimizing anthropogenic contributions to climate
change), other than to note that collapsing all normative considerations
into a single metric, as does the GDRs framework, provides no means of
accommodating these variations (Caney, 2005; Jagers & Duus-O erström,
2008; Vanderheiden, 2009).
A er considering these three problems, I will briefly present the capabilities approach, an alternative way of thinking about development that
provides a means of responding to each of these three issues. While I make
no claim here to present a comprehensive theory on the basis of which we
might generate policy, I will claim that focusing on capabilities rather than
financial standing provides a be er basis for understanding development
and addressing development needs in the context of climate change. Further, the capability approach allows for the inclusion of much greater variation in social, cultural, and environmental contexts than does the GDRs
framework. Despite appearances, the GDRs framework’s one-size-fits-all
model of burden-sharing is incapable of recognizing crucial variations
among peoples, cultures, and regions. So long as this uniform approach
to a highly textured world remains at the center of the GDRs framework,
the concerns expressed above will remain. That said, the GDRs framework does a empt to remedy some of the massive inequalities not merely
between poor and wealthy nations, but also within nations. And this is a
notable accomplishment.
The Greenhouse Development Rights framework
A quick overview of the basic features of the GDRs framework will be
helpful. The GDRs framework is a burden-sharing arrangement, resting
on the principle that while no country should be required to sacrifice the
basic needs of its citizenry, beyond satisfying those basic needs each country should contribute according to its capacity to pay and in proportion
to its historical responsibility for the current state of greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere. The focus on basic needs provides a crucial foothold for
development, and places the moral foundation of the GDRs framework
squarely on individuals within nations, rather than on those nations themselves (see also Harris, 2010). The right to develop is held by individuals
rather than nations. Both capacity and responsibility are measured not in
4
Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
absolute terms but relative to a basic development floor, a floor that corresponds to what the authors of the GDRs framework refer to as the right
to develop (Baer et al., 2008, p. 16). That floor is set at 1.25 times the current purchase-power parity adjusted poverty index for individuals (about
$7500/person: Baer, Athanasiou, Kartha, & Kemp-Benedict, 2009, p. 270).
Above this development threshold, common maladies associated with extreme poverty tend to be the exception rather than the rule. This threshold
is therefore not arbitrary. However, as the GDRs framework is a general
approach rather than a specific policy proposal, this threshold is adjustable. Yet the basic point is clear: there is a financial level of well-being for
individuals that should not be counted toward the burden of paying for
climate change.
To determine the national share of the global burden of addressing
climate change (these will be referred to as “national obligations” in what
follows), the GDRs framework aggregates the capacity and responsibility of individuals in a particular country. This provides a measure of a
country’s capacity to pay for the costs of greenhouse gas mitigation, and
its responsibility for the current state of global greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. When aggregated, capacity and responsibility provide a Responsibility Capability Index (RCI), which is then used to allocate the percentage of the global burden held by a particular country. The authors
describe two possible ways this framework might be implemented (and it
should be clear that these options are not meant to be exhaustive).
First, imagine a single grand international fund to support both mitigation and adaptation. The RCI could serve as the basis for determining
each nation’s financial contribution to that fund. So, for example, if the
2020 climate transition funding requirement amounted to a trillion dollars (roughly 1% of the projected 2020 Gross World Product), then in 2020,
the US, with about 29% of the global RCI, would be obligated to pay $290
billion, the EU’s share would be about $230 billion, China’s share about
$100 billion, and India’s share would be $12 billion. The RCI thus serves
as the basis of a progressive global “climate tax”—not a carbon tax, but
a “responsibility and capacity tax.” Note that in this example the funding requirement could apply to any mix of mitigation, adaptation and
compensation.
Another way the GDRs framework could potentially be implemented
is as national emissions reductions obligations, similar to the national targets established under the Kyoto Protocol. (Baer et al., 2009, pp. 272–273)
The framework provides a progressive model for allocating national obligations, while addressing the level of well-being (or more precisely the
emissions corresponding to the financial standing associated with that
level of well-being) of individuals that corresponds to a minimally acceptable level of development.
Shockley • Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism
5
While providing a quantified approach to national obligations is of
value in itself, one of the most appealing features of the GDRs framework
is its capacity to address intranational variation in wealth, and thereby
to address, at least partially, one potential injustice. Indeed, it is of central concern that the burdens of reducing emissions might fall unevenly,
and unfairly, on the poor within a country, and in particular those in developing nations. By focusing on a development threshold that is based
on individual development, the GDRs framework prevents the wealthy
few in developing nations from hiding behind the poor by understating their own capacity to pay and responsibility for contribution to past
emissions. This focus provides a significant advantage over per capita approaches, perhaps the most well-known way of distributing the burdens
of adaptation and mitigation. Most per capita models constitute “contraction and convergence” approaches, as they rely on the contraction of national greenhouse gas emissions over time, and with that contraction a
convergence on a per capita level of emissions. The eventual convergence
captures the ethical requirement that there be some per capita equity in
allowable emissions.2 According to these approaches, fair distribution of
future emissions requires that we assign an equal share of allowable emissions to each person on the planet. Acceptable national emissions are then
assigned through simple summation.
However, while treating nations in this way simplifies ma ers, it
misses one of the most important concerns, morally at least, in development contexts: the fate of the truly poor. When allocating the burdens
associated with climate change, equal per capita approaches, including
the Kyoto protocols and other state-based models, treat nations as unified homogenous entities and systematically miss domestic variation in
well-being. All emissions are not equal, and for the truly poor a larger
portion of their emissions goes toward bare necessities and efforts at basic
development, and therefore has a moral significance not found in luxury
emissions. At the national level, some nations have populations in great
need of development assistance, and they should not suffer for the sake
of their nations’ comparative wealth. Something further is required to accommodate the contrast between the different roles played by emissions
and variations among individuals within a nation. In addressing this crucial ma er of climate justice, the GDRs framework fares significantly better than the equal per capita approach. The GDRs framework provides
a more nuanced account, which integrates national duty not only with
intranational variation of wealth, but also with the morally vital idea that
not all emissions are equal. Integrating this crucial insight into climatepolicy prescriptions constitutes a more encompassing notion of fairness
than can be found in models that look at development exclusively in terms
6
Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
of whole countries. For while the rhetoric of development is built around
developing countries, the focus of concern is, at root, the individual persons living in those countries (see Harris, 2010). While the framework’s
focus on individuals rather than the nations in which those individuals
are found is in itself an advantage, the focus on individuals also captures
the intuitively plausible idea that the basic focus of any morally justifiable
climate policy, or development policy, ought to be individuals.
There is a means of addressing the moral significance of individuals more directly by focusing climate policy on individual rights (Shue,
1993; Caney, 2005; and Vanderheiden, 2008). This might be thought of as
a second alternative to the GDRs framework; however, the GDRs framework appears to fare be er here as well. These rights-based approaches to
addressing the challenges of climate change focus on the responsibilities
others hold for those whose rights have been violated because of climate
change or our responses to climate change. Insofar as our responses to a
changing climate, whether by mitigating or adapting to those changes,
have in the past or will in the future violate the rights of individuals to
a basic standard of well-being, those policies are unacceptable. The rationale for such views is fairly straightforward: climate change and our
responses to it involve or may involve harm, where that harm involves
the infringement of certain rights. Those who contribute to that harm are
therefore responsible for providing some compensation or redress for violating those rights. With respect to the allocation of future emissions, these
views impose strict limits on those allocations. No allocation would be
acceptable if it infringed the rights of individuals to a basic level of emissions. These views approach burden-sharing with the idea that the right
to development should be generally understood to be a right to what we
might call “subsistence emissions” (following Shue, 1993; see also Gardiner, 2004, p. 585). We should think of this as being entailed by a right to
a basic level of well-being, which cannot be compromised for the sake of
reducing climate emissions. The burden of dealing with climate change
cannot be inflicted if that burden would undermine the right to subsistence emissions. The fundamental point advanced by advocates of such a
position is simply that one cannot ask the underdeveloped world to shoulder the burden of adaptation and mitigation when it violates their rights.
On this quite general point we see agreement between the rights view and
the GDRs framework.
One clear problem with rights-based views is in se ing the minimum
level of emissions. Both theoretically and practically, what counts as a subsistence emission is difficult to determine (let alone quantify). Against this
view, the GDRs framework has the advantage of integrating both responsibility and capability into a single metric that standardizes and quantifies
Shockley • Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism
7
these subsistence emissions, thereby (seemingly) providing a more manageable right than that advanced by more traditional rights-based views.
This more quantitative approach to rights makes the GDRs framework
much more practicable than the second, rights-based alternative.
With its capacity to quantify responsibility (making it superior to
rights-views) and to address economic variation within nations (making
it superior to per capita views), the GDRs presents a helpfully quantified
measure of development, and through this measure a fair means of allocating the burden associated with the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. Of course there is a price for these features, and it remains to be seen
if that price is worth paying.
Concerns
This section, constituting the bulk of this article, will address a set of problematic features of the GDRs framework. These features are presented not
with the thought that the GDRs framework is without merit; far from it.
The GDRs framework constitutes a remarkable step forward in addressing some of the most pressing ethical problems associated with climate
justice. However, there are some serious problems with the framework.
In this section three will be examined. I will suggest that these problems
arise from the inability of the GDRs framework, in its current form, to be
sufficiently sensitive to the variations in social, political, and perhaps even
geographical context in which development takes place. There is a be er
way of capturing local variation; this be er method will be introduced in
the final section.
Forward- and backward-directed principles: An ambiguity within the RCI
As we have seen, one of the centerpieces of the GDRs framework is the RCI,
a flexible measure of a particular nation’s obligation in terms of its historical responsibility for emissions and its capacity to contribute to mitigation
and adaptation efforts. The resulting index provides for a single quantified
metric that both fits nicely with current policy regimes (which are clearly
more comfortable with quantitative indices than with qualitative standards) and makes the framework applicable to a range of policy initiatives
(two possible distribution strategies were noted above). Indeed, the GDRs
framework’s authors take the quantification of capacity and responsibility within this single metric to constitute one of the more significant innovations of the GDRs framework (Baer et al., 2009, p. 269). However, the
elements of the RCI, responsibility and capacity, refer to markedly different
8
Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
conditions. While capacity is tied to the aggregate income above the development threshold, responsibility is tied to accountability for past conduct.
A further investigation of capacity and responsibility will make this clear.
Capacity, as our authors define it, is a ma er of the financial resources
that can be provided for assistance in development. It is a ma er of the
ability to pay (Baer et al., 2009, p. 268), with the assumption that this level
of financial well-being correlates closely with emissions. We should think
of capacity as a country’s ability to assist with development efforts, in light
of the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change. If a country does
not have the financial resources to assist in addressing the challenges of
climate change, then it does not have the capacity to do so. Capacity is
“forward-looking”: it is tied to how assistance might be offered. While
how it obtained the ability to pay most certainly has some moral significance, that historical significance is not tied in any direct way to its “capacity.” The basic principle underpinning the capacity component of the RCI
seems to be that development is the financial responsibility of those nations with
the financial resources to provide it. While historical ma ers are irrelevant for
determining capacity, they are not for responsibility.
Responsibility, in the GDRs framework, is a ma er of the historical
contribution to the current state of the atmosphere. It is a ma er of liability
for harm done, and is therefore “backward-looking” (see Vanderheiden,
2009; Gardiner, 2004). It is essentially punitive, and, as the framework’s
authors implement it, a empts to assign an appropriate dollar value for
compensation. As it measures contribution to the problem, where “the
problem” is understood to be the current level of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere, it is essentially a ma er of emissions, and only derivatively
financial. This follows the line of reasoning associated with the traditional
“polluter pays” principle, by which one is responsible for compensating
or otherwise addressing the harm associated with pollution to the extent
that one has produced it.
It is worth noting here that the “polluter pays” principle is not really
about financial ma ers, but about providing the best sort of compensation
available, given that historical harm has been produced. The focus is on
the need for an appropriate form of compensation, given the nature of the
historical harm. It is intuitively clear that while financial compensation
is the most common, and most practical form of compensation, it is not
the most appropriate. Cleaning up one’s mess is certainly more appropriate than paying for the harm done. And one should not conflate paying
to have a mess cleaned up with actually cleaning it up, any more than
one should confuse having an excuse for breaking a promise with being
forgiven for breaking it. The first condition constitutes compensation that
might lead to being excused for a harm done. The second is the actual
Shockley • Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism
9
release from guilt for harm done. While we might well think of the responsibility portion of the RCI in terms of the polluter-pays principle, the
focus of responsibility should not be on ma ers of financial standing, but
either on the harm itself or the immediate cause of the harm. In the case of
national obligations, the focus should be on the emissions produced by a
country, not their financial equivalent (Baer et al., 2009, 271; see also Baer
et al., 2008).
The basic principle underlying the responsibility component of the
RCI seems to be this: Historical contributors to the current state of greenhouse
gas emissions are responsible for compensating or otherwise providing redress for
the harm resulting from those emissions. By tying capacity to the financial capacity to assist with development, and responsibility to something akin to
the polluter-pays principle, the RCI joins together two markedly different
conditions. Because of the central role the RCI plays in the GDRs framework, joining together these two considerations entails that the framework
as a whole depends, practically as well as theoretically, on the principles
underlying both capacity and responsibility. And relying on both simultaneously is problematic. Suppose one asks why we should adopt the RCI
as a measure of national obligation. If the answer is both that we can help
those in need and that we owe it to them because of the harm we have
done, it is unclear which should move us to act or justify instituting our
national obligations as public policy. Is it a sense of distributive justice to
help those in need? Is it a sense of rectifying a wrong? Given the obligatory nature of the framework—the language is framed in terms of obligation for the harm done (and potential harm to come)—the underlying
justification seems to be in terms of what we have done. The urgent need
to reduce emissions to prevent further harm may motivate certain mitigation measures, but responsibility, it seems, is what is supposed to obligate a nation to utilize its capacity and support development efforts. The
capacity to provide aid seems merely a means by which the underlying
justification is enacted. If this is not the line of justification, if the justification is simply that we should provide aid because we can (and the responsibility condition is beside the point), then the justification is reduced to
the simple principle that one ought to do what one can to help countries
in need of development. However, while there may well be a direct moral
case for development assistance, not only do we as a species have a poor
track record in providing such aid, but the justification divorces the need
for development from the current climate crisis. This seems a poor line of
justification for a framework designed to distribute the obligation to deal
with that climate crisis.
Perhaps, then, we should return to a justification based on historical
responsibility. Here, however, two concerns should make us pause. First,
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some would dispute the relevance of historical emissions to the justification of the climate crisis (Traxler, 2002; see also Gardiner, 2004). The problem is not how we got here, such objectors would argue, but what we can
do about it. Responsibility does not properly track the effects of emissions.
A different form of justification than that most easily associated with the
RCI would then be required. Second, responding to our responsibility for
emissions with our capacity to pay may be the best we can do as a practical
ma er, but it does have the problem raised above with respect to the polluter-pays principle. This form of justification effectively reduces responsibility to the economic value associated with prior emissions (Goodin, 1994).
It seems the wrong kind of response, given the nature of the problem.
Simply providing a quantifiable metric does not resolve the underlying, principled difference between the basic elements of the RCI. Reducing
responsibility and capacity to a single metric equivocates between different forms of justification. If there is any moral defense of our behavior, or
our policy, this will have to be resolved. While the RCI provides a single
quantitative metric by which we might assign the burdens of mitigation
and adaptation, it washes away the moral foundations that motivate
burden-sharing approaches to climate change.
Disambiguating the right to develop
Another troubling equivocation within the GDRs framework is tied to the
idea of a development right. Regarding this right, the framework’s authors
say, “our ‘right’ is simply the exemption from climate-related burdens of
those below our ‘development threshold’—a negative right, to not to be
interfered with while pursuing ‘development’” (Baer et al., 2009, p. 275;
see also Baer et al., 2008, p. 18). While the framework is built around the
notion of a development right, there is scant analysis of that right, at least
in its central document (Baer et al., 2008). In their overview (p. 16), the
authors state that “the GDRs framework codifies the right to development
as a “development threshold”—a level of welfare below which people are
not expected to share the costs of the climate transition.” Later the right to
develop appears to be associated with a “right to productive, fulfilled, and
dignified life” (2008, p. 35). And yet later they declare, “all humans possess a right to development. By this right we imply not a right to economic
growth as such, but rather the right to a modest yet dignified level of wellbeing” (2008, p. 41). The concern is that while this appeal to an underlying
notion of “development right” is plausible, and perhaps even laudable,
it is underdeveloped. This appeal would be more successful with a more
detailed characterization or analysis of the nature and foundation of this
right to develop.
Shockley • Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism
11
While the language evoking rights is compelling, there is a troubling
tension in the way in which the GDRs framework draws together rights,
development, and emissions. In short, the problem is this: the GDRs
framework understands emissions simultaneously as pollutants and resources. Competing conceptions of emissions are embedded in the framework. Thinking of something as a tool for development and thinking of
something as a necessary evil tied to the efforts of development are quite
different. This crucial difference is overlooked by the GDRs framework.
Emissions are thought of differently when considered as tools of development than when seen as instruments of climate change. Understanding
the right to develop as a right to a resource is easy and appealing. However, understanding it as a right to pollute is not so easy, and difficult not
only to justify but even to conceptualize.
We can see the depth of this problem by looking at the different practical perspectives one might take on this right, understood to be a right not
to be interfered with as one emits (Baer et al., 2009, p. 275). For developing
nations the right to emit seems a good deal. For most of the world, the
right to develop amounts to protecting one’s use of resources for development. Emissions are resources. The right amounts to a right to pollute, and
provides protection from constraints on development. But is this really a
good idea? A right not merely to use resources, but to emit moves the policy focus away from the problem, and may provide perverse incentives.
Of course this depends on how the right is framed. A right to the resources
necessary for development sounds morally legitimate, while a right not to
be interfered with as we pollute seems deeply objectionable morally. And
this last is the U.S. perspective.
It is instructive to consider this problematic conception of a right to
develop in light of the current U.S. approach (or lack thereof) to climate
change. Not only is the US the biggest emi er of carbon emissions (per
capita), but the political influence of the US requires taking the legal and
political realities in the US seriously as a practical constraint on any approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation. The GDRs approach
to the right to development is troubling because the only way the US is
capable of regulating carbon is as a pollutant, at least domestically, and it
is not clear that the GDRs framework can accommodate carbon dioxide,
thought of as a pollutant in need of regulation.3
The right to develop here amounts to a right not to be interfered with
as one pollutes. Emissions are pollutants. It would be difficult to integrate
a right to develop that was understood as a right to pollute, with the present U.S. regulatory environment. Were such a right to be adopted, globally
or within the US, advocates of climate change legislation in the US would
have to back off the small advances that have been made, and start anew.
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Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
It is simply not clear how any substantial carbon policy might be made in
the US without relying on the regulatory approach. The right-to-pollute
version of the GDRs right to develop seems both intuitively problematic
and practically at odds with the regulatory framework of the most politically powerful emi er.
On the other hand, one might take the GDRs framework’s right to
develop as a right-to-a-resource. If the US and other developed nations
come to understand that the right to develop is a right to protect the use
of a resource, they will have to accept that they have exhausted a resource
they did not know they had. Given such a conceptualization of carbon
emissions, how would the burden indicated by the GDRs framework be
justified? National obligations in this case would seem to be a ma er of
paying for overextending one’s carbon account. But as a practical ma er,
it is not clear how one could ever get the U.S. Congress, or the corresponding bodies of most other developed nations, to admit they had overused
a resource that they did not realize they had, but have now used up, and
which they now need to pay others in order to exploit. Note that under the
GDRs framework, the allocation of emissions allowed to the developed
world is negative, which requires that to make up their obligations they
must help others; restricting their own emissions is simply insufficient.
Yet this entails that others have a right to the emissions of the developed
world. The right-to-a-resource approach is even more problematic than
the right-to-pollute approach.
Finally, a empting to split the difference by using one standard
within the US and another internationally would be even more prone to
failure than either of the standards taken alone. Implementing the GDRs
framework at the international level would be nearly impossible if the US
understands domestic emissions in terms of regulated pollution, and international emissions in terms of a regulated resource. For example, no
tradeoffs or markets at the international level could be integrated with
those at the domestic level. It is difficult to see how the US might sign on
to the GDRs framework, given the difficulty of combining the current U.S.
understanding of carbon emissions with the understanding of emissions
embedded in the GDRs framework’s right to develop.
This is no mere speculative problem: a far cruder model of burdensharing, the Kyoto protocol (UNFCCC 2011), was voted down 95–0 in the
U.S. Senate, in no small part because of a perceived inequality of burdens.
The inequality perceived in Kyoto pales in comparison to what would be
seen in the GDRs framework.4 If Kyoto could get no support, it is unclear
how this vastly more far-reaching framework could get sufficient support
for the US to sign on. While the situation may be less problematic outside the
US, similar resistance should be expected elsewhere, for similar reasons.
Shockley • Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism
13
With these practical problems in the underlying notion of a right to
develop, it seems implausible that the GDRs framework will gain the
support necessary to become binding international law. With the related
theoretical problems, it is doubtful that it ought to become the basis for
international law. And there is a further concern that should be addressed,
one that points to the theoretical and practical dangers of taking as one’s
moral foundation individuals divorced from their social, political, and environmental contexts. In the next section we will see that in relying on a
context-insensitive value system that treats all individuals, in an important sense, equally, the GDRs framework effectively smothers the local,
cultural, and regional differences that need to be recognized in our responses to climate change.
Individualism
According to its authors, one of the most morally significant features of
the GDRs framework is its focus on individuals rather than nations, at
least in ma ers of development (Baer et al., 2008, p. 38). However, this
seeming virtue is not without its problems. While the focus of development is, and clearly ought to be, on individuals (Sen, 2009), certain goods
need to be considered in development that may not easily be disaggregated to individuals. It is difficult or impossible to represent such goods in
the individually- focused development threshold employed by the GDRs
framework.
Consider that a central concern of many of those interested in ma ers
of climate justice is that we focus not simply on the well-being or standing
of individuals, but also on the well-being, or at least proper functioning,
of communities (Schlossberg, 2012). The focus of development schemes
should include institutional and structural development central to the
proper functioning of communities. Failing to include these factors in the
development threshold appears to miss a large swath of what constitutes
development, at the point where development ma ers the most. This is
not a trivial concern. The institutional structures that support the least
well off and provide stability in times of tribulation are precisely what
we need to promote in adapting to climate change, and should surely be
spared when we consider our mitigation efforts. These concerns are also
expressed in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (United
Nations, 2010), and can be found in other classic U.N. documents on development, including the 1986 U.N. statement on the Right to Development
(United Nations, 1986) and the 1987 Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987).5
Indeed, many of these social goods are what Charles Taylor (1995) refers
to as “irreducibly social goods.” Most of these goods, including citizen14
Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
ship and cultural goods, are context-dependent, and, associated as they
are with interpersonal relationships and well-functioning society, are central to sensible goals of development. Moreover, as any good a ached to
social institutions of medical care, education, or even distribution of that
good cannot be possessed by an individual in isolation from a particular
social context that makes that good meaningful, Taylor’s point can be extended quite broadly.6 The goods associated with the wider community,
the social context as well as the environmental context, are not meaningfully disaggregated into the financial well-being of individuals. As well
functioning communities are not reduced in any simple way to well functioning individual members, the reduction of community goods to individual goods, as required by the GDRs framework, is highly problematic.
The importance of “irreducible goods” is particularly striking in the instance of climate change, where we should expect climatic disturbance to
require institutional support beyond the assurance of a minimum level of
financial standing (McKibben, 2010).
Consider the Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs include
ending poverty and hunger, universal education, gender equality, child
health, maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability, and global partnerships. If these or something very much like them
constitute benchmarks for development, then although an individual’s
financial standing may play a role (indicating the ability to pay for certain goods and services), the institutions and social goods that make that
financial standing useful are surely where our development thresholds
should be set. These thresholds may not fall on a simple metric, as in the
GDRs framework, but relying on a range of MDG-based thresholds seems
a much be er focal point for development, and therefore a much be er
gauge of both historical responsibility and current capacity. Indeed, while
achieving the Millennium Development Goals may be correlated with a
certain level of financial standing, most of those goals require addressing
distinctively social goods.
Further, as there appears to be a moral justification for at least the responsibility component of the RCI, we might ask whether the individuals
being held responsible for historical emissions are really the right individuals to be held accountable. This concern leads to a number of difficult
issues involving personal contributions to social, political, and institutional ma ers over which those particular persons o en had li le control,
as well as a range of practical and philosophical issues involving personal
identity (Parfit, 1984). As Marion Hourdequin points out (2009), there is
good reason to think of the historical emissions of a nation as emissions
not only of the individuals that constitute that nation (the exclusive focus
of the GDRs framework), but also of the nation as a whole. Not only does
Shockley • Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism
15
this avoid many of the thorny practical, moral, and conceptual issues associated with individual responsibility, it recognizes that emissions are not
simply the product of individual actions, but are inseparable from a larger
range of social goods, including the political and institutional conditions
for those goods. Nations, the locus of those goods, should be included
when we dole out responsibility for the current state of the atmosphere.7
Surely, as the primary focus of moral concern is generally taken to be
individual humans, the individualistic approach undergirding the GDRs
framework may constitute part of the picture. My worry is that in the increasingly chaotic environment we expect from a warmer world, political
and institutional reform will be as important as acknowledging variation
among individuals within states. By divorcing its policy conclusions from
the social and environmental context—a consequence of an understandable, but misguided individualism—the GDRs framework ultimately
misses the role of institutional and political bodies, both as crucial elements in assigning responsibility for past emissions, and as basic elements
of development.
Developing capabilities in a decreasingly stable world
In closing, I will suggest in very broad outline an alternative model to the
individual well-being approach to development advanced in the GDRs
framework. This alternative considers development a ma er of encouraging opportunity and freedom through what have been called capabilities,
rather than ensuring a certain financial standing. There is a good deal of
support for this sort of approach; it directly supports the goals of both
the MDGs and the Brundtland report cited above. As Amartya Sen, one
of its foremost advocates, has put it: “Development … is the process of
expanding human freedoms, and the assessment of development has to
be informed by this consideration” (Sen, 2000, p. 36). The focus of development should be on providing the capabilities individuals need to live
flourishing lives. Accordingly, what it is to be in poverty—that condition
the elimination of which is the goal of development—is more than a financial situation, it is the deprivation of certain capabilities, of freedom,
of the power and ability to decide what to do and to act on that decision
(Sen, 2009, pp. 226–227). “The importance of human lives lies not merely
in our living standard and need-fulfillment, but also in the freedom that
we enjoy. …” (Sen, 2009, p. 251). It is essential for development that we develop the institutions that provide stability for individuals such that they
are able to flourish. In short, we need to build capabilities. Of course, what
those capabilities are will vary tremendously across time, culture, and
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Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
context. Indeed, context-sensitivity is one of the most touted virtues of
the capabilities approach (but see Brighouse & Robeyns, 2010). However,
regardless of local particularities, some capabilities will be needed for any
flourishing life. Following the work of Martha Nussbaum, examples of
capabilities include freedoms associated with various aspects of a normal
human life, including bodily health and integrity, an intellectual life (using
one’s senses, imagination, and thought), emotions, practical reason, affiliation, and control over one’s environment in both political and material
ma ers. Nussbaum outlines basic capabilities as follows:
… moving through the various areas of human life in which political
planning makes choices that influence people’s lives at a basic level, that
this fully human life requires many things from the world: adequate nutrition, education of the faculties, protection of bodily integrity, liberty
for speech and religious self-expression—and so forth. In each case an
intuitive argument must be made that a life without a sufficient level of
each of these entitlements is a life so reduced that it is not a life compatible with human dignity. (Nussbaum, 2006, pp. 278–279)
With capabilities such as those noted above serving as the focus of development, the flourishing of individuals and the healthy functioning of
communities in which they live should shape our development policies.
The capabilities approach has advantages over the GDRs framework
with respect to each of the three concerns raised earlier. First, while focusing on capabilities rather than financial standing prevents a quantified
relationship between a development threshold and the RCI, the capabilities approach allows for a more explicit acknowledgement of the ethical
features of our current climate situation. For example, by recognizing the
damage done to individuals’ opportunities because of our historical emissions, the ethical basis for addressing climate change is explicit, and cannot be easily dismissed. Without a unifying quantified metric as the basis
for addressing climate change, it may be necessary to address climate
change piecemeal (rather than in a single internationally ratified treaty).
But, as the concerns above should indicate, from a practical standpoint
such a piecemeal approach may be a good thing. Such an approach may
be the only way to proceed that has a reasonable chance of success given
current political conditions.
Second, a focus on capabilities avoids the troubled rights language
of the GDRs framework. Development, according to the capabilities approach, is spelled out not in terms of emissions or financial standing, but
of opportunities and flourishing. We should think of development as the
promotion of freedoms rather than the protection of rights. This shi s the
focus of greenhouse gas reduction to the question of how we can develop
while still reducing emissions, rather than how we can reduce emissions
Shockley • Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism
17
once we have accommodated (financially benchmarked) development
needs. That is, it shi s mitigation measures to focus not merely on reduction, but on how to increase capabilities as we reduce emissions; development occurs concurrently with mitigation. Moreover, the focus of
adaptation, under a capabilities-based regime, would be explicitly on decreasing susceptibility to capability-reducing scenarios. In short, adaptation would become a ma er of developing stable and resilient institutions
(Shockley, 2012). While the difference between these approaches to development may appear to be largely semantic, keeping development as
the central focus will be crucial if we are to maintain ethical legitimacy in
our climate policies. Anything else will amount to buying off our morally
unjustifiable pa erns of emission.
Finally, a focus on capabilities enables development to proceed at the
social level, without losing its focus on individuals. While not itself an
economic model, focusing on capabilities can provide guidance for where
to place financial resources. With a focus on long-term human flourishing,
a critical concern of such an approach will be with political, social, and
environmental reform. This approach will require taking the long view,
something exceedingly important in an era of climate change. Moreover,
the capabilities approach requires considering local variations in environmental and social context. In doing so, it points to the importance of place
when we consider ma ers of development. A one-size-fits-all approach,
even when tied to equalizing factors like purchase-power parity, will have
a hard time addressing these contextual factors.
Of course, implementing the capabilities approach will make it significantly more difficult, both theoretically and practically, to generate a burden-sharing arrangement that integrates both mitigation and adaptation.
However, we should be willing to pay this price. In balancing greenhouse
gas reduction against development, we need to remain centrally focused
on how lives will be affected by our policies and the changing climate that
motivates those policies. The capabilities approach, focused on flourishing, provides a be er means of doing so than one based on financial standing (Schlosberg, 2009, 2012; see also Holland, 2008, 2012).
The opportunities available to individuals as part of a stable life with
minimized (or at least equalized) vulnerability is an essential component
of climate justice that needs to be built into any minimally acceptable mitigation or adaptation strategy. While relying on an economic measure of
well-being allows for joining (or conflating) ma ers of responsibility and
capacity, this measure misses the substance of flourishing. Insofar as we in
the developed world are responsible for reduced freedoms for this and future generations, we are obligated to make compensation. And we cannot
absolve ourselves of this responsibility with a check (Goodin, 1994). What
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Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
global warming threatens, and what development is meant to overcome,
is the capability of an individual to live a life worth living, a flourishing
life in a manner appropriate to an individual’s local circumstances, not
merely the life of a globally viable consumer. Our climate policies should
reflect this focus.
It should be noted that the GDRs framework purports to address
human development in the flourishing sense (Baer et al., 2008, pp. 35–
48). While the GDRs framework does reference concerns regarding capabilities and opportunities, it immediately returns to the practical but
misguided individually oriented financial approach (Baer et al., 2008, p.
38). The markers and standards used are the wrong sort of markers and
standards to represent flourishing in a meaningful way. As our environment becomes increasingly destabilized, we should expect that nonluxury
income at the individual level will be less an indication of development, or
even well-being, than the capacity of social and political institutions to respond to environmental and social instability—roughly, what the authors
refer to as “resilience” (Baer et al., 2008, p. 40). In an era of climate change,
the focus on capabilities is particularly important. As climate change puts
the undeveloped world in harm’s way by increasing the likelihood of
unpredictable and potentially cataclysmic events, it will be increasingly
difficult to generate and maintain a political and physical infrastructure
sufficient to provide for at least as much opportunity as previous generations had. Financial support is less helpful than enabling opportunities.
As we aim to mitigate our emissions with the hope of minimizing climate
change, the importance of enabling opportunities in a decreasingly stable
world should be at the forefront of our policy agenda. And which opportunities should be enabled will depend on variations in social, political,
and environmental context. Place ma ers.
I have argued that while the GDRs framework has both theoretical
and practical merit, it suffers from three significant shortcomings. First,
it conflates very different sorts of considerations into the RCI. While this
provides ease of application, it weakens the framework’s justification and
presents additional practical problems. Second, the framework relies on
an insufficient account of the right to develop. This impoverished account
can be expected to make the framework difficult to implement in practice,
and plays off a dubious account of development. Finally, the GDRs framework’s exclusive focus on individual well-being misses crucial irreducible social goods, as well as important social, political, and environmental
variations among groups. I suggested that the capabilities approach does
be er with respect to all three of these concerns. While I have not argued
here for its practical viability—and the acceptance of such an approach
would certainly complicate any development-sensitive burden-sharing
Shockley • Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism
19
arrangement—the capabilities approach does appear to provide a be er
option.
KENNETH SHOCKLEY is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University at
Buffalo – State University of New York. His research interests include ethical theory, practical philosophy, and environmental ethics. He has published in a wide
range of journals including Ethics, Policy, and the Environment, Journal of Value Inquiry, Environmental Values, Philosophical Studies, Journal of Social Philosophy, Philosophy and the Social Sciences, Social Theory and Practice, and Dialectica.
NOTES
1. The authors of GDRs claim that “in the last year, GDRs has been decisively
mainstreamed into the energy research, climate policy, and climate ethics literatures. … [T]he overall trend is notable in itself. It includes the established
environmental networks (both Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have in
the last year released major energy policy reports that include GDRs as part
of their core analysis, and the World Wildlife Fund continues to suggest that
something like GDRs is going to be seen as necessary, as soon as we become
serious about trying to stabilize the climate), the policy literature (including
the literature in India and China, where the climate equity debate is heating
up), and of course the academic literature, where GDRs is now established
within the core of the expanding equity debate” (Baer, Athanasiou, Kartha, &
Kemp-Benedict, 2010).
2. The Global Commons Institute has published a helpful overview of one version of the contraction and convergence approach (Meyers, 2011).
3. In 2006, 12 U.S. states brought suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to force that agency to regulate carbon as a pollutant. In MassachuseĴs et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), the United
States Supreme Court decided against the Environmental Protection Agency,
thereby enshrining the legal status of carbon emissions as a pollutant constituting a public harm (text available at Massachuse s v. EPA, 2007).
4. On 25 June 1997, before the U.S. Senate took up the Kyoto protocol itself,
the Senate passed, by a vote of 95–0, the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. 98, 1997),
which stated that it was the sense of the Senate that the United States should
not be a signatory to any agreement that that did not contain binding targets
and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States” (National Center,
2011). Consequently, the Clinton administration did not submit the protocol
to the Senate for ratification.
5. The Brundtland Report defined sustainable development as “development
that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 43). Sen (2009, p. 248)
argues that the Brundtland report, while commendable in many ways, fails to
20
Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
account adequately for the noneconomic features of development. That said,
the account of development is instructive.
6. Here one must distinguish between health and healing, learning, and the acquisition of food from the above mentioned institutions. While the institutional forms plausibly represent social goods, these other forms do not.
7. Note this does not require that we hold political and institutional bodies to be
moral agents independent of their members (Shockley, 2007; Miller, 2010).
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EcoEquity, and the Stockholm Environment Institute.
Baer, P., Athanasiou, T., Kartha, S. & Kemp-Benedict, E. (2009). Greenhouse development rights: A proposal for a fair global climate treaty. Ethics, Place, and
Environment, 12(3), 267–281.
Baer, P., Athanasiou, T., Kartha, S. & Kemp-Benedict, E. (2010). Retrieved from
h p://gdrights.org/2010/08/19/mainstreaming-gdrs-into-the-research-policyliterature/ retrieved 11 March 2011)
Brighouse, H., and Robeyns, I. (Eds.). (2010). Measuring justice: Primary goods and
capabilities. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Caney, S. (2005). Cosmopolitan justice, responsibility, and global climate change.
Leiden Journal of International Law, 2005, 747–757. Reprinted in Gardiner et al.,
2010 (pp. 122–145).
Gardiner, S. (2004). Ethics and global climate change. Ethics, 114, 555–600.
Gardiner, S. (2006). A perfect moral storm: Climate change, intergenerational ethics, and the problem of corruption. Environmental Values, 15, 397–413.
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Goodin, R. (1994). Selling environmental indulgences. Kyklos, 47, 573–596. Reprinted in Gardiner, Caney, Jamieson, and Shue, 2010 (pp. 231–246).
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Holland, B. (2012). Environment as meta-capability: Why a dignified human
life requires a stable climate system. Forthcoming in Thompson & BendikKeymer, 2012.
Hourdequin, M. (2009). Revising responsibility in a proposal for greenhouse development rights. Ethics, Place, and Environment 12(3), 291–295.
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Massachuse s v. EPA. (2007). Retrieved from h p://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/
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Sen, A. (2009). The idea of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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items/2830.php
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Résumé : La très forte probabilité que les pauvres souffrent de façon disproportionnée des effets du changement climatique exige qu’un système
22
Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
qui aborde les coûts et les responsabilités du changement climatique intègre justement ces effets disproportionnés. C’est précisément ce que le
système des Droits au Développement dans un Monde sous Contrainte
Carbone (DDMCC – anglais GDR, Greenhouse Development Rights) essaie
de faire. Ce modèle propose la répartition entre les pays des responsabilités/contraintes associés aux effets du changement climatique en assignant des obligations nationales sur la base de leurs émissions cumulées
et de leur capacité actuelle à apporter une aide. Ce e approche inclut
uniquement les émissions de gaz correspondant aux revenus dépassant
un certain seuil de développement. D’après le modèle DDMCC, le seuil
de développement considère un droit au développement qui revient aux
personnes individuellement, et non aux pays dans lesquels elles vivent.
Dans cet article, je dresse un bilan critique du modèle proposé sur la base
de trois points principaux. Premièrement, le modèle DDMCC confond
différentes considérations morales en un seul index quand il génère des
obligations nationales, ce qui pose des problèmes à la fois théoriques et
pratiques. Deuxièmement, il se base sur une conception du droit au développement suje e à polémique et trop peu développée. Troisièmement,
l’accent mis exclusivement sur les préoccupations individuelles néglige
systématiquement les préoccupations sociales pourtant incontournables.
Je conclus en esquissant une approche alternative perme ant d’équilibrer les exigences du développement et les contraintes du changement
climatique.
Mots-clés : capacités, changement climatique, Droits au Développement
dans un Monde sous Contrainte Carbone, équité, éthique, individualisme, responsabilité
Resumen: La alta probabilidad de que los pobres sufran de manera desproporcionada los efectos del cambio climático requiere que cualquier
sistema que se supone de hacer frente a los costos y las responsabilidades
del cambio climático incorpore precisamente estos efectos desproporcionados. Esto es precisamente lo que el modelo de Derechos al Desarrollo
con Emisiones Responsables de Gases de Efecto Invernadero (GDR por
sus siglas en inglés) está tratando de hacer. El modelo promueve un enfoque para compartir la carga relacionada con los efectos del cambio climático asignando obligaciones nacionales sobre la base de las emisiones
históricas y la capacidad actual de prestar asistencia. Lo hace mediante
la inclusión de sólo aquellas emisiones que corresponden a un ingreso
superior a un ‘umbral de desarrollo’ definido. De acuerdo con el modelo
GDR, este umbral implica el derecho al desarrollo que tienen las personas individuales, no los países en que viven. En este artículo presento una
evaluación crítica del modelo propuesto con base en tres puntos principales. Primero, cuando el GDR genera obligaciones nacionales, colapsa
significativamente diferentes consideraciones morales en un solo índice,
presentando problemas teóricos y metodológicos. Segundo, el modelo
Shockley • Divergent principles, development rights, and individualism
23
se basa en una polémica y poco desarrollada concepción del derecho al
desarrollo. Tercero, el enfoque exclusivo en las cuestiones individuales
ignora sistemáticamente las irreductibles preocupaciones sociales. Concluyo esbozando un enfoque alternativo para equilibrar el desarrollo
contra de las cargas del cambio climático.
Palabras clave: cambio climático, capacidades, el derecho al desarrollo
en un mundo limitado por el carbono, equidad, ética, individualismo,
responsabilidad
24
Regions & Cohesion • Spring 2012
Welfare after Growth: Theoretical
Discussion and Policy Implications
Max Koch
Abstract
The article discusses approaches to welfare under no-growth conditions and against the
background of the growing significance of climate change as a socio-ecological issue. While
most governments and scholars favor “green deal” solutions for tackling the climate crisis, a
growing number of discussants are casting doubt on economic growth as the answer to it
and have provided empirical evidence that the prospects for globally decoupling economic
growth and carbon emissions are very low indeed. These doubts are supported by recent
contributions on happiness, well-being and alternative measures of measuring prosperity,
which indicate that individual and social welfare is by no means equivalent to GDP growth.
If the requirements of prosperity and welfare go well beyond material sustenance, then
approaches that aim to conceptualize welfare under the circumstances of a “stable state
economy” become more relevant. A qualitatively different environmental and welfare policy
governance network would need to integrate the redistribution of carbon emissions, work,
time, income and wealth. Since social policies will be necessary to address the emerging
inequalities and conflicts, this article considers the roles that the various “no-growth”
approaches dedicate to social policy and welfare instruments.
Keywords: climate change; no-growth; political ecology; social policy; welfare
Introduction
The climate crisis tends to be understated if not ignored by policy makers. This is not
least due to the delayed reaction of the climate system to past and present excessive
greenhouse emissions. Most climate change (CC) models predict a doubling of preindustrial levels of greenhouse gases for the second half of the twenty-first century,
which would result in a rise of global mean temperatures of two to six degrees Celsius
(Le Treut et al. 2007; Stern 2009). The most negative impacts on human livelihoods
are expected to occur in the developing countries (especially in tropical regions),
though there are also significant implications for welfare arrangements in the Atlantic
space. Direct risks include more heat waves, forest fires and rising sea levels that would
threaten coastal countries. Indirect effects for the Atlantic space include a degraded
coastal infrastructure impeding shipping, epidemics, and rising levels of distress
migration from tropical Africa and South Asia, due to resource scarcity. Western
International Journal of Social Quality 3(1), Summer 2013: 4–20
ISSN: 1757-0344 (Print) • ISSN: 1757-0352 (Online) © Berghahn Journals 2013
doi:10.3167/IJSQ.2013.030102
Welfare after Growth: Theoretical Discussion and Policy Implications
economies and societies are also likely to suffer from disruption of vital oil and gas
supplies, insecurity of food supplies with rising and volatile prices, disturbance of
international economic networks and chains, growing restrictions on free trade and
the corresponding weakening of global governance (Koch 2012: 1–13). Both direct
and indirect CC impacts will necessitate public investment and policy reconfigurations,
whereby traditional social policies are likely to face increasing fiscal competition from
prioritized environmental policies such as sea defenses and removing housing from
flood plains (Gough and Meadowcroft 2011: 494). This competition is likely to be
aggravated by the implementation of measures such as carbon budgets or carbon taxes
in the developed world in order to stabilize carbon emissions.
Governments have to deal with contradictory goals in their reaction to CC. While
institutional path-dependency and technological lock-in effects bind governments to
the pursuit of economic growth,1 they also have to intervene to protect public goods
from the incursions of the market. Governments promote consumer freedoms in the
quest for economic growth, for example, while also protecting social and common
goods and defending ecological limits. In order to understand the different ways that
governments deal with these goal conflicts and with CC in particular from a
comparative perspective, Ian Gough (2011) distinguishes three scenarios. The first
scenario, “irrational optimism,” is associated with freer markets and technological
optimism and with mainstream Republican positions in the United States. There, the
idea prevails that faster growth will “equip future populations to cope with climate
change, mainly through adaptation” (Gough 2011: 16). Favored solutions are
deregulated drilling for oil in combination with some federal subsidies and loan
guarantees for alternative energy sources, in particular nuclear energy as well as carbon
capture and storage. The second scenario is “green growth” or ecological modernization
to which most European countries subscribe. The incorporation of environmental
interests, including CC mitigation, will require a much more active state or “a return
to planning” (Giddens 2009) in order to set goals and targets, manage risks, promote
industrial policy, realign prices and counter negative business interests. By reducing
energy and material costs and the West’s reliance on the fragile geopolitics of energy
supply, the provision of jobs in the expanding “green” sector and meeting carbon
emission reduction targets it is intended to achieve synergy between economic,
ecological and also welfare goals.
While the second scenario argues for an essentially Keynesian and green
reorganization of the economy, the third scenario, of “no-growth” or “de-growth,”
questions economic growth itself. Tim Jackson (2009a: 48) and the United Kingdom
Sustainable Development Commission, among others, stress the distinction between
relative and absolute decoupling of economic growth and carbon emissions, whereby
the former refers to a “decline in the ecological intensity per unit of economic output.”
While resource impacts decline relative to the gross domestic product (GDP) in some
countries, they do not do so in absolute terms (Koch 2012: 123–130). Yet to stabilize
CC on relatively optimistic assumptions, nothing short of absolute decoupling would
be necessary. Not only have improvements in energy efficiency in recent decades been
offset by increases in the overall scale of economic activity,2 the prospects of achieving
this in the future to the required extent are very low indeed. Jackson calculates that to
International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013 • 5
Max Koch
establish a reduction of global carbon emissions to below four billion tons per annum
by 2050 – a benchmark often cited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) – with continued global population growth (0.7 percent per year) and
income growth rate of 1.4 percent per year would require a 7 percent a year
improvement in the current global average carbon intensity (grams of CO2 per United
States dollar of GDP). In order to achieve conditions where the entire world
population enjoys an equivalent income of European Union citizens today, however,
the global economy would need to improve in absolute decoupling by 11.2 percent
per year up to 2050 (Gough 2011: 58) and global carbon intensity would need to be
almost 130 times lower than it is today (Jackson 2009b: 488). Jackson (2009a: 86)
concludes that there “is as yet no credible, socially just, ecologically sustainable
scenario of continually growing incomes for a world of nine billion people.”
In the absence of evidence for absolute global decoupling of economic activity and
carbon emissions, it is remarkable that most political and academic discourses on CC
nevertheless favor one of Gough’s first two scenarios. In the remainder of this article,
I will turn to his third scenario and discuss “no-growth” and “de-growth” approaches
both from an economic and welfare perspective. “No-growth” ideas are currently
mainly discussed in heterodoxical economic circles such as thermodynamic economics.
However, as the first section will demonstrate, core “no-growth” arguments can be
traced to the classics of political economy. The fixation with economic growth in
monetary terms is a rather recent development that is itself associated with the
hegemony of neoclassical economic thought. In the second section, the article will go
beyond economics in the narrow sense and draw the attention to similarities and
analogies between the heterodoxical economic approaches discussed in the first section
and much recent material on welfare, happiness and human needs from the psychology
of welfare, the “capability” approach and consumption research. This attempt of
bringing together debates from various and normally weakly linked disciplines also
involves a partial shift in perspective from the macro-economic and structural to the
micro-economic and individual perspective. Indeed, one of the key issues of sociology
– how social structures are intendedly or unintendedly reproduced in individual dayto-day practices – will be touched at several points. The third section deals with the
likely implications of a transition toward a “no-growth” economy for social policy at
the example of the policy reforms proposed by the authors discussed in the first and
second sections.
“No-growth” and “De-growth” Economics
GDP seeks to measure the market value of all final goods and services produced
within a country per year. An increase in the production and consumption of use
values, which normally corresponds to GDP growth, is often seen as synonymous
with an improvement of individual and social welfare. Consequently, the pursuit of
GDP has become one of the principal policy objectives in almost every country in
the world; a measurement not only for the economic “performance” of a country
but also for its “development” in more general terms. However, various social
6 • International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013
Welfare after Growth: Theoretical Discussion and Policy Implications
practices relevant for human welfare are not covered in the GDP, in particular,
voluntary work, unpaid housework as well as illegal trades, environment damage
and the depletion of natural resources. Yet increasing doubts in the capability of
GDP as an appropriate measurement of societal development and the associated
need to complement it with other types of management (Stiglitz et al. 2009) do
normally not lead scholars to question economic or GDP growth as such. For most
scholars and policy makers, a shift away from growth is associated with “recession,
socio-economic instability, job losses, investment uncertainty and a decline in living
standards, etc.” (Barry 2012: 132). Inquiries into managing the economy and
society without growth are nevertheless not exclusively “the act of lunatics, idealists
and revolutionaries” (Jackson, 2009a: 102). Instead, it rather characterizes a
particular perspective in economics, namely that of neoclassical theory, to analyze
the production of goods and services from the standpoint of the growth of monetary
value, which is seen as indefinite, while the roles played by energy and natural
resources in this production are usually not mentioned. This economic perspective
tends to finish at the point where the money flows stop: “the goods and the services
produced by human activity only appear in the economic system insofar as they
exist in the form of commodities, and they drop out of sight as soon as they lose
this quality” (Deléage 1994: 38).
Economics, however, has not always been interpreted as synonymous with a
science of prices and the growth of monetary value (De Gleria 1999: 84). In the
Physiocratic system, for example, the notion of natural resources was central. The
wealth of nations was derived solely from the value of land and the entire economic
process was understood by focusing upon a single physical factor: the productivity of
agriculture, which was the only kind of work that created value and surplus. In the
seventeenth century, William Petty characterized labor as the “father” of material
wealth and the “earth its mother” (cited in Marx 1961: 43), and this was also reflected
in the classical tradition of Adam Smith and David Ricardo as well as by Karl Marx.
Far from abstracting from natural resources and matter in his analysis, Marx began
Capital with an examination of the commodity and its twofold character as use value
and exchange value, which renders his analysis amenable to ecological laws.3 While
the exchange value aspect of the commodity emphasizes the logic of unlimited
valorization, quantitative and geographic expansion of the scale of production and the
circular and reversible moments of the production process, the use value aspect
considers qualitative matter and energy transformations and hence irreversibility, the
narrowed stock of natural resources, and their limited capability to serve as both
sources and sinks for the increasing flow and throughput of matter and energy (Koch
2012: 25–35).
John Stuart Mill, who was at times derogatorily denoted as a “vulgar economist”
by Marx, is credited for arguing that economic growth was necessary only up to the
point where everyone enjoyed a reasonable standard of living (Victor, 2008: 124; Daly
and Farley 2009: 55). He envisioned a “stationary state” of the economy that would
move beyond individual status competition and in which both population and the
capital stock ceased to grow. It is remarkable that Mill, writing in the 1840s, precluded
the essentials of the contemporary “no-growth” debate by not conflating a stationary
International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013 • 7
Max Koch
condition of capital and population with a stationary state of societal development.
For Mill, continuing improvements in labor productivity would enable people’s minds
to cease being “engrossed by the art of getting on,” thereby providing “more scope
than ever for all kinds of mental culture,” and “for improving the Art of Living” (Mill
1848). John Maynard Keynes, for his part, predicted that by his grandchildren’s
lifetime the economy would not need to grow further in order to meet basic human
needs. Anticipating the more recent critiques of economic growth, consumerism and
status competition, he divided human needs in two classes: absolute needs that people
feel “whatever the situation of our fellow human beings may be” and relative needs
that people feel “only if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our
fellows.” While he feared that the needs of the second class may indeed be “insatiable”
due to the ongoing social logic of status competition and distinction, he nevertheless
believed that “a point may soon be reached” where absolute needs are “satisfied in the
sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes” (Keynes
1963: 364). Hence, Mills and Keynes did not regard quantitative economic growth
as an ahistoric and quasi eternal goal of economic action but as a temporary and
historically specific necessity in order to reach a socio-economic development stage,
in which basic needs are satisfied and where social actors devote more time to other
than economic purposes. Toward the end of Capital, Volume III, Marx arrived at a
similar conclusion in his famous distinction between the “realm of freedom,” which
“in the very nature of things … lies beyond the sphere of actual material production,”
and the “realm of physical necessity” of material reproduction, which is not totally
terminable but temporally reducible. Consequently, Marx (1959: chap. 48) regarded
the “shortening of the working-day” as the basic prerequisite for the realm of freedom
to “blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis.”
The fact that economics and economic growth cannot ignore the laws of physics
is one of the essentials of thermodynamic economics. Building upon the pioneer work
of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1971) this perspective stresses that processes of
irreversible material and energy transformation take place in production, transport,
communication and consumption. This use of the first law of thermodynamics builds
upon Einstein’s theories about mass and energy and asserts the conservation of energy
and material reserves of a system (ultimately of the universe). The second law captures
the fundamental asymmetry of the universe, in which the distribution of energy
changes in an irreversible manner. The “measurement” of total disorder or chaos in a
system is “entropy”: all economic activity runs against the general tendency of the
universe to move toward a state of greater disorder, or greater entropy. The overall
increase in entropy resulting from production processes is always greater that its local
decrease arising from the production of a concrete good. The continuation of work
and consumption processes, whatever their historical form, is therefore dependent
upon a continuous input of low-entropy energy for the rearrangement of matter. Yet
the Earth’s sources and sinks of energy and raw materials are finite, that is, they can
be used only once.
Georgescu-Roegen’s work served point of departure for the most prominent
contemporary approach in ecological economics, Herman Daly’s steady-state economy
(SSE). In contrast to GDP growth, which is a value index of the physical flows in an
8 • International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013
Welfare after Growth: Theoretical Discussion and Policy Implications
economy, the primarily physical concept of an SSE is that of a relatively stable
population and “artifacts” (stock of physical wealth) and the lowest feasible rates of
matter and energy throughput in production and consumption. The scale of the
economy does not erode the environmental carrying capacity over time. In
thermodynamic economics, there is such a thing as “uneconomic growth,” that is,
where the costs of growth in terms of the degradation of ecosystems arising from
further throughput exceed the benefits (Martínez-Alier et al. 2010). Daly is not in favor
of abandoning growth in all sectors of the economy but of viewing it as a “process to
be consciously and politically monitored and regulated” (Barry 2012: 133). Hence,
while two basic physical magnitudes, population and artifacts, are to be held relatively
constant in an SSE, mainly qualitative parameters such as “culture, genetic inheritance,
knowledge, goodness, ethical codes … the embodied technology, the design, and the
product mix of the aggregate total stock of artifacts” (Daly 1977: 6–7) are free and
welcome to evolve. This is also reflected in Daly’s distinction between “growth” and
“development,” whereby the former refers to a quantitative increase of GDP, and the
latter to qualitative change. Wilkinson and Pickett (2010: 225) also emphasize that a
transition to an SSE would not necessarily mean “stagnation and lack of change” as it
would potentially “create huge demands for innovation and technical change.”
Continued technological advances such as “digitization, electric communications and
virtual systems, creating ‘weightless’ sectors of the economy” facilitate the maintenance
of high living standards with low resource consumption and emissions.
The main debate among environmental economists focuses upon the issue of
whether a “steady state” goes far enough in the face of major ecological challenges such
as CC. While Daly’s SSE looks at stabilizing the economy in the short run – MartínezAlier et al. (2010: 1743) talk about this taking ten years – both the “late” GeorgescuRoegen and the, mainly French, décroissance (“de-growth”) approaches argue that a
substantial retraction of production and consumption levels in countries such as the
United States would be necessary to meet the CC challenge and to allow poorer
countries to catch up in development. Building upon political ecology, critical debates
on “development” and authors such as André Gorz (2007), Ivan Illich (1974),
Marshall Sahlins (1972), Serge Latouche (2010) and the regulation approach (Guilbert
and Latouche 2006), de-growth thinking generally calls for “a disassociation with
consumerism as prerequisites for voluntary simplicity, which in turn requires reducing
the time allocated to and the sharing of labour, better selecting technical innovations
and re-localising economic activities” (Martínez-Alier et al. 2010: 1743). Echoing
earlier critiques of Western lifestyles such as in the concept of “enjoyment of life” by
Georgescu-Roegen (1975: 353), de-growth concepts are centered upon the issue of
how to be able to enjoy a “good life” within ecological limits. However, despite the
differences between Daly and the de-growth literature, Martínez-Alier et al. (2010:
1744) point out their compatibility and complementarity. On the road to a “globally
equitable” SSE, throughput would need to “de-grow” in the global North, while the
global South could continue to grow in terms of GDP but would need to contribute
with an above-average decrease in population after an estimated peak in world
population around 2050.
International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013 • 9
Max Koch
The goal of an SSE is also supported by the Canadian economist Peter Victor
(2008) who has made the greatest effort to date in defining how an advanced economy
and society could cope without economic growth. Victor created a computer model
of the Canadian economy in which key variables such as productivity, population,
consumption, public spending, investment, employment and trade are changed
allowing diverse future scenarios to emerge. In order to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions by 80 percent over fifty years, for example, an economy that increases its
real GDP by 3 percent annually must reduce its emissions intensity – tons of GHG
per unit of GDP – by 6 percent a year, while in a non-growing economy the annual
cut would only need to be 3.2 percent (Victor 2010: 370). In another example, the
working week is shortened to four days, thereby creating more jobs. At the same time,
more public services are provided for the poor by creating higher taxes for the rich and
the imposition of a carbon tax to expand government revenues and to discourage the
use of fossil fuels. In this scenario unemployment falls to 4 percent after twenty years,
while the standard of living of most people rises and greenhouse gas emissions decrease
to levels below those outlined in the Kyoto Protocol. Victor’s scenarios indeed indicate
“that there may be more room than commonly supposed, even within the conventional
framework, to stabilise economic output” (Jackson 2009a: 81).
Welfare Debates Relevant for the “No-growth” Scenario
The first section demonstrated, first, that “no-growth” and “de-growth” approaches are
united in their refusal of further economic growth (defined as quantitative GDP
increase) in the developed countries. Second, notwithstanding the neoclassical
hegemony, the questioning of GDP growth as a long-term top priority in socioeconomic theorizing and regulation has a long tradition in political economy on which
contemporary no-growth approaches are able to build. Third, the discussed heterodoxical
economic approaches argue for a reorientation of socio-economic regulation toward a
global “steady-state-economy,” even though there is debate on whether and on the
extent to which the developed countries would need to “de-grow” to achieve this aim.
There is further consensus that while an SSE would not quantitatively grow as a whole,
the “weightless” sectors of the economy, especially, would be encouraged to develop and
expand. Hence, all no-growth and de-growth authors are in agreement that the
establishment of an SSE would require a transition from prioritizing quantitative GDP
growth to a politically monitored socio-economic and environmental development
strategy within the ecological limits identified by natural scientists. The second section
is dedicated to recent material on the links between inequality and happiness,
consumption patterns, the psychology of well-being and more general theoretical
concepts of the living standard that, in particular ways and from different analytical
perspectives, back up the economic and ecological case for an SSE.
Happiness research indicates that once countries have sufficient wealth to meet the
basic needs of their citizens and reach a certain per capita income reported levels of
(un)happiness show little correlation with GDP growth. In fact, despite significant
GDP growth, “happiness has not increased since 1950 in most Western countries”
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Welfare after Growth: Theoretical Discussion and Policy Implications
(Layard 2011: 30). As a corollary, extra happiness provided by extra income is greatest
for the poorest and declines steadily as people get richer. According to happiness
research, the “Big Seven factors” that affect happiness do not include GDP growth but
family relationships, financial situation, work, community and friends, health,
personal freedom and personal values (Layard 2011: 63). Wilkinson and Pickett
(2010: 6) make a similar argument in relation to another important indicator of
welfare: life expectancy. While life expectancy increases among the rich countries by
between two and three years every decade, this happens to a large extent “regardless
of economic growth, so that a country as rich as the United States no longer does
better than Greece or New Zealand.” Some countries such as Costa Rica and Cuba
achieve life expectancies close to eighty years at a fraction of the CO2 emissions
common in the richest countries (World Wide Fund for Nature [WWF] 2006).
In contrast to neoclassical theory, which mainly deals with consumption as an
isolated phenomenon – the result of autonomous choices of rationally acting
individuals – political economy and sociological concepts of consumption have always
been concerned with its social genesis and context (Bourdieu 2005; Koch 2006). The
regulation approach, for example, insists upon the fact that individual purchase
decisions are neither spontaneous nor necessarily “rational” but indeed greatly
influenced by structural factors such as income inequality and sales strategies (Boyer
and Saillard 2002; Koch 2012: 40–45). Since Thorstein Veblen’s pioneer studies
(Veblen 1970) social theorists of consumption argue that in rich countries buying
things is not in the first place about the goods themselves but rather about the
symbolic message that the act of purchase conveys (Soper et al. 2009). Both acquisition
and possession of use values symbolize much of our social standing in society as well
as our identity and sense of belonging. However, if the rate of production of new,
fashionable and desirable goods is high and accelerating, continuous efforts must be
made by all social agents to re-establish or improve their original position and to
distance themselves from other people. What Hirsch (1976) called the competition
for “positional goods” is mediated through a genuinely social logic that Bourdieu
(1984) referred to as “distinction.” This sets in motion a never-ending cycle of defining
taste by the avant-garde and keeping-up strategies by the mainstream. This cycle plays
into the hands of the valorization interests of various culture industries, but contributes
next to nothing to human welfare and contradicts the principal reproductive needs of
the earth as an ecological system. Buying and consuming more stuff tends to imbalance
the carbon cycle, since such “choices” are normally bound to matter and energy
transformations that more often than not necessitate the burning of fossil fuels.
Another prominent recent critique of the growth society is that from the
psychology of well-being, which assumes that humans must, in all types of societies,
have certain psychological needs satisfied in order to flourish and experience personal
well-being (Kasser 2009: 175; Taylor 2011). Notwithstanding societal particulars and
contexts, these needs include feeling safe and secure but also competent and efficient.
People also require love and intimacy but struggle under conditions of loneliness,
rejection, and exclusion. Finally, people have a need for autonomy, that is, the ability
to choose in relative independence from coercion and internal or external pressures.
However, where “economic growth is a key goal of a nation” (Kasser 2011: 194–196)
International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013 • 11
Max Koch
with its encouragement of self-enhancing, hierarchical, extrinsic and materialistic
values, the fundamental needs required for human well-being are contradicted, since
materialistic people are most likely to be dissatisfied with life, lack vitality, and to
suffer from anxiety, depression and addiction problems. And when faced with
insecurity or psychological or physical pain, such people tend to turn to money and
possessions as a way of coping with distress rather than seeking comfort from friends,
community or family. Hence, to the extent that people “prioritise the self-enhancing,
extrinsic values required for the maintenance of the economic system, they become
more likely to act in ways that bolster the system and they become more likely to
support the creation of the kinds of social institutions … that perpetuate the system”
(Kasser 2011: 200). Kasser (2011: 204) concludes from his empirical research that
people’s well-being and experience of autonomy would be “more strongly valued in
more co-operatively oriented economic systems” than in socio-economic formations
based on competition, hierarchy, exploitation and exclusion. He also argues that there
is a synergy between the “kinds of behaviours that satisfy the psychological needs
crucial for wellbeing” and “ecological sustainability” (Kasser 2009: 175–176).
Finally, a range of philosophers question the utilitarian perspective that individuals
are best able to determine what contributes to their quality of life, while the structural
logic of distinction that underlies consumption and influences individual choices is
normally neglected. Among the alternatives to utilitarianism is the capability approach,
which is not so much concerned with the actual choices that people make as with the
options they are free to choose from. This theme is further explored in the distinction
of “capabilities” and “functionings.” Roughly speaking, “functionings” come close to
what psychologists of well-being describe as human needs, while “capabilities” include
both states of being and opportunities for doing (Hick 2012). According to Amartya
Sen (1993: 37), they are “central to the nature of wellbeing” and encompass “such
elementary ones as escaping morbidity and mortality, being adequately nourished,
having mobility, etc., to complex ones such as being happy, achieving self-respect,
taking part in the life of the community, appearing in public without shame.” Martha
Nussbaum (2006: 74–78), for her part, builds upon philosophers such as Kant, Rawls
and the early Marx and proposes a list of ten central human capabilities sought for
each and every person, ranging from physical health and integrity to the control of
one’s environment.4 Many of these needs or capabilities are interrelated and
complementary and some of them are limited and finite. As Daly and Farley (2009:
279) observe, this stands in “stark contrast to the assumption of infinite wants, or the
nonsatiety axiom in standard economics” and also to the neoclassical tendency of
ignoring social phenomena and aspects of welfare that do not have a price. Hence,
people’s well-being is understood in broader terms than their expenditure, adding
environmental and communitarian perspectives to a short-term, individualist, and
private vision of individual choice (Nussbaum and Sen 1993). In fact, most of
Nussbaum’s list of central human capabilities requires few, if any, material resources,
allowing for a surplus in welfare for one person or one generation without leaving less
room for development for others. Far from meaning a lifestyle characterized by
austerity, the corresponding transition from a consumerist society to a welfare society
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Welfare after Growth: Theoretical Discussion and Policy Implications
in Nussbaum’s sense would value “inward aspects of human wellbeing” instead of
“outward manifestations of status and success” (De Geus 2009: 121).
Policy Implications
“No-growth” approaches have remained at fairly abstract levels to date, mostly failing
to discuss concrete policy proposals, let alone their synergy potentials in a coherent
transition strategy. The remainder of this article introduces the no-growth theorists’
fragmented ideas for reform and focuses on the policy areas of macro-economic
reforms, inequality/redistribution, minimum and maximum incomes, carbon
rationing, consumption, working time reduction and work life balance as well as
population/migration. In an attempt to map out economies in which GDP growth is
sidelined and where stability, resilience and well-being are in focus, Daly and Farley
(2009: 417) suggest two main principles of macro-economic reforms that respect
ecological limits; firstly, the rate of extraction of non-renewable resources should not
exceed the rate of creation of renewable substitutes and secondly, waste emissions
should not exceed the environment’s capacity to assimilate them. There is consensus
among no-growth authors that achieving these goals cannot be left to the market but
requires an active state to set a collective limit on aggregate throughput to keep it
within the absorptive and regenerative capacities of the ecosystem. Daly and Farley as
well as Jackson argue in favor of a re-regulation of the international political economy
away from free trade, free capital mobility and unregulated financial markets. All
promote local economic circles instead. Jackson (2009a: 104) is perhaps most
outspoken in his engagement for an increase in public control of the money supply to
provide greater protection against consumer debt. He also demands public sector jobs
in building and maintaining public assets, investments in renewable energy, public
transport infrastructure and public spaces, strengthening community-based
sustainability initiatives and especially the retrofitting of the existing building stock
with energy- and carbon-saving measures. Finally, all no-growth authors are in favor
of investment into ecological transitions in developing countries, renewable energy,
resource efficiency, low carbon infrastructures, and the protection of habitats and
biodiversity. At company level, both Daly and Farley and Wilkinson and Pickett
demand state intervention in the existing ownership structure and, in particular, a
broadening of capital ownership to regulate workplace-based structures of inequality
and rank-ordered hierarchies.
There is agreement among no-growth authors that the distribution of wealth and
income, a traditional concern of social policy, both within and across countries and in
an intergenerational perspective, is crucial for the reduction of carbon emissions (Daly
and Farley 2009: 441; Koch 2012: 178–193). Daly and Farley (2009: 442) propose
generally that government redistribution policies should respect what people have
earned through their own efforts, but people should “not be able to capture for
themselves values created by nature, by society, or by the work of others. And they
should pay a fair price for what they receive from others, including the services
provided by government, and for the costs they impose on others.” Both Daly and
International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013 • 13
Max Koch
Farley and Wilkinson and Pickett assume that a less unequal distribution of resources
would generate public goods such as economic stability, lower crime rates, stronger
communities, and better health and that this would be a price worth paying by taxing
those who consume excessively. To achieve redistribution and to enhance ecological
sustainability, most no-growth authors also argue for an ecological tax reform. Jackson
(2009a: 106) outlines its general principle by shifting the burden of taxation from
“economic goods (e.g., incomes) to ecological bads (e.g., pollution).” If the tax base
were linked to the throughput of finite resources, external costs, which private
enterprises enjoy as “free gifts” from nature to date, would be internalized and
considered in their cost calculations. However, Daly (1977: 63) prefers the definition
of depletion quota to pollution taxes, since the latter would increase competition
within the recycling industry. According to most approaches, the income from
depletion and/or pollution tax would be complemented by an income and inheritance
tax reform. Daly and Farley (2009: 44) advocate a highly progressive income tax that
asymptotically approaches 100 percent, more “direct limits on how much someone
can earn, or relative limits that establish a legal ration between the highest and lowest
income allowed” and a “high inheritance tax” since much of the accumulated wealth
is inherited.
For Daly, it is critical to define both minimum and maximum limits on income and
wealth. After reaching the maximum income, people would be incentivized to “devote
their further energies to noneconomic pursuits” so that confiscatory revenues would
be rather small. The opportunities thus forgone by the wealthy would be made
available to the “not-so wealthy, who would still be paying taxes on their increased
earnings. The effect on incentive would be negative at the top but positive at lower
levels, leading to a broader participation in running the economy” (Daly 1977: 56).
While not all no-growth theorists explicitly argue in favor of a maximum income
limit, there is agreement on the necessity of the introduction of a minimum or basic
income. Varying across authors, this would be co-financed from general revenues, an
increasingly progressive income tax, eco-taxes and/or from depletion and emissions
certificate auctions. The specific policy instruments for ensuring minimum income
are more contested than the general need for this policy instrument. Andersson, who
reviewed different attempts of linking no-growth approaches and basic income
schemes (Andersson 2009: 3) suggests an equivalence between basic income financed
by green taxes and the distribution of equal and transferable rights to use scarce
environmental resources and to emit a given quantity of greenhouse gases. In line with
the hypothesis that it will ultimately be necessary to limit transnational and global
inequalities in wealth and income in order to reach an Earth-wide steady state,
Andersson (2009: 6) proposes the successive generalization of an unconditional basic
income from the already rich countries to a global scheme.
No-growth authors agree on the necessity of identifying clear resource and emission
caps according to climate science expertise and on the establishment of reduction
targets under those caps. There is further agreement on the application and
generalization of “contraction and convergence” and “cap and share” models for
climate-related emissions at equal per capita allowances (Jackson 2009a: 106), leading
to the eventual convergence of equal per capita emissions across the planet. The
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Welfare after Growth: Theoretical Discussion and Policy Implications
consensus is that if policies to cut emissions were to be seen as fair, richer persons and
countries, which on average contribute much more to CC than poorer persons and
countries, would be affected most (Wilkinson and Pickett 2010: 222). The British
Sustainable Development Commission (2007: 7) advocates the introduction of a
measurement of individual carbon footprints as a central element of the measurement
of environmental well-being. This indicator would need to reflect “not only the direct
emissions associated with consumption in the UK, but also the emissions ‘embedded’
in imported goods and services.” In personal allowances and trading schemes, the total
permissible level of emissions is divided by the adult population (often with a lower
allowance for each child) to identify the equal share, or quota, of allowable emissions
per head. In some of these schemes people are provided with an electronic card to
cover payments for fuel, power and air travel. Those using less than their share would
be able to sell their unused allocation back to a carbon bank, which sells them on to
people who want to use more than their allocation of fossil fuels (Wilkinson and
Pickett 2010: 222). Again, there is “wide variety of such proposals” (Gough and
Meadowcroft 2011: 499), the common denominator of which is to create a “dual
accounting standard and currency” for energy and fuels so that these have a price both
in monetary and carbon terms.
The view of no-growth theorists on Western consumption rates is that these would
need to decrease disproportionately so that citizens of other countries could enjoy an
improvement in their material standard of living. While consumption is generally seen
as critical to human development as long as it “enlarges the capabilities of people
without adversely affecting the wellbeing of others” (The Royal Society 2012: 47),
there is agreement with Daly and Farley’s (2009: 442) argument that on a finite planet
subject to the laws of thermodynamics the present generation should develop a “sense
of obligation toward future generations” that is seen as being entitled to having the
same opportunities for development as the present. Conspicuous consumption is
viewed as a negative externality, and people should pay for the negative impacts this
imposes upon others. Policy proposals about the most effective ways of reducing such
consumption and the accompanying carbon emissions are not very detailed as yet.
Daly and Farley (2009: 444) propose a progressive consumption tax, which would
help redistribute and allocate resources more efficiently. Kasser (2009: 178) suggests
a threefold strategy involving the decrease of the extent to which people are exposed
to lifestyle models of conspicuous consumption, for example, by banning
advertisements aimed at children; the support of people’s resilience, for example, by
teaching individuals how to decode advertisement messages; and helping people to act
in accordance with “intrinsic” goals, for example, by encouraging ethical consumption.
If the physical indicators of throughput and GDP as a whole are reduced and labor
productivity does not decline, growing unemployment is the result. No-growth
theorists have therefore started to debate the relations between no-growth and degrowth, remuneration, employment and work (Martínez-Alier et al. 2010: 1746).
Moving toward an SSE would entail a significant cut in the percentage of time spent
in paid work in order to reduce unemployment and distribute working time more
evenly across the population, break the circle of working to earn to consume, and to
enable a better work-life balance as well as time for currently unpaid activities such as
International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013 • 15
Max Koch
childcare and personal care or engagement in local voluntary activities (Koch and Fritz
2013). In most approaches, the welfare state plays a crucial role in this redistribution
(Gough and Meadowcroft 2011: 500). Reducing the working week is, for example,
at the heart of Victor’s resilience scenario for the Canadian economy. Victor (2010:
371) suggests that employment can be spread more evenly among the workforce
allowing the “benefits of greater productivity” to be “directed towards more leisure
time, rather than increasing GDP,” thanks to shorter working hours as key ingredient.
In a more general theoretical perspective, such readjustment of employment, work
and other activities presupposes placing “both on a more equal footing, rather than
seeing ‘work’ as signifying a lack, or a less valuable human activity than ‘employment’”
(Barry 2012: 139). This, again, calls for a “more expansive conceptualisation of the
economy in which all work, all economic activity, all resource and energy use is
included” (Barry 2012: 139).
Finally, there is agreement on the necessity that an SSE would ultimately be
predicated on relatively stable population levels, since (all other things being equal)
more people imply more greenhouse gas emissions and use up more finite resources.
This goal raises the issue of appropriate population size5 and of suitable ways of
achieving this. Daly (1977: 57) advocates a scheme of “transferable birth licences,”
according to which every woman would receive an amount of reproduction licenses
that corresponds to replacement fertility. These would be freely transferable by sale or
gift. Andersson (2009: 6) points to the problem of implementing this proposal in
highly unequal societies, “since poor families are generally larger than rich ones.”
Hence, he stresses the necessity of linking population policies to (in)equality-related
policies and in particular to an unconditional basic income. In a more equal society,
transferable birthrights would be “easier to accept” as “people would not have to sell
their rights to have children just to get along economically.” In relation to Western
countries that are already heading toward a relatively stable or declining population,
Andersson (2009: 6) discusses the issue of immigration in combination with an
unconditional and adequate basic income. Assuming that its introduction in the rich
countries would increase immigration from poorer countries, migration would imply
a stronger global ecological impact, since the “way of life in the rich countries requires
a bigger per capita footprint.” Only if migration coincided with improvement in living
conditions in the poor countries – thereby reducing ecological degradation stemming
from poverty and too high birth rates – the “ecological impact from migration to
richer countries could in principle be neutralized.”
Conclusion
The article took its part of departure from Ian Gough’s three scenarios of government
reactions to CC, focusing on the “no-growth” or “de-growth” scenario, as well as wider
associated and welfare related debates and policy implications. It suggests that nogrowth approaches have developed in different and sometimes unconnected academic
circles and disciplines. Basically, this literature states that the environment cannot
absorb further increases in emissions, nor does further GDP growth in the developed
16 • International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013
Welfare after Growth: Theoretical Discussion and Policy Implications
world improve key indicators of welfare such as life expectancy or happiness. On the
contrary, much of what is required for human flourishing and welfare is non-material
once a decent material standard of living has been attained and this is achievable at
much lower levels of matter and energy throughput than currently. However, even
though all these approaches point in the same direction, they require theoretical
integration. Different strategies for this impending interdisciplinary effort appear
possible at this preliminary stage. Martha Nussbaum’s list of ten central capabilities is
a promising point of departure for redefining welfare in the absence of economic
growth for the developed world, thereby allowing for a catch-up GDP increase in the
developing countries. Itself the summary and conclusion of a range of philosophical
and social science debates, the multidimensionality of the concept should not be
considered a weakness but rather an adequate reflection of the multidimensional
nature of welfare. It brings together social and ecological human needs and seems
open-ended enough for the inclusion of new empirical insights from diverse academic
disciplines.
Despite the growing empirical and theoretical critique of economic growth as the
central policy goal, contemporary welfare states follow either “irrational optimism” or
“green growth,” when dealing with CC and associated challenges, while “no-growth”
or “de-growth” alternatives have had little impact on public policy making. The
continuing top priority of GDP growth in policy planning is not only due to
institutional and technological “lock-in” effects, but also to the fact that the no-growth
authors’ partially far-reaching policy proposals are presently mainly studied “within
separate silos” (Gough 2011: 59). This may not be surprising given the fact that the
theoretical approaches upon which these proposals are built are likewise diverse and
in need of integration. However, as in the case of the different no-growth theories,
there appears to be sufficient common ground for combining, complementing and
unifying the as yet fragmented policy proposals and for formulating a coherent
strategy for the economic, political and ecological restructuring of the advanced
capitalist countries. The basis for such a transition is the common belief in the
necessity of a “radically different environmental/welfare policy regime” and the
“redistribution of carbon, work/time, and income/wealth” (Gough 2011: 59), in
which both traditional and new types of social policy instruments play an important
part. The literature reviewed in this article emphasizes the need for tackling inequality
(including the socially destructive logic of status-enhancing consumption) and
ecological challenges such as CC at the same time. It further points to the need to
identify the investment demands associated with a sustainable economy and the socioeconomic implications of carbon emission caps and rationing schemes. There is
further agreement among no-growth authors about the necessity of a reduction in
working hours as well as improvements in the work-life balance, an ecological tax
reform and the introduction/development of minimum income schemes to tackle
both inequality and the ecological impact of migration. Fewer consensuses appear to
exist on the issues of maximum income, government interventions in the established
ownership structures of corporations and adequate population/immigration policies.
International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013 • 17
Max Koch
Professor Dr Max Koch, Lund University, completed both his PhD and Habilitation
in sociology at the Freie Universität Berlin. An ongoing topic of his research has been
the ways in which political and economic restructuring are reflected in the social
structure with an emphasis on welfare and employment relations and in comparative
perspective. More recently, he has started to combine these research interests with
political ecology. Currently, he carries out research on synergies in climate change and
social policies and on minimum income schemes in comparative perspective.
Notes
An earlier draft of this article was presented in the thematic plenary Theoretical Tools for Grasping Crisis-ridden
Welfare States at the 2012 conference of the Research Committee on Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy
(RC19) of the International Sociological Association in Oslo.
1. There are various definitions of “economic growth.” Following Ian Gough, Tim Jackson and many others
I use the term as a proxy for quantitative growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) (see section “Nogrowth and De-growth Economics”). Accordingly, the GDP does not increase in a “no-growth” economy.
2. The fact that efficiency improvements are often offset by the expansion of the total scale of production
was first recognized by W.S. Jevons (1865) who noted that improvements in steam engines and the
corresponding fall in the price of coal were accompanied by an increase in coal consumption.
3. The discovery of the twofold character of the commodity is indeed not only the “pivot on which a clear
comprehension of Political Economy turns” (Marx 1961: 41) but also the systematic point of departure of
the discipline of political ecology.
4. The list includes, among others, socio-economic and ecological aspects of welfare: life (ability to live a life
of normal length); bodily health and integrity; senses, imagination and thought; emotions (being able to
have attachments to things and people outside ourselves); practical reason; affiliation (being able to live
with and toward others, to recognize and show concern for other human beings); other species (being able
to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature); play; control over one’s
environment (political participation, economic and employment rights) (Nussbaum 2006: 76–78).
5. Gough and Meadowcroft (2011: 500) cite the British Optimum Population Trust that advocates a goal of
halving the United Kingdom’s present size to thirty million people.
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20 • International Journal of Social Quality • Volume 3 Number 1 • Summer 2013
Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard
Jim Clarke
Abstract
J.G. Ballard’s early novels The Drowned World (1962) and The Crystal
World (1966) take a climatological approach to apocalyptic dystopia.
This has led survey studies of climate fiction to identify these novels as
founding texts of the genre. Yet Ballard wrote in an era before global
warming had been identified by climate scientists, and his fiction is as
much psychological and ontological as it is physiological. Ballard both
adheres to and deviates from the global warming narrative now accepted
by contemporary climatology, working within and beyond the SF subgenre of post-apocalyptic fiction. This paper assesses the extent to which
these dystopian narratives can be understood as climate fiction and
explores the debt that more recent cli-fi may owe to Ballard.
I’ve always felt that people living in the cosy
suburbia of Western Europe and America never appreciated
just how vulnerable we were to climatic disasters.
— J.G. Ballard, to Travis Elborough
Before there was climate change, there was nonetheless climate
fiction. J.G. Ballard’s early novels The Drowned World (1962) and
The Crystal World (1966) survey the process and aftermath of climatic
devastation. In these texts, Ballard’s solitary protagonists traverse
liminal states, often as psychological as physical, in which civilization
recedes to the status of memory, and existence comes to be dominated
and defined by the environment and its monothematic transformation.
Sanders in The Crystal World encounters an ‘efflorescence’ of crystal
which threatens to consume all matter, while Kerans in The Drowned
World traverses a post-apocalyptic global-warming scenario in which
Critical Survey
doi: 10.3167/cs.2013.250202
Volume 25, Number 2, 2013: 7–21
ISSN 0011–1570 (Print), ISSN 1752–2293 (Online)
8
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
the ice caps have melted and the planet has been inundated. Everything
in these novels, from the titles onwards, is defined by the novum of
total climate upheaval.
These texts are prismatic in that they have provoked a variety of
critical perspectives, some of which tend towards the symbolist.
Considered together with Ballard’s disowned debut The Wind from
Nowhere (1961) and The Drought (1965), they have been collectively
presented as ‘elemental’ novels. They have been depicted as disaster
dystopias, mediated through each of the four classical Aristotelian
elements of air, water, fire and earth. This elemental reading has
become conflated with a schema presented by Ballard archivist David
Pringle, whose ‘The Fourfold Symbolism of J.G. Ballard’1 was a
Fryean reading of Ballard’s novels from The Drowned World (1962)
to The Atrocity Exhibition (1969), which delineated a progression of
imagery through water, sand, crystal and concrete. However, readings
which view climate in these novels primarily as metaphor do not offer
any assessment of their validity as proto-climate fiction. Their recent
critical co-option as precursor or even predictive literary texts of
climate change requires a reading of how Ballard utilizes climatic
cataclysm. In this article I address the critical lacuna opened up by the
designation of The Drowned World and The Crystal World as protoclimate fiction, and negotiate their relationship with that burgeoning
literary tradition.
In their 2011 analytic survey, Adam Trexler and Adeline JohnsPutra identified over 100 literary titles which addressed the theme of
climate change, noting a sharp increase in number in the twenty-first
century. Johns-Putra expanded this to 150 in the past eight years,
while Trexler clarified that they had compiled a database of ‘just over
300 … published between 1962 and 2011, starting with J.G. Ballard’s
1962 post-apocalyptic work The Drowned World’.2 The Trexler and
Johns-Putra survey clearly identifies two broad phases in cli-fi. An
earlier phase, running until the end of the twentieth century, saw most
cli-fi emerge from the SF genre, while since the millennium climate
change as a literary theme has exploded in popularity, attracting the
attention of novelists like Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson, Ian
McEwan and Barbara Kingsolver. Ballard’s early dystopias are no
longer seen solely as a symbolist or surrealist ‘elemental’ period
within his own oeuvre, or more broadly as post-apocalyptic SF. If
they are to be anointed as founding texts of the burgeoning genre of
Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard
9
cli-fi, it is time to consider what J.G. Ballard can teach us about
climate change.
Ballard wrote these novels in the early 1960s, long before climate
change became a prominent subject in the popular press, and even
before the term ‘global warming’ was coined by environmental
scientist Wallace Broeker in 1975. Crucially, therefore, Ballard’s
novels omit discussion of anthropogenic blame. The Drowned World
opens in a lagoon of semi-submerged high-rises which was formerly
London with the ominous words ‘Soon it would be too hot’.3 Later,
the reader finally discovers:
A series of violent and prolonged solar storms lasting several years caused
by a sudden instability in the Sun had enlarged the Van Allen belts and
diminished the Earth’s gravitational hold upon the outer layers of the
ionosphere. As these vanished into space, depleting the Earth’s barrier
against the full impact of solar radiation, temperatures began to climb
steadily, the heated atmosphere expanding outwards into the ionosphere
where the cycle was completed.
All over the world, mean temperatures rose by a few degrees each year.
(TDW 21)
This dispassionate mise-en-scène offers an explanation which is no
real answer, because the answer lies beyond the reach of science. As
first Kerans and later Strangman and Bodkins come to realize, the
increase in temperature is not a symptom of climate upheaval; climate
upheaval is itself a symptom of devolution, which is the underlying
cataclysm. As the narrative progresses, flora and fauna, and even
human psychology itself, begin to revert towards the Triassic period.
In The Crystal World, time starts leaching from the entire universe,
symptomatized by the cancerous metastasis of a single crystalline
atom across all matter.4 The protagonist Sanders comes to believe
‘that this illuminated forest in some way reflects an earlier period of
our lives, perhaps an archaic memory we are born with of some
ancestral paradise where the unity of time and space is the signature
of every leaf and flower’ (TCW, 102). Less important than establishing
fault in such narratives is the issue of adapting to the new paradigm,
primarily through a process of devolution. Ballard’s climate dystopias
are post-apocalyptic only in the sense that cataclysmic change is in
the process of occurring and is not preventable. Mankind lives on,
even if only temporarily or precariously, fundamentally altered by the
experience.
10
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
Ballard’s failure to attribute blame for climate change is an attempt
to avoid reproducing mythopoetics which carry wide-ranging and
perhaps unintended cultural connotations. For Ballard, nature does
not answer to the language of theology or science. As Tuhus-Dubrow
notes:
The fundamental story of climate change is simple. Human behavior
provoked a change in the weather, unleashing, among other effects,
dangerous storms. This story should sound familiar. It’s one of the oldest
narratives in the human repository. The tale of Noah’s ark is just one
variation on the ancient flood myth, in which a deity annihilates the
human race for its sins.5
However, in insisting upon climate change as something that happens
to humanity rather than something that is committed or generated by
humankind, Ballard’s evasion of the blame game can also be seen as
a product of his relative antipathy towards scientists, an antipathy
somewhat atypical in the SF genre, but which was more prevalent
during the so-called ‘New Wave’ with which Ballard is so often
categorized. The nuclear flash of the atomic bomb at Nagasaki, which
forms a pivotal scene in Ballard’s semi-autobiographical Empire of
the Sun (1984), emblematizes his problems with science and scientists.
As early as 1970, Ballard told Lynn Barber, ‘After Hiroshima, the
whole magic and the authority of science was called into question’.6
More than two decades later, Ballard’s scepticism towards science
had hardened into outright antipathy, as when he told Jeremy Lewis
that ‘science is moving into an area where its obsessions begin to
isolate completely its subject under the lens of its microscope, away
from its links with the rest of nature’.7 Science’s tendency to ignore
the contingent connections between realities renders it, for Ballard,
more of a distorting prism than the surrealism which informed his
early work.
In The Drowned World, this emerges through the almost existential
pointlessness of the monitoring work conducted at the lagoon station.
As Riggs explains, ‘All this detailed mapping of harbours for use in
some hypothetical future is absurd. Even if the solar flares subside it
will be ten years before there’s any serious attempt to re-occupy these
cities’ (TDW, 17). Ballard here undermines the modelling process at
the heart of contemporary climate science using the same broad basis
of many climate change deniers. The provisional status of the future
is used to deride science’s present stratagems as based on nothing but
Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard
11
hypothesis. Ballard depicts a world where, though climate change has
already occurred and is accelerating, the scientific method is ironically
still trapped in a superseded paradigm of hypothesizing before
reacting. Later, when Strangman piratically drains the lagoon in
search of submerged treasure, his modernist – indeed Eliotic – desire
to shore up fragments of the past against the ruins of the drowned
world is depicted as entirely misguided. Ballard does not accommodate
notions of preservation or mitigation. The bric-a-brac collected by
Strangman’s team lacks both aesthetic and use value. To Kerans, the
items retrieved from the past are simply ‘like bones’ (TDW, 94). Even
Bodkins’s tragic and solitary vigil, patrolling the waters that had once
been the museum district in his youth, is depicted as more honourable
and less futile. Bodkins, as his name suggests, is trapped in Hamletlike procrastination and teeters on the verge of suicide. He has
abandoned all delusion that the past can be restored and instead is
operating, like Kerans, from a position of seeking psychic wholeness.
Bodkins’s quest is in search of his memories, the ‘entire ransom of
the Unconscious’ (TDW, 101) that he sees as lost beneath the amniotic
waters.
In the topoi of these drowned and crystal worlds, humankind is
neither redeemed nor restored by being absolved of the guilt of
anthropogenically induced climate change. For this reason, the author
defended these early novels against the accusation that they were
mere disaster fiction. In conversation with James Goddard and David
Pringle, he insisted that: ‘[t]he geophysical changes which take place
in The Drought, The Drowned World and The Crystal World are all
positive and good changes – they are what the books are about. The
changes lead us to our real psychological goals so they are not disaster
stories at all’.8 Ballard’s focus is directed at the kairotic moment,
which Warren Wagar calls ‘the opportune and decisive point in time
when psychic transformation occurs’.9 The protagonist Kerans comes
to realize that, ‘Both the past, represented by Riggs, and the present
contained within the demolished penthouse, no longer offered a viable
existence. His commitment to the future, so far one of choice and
plagued by so many doubts and hesitations, was now absolute’ (TDW,
147). Ballard’s scientists are singularly ill-equipped to diagnose this
need for transformation, far less to initiate the process. Operating with
a conception of time which is no longer valid, Ballard depicts
scientists as temporally displaced and redundant as agents. Time
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Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
reverses in The Drowned World, and ceases to exist in a manner
subject to scientific analysis in The Crystal World.
In later cli-fi, written after the anthropogenic thesis had become
generally known and accepted, scientists become Manichean beings,
simultaneously guilty defilers of the environment (or enablers of
rampant capital’s defilement) and potential saviours of the future. For
Ballard, concerns about the morality of scientists do not arise within
his dystopias; if science is not the cause of the cataclysm in these
novels, nor is it any solution. Both texts function at the level of the
individual’s response to climatic upheaval. They insist that since
environment and climate are fundamentally experienced sensually,
science is impotent in investigating what human response climate
change may demand from any particular individual. If Ballard does
have any rapprochement with the perspective of science, it is in
sharing the science-driven notion of later cli-fi that conventional
responses are an insufficient reaction to a global challenge such as
climate change.
The first explanatory narrative of climate change in The Crystal
World, beyond hinted inchoate whispers and mutterings of strange
doings in the primeval forest, occurs when a military captain tells
Sanders: ‘In confidence, I can explain that there is a new kind of plant
disease beginning in the forest near Mont Royal’ (TCW, 32). Stated
by a practical man of limited imagination, this is a gnomic yet succinct
definition of the crystalline symptom which is manifesting itself in
the jungle. Much later, the medical officer Captain Radek informs
Sanders:
Tatlin believes that this Hubble effect, as they call it, is closer to a cancer
than anything else – and about as curable – an actual proliferation of the
sub-atomic identity of all matter. It’s as if a sequence of displaced but
identical images of the same object were being produced by refraction
through a prism, but with the element of time replacing the role of light.
(TCW, 81)
Further outbreaks are reported in Florida, Russia and ‘distant
galaxies’. Finally, a comprehensive scientific theorem is propounded:
the super-saturation of matter in our continuum leads to its appearance in
a parallel spatial matrix. As more and more time ‘leaks’ away, the process
of supersaturation continues, the original atoms and molecules producing
spatial replicas of themselves, substance without mass, in an attempt to
increase their foot-hold upon existence. (TCW, 105)
Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard
13
Though science can produce an exegesis for crystalline climate
change, it is incapable of generating a coherent response to it. A range
of utopian interpretations are generated in the novel in response to the
‘efflorescence’ of crystal forms, but for science the rest is silence.
Sanders’s former lover Suzanne rejects the negative comparison of
the crystal world with the leprosy she treated at her clinic in favour of
images drawn from Shelley’s Adonais, shorn of Shelley’s morbid
conclusion that death ‘tramples’ all. For the apostate priest Father
Balthus, the forest represents ‘the final celebration of the Eucharist of
Christ’s body. Here everything is transfigured and illuminated, joined
together in the last marriage of space and time’ (TCW, 204). Sanders
experiences ‘a curious premonition of hope and longing, as if he were
some fugitive Adam chancing upon a forgotten gateway to the
forbidden paradise’ (TCW, 97). Similarly, at the conclusion of The
Drowned World, Kerans marches south, ‘a second Adam searching
for the forgotten paradises of the reborn Sun’ (TDW, 175).
While Ballard’s texts cannot comment on the politics of
anthropogenic climate change in the manner that later cli-fi could,
they are not without extensive political subtexts. Ballard, who grew
up in the colonial-era Shanghai depicted in Empire of the Sun,
transplanted the annual floodplains of his childhood China to a postdiluvian London in The Drowned World. By submerging Europe
under a tropical ocean rather than an ice field, Ballard’s novel reprises
Max Ernst’s painting Europe after the Rain, a reproduction of which
hangs on Beatrice’s apartment wall, where it ‘screamed silently to
itself, like the sump of some insane unconscious’ (TDW, 29). This
fate of drowning rather than freezing expresses the climatic fears of
the very Pacific micro-nations Ballard later wrote about in the short
story ‘My Dream of Flying to Wake Island’ (1974) and his 1994
novel Rushing to Paradise. The Pacific connotes a specific kind of
liminal space to Ballard. As Simon Sellars notes:
Ballard’s reimagining of the Pacific archipelago – as a vast, disjunctive
region of abandonment and reinvention, with multiple islands floating in
the ‘sea of time and space’ – and its subsequent superimposition onto
urban landscapes, provides an excellent example of a pluralism of utopias
(multiple subjectivities) steeped in an ‘aesthetic unreality’.10
In ecological and political terms, the periphery has become the centre,
and the centre, the periphery. By superimposing the Pacific’s climatic
concerns on London, Ballard recalibrates the impact of the cataclysm
14
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
more directly to his anglophone readership. Andrzej Gasiorek
describes the opening of The Drowned World as a ‘tour-de-force
description of sweltering heat and of tentacular jungle vegetation
smothering the last remaining outposts of a long-since drowned
metropolis’.11 The novel can be read through the prism of historicized
anthropogenic climate change as a postcolonial comment on the guilt
of industrialized regions like Europe, depicting their experience of the
possible climatic fate of low-lying Pacific micro-nations. His climatic
apocalypses do not exempt the Third World, nor do they correct
colonial wrongs. In a world where a mere five million people cluster
for life around formerly frozen polar regions, the geopolitical
revolution provoked by The Drowned World vastly exceeds that of
Kim Stanley Robinson’s fiction or films like The Day after Tomorrow
(2004), in which refugees from currently affluent nations are ironically
thrown on the kindness of their previously poorer neighbours.
Ballard’s geopolitical realignment is more profound than the simple
reversal of national power plays. Rather, he turns the Earth on its axis
and renders all petty politics and national interests defunct.
Further haunting subversions of contemporary political concerns
can be detected in the way Ballard plays with historical narratives of
trade and notions of wealth. The treasures Strangman has looted from
deluged Europe are, as Kerans notes, no more valuable than bones.
As with The Drowned World’s lagoon, the Cameroonian settlement
of Port Matarre in The Crystal World carries the foetid scent of
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Sanders’s visit to the Port Matarre curio
market, where he is coyly exposed in turn to ever more grandiose and
preposterous crystalline forms, extends existing historical narratives
of gem and mineral wealth exploitation in Africa into surrealism.
What value does a giant diamond fungus possess at a time of
apocalypse? Shorn of the veneer of civilization, the primeval forest
becomes again the locus of man’s hopes and fears. Ballard’s virgin
jungles draw on the power of magic forest archetypes in fairytales and
folklore, gestating paradigm shifts with the potential to render
civilization meaningless. The narrative of pandemic infection
emerging from the unknown forest is simultaneously apocalyptic and
utopian, and prefigures the viral contagion narrative which developed
in literary and cinematic works. Sanders describes the crystal
phenomenon as a virus in a letter to his boss Paul Derain, and the
interactions between the inhabitants of the leprosarium and the
crystallizing jungle begs comparison of the two forms of infection.
Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard
15
Ballard suggests that climate change does not so much affect as infect
humanity.
Yet at the conclusion of his journey, beyond the locus of mere
madmen, Sanders discovers something for which no Kurtz can be
blamed: the tragic transcendence of timelessness. The ‘significance
of the forest for Suzanne and Sanders’ is ‘that for both of them the
only final resolution of the imbalance within their minds, their
inclination towards the dark side of the equinox, could be found
within that crystal world’ (TCW, 218). In The Crystal World, the
death of time is universal, hence escape is absurd. Sanders concludes
that ‘the gift of immortality by a direct consequence of the surrender
by each of us of our own physical and temporal identities’ is the only
rational way to proceed (TCW, 213). Similarly, Bodkins warns Kerans
that ‘Time doesn’t exist here now’ (TDW, 130). Time and climate are
indelibly linked in Ballard’s early novels, and schematic attempts to
explain the purpose of Ballard’s climatic scenarios in terms of either
symbolism or elemental patterning fail to account for what he
described as:
a trilogy dealing with the topic of time. In The Drowned World I deal with
the past, and employ water as the central metaphor. In The Drought I deal
with the future, taking sand as the central image. In The Crystal World I
am concerned with the present, the symbol of which is the diamond or the
precious stone which – so I believe – possesses a timeless structure.12
Like Salvador Dalí, whose paintings of deliquescent timepieces are
invoked in The Drowned World, Ballard conflates environment and
time. Climate disruption in these novels is also temporal disruption.
Time and space are rendered a single continuum in how the cataclysm
is experienced by his protagonists. Ballard’s metaphor of climate for
time can also be run backwards, since the metaphorical devolution
through temporal eras locked within Kerans’s spinal cord denotes a
reversal of the flow of time. This is redirected towards the past,
reflecting the reversion of climate to prehistoric conditions in a
primeval pathetic fallacy. This notion of replaying the past has a
significant SF lineage which includes the entire sub-genre of
uchronies, or alternative histories, as well as post-apocalypses such
as Edgar Pangborn’s Davy (1964) or Walter M. Miller Jr’s A Canticle
for Leibowitz (1959), in which cataclysmic devastation resulting from
nuclear war throws human civilization back centuries. This lineage
has intersected with cli-fi, resulting in texts such as Paolo Bacigalupi’s
16
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
The Windup Girl (2009), in which twenty-third-century Thailand is
wracked by floods, pestilence and illness, and globalized civilization
has been replaced by an economy of slavery and manual labour. In all
of these novels, the generation responsible for climate disaster is a
cursed one; the inhabitants of Ballard’s dystopias are no less cursed
for being innocent of causing the collapse of their climate. As with
those who lived through the ‘efflorescence of oil’ in The Windup Girl,
Kerans and Sanders are guilty of being of their time. In The Crystal
World, Ballard goes beyond reversing time to eradicating it entirely,
generating the ultimate climatic apocalypse in which all trace of
reality is extinguished by the prismatic efflorescence of crystal
timelessness.
In ‘Time, Memory and Inner Space’ (1963), Ballard has insisted on
the pre-eminence of inner over outer space. If climate changes, we too
must change, Ballard warns, and not merely by way of superficial
adaptation. Instead transformation must occur on a personal and
fundamental level. If Ballard conflates climate with time, he also
conflates it with psyche. The outer environment is subordinated to
inner space, and what action or response it requires is primarily
internal and transformative. Both Kerans and Sanders successfully
navigate their way through Ballard’s formless zones of contact to be
reborn as new Adams in new Edens since they operate on the level of
the individual, for whom all climates cease to exist upon death. By
contrast, the supporting cast in both novels fails to rise to the challenge
of transformation demanded by climatic upheaval. Ballard told Peter
Rennov-Jensen that ‘All the other characters in my first three books
react as most ordinary people would: if the dam bursts, they run for
the hills. It’s only the central character who sees the system of
imaginative possibilities represented by the disaster’.13 Ballard
suggests that climate change can function as the catalyst for profound
personal change, a change that can even encompass utopia, if we are
prepared to give up everything, including identity and existence, to
attain it. He goes on to say that Kerans ‘is looking for the source of
things, the source of himself, moving down his own spinal column,
realizing that the closer he gets to the source the less there is of him.
The notion of identity ceases to exist so the quest for absolute identity
is self-defeating in a way’.14 By embracing death, Kerans and Sanders
fulfil the quest for utopia which underwrites both novels.
Writing on the modernist Soviet utopia Chevengur, Jameson
suggests that ‘it is not the function of Utopia to bring the dead back
Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard
17
to life nor to abolish death in the first place’.15 For Marxists, as for
Christians or Buddhists or most religionists, attaining utopia is not
about living forever or abolishing death. Both see a natural lifespan
as a fundamental element of the human experience. Hence we can
interpret utopias which seek to subvert death as dystopian in their
fundamental nature, at least from a Marxist or religious perspective.
Though SF often posits life-extending technology, virtual life or even
simple immortality, for Jameson as for Christian dogma this is a
failure of the utopian vision as it defers interaction with an actual
utopia, which is incompatible with immortal existence. If utopia is
essentially kinetic in this manner, it explains why Sanders and Kerans,
who maintain their rate of adaptation to the cataclysm in a manner
which other characters cannot, remain at the end of the novels as
agents of their own fate, having retrieved command of their destiny.
By contrast, the static religious vision of Father Balthus, captivated
by the notion of Christ as lumens, is no less a failure of the utopian
quest than Beatrice Dahl’s (in)decision to remain at the lagoon or
Bodkins’s lonely vigil at the submerged museums. As Ballard told
Pringle:
In The Drowned World, the hero, Kerans, is the only one to do anything
meaningful. His decision to stay, to come to terms with the changes taking
place within himself, to understand the logic of his relationship with the
shifting biological kingdom, and his decision finally to go south and greet
the sun, is a totally meaningful course of action. The behaviour of the
other people, which superficially appears to be meaningful – getting the
hell out, or draining the lagoons – is totally meaningless.16
Both Kerans and Sanders actively choose to embrace the climate,
knowing that it will result in their deaths and the extinction of their
entire species, since death is a necessary stage on the path to utopia.
Though somewhat existentialist, this is not the nihilistic vision
sometimes misattributed to Ballard, but nor is it a popular variant of
utopia expressed in SF or among climate thinkers. Peter Fitting’s
landmark essay on ‘utopian longing and capitalist cooptation’ in
modern SF identifies a split in the course of utopian longing after it
emerged from the techno-utopian dreaming of Joseph Campbell,
resulting in counter-cultural utopian visions co-existing alongside
ecological utopias and dystopias, as well as a tradition of anticapitalist resistance in work by authors such as Samuel R. Delany and
Ursula K. Le Guin. In this context, Ballard’s climate change fictions
18
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
are less ecological utopian visions than a counter-cultural and
aesthetic utopian perspective, one that seeks to resolve the human
condition ‘not through resistance, but through an acceptance of the
aesthetic and reconciliatory dimensions of the cataclysm’.17
Ballard’s climate change novels challenge us to look beyond even
the loss of civilization, culture, society, memory and identity to the
possibility of xenocide itself, of humankind rendered non-existent. It
may be difficult to consider the reconciliatory benefits of climate
crisis, even more so to conceive of its beautiful but terrible sublimity
in the face of species death. Though Ballard’s alchemy of the elements
renders all matter multi-chromatic in The Crystal World, such utopian
beauty comes at the cost of absolutely everything else. Ballard warns
us not to expect scientists to become saviours, and reminds us that
acceptance of change is healthier than seeking to preserve a lost past.
Though these novels comment wryly on postcoloniality, they
ultimately dispense with politics, prioritizing the inner space over the
outer. Yet they hold out the bitter promise of an achievable utopia,
attained at the potential cost of everything we consider important. For
Ballard, climate politics are inevitably personal. He says that ‘people
want to save the whale and the seal because they know that sooner or
later the human being is probably going to be next on the list’.18 There
is little of the contrite condition of altruism extended toward
descendant generations that is commonplace in cli-fi written in the
twenty-first century.
The science of climate mitigation has given society a perhaps
misplaced sense of confidence that anthropogenic global warming is
not likely to lead directly to a mass-extinction event, or at least not to
a human extinction. Yet the threat of xenocide hangs over Ballard’s
beleaguered survivors. In The Drowned World, a mere five million
remain of Earth’s multi-billion populace, clinging for survival in
settlements at the poles as the temperature continues to climb. All
matter and reality is destined for eradication in The Crystal World, as
the ever-metastasizing crystal threatens to consume, or transform
utterly, every atom in existence. Ballard presents a much more
existential set of questions to his protagonists than the nuances of
adaptation and mitigation which face characters in later cli-fi.
Practically, Kerans and Sanders both face not merely personal
annihilation but the likely or definitive eradication of their species,
civilization and culture. Yet this is less important than, or rather it is
equivocated with, the fate of the individual. What Jeanette Baxter
Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard
19
terms ‘the tenacious critical reception of Ballard as an historical
voyeur who gazes with grim satisfaction at the spectacle of world
annihilation’ is a limited reading of Ballard which fails to accommodate
the process of inner change that his protagonists achieve.19 Reading
the novels as personal story arcs, Kerans and Saunders progress from
life within civilization, through a liminal space towards spiritual
fulfilment and utopia, but also towards death, which Ballard suggests
may be the ultimate change of climate.
Ballard’s drowned and crystal visions of climate change are
diachronically displaced from the issues and debates that arose out of
climatological global warming concerns towards the end of the
twentieth century. They contain no discussion of blame or
responsibility, and no attempts at mitigation or alleviation. They are
all-or-nothing novels which crank climate to fundamental extremes
in order to force an evolutionary response from human individuals.
Writing in a different time, these early novels bear characteristics of
their own era – literary stylistics borrowed from high modernism and
surrealism alike, ethics inspired in part by existentialism, and politics
haunted by the Second World War and Hiroshima. All these factors
function to potentially distance Ballard’s climatic dystopias from the
contemporary literary cli-fi tradition. Yet at points, such as their
treatment of postcolonial concerns, they do chime with more recent
climate fiction, and their more useful function as cli-fi texts may be
in iterating a form of climate change stripped of transient concerns
which considers our environment primarily as an ontological structure
whose changes can transform or destroy our inner worlds. He also
usefully reminds us that even cataclysm is an opportunity to reach for
utopia, a daring claim to find amid the doom. Ballard abandoned his
elemental examinations of the human psyche in favour of more
quotidian and tangible tests of the human spirit. Novels like High Rise
(1975) and Crash (1973) sought to narrow the plane of Ballard’s
existential trials to fit into a world more recognizably our own. In
2006, Ballard told Simon Sellars that this shift in focus was aimed at
reducing the cognitive distance between readers and global-scale
disaster:
People are very concerned about ecological damage to the planet but it
tends to be something you see on television, whereas decaying inner-city
ghetto blocks, high-rise blocks and car crashes are part of everyday life if
you live in a big city in the West – or in the East, for that matter.20
20
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
In Ballard’s mid-career novels, the trope of climate is abandoned
for geography, and geography itself is reduced to the minima of a
high-rise apartment, a car, a traffic island. These Ballardian micronations function as hothouses for the same kinds of psychic growth
Ballard forced upon his earlier protagonists with climate cataclysms.
Yet if he left climate change behind, climate change itself has started
to catch up with J.G. Ballard. Dan O’Hara once wrote that ‘it often
seemed that Ballard was living five minutes into everyone else’s
future’ and that ‘it’s also often seemed that his unconscious was
somehow script-writing that same future’.21 Ballard’s entry into the
ranks of SF writers hailed as prophets is more problematic than most,
given that his visions of the future are not of the technological form
that scientists can take as inspiration and work towards creating.
Nevertheless, he was hailed as a ‘sci-fi seer’ after Hurricane Katrina
devastated much of New Orleans, The Drowned World reread as a
novelization of post-diluvian climate cataclysm. He has rejected
suggestions of prescience or prophecy, preferring to view himself as
‘an investigator and a sort of early warning system’.22 Ballard’s
symbolist or surreal climatic cataclysms may sometimes appear
abstracted and dreamily dissimilar from real-world scenes of
inundation, but his nightmare vision of abandoned buildings rising
from steamy floodplains transcends literature and is now an iconic
signifier of global warming itself.
Notes
1. David Pringle, ‘The Fourfold Symbolism of J.G. Ballard’, Foundation 4 (July
1973), 48–60.
2. Adam Trexler and Adeline Johns-Putra. ‘Climate Change in Literature and Literary
Criticism’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 2, 2 (March/April 2011), 185–
200.
3. J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World (London: Harper Perennial, 2006 [1st pub.
1962]), hereafter TDW.
4. J.G. Ballard, The Crystal World (London: Jonathan Cape, 1966), hereafter TCW.
5. Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, ‘Cli-Fi: Birth of a Genre’, Dissent (Summer 2013), 60.
6. Simon Sellars and Dan O’Hara (eds), Extreme Metaphors: Interviews with J.G.
Ballard 1967–2008 (London: Fourth Estate, 2012), 12.
7. Jeremy Lewis, ‘An Interview with J. G. Ballard’, Mississippi Review 20, 1/2
(1991), 29.
8. Sellars and O’Hara, Extreme Metaphors, 89.
9. Warren Wagar, ‘J.G. Ballard and the Transvaluation of Utopia’, Science Fiction
Studies 18, 1 (March 1991), 57.
Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard
21
10. Sellars and O’Hara, Extreme Metaphors, 61.
11. Andrzej Gasiorek, J.G. Ballard (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
2005), 31.
12. Sellars and O’Hara , Extreme Metaphors, 11.
13. Ibid., 202.
14. Ibid., 20.
15. Fredric Jameson, Seeds of Time (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 110.
16. Sellars and O’Hara, Extreme Metaphors, 96.
17. Peter Fitting, ‘The Modern Anglo-American SF Novel: Utopian Longing and
Capitalist Cooptation’, Science Fiction Studies 17, 6 (1979), 67.
18. Lewis, ‘An Interview with J.G. Ballard’, 30.
19. Jeanette Baxter, J.G. Ballard’s Surrealist Imagination (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 9.
20. Sellars and O’Hara, Extreme Metaphors, 437.
21. Ibid., 485.
22. Travis Elborough, ‘Reality is a Stage Set’, in J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World
(London: Harper Perennial, 2006), 5.
‘All These Things He Saw and Did Not See’: Witnessing the
End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
Hannah Stark
Abstract
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road can be read as part of the burgeoning field
of climate fiction. This article examines the way that environmental
anxiety manifests in this text not only through the vision of a future earth
that has been devastated, but, as I will argue, at a more symbolic and
allegorical level through the metaphoric place of vision, sight, and
blindness. Interrogating the metaphor of vision is central to considering
this text as climate fiction because it positions the human as the chosen
witness to the end of the world. This article examines the anthropocentrism
at the heart of McCarthy’s text, and reflects on the place of the human in
broader debates about anthropogenic climate change.
Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Road (2006)
has been hailed by Andrew O’Hagan as the ‘first great masterpiece of
the globally warmed generation’.1 In the tradition of dystopian fiction
having a strong didactic function, The Road can be read as a warning
about impending environmental catastrophe. Within popular media
and academic debates, this novel is emerging as a significant text for
considerations of cultural production in a time of environmental
crisis. In the Guardian, the writer and environmentalist George
Monbiot went so far as to describe The Road as the ‘most important
environmental book ever written’.2 Within literary criticism, The
Road has been positioned as part of the emerging sub-genre of
dystopian literature called climate fiction.3 It has also been read as a
text that enables critics to consider growing consciousness of the
Anthropocene in contemporary literature and literary criticism.4 In
Critical Survey
doi: 10.3167/cs.2013.250206
Volume 25, Number 2, 2013: 71–84
ISSN 0011–1570 (Print), ISSN 1752–2293 (Online)
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Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
The Road, environmental anxiety manifests itself not only through the
vision of a future earth that has been devastated, but, as I will argue,
at a more symbolic and allegorical level through the metaphoric place
of vision, sight, and blindness in the text. The climate-change debate
has hinged on our preparedness to see global warming as the inevitable
outcome of current human action and inaction. The notion of vision
is central to climate-change discourse, both because it requires us to
envisage a future world and also because climate change scepticism
can be described as a form of wilful blindness. What has remained
central to both McCarthy’s novel and the discourse of climate change
more broadly is the figure of the human. Nowhere is this more evident
than in the naming of our current geological age the Anthropocene
and in references to anthropogenic climate change.5 This
anthropocentrism pervades McCarthy’s text, in which humans are the
only form of life that remains: the last witnesses to the end of the
world. This article will examine the post-apocalyptic vision that The
Road presents, the place of sight and blindness in the text, and the
way in which this contributes to the positioning of the unnamed man
and boy as witnesses to the devastation of climate change.
McCarthy attributes the germination of The Road to a vision he had
of a possible future. In his first television interview, an exclusive with
Oprah Winfrey, she asked where the ‘apocalyptic dream’ of The Road
originated. He responded:
My son John, about four years ago, he and I went to El Paso … and we
checked into the old hotel there and one night (John was asleep) … and I
just stood and looked out of the window at this town … I just had an
image of what this town might look like in fifty or a hundred years. I just
had this image of these fires up on the hills and everything being laid
waste and I thought a lot about my little boy.6
The progeny of this vision depicts a father and son moving through a
post-apocalyptic landscape. The representation of this world is
heavily reliant on the eschatological imagery of the book of
Revelation.7 The intertextual references to this great apocalyptic text
include the increasing darkness, the blackening sun, the charred earth,
lightning, earthquakes, a dead ocean, and poisoned bodies of water.
There has been much critical speculation as to the source of this
devastation, with answers ranging from divine intervention, a meteor
colliding with the Earth, nuclear winter, and climate change.8 What is
important about this event, which operates to divide the time of
Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
73
‘before’ and ‘after’, is that it remains ambiguous and unnamed. In
many ways, it matters little what the precise event is; what is
significant is that the world that is described to us is a world without
either an ecosystem or natural resources. The representation of the
environment can be read literally as a depiction of climate change, the
results of which are brought into our immediate future by a cataclysmic
event, or, more convincingly, as an allegorical projection of the
anxieties present in the cultural zeitgeist, filtered through climatechange discourse. In particular, The Road can be seen to reflect
anxieties about extreme weather events, deforestation, species’
extinction, and food shortages. Interestingly, what the climate change
reading has in common with the Revelation is that both, in their
different ways, envisage the apocalypse as a consequence of human
behaviour.
The first description that we get of this terrain comes when the man
looks down the road: ‘Barren, silent, godless’ (2). The precise course
of their journey has been subject to much scrutiny, but I am inclined
to agree with Laura Godfrey, who, based on the dead plants that the
man and the boy encounter, suggests that they are moving through the
Appalachian Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico.9 They believe that in
the South they will find warmth and perhaps other ‘good guys’. The
setting that they move through is described as ‘wasted country’ (4),
‘cauterized terrain’ (13), ‘desolate country’ (16), and ‘caustic waste’
(200). While being rendered as a wasteland, the Earth is depicted
specifically as sterile and devoid of life. This is most evident in the
absence of living flora and fauna. Aside from some morels (40), and
a dog whose existence is never confirmed (86), the man and the boy
come across no living entities except for other humans. The landscape
that they move through was once full of plants, but all that remains
are their detritus: ‘raw dead limbs’ (40), ‘a waste of weeds’ (192),
‘dry seedpods’ (231), ‘dead seaoats’ (236). We are explicitly told that
there is ‘nothing living anywhere’ (29). The earth itself is depicted as
lifeless through the use of descriptive metaphors associated with
death such as ‘the late world’ (10), ‘paling day’ (10), ‘intestate’ (138),
and ‘shrouded’ earth (193). This is often connected to the absence of
the sun, which can no longer be seen behind the gloom of the grey
sky. The sun is portrayed as ‘banished’ (32) and ‘indifferent’ (234).
This dead land is populated with empty and crumbling cities that are
littered with rubbish and human remains.
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The past world, our own accustomed world, exists in the text
through dreams of ‘aching’ blue skies and fecund greenness, which
the man refers to as ‘siren worlds’ (17). Whereas the man comes from
this world of before, the boy is a child of the new world. We can
assume that, since the mother is ‘cradling her belly’ (54) on the night
that the clocks stop, the boy’s birth takes place reasonably soon after
the catastrophic event. The man acknowledges that the boy must see
him as an alien: ‘A being from a planet that no longer existed’ (163).10
The Road propels us into our future, rendered to express our worst
fears about climate change. However, within the diegesis of the text,
the action takes place within the pocket of time that the man and the
boy have in common: their present. This is the liminal space of the
road that carries them endlessly onward. When they reach the ocean,
which they believed was to be the end of their journey, it is only a
minor textual occurrence (230), and they must come to terms with the
fact that sea only delivers more monotonous grey. The coast provides
only temporary respite from their journey and their arrival at any final
destination is endlessly deferred. The man and the boy have no future;
while the man dies at the end of the novel, the boy is left in a world
of ever diminishing resources.
The novel’s repeated motif, of the man and the boy looking up and
down the road, an image centrally concerned with vision, reveals their
anxiety about their future and their guilt about their past. Early in the
text they even have a mirror attached to their cart, which enables them
to look back to where they have come from (4). Significantly, it is the
boy who often looks behind them in an anxiety-laden gesture that
demonstrates both his role as the moral compass in the text and his
gradual loss of innocence. This is revealed in the instances in which
they encounter others on the road. When they meet a man who has
been struck by lightning, the boy keeps looking back until he realizes
that they can do nothing to help him (51–52). Later, when the boy
thinks that he sees another child and they hear a dog barking, he
repeatedly looks back (89). He also repeatedly looks behind them
when they leave the man who has stolen their clothes naked and
vulnerable on the road (276). Abandoning to the road the only named
character in the book, Ely – himself not ‘one for looking back’ (171)
– we are told that the ‘boy never looked back at all’ (185). We can
assume that all of these characters will inevitably die in the wake of
the man and the boy. When the man realizes that he is close to death
he falls behind his child. He narrates to us that the boy would ‘look
Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
75
back and [the man] would raise his weeping eyes and see him standing
there in the road looking back at him from some unimaginable future,
glowing in that waste like a tabernacle’ (293).
It is not surprising that looking occupies a central place in The
Road. The man and the boy must be vigilant in order to survive; they
must hunt for food, stay out of sight, and watch for the ‘bad guys’. It
is because of this context of constant surveillance that the man tells
the boy to be their ‘lookout’ (159). Considerable narrative space is
devoted to the description of watching. One of the few possessions
that the man and the boy carry with them is a set of binoculars through
which they ‘glass’ their surroundings. The first time that the man
looks through the binoculars they provide a textual strategy to describe
the surrounding countryside, which is revealed to be a colourless and
ashen landscape of dead trees and bits of road (2–3). Although
binoculars are a tool for augmenting vision, the subsequent times that
the man looks through them they do not perform this function. In the
first two instances we are told that he sees ‘nothing’ (7, 82), and the
third time he is specifically looking for signs of smoke but does not
see any (200). The man and the boy are repeatedly described as
observing their world; we see them ‘watching the ashen daylight
congeal over the land’ (3), ‘watching the nameless dark’ (8) and
‘watching the light draw down over the world’ (131). The man
watches the boy so much that late in the novel the boy implores him
to ‘stop watching me, Papa’ (270).11 Enhancing the theme of the
parental gaze, the man questions whether his own ancestors watch
him (209), and dreams of them casting ‘fey sideways looks upon him’
(199). The boy vigilantly watches the man. His surveillance positions
him as exceptionally mature and empathetic. He not only monitors
the man as he weakens towards death, but he also actively observes
the man’s ethical behaviour. Early in the book the boy’s inclination
to fairness and his desire to share their meagre resources is revealed
when he censures the man for giving him cocoa and taking only water
for himself: ‘I have to watch you all the time’ (35). Arielle Zibrak
reads the boy’s concern at this unfair division of resources as his
refusal to participate in a kind of symbolic cannibalism. If the boy
were to eat more than his share, this would deprive the man of
essential nourishment and cause his body to waste and diminish.12
This is related to the ethical code that the man and the boy live by,
according to which the biggest taboo – the thing that separates them
from the ‘bad guys’ – is cannibalism.
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In a book in which the physical description of characters is limited,
it is notable that eyes are commented on throughout. The first person
that they come across on the road has one eye burnt closed as the
result of a lightning strike (51). The ‘bad guy’ who directly threatens
them with a knife has eyes ‘collared in cups of grime and deeply sunk.
Like an animal inside his skull looking out the eyeholes’ (65). After
eliminating this threat, the father will be left with the memory of his
‘cold and shifting eyes’ (79). The disembodied head under the cake
bell on the pharmacist’s counter has ‘[d]ried eyes turned sadly inward’
(196). Ely has ‘[g]rayblue eyes half buried in the thin and sooty
creases of his skin’ (174) and ‘cant see good’ (177). This character
has commonly been read as an allusion to the Prophet Elijah from the
Old Testament book of Kings, who is a harbinger of the end of the
world.13 This is certainly a sustainable reading since the character is
not only present at what is clearly represented as the end of days, but
he also tells the man that he saw it coming (179). However, I think
that in focusing on his diminished vision he could equally be read as
a reference to Eli from the book of Samuel, a priest with poor vision
who eventually goes blind. Eli is entrusted with the child that Hannah
asks God for, Samuel, who is visited by God and told that he will
punish Eli’s children for their wickedness. This allusion becomes
particularly meaningful when the book is read as a warning about
anthropogenic climate change, which is framed in contemporary
discourse as a result of human behaviour.
The act of looking is necessary for basic survival in The Road, but
it is also a perilous activity. The man is very protective of the boy
when he becomes a subject of the gaze of others. When the man and
the boy are threatened by a ‘bad guy’ who has come into the woods
to relieve himself after the truck he is travelling with breaks down, the
man pulls out a gun and commands him, ‘Dont look back there. Look
at me’ (65). The ‘bad guy’ looks at the gun, at the road and at the boy.
The following exchange reveals that their power struggle is staged in
relation to the gaze:
[Man] Do I look like an imbecile to you?
[Bad guy] I dont know what you look like.
Why are you looking at him?
I can look where I want to.
No you cant. If you look at him again I’ll shoot you. (67)
Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
77
The ‘bad guy’ is able to draw his knife when he distracts the man’s
eyes by dropping his belt. Looking will again lead them into danger
when they come across a grand old house, and the man invokes one
of the repeated refrains of the book: ‘We have to take a look’ (111).
The tension between what is seen and what is unseen comes to the
fore at the old Southern dwelling.14 This has already been flagged as
a theme about twenty pages earlier when they encounter the only
potentially friendly other people on the road (until the conclusion of
the text). When the boy claims to see another boy (88–89) the father
does not see him, framing the encounter in such a way that its reality
is questionable. The textual placement of this event comes after they
hear an unseen dog barking (86), and since there is no other nonhuman animal life in the text, its existence is unlikely. When they
enter the house, their capacity to perceive correctly what they see is
tested. While the boy’s fear demonstrates that he has read the situation
as dangerous, the father’s persistence leads them into imminent
danger. This section of the novel builds tension through foreshadowing.
As they survey the house, the father’s narration is framed with
hindsight and shows rising concern. While he does not remark on the
cord running out of the window and beyond the porch, he does reveal
that the windows were ‘oddly intact’ (111), and tells us that the pile
of clothes, a visual reminder of the holocaust, would give him
something to think about later (113). When he describes the cast-iron
pot as the type that has been used for rendering pigs, he makes the
terrible admission: ‘All these things he saw and did not see’ (115).
The disconnection between sight and perception is depicted at times
as a wilful act. The father is concerned with the terrible world that the
boy is being exposed to. When they come across the bodies of
refugees melted into the road, the man and the boy have the following
conversation:
Take my hand, he said. I dont think you should see this.
What you put in your head is there forever?
Yes.
It’s okay, Papa.
It’s okay?
They’re already there.
I don’t want you to look.
They’ll still be there. (203)
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This can be read as a metatextual moment. I would argue that The
Road shows us nothing that we have not already imagined. Dystopian
literature is a repository of our already existing fears, projected into a
future world. Climate fiction is exemplary in this case because it
shows us the terrible future of the planet that we already suspect may
come to pass.
The thematic concern with the relationship between vision and
perception is extended through the representation of compromised
vision. The text opens with the man waking up in the woods to a
monochromatic world of black nights and increasingly grey days, ‘like
the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world’ (1). This
metaphoric reference to an ocular disorder that can lead to blindness
is followed by the description of the dream that he has awoken from.
In this vision-like dream, the child leads him into a cave where, in a
lake in a large stone cavern, they find a monstrous creature ‘which
stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of
spiders’ (2). The image of the eggs not only reinforces the glaucoma
imagery through the suggestion of a white and blank surface, but also
juxtaposes the description of them as ‘dead’ with the symbolism of life
that eggs evoke. Eggs are temporal artefacts; contained within these
eggs is the horrifying potential of a swarm of miniature, multi-eyed
creatures. Considered in this way, the spider eggs simultaneously
suggest blindness and a plurality of vision. This tension continues
throughout the opening pages so that, although McCarthy utilizes
strong imagery to conjure the notion of compromised sight, he
simultaneously evokes the capacity to see. Not only is the cave dream
a dystopian vision within a text that could itself be described in this
way, but their incursion into the cave is aided by a light source that
illuminates the darkness of the subterranean space so that they can see
the dripping water which metres out the geological time of the earth.
The beast itself is strangely translucent, enabling them to see into its
interior spaces to its bowls, heart, and brain.
At several points in The Road the world itself is described
anthropomorphically through the metaphor of compromised vision.
The blackness of the night is ‘sightless’ (14), and the ash that they
move through ‘closed behind them silently as eyes’ (193). This
contributes to the larger emphasis on blindness in the text. We are told
that the boy’s mother ‘cant even see’ (60). However, since she is also
described as ‘watching’ the man over a candle flame during an
argument (58), the extent to which her vision is compromised is
Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
79
ambiguous, as is whether this is due to failing eyesight or because of
the blackness of the night. The mother has the clearest vision of what
the future is likely to hold for the man and the boy. She tells us:
‘Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. The will rape
me. They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us
and you won’t face it’ (58). Her clear logic in the face of his blind
optimism continues the familiar trope of blind characters being
afforded clarity of vision. However, although safety and survival are
improbable, the man’s dogged hope eventually pays off, and the
future that the mother imagines for them is not realized within the
text. The anxiety about blindness that pervades the whole text is
evident most dramatically when the man exclaims, ‘[h]e is coming to
steal my eyes. To seal my mouth with dirt’ (280).
The complex web of references to vision, sight, and blindness
contribute to my reading of the man and boy as witnesses. ‘In the
aftermath of the collapse of the world’, Shelly L. Rambo writes,
‘there is no end in sight, no destination, and no promise of life ahead.
But in the face of these impossibilities, the impulse to impose
redemption is replaced, instead, by an imperative to witness to what
remains’.15 This is a text in which the characters (and the reader) bear
witness to the world after the apocalypse. There are moments in the
text at which the man feels that he has clarity of vision concerning the
state of things. For example:
He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment
the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate
earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running.
The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted
animals trembling like groundfoxes in their cover. Borrowed time and
borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it. (138)
Paradoxically, his vision in this moment of clarity is infused with
images of compromised sight, both through the absence of light and
blindness. The man’s celestial perspective maps the metaphor of
blindness onto the sun itself, suggesting that a sundog, usually a term
that names an atmospheric halo effect around the sun, is sightless.
This could evoke a kind of blank orbiting, echoing the notion of the
earth orbiting a sun that provides neither sufficient light nor warmth.
The earth is rendered as dead through the descriptor ‘intestate’, which
designates a person who has not made a will, and emphasizes the
futility of its ‘relentlessness circling’. The blindness of the sundogs
80
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
also suggests darkness, contributing to the sense of an unappeasable
darkness in the passage. The man’s expanded perspective permits him
an exterior vision of himself and the boy in a cosmological context.
This notion of an expanded perspective on the world is again evoked
when the man witnesses the end of the world as a kind of reverse
genesis. He tells us: ‘Perhaps in the world’s destruction it would be
possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The
ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping
waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence’ (293). What brings
both of these examples together is that the human is not only imagined
as the chosen witness to the end of days, but this man is also afforded
a god-like perspective on this devastation.
Undeniably, it is the human that is at the heart of this text. In a
cosmic reordering we are told that the sun circles the earth (32),
placing it and its inhabitants at the centre of all things. The very title
of the book, and the thing that they believe will lead them to a better
place, the road, is a human construction and a mark of civilization,
which has outlasted the apocalypse. Aside from a small cluster of
mushrooms and the unseen dog, we get no evidence of anything
living in this world save for human beings. Unlike other recent ecodystopias, such as Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003), in
which in the aftermath of the apocalyptic event humans do not fare
very well but many plants and animals thrive, The Road offers an
anthropocentric vision of the end of the world in which humans are
the final witnesses, and also in which the end of the human is also the
end of the world. This is made explicit when the boy is sick by the
beach and the man prepared to kill himself so that the boy does not
have to enter death alone. ‘You have to stay near’, the man says to
himself, ‘You have to be quick. So you can be with him. Last day of
the earth’ (267, emphasis added). Here the end of the lives of the two
central characters is transposed onto the earth itself.
I am inclined, therefore, to disagree with Kearney, ‘that the story
best serves as a challenge to the boundaries of human perception by
enabling us for a brief moment to glimpse a “world without us”’.16 No
only is the narrative largely focalized through the man, and is therefore
inescapably anthropocentric, but this world, although not hospitable
to the human, is certainty not devoid of it. The boy’s survival, however
unlikely, guarantees that the human perspective will be maintained
until the end of the text. This presence of humans is sustained even
into the vision of arcadia that the book concludes with:
Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
81
Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could
see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins
wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished
and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that
were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing
which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens
where they lived all things were older than man and hummed with
mystery. (306–7)
This vision of unspoiled nature suggests a timescale that extends
beyond the human to deep or geological time. Trout appear several
other times in the narrative, but only as a memory of something that
once was (30, 42). While the trout are described as ‘older than man’,
they are not present at the end of the world which is realised in human
time. In this concluding vision the human is projected into pristine
nature in the address to a ‘you’, presumably the reader, who can not
only ‘see’ the trout but can also hold them in their hands.17 Here,
nature is literally in the hands of humanity.
When the human holds the privileged place of witness to the end
of the world in the cultural imaginary, we need to be cognizant of the
particularity of this version of the human. What is evident in The
Road is the persistence of the ideology of liberal humanism. The
anthropocentrism of The Road privileges the perspective of a certain
type of human who is male, apparently white, evokes Christian
mythology, and was once middle class.18 This is an American voice
in a text in which the United States has become the entire world. The
man, whose very existence fulfils American exceptionalism, embodies
the characteristics associated with American individualism: selfreliance, resourcefulness, and independence. These are qualities that
the man cultivates in the boy, who becomes hardened through learning
that they cannot help others at the expense of their own survival. The
masculine individualism that is privileged in the text is further
emphasized through the deeply problematic position afforded to
women. The main example of this is the doubling of the boy’s mother
and the woman who talks to him of God at the end of the text, who
together embody the archetype of women as Madonna or whore.
When his mother justifies her suicide, to the man she describes herself
as a ‘faithless slut’ (58) with a ‘whorish heart’ (59). After her death,
the man dreams of her in sexualized visions in which she is framed as
a temptress, drawing him toward death (17). In a book that is focused
on the relationship between parent and child, her absence positions
82
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
her as a failed mother.19 Alternatively, the woman at the end of the
book is positioned as a good mother not only for staying alive but
also, the text explicitly tells us, for not eating her children (304).
When she meets the boy she provides immediate maternal care
through enfolding him in her arms. She also talks to him about God,
positioning her within the familiar trope of woman as bastion of moral
order within the domestic sphere. The archetypal status of these
characters is reinforced by the absence of names throughout the text.
This extrapolates their individual experiences to universal significance
and, in the case of the man, positions him as the American Everyman.
Accepting anthropogenic climate change means acknowledging
that human existence is registering on a global scale and at a geological
level. It involves the very important and necessary work of mitigating
human impact. This requires us to visualize that climate change is
something that humans have caused, and that the solution to this
ecological problem lies with human action. In relation to the debate
about global warming, Dipesh Chakrabarty has suggested that at the
level of discourse we are seeing a breakdown between natural and
human history. He writes:
Scholars writing on the current climate-change crisis are indeed saying
something significantly different from what environmental historians
have said so far. In unwittingly destroying the artificial but time-honoured
distinction between natural and human histories, climate scientists posit
that the human being has become something much larger than the simple
biological agent that he or she always has been. Humans now wield a
geological force.20
This enlargement of the human is evident not only in scientific
discussions about climate change but also in the literature that
responds to it. However, coming to terms with climate change also
necessitates an understanding of the world in which the human is not
at the centre of all things. The discursive privileging of the human
might also restrict the scope of our vision of the world and our impact
on it. Not only do we need to pay greater attention to the contours of
the human within this discourse, but also, in order for literature and
literary criticism to really start the work of addressing climate change
we must think critically about the relative place afforded to the human
and the non-human in contemporary texts.
Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
83
Notes
1. Cormac McCarthy, The Road (London: Picador, 2010); hereafter, page numbers are
provided in parentheses in the main body of the article and notes. The quotation from
O’Hagan has been important to the marketing of the novel and appears on the back cover of
the 2010 Picador edition.
2. George Monbiot, ‘Civilization Ends with a Shutdown of Human Concern: Are We
There Already?’ Guardian, 30 October 2007, retrieved 5 August 2013 from: http://www.
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/cot/30/comment.books.
3. Adeline Johns-Putra, ‘Ecocriticism, Genre, and Climate Change: Reading the
Utopian Vision of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Science in the Capital Trilogy’, English Studies
91, 7 (2010), 748; Adam Trexler and Adeline Johns-Putra, ‘Climate Change in Literature and
Literary Criticism’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 2, 2 (2011), 188.
4. See Louise Squire, ‘Death and the Anthropocene: Cormac McCarthy’s World of
Unliving’, Oxford Literary Review 34, 2 (2012), 211–28.
5. The etymology of Anthropocene is Anthropos, meaning ‘human being’, and Kainos,
meaning ‘new’: a new geological time in which human impact is felt as a force of nature and
at the level of planetary change.
6. ‘Oprah’s Exclusive Interview with Cormac McCarthy Video’, retrieved 5 August
2013 from: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Oprahs-Exclusive-Interview-withCormac-McCarthy-Video.
7. Revelation is also a text that mobilizes ideas about vision. This is evident in the
repeated command ‘behold’, the vision that induces death (‘And when I saw him, I fell at his
feet as dead’, Rev 1: 17) and the many-eyed beasts.
8. See, respectively, Carl James Grindley, ‘The Setting of McCarthy’s The Road’, The
Explicator 67, 1 (2010), 11–13; Dana Phillips, ‘“He Ought Not Have Done It”: McCarthy
and Apocalypse’, Cormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, The
Road, ed. Sara L. Spurgeon (London: Continuum, 2011), 172–88; Tim Blackmore, ‘Life of
War, Death of the Rest: The Shining Path of Cormac McCarthy’s Thermonuclear America’,
Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 29 (2009), 18–36; and Monbiot, ‘Civilization
Ends with a Shutdown of Human Concern’.
9. Laura Gruber Godfrey, ‘“The World He’d Lost”: Geography and “Green” Memory
in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road’, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 52, 2 (2011),
170.
10. Interestingly, the morels, one of the only other relics from the old world, are
describes as ‘alien-looking things’ (41).
11. The boy also asks the man to stop watching him when he is licking the lid of a can
(204).
12. Arielle Zibrak, ‘Intolerance, A Survival Guide: Heteronormative Culture Formation
in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road’, Arizona Quarterly 68, 3 (2012), 119.
13. See Grindley, ‘The Setting’, 12; and Erik J. Wielenberg, ‘God, Morality and
Meaning in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road’, Cormac McCarthy Journal 8, 1 (2010), 2.
14. We can assume that this house is a large Southern house because when they are on
the front porch we are told that ‘[c]hattel slaves had once trod those boards bearing food and
drink on silver trays’ (112). This reference to human bondage resonates in disturbing ways
with the discovery of the people locked in the house’s cellar.
84
Critical Survey, Volume 25, Number 2
15. Shelly L. Rambo, ‘Beyond Redemption? Reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
After the End of the World’, Studies in the Literary Imagination 41, 2 (2008), 115.
16. Kevin Kearney, ‘Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the Frontier of the Human’,
Literature Interpretation Theory 23, 2 (2012), 175.
17. This disembodied vision at the end is in sharp contrast to the vision of the monster
in the cave with which the book opens. Not only are internal and external, and height and
depth, in contrast, but so is stillness and motion: the cave contains a dark and ancient pool
whereas the stream in the mountains is moving with an ‘amber current’ (306). The depiction
of the trout and the monster could not be more polarised. Not only are the fish familiar and
the monster strange, but the trout are ‘[p]olished and muscular and torsional’ (307) while the
monster is ‘pale and naked and translucent’ with ‘alabaster bones’ (2). While the monster is
blind to its surroundings and navigates its world through smell, the trout have maps of the
future inscribed in the pattern on their backs.
18. I read the man as white because of the absence of references to race in the text. This
whiteness is reinforced by the casting of Viggo Mortensen as the man in the novel’s 2009
film adaptation. The man’s class is revealed both through his memories of his old life, such
as attending the theatre with his wife (18), and through his decidedly educated tone.
19. The other mother who fails conspicuously in the text is the woman whose baby is
found headless and roasting over a fire (212).
20. Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘The Climate of History: Four Theses’, Critical Inquiry 35
(2009), 206.
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