By Arun Maira
Global climate change is running ahead of solutions to mitigate it. Climate scientists are fixated on reducing carbon emissions to prevent further densification of the atmosphere’s carbon layer which is causing global warming. National governments have met 28 times since they first met in Berlin in 1995, most recently in the 28th COP in Dubai in 2023. Every time they meet, climate scientists raise further alarms. Solutions are not keeping pace.
Why? Because modern climate science is an incomplete science. Climate scientists are overly focused on the physical and chemical system in which they want to improve the circulation of energy and materials. Whereas changes must be made simultaneously in the economic and political system, to increase the circulation of wealth and power, which is presently concentrated with the richest countries and the richest people.
The physics and chemistry of climate change is driven by Einstein’s formula, e=mc2. Energy and materials in different forms can be converted into each other. Overall, the material and energy content of any closed system is in balance. In the last century economic productivity and growth, and improvement of living standards, have become increasingly dependent on the use of carbon and hydrocarbon sources of energy which take eons to renew. Therefore, other sources of energy must be found and ways of reducing hydrocarbon use.
Changes in lifestyles and production systems are essential to reduce carbon emissions. Also, substitution of non-renewable with renewable energy, especially solar which brings new energy into the Earth’s system every day. Hydro and wind energy, which do not require any material to be converted into energy—only conversion of energy in one form to another—do not deplete the planet’s material resources. Nuclear energy, which derives energy from material, has great risks associated with disposal of toxic wastes. Hydrocarbon energy makes the atmosphere toxic; nuclear energy may make the ground toxic for centuries.
Physicists are not concerned with the distribution of wealth and power in social systems. Changes in forms of energy used in products and production systems require changes in economic structures. There will be winners and losers amongst industries and amongst nations too. The largest and most profitable industries, who are the greatest beneficiaries of the present paradigm, have the greatest political power. Resistance from countries, like the US, whose citizens are the most dependent on hydrocarbon dependent lifestyles, and who also have the largest industries dependent on the production and use of hydrocarbons, resist change in the paradigm the most.
Within countries, the richest people, who have the most energy dependent lifestyles, and have the largest houses and cars and most appliances, and who travel the most by air for work and leisure, do not feel an urgency to live in harmony with Nature. They can afford to buy more gadgets to reduce pollution and keep their homes cooler. Those gadgets require energy to run and for their production too. Thus, rich people with higher per capita incomes exert more pressure per capita than the poor on the Earth and its atmosphere, which are common resources which should be shared equitably. With greater privatisation of all industries, including banking and financial services, those who have more money call the tunes in public policy. More decision-making power in choosing technologies for climate change is with rich investors, who are least affected personally by climate change, and are more concerned with monetary returns on their investments. Products and solutions by the private sector for the poor require financial investors to extract profit from the bottom for returns on their investments. Thus, wealth continues to flow to the top of the pyramid. The rich get richer; inequalities in wealth and power increase; delaying further the discovery of equitable solutions for climate change.
The scientific paradigm of climate change has become too narrowly focused on carbon circulation, capping, and pricing. It must be broadened in at least four ways.
Firstly, it must be expanded even on the materials and energy side. The circulation of water in various forms on the planet must become more central in the climate model. Water is fundamental for all forms of life. Billions of people have been suffering and dying from scarcity of water and water pollution long before carbon became the overriding concern of climate science and policy in this century.
Secondly, scientists and technologists must understand the planet’s natural systems much better before proposing solutions for governments and investors to adopt. Nature’s hydrological infrastructure has been destroyed with concrete and steel infrastructure: hills with natural runoffs flattened and water channels and lakes covered to level land for urban development and highways; and big dams constructed for “scientifically” managing water storage and flow which have large and unintended consequences for environmental sustainability. GDP increases whenever natural infrastructure is replaced by man-made infrastructure. But the sustainability of life reduces.
Thirdly, the world needs local systems solutions cooperatively developed and implemented by communities to solve the global climate problem. Environmental problems are interlinked with livelihood and economic problems everywhere. However, these problems take different shapes in different places. Therefore, “one size-fits all” climate solutions will not be applicable everywhere. Solutions must be congruent with local realities, and local communities must resolve the give-and-take amongst themselves that systemic solutions always require.
Fourthly, those who produce wealth by their work must accumulate financial wealth themselves and not have to pass it to external investors. Wealth has been flowing upwards in the last few decades increasing wealth inequalities. Moreover, with the excessive financial of economies, with investors investing mostly in other financial ventures, only 15% of the funds generated in the financial sector have been going to businesses in the non-financial sector according to Rana Foroohar in Makers and Takers (2016).
A paradigm change in the paradigm of political power is essential for sustainable solutions for humanity’s existential problem of climate change. Climate solutions which may be technologically exciting and investor enriching will not change the paradigm of power. People at the bottom of the pyramid must accumulate more wealth and power. Cooperative forms of economic enterprises, in which local producers are also the owners, are required to ensure that wealth circulates locally and is reinvested for the community’s gain.
(Arun Maira is a former Member of the Planning Commission and author of several books, the latest is “Shaping the Future: A Guide for System Leaders”) (Syndicate: The Billion Press) (email: [email protected])