Earlier this week the final report from the IPCC (press release) on climate change was released. While it indicates that it is still technically possible to limit global warming to 1½
degrees; such an outcome is both unlikely and may require more than lots of trees to pull excess carbon from the
atmosphere.
While climate change is a major 'existential' issue – and may prove to be the most important of such issues – it is hard
to focus on it at the moment, with two other more immediate existential issues facing us, neither of which are going to
go away in a convenient manner: pestilence, and Putin. (Covid19 is only the 'tip of the iceberg' of the broader
pestilence issue, which was unleashed into our consciousness in 2020; the wider issue relates to the socioeconomic
causes and consequences of disease, and other forms of contagion – which are not viral in the microbiological sense.)
There are three determinative options re climate change: prevent, adapt, and hope. These are not mutually exclusive; we
(humankind) can and should seek to do all three. But these options represent three different emphases of action or
inaction.Hope
This is not about hoping that the science of carbon gas emissions, global warming and climate change is wrong. Instead
it is about gaining a better understanding of what science is and is not, and about the 'stochastic' nature of all
prediction; including (indeed especially) scientific prediction, which is based on an incomplete and evolving knowledge
base.
'Stochastic' means that there is a range of statistically possible outcomes, even if our knowledge of the present and
past ('the science') could be perfect. The 'unmodified future' is based on the midpoint of a range of projections (or
predictions). If accurate (ie unbiassed), there is a fifty percent chance that the outcome will be 'worse' than
predicted, and a fifty percent chance that the outcome will be 'better' than predicted.
Thus, we may hope that – in the absence of any substantial global or national policy initiatives – the climate change
outcome will be substantially better, by pure chance, than the midpoint prediction. Aligned with this, we may hope that,
by chance, future scientific discoveries will lead to favourable modifications of our present range of predictions.
As a rough ballpark estimate, I would suggest that the chances of a fortunate outcome following a strategy of inaction
might be around five percent; maybe even ten percent. On the opposite extremity of this probability spectrum there would
be a similar five to ten percent chance of a truly catastrophic outcome (eg similar to the sea-level impact of Canada's
Laurentide ice sheet melting, just over 10,000 years ago).Prevent
Assuming the current midpoint scientific prediction, there are – it is argued – policy options that must be implemented
in the early 2020s that would lead to a midpoint outcome which falls within the 'acceptable range' of 1½ degrees of
global warming. (Note that, if we bring this midpoint prediction just to the cusp of the 1½ degree threshold, there is
still a fifty percent change of breeching that threshold in practice.)
The question here is: What is the chance that the required political interventions will take place? Given our track record so far – and given the noted existential distractions – the chance that correct and sufficient
interventions will take place is about one in a million. Possible, yes, but highly improbable.
This does not mean that preventative policy strategies should not take place; such strategies could increase the chance
of a hopeful outcome (eg to twenty percent), and diminish the chance of a truly catastrophic outcome (eg to two
percent).
Important in this context is that we may need to adopt a 'lesser evil' strategy. And the most important such strategy –
increasingly discussed – is a nuclear power strategy.
(Another possible strategy, or even complementary to nuclear power expansion, would be for people to increasingly settle
in sunny environments near coasts – including desert environments – whereby solar power could be abundant, and water
supplies would be extracted via solar-powered desalination of sea water. This would mean less human encroachment on good
farmland, and possibly an increased reliance on urban-hydroponic 'market-gardening' for food supplies. And, similar
renewable technology could facilitate the development of technologically-advanced hybrid shipping to enhance the supply
chain. 'Hybrid' could include a greater role for wind, solar, and uranium as fuels for freight transport.)
Nuclear power is clearly a classic example of a 'lesser evil'. There are well-understood risks of catastrophic accidents
with very long-lasting environmental impacts. Further, nuclear power plants are obvious military targets, making it
possible to conduct nuclear war without the use of nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless, we (in the west) have been lax in developing nuclear technology in ways which minimise such risks. This is
despite that fact that nuclear fuels – especially uranium – are less concentrated (than oil and gas) in politically
problematic countries such as Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
China has been less lax. Indeed China, for all its faults, has probably actually done more to decarbonise the earth than
any other polity. First, through its post-1980s' industrialisation, it has enabled much deindustrialisation to take
place in the west. This is significant. Second, China has not been afraid to do the research and development work
required to bring about twenty-first century nuclear technology, as well as solar and wind generation.
The west can work with China. To some, such cooperation would fall into the 'lesser evil' category. The west could start
by cutting back on the excesses of 'political gaslighting' of China that have been increasing in recent years.
I read the following in the New Zealand Listener (12 March 2022) in a story titled 'Sino things to come': "China is happy with nuclear reactors, with 54 of them
producing power and another 14 under construction. It has built a new kind of reactor, which doesn't run on uranium but
on thorium. This weakly radioactive metallic chemical element has the potential to produce safer and cheaper nuclear
energy while generating a much smaller amount of long-lived radioactive waste."
This is the kind of initiative that Germany, for example, should and could have been undertaking; instead of becoming
reliant on Russian gas while supposedly both decarbonising and denuclearising. What has happened is that Russia has
'played Germany', Russia's greatest historical rival. Whatever happens in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has already defeated
Angela Merkel in his politico-economic gamesmanship. And this 'victory' of Putin is as much a part of the west's problem
in dealing with him today as is his possession of 'weapons of mass destruction'. Germany is dependent on Russia.
Just about anything we can do to tilt the odds away from environmental catastrophe can be a good thing; albeit with the
understanding that replacing one scenario of catastrophe with another less probable scenario of catastrophe should be
undertaken with eyes open.Adapt
As noted, the probability that our climate-change political target will be met is probably about one in a million.
(Anything that helps is better than nothing, of course, though bearing in mind that unintended consequences from
political actions – possibly arising from wilful blindness – can undermine the overall success of political
interventions.)
Thus, we must adapt to the environmental consequences of our past, present and likely future 'bad habits'. A commitment
to adaption need not undermine preventative policies; it need not be a case of either/or. Adaption strategies should not
be seen as acknowledgement of political failure; rather they represent survival realism. Further, the 'expected
investment return' on a pure adaption strategy would most likely be substantially higher than the expected return on a
pure prevention strategy.
We need to learn how to live in, and insure ourselves in, a warmer and stormier world. An important part of this will be
indirect, enabling a more equitable world in which it is in the interest of everyone to look to the future as well as to
subsist in the present. Further, if we as free(ish) agents are given sufficient autonomy, we can make better choices
without looking to governments to make those choices for us. Such 'civil society' choices can facilitate a lessening of
climate change as well as adaptation to it.
Adaptation to climate change is a mitigation, a lesser evil. Elimination of a problem is clearly better than having to
live with a problem. Nevertheless, that's how life works. Through realism. Our lives are imperfect. Yet we survive, by
making difficult trade-offs and by performing practical balancing acts.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and
Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.