This was published (in Chinese) as an op-ed in the People’s Daily (Beijing) on 25 July 2013, they gave it the title of ‘The Challenge of Climate Change in the Anthropocene’. The authors are John S. Dryzek and David Schlosberg.
The fact that climate change presents a great challenge to the world is widely recognized, but the real depth of the challenge is not. The most profound aspects of the challenge do not lie in the science of climate change, or the technical aspects of policies that might be chosen to confront it (such as a tax on carbon dioxide, or a ‘cap and trade’ scheme to limit greenhouse gas emissions). Rather, they lie in the way the world’s main economic, social, and governance systems operate and how they interact with ecological systems.
These human systems were not designed, and did not evolve, to cope with issues like climate change. National governments in particular were designed or evolved to cope with three broad categories of issues: ensuring economic growth, maintaining security both internally and externally, and providing for social welfare. Of course governments do not always succeed in these three tasks, but they are generally organized to at least try to succeed, and we have some idea about reasons for success and failure.
Climate change is different. It drives home the idea that we are entering a new and unstable era in which human influences are primary drivers of the Earth system – this is what some scientists now call the ‘Anthropocene’. The Earth system may react in potentially catastrophic ways: changing patterns of rainfall, flood and drought, extreme weather events, sea level rise, the movement of climates between regions, and even the creation of new kinds of regional climates, with all kinds of consequences for human wellbeing. Human civilizations evolved in a very different ‘Holocene’ era of the past 10,000 years in which the Earth system was much more stable.
At the global level, twenty years of UN-sponsored negotiations have failed to produce an effective treaty to bring greenhouse gas emissions under control. Global governance mechanisms designed for economic and security issues have not worked when it comes to climate change.
At this global level no less than elsewhere, the dominant response to failure has been for everyone to continue doing more of the same as what they were already doing. So government negotiators still behave as though a comprehensive global treaty is possible. Civil society organizations and lobbyists still focus their efforts on influencing these negotiations. Scientists continue to conduct more research. Economists continue to produce more estimates of the costs of climate change. Policy makers worry about the design details of emissions trading or offset schemes. Organized climate change deniers financed by powerful fossil fuel interests continue to strive to undermine the science and so block any action (though they are prominent only in the United States, Canada, and Australia).
How then can we begin to think about a more effective response? Responding effectively to climate change will require many linked things, at multiple levels, rather than one big thing (such as a global treaty). Of course societies need to move in the direction of an economy that does not depend on fossil fuels, but that is only part of the story. Such moves need to be made without waiting for an international agreement, and in ways that do not sacrifice development goals; renewable technologies such as solar and wind are already emerging to make this happen, and can be adopted almost anywhere in decentralized ways that suit the local environment.
But then what does development itself mean? We are used to thinking about development in terms of growth in national income. Yet such growth does not necessarily translate directly into growth in human wellbeing. Once basic needs have been satisfied and a decent level of income achieved, more material income does not produce more happiness. New economic thinking should be able to envisage economies that are not geared to unlimited materi