There shall be no twist in our sobriety
“The Delusional” is the most popular cocktail at decision makers’ parties right now: half post-COVID self-congratulation, half positivism. In other words, technology will be our vaccine against climate change.
Many contenders are lining up for the oxymoron Olympics: eco-friendly sport cars, tree-planting jet fuels, nature regenerative tourism resorts in pristine areas, diamond necklaces that support the fight against inequalities. “I love the way capitalism finds a place – even for its enemies”, said Banksy. Anti-system icons are sought to support marketing campaigns. The common feature of these discourses is the subliminal but axiomatic assertion that "I am willing to change, if I have nothing to change". Something echoing Einstein’s definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.
While UN Secretary General has called latest IPCC report “A code red for Humanity”, the invest-in-new-technologies exclusive approach to the fight against climate change is not only a sham but a real danger. Here is why:
-?????????We can already very efficiently fight climate change with existing technologies in buildings, agriculture, energy production and industry. What is lacking is not technology, it is the shared view of what is desirable, translated into an effective price signal. “Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem–in my opinion–to characterize our age.” said Einstein. According to World Bank, only 22% of global greenhouse gases are subject to a tax/quota mechanism and the average price is 4$ per ton of CO2eq, far from the 150 to 200$ needed to trigger a significant shift.
-?????????The most accessible and impactful option in the carbon stabilization wedges[1] is limiting demand (from developed countries). Increasing resource efficiency to then meet incompressible demand is a second order of magnitude solution.
-?????????Benefits of increase in energy efficiency have been systematically offset by the emergence of additional usages: the so called rebound/take-back effect[2] (number of appliances in homes, higher equipment/weight of cars, more airmiles per passengers per year…).
-?????????Because breakthrough low carbon energy technologies take a long time to deploy at scale, immediate action should focus on limitation of energy demand.
-?????????It is easier to change the price tag of a product or a service than to change the laws of physics in the atmosphere.
-?????????Geoengineering proponents have no capabilities to assume the consequences of their potential failure to deliver their promises.
-?????????Last, to those urging to colonize Mars, I prefer Mauriac’s quote “It is useless for mankind to win the Moon if it loses the Earth”.
It is about time to put an end to the largest Ponzi scheme, placing ever bigger bets on miracle technologies to pay-back the environmental debt upcoming generations will face. In his book “The Great Escape and the origin of inequalities”, Angus Deaton explains how progress does not occur everywhere at the same time, therefore leading to inequalities. Eventually however, benefits of progress will spread to the masses and inequalities will reduce. So where are we standing?
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-?????????Pre-Covid in the United States, life expectancy of the white working class has decreased for the first time since a century and for three years in a row[3].
-?????????Global greenhouse gas emissions have been rising at +1,5% per annum during the 2010-2019 decade when they should be decreasing by 7% per year until 2050. We are not closing the gap but widening it. In 2019 the International Energy Agency wrote “Consumers are buying ever larger and less fuel-efficient cars, known as Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs). This dramatic shift towards bigger and heavier cars has led to a doubling of the share of SUVs over the last decade. There are now over 200 million SUVs around the world, up from about 35 million in 2010, accounting for 60% of the increase in the global car fleet since 2010. (…) As a consequence, SUVs were the second-largest contributor to the increase in global CO2?emissions since 2010 after the power sector, but ahead of heavy industry (including iron & steel, cement, aluminum), as well as trucks and aviation.”
-?????????Post-Covid, the International Labor Organization’s?World Employment and Social Outlook[4] projects the global crisis-induced ‘jobs gap’ will reach 75 million in 2021. Yet, Rolls Royce sells more cars than ever and fails to meet soaring demand, bringing the waiting time to delivery to more than a year.
Exponential growth in a finite world is an illusion. By 2050, the + 2°C compliant equitable carbon budget per human per year will be 2 tons of CO2eq. All God's children need travelling shoes. There shall be no twist in our sobriety.
[1] Socolow and Pacala 2004, and following extensions of their initial model
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebound_effect_(conservation)
[3] What Angus Deaton calls Deaths of Despair: suicide, alcoholism, and opioids.
[4] Trends 2021?(WESO Trends)
Experienced Senior Public Affairs & Regulatory Affairs Expert - with a focus on Financial Services, Energy & Sustainability - Executive Experience
3 年Entertaining read and sobering at the same time: you are probably right.
Managing Risks and Compliance @ LSEG's SFI (Sustainable Finance & Investment). Opinions and statements on LinkedIn are my own.
3 年Thank you Rodolphe, thought-provoking as ever ! ;-) I take comfort in your Angus Deaton explaining "how progress does not occur everywhere at the same time, therefore leading to inequalities. Eventually however, benefits of progress will spread to the masses and inequalities will reduce." : a cynic would say that, in death, everyone is equal. An "active pessimist" such as Georges Besse would probably get on with the job of trying, trying and trying again as we must, fully aware that for mankind to survive and thrive, progress cannot be confined to technology but needs to spread to all spheres of human life.