Global Environmental Change-human and Policy Dimensions, Nov 1, 2016
Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justi... more Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justice concerns are an important but as yet under-recognised dimension influencing public reactions to these emerging techniques. This paper describes and explores justice issues raised by participants in a series of deliberative public engagement meetings. Such justice issues included the distribution of costs and benefits across space and time; the relative power and influence of beneficiaries and others; and the weakness of procedural justice measures that might protect public interests in decision making about climate engineering. We argue that publics are mobilising diverse concepts of justice, echoing both philosophical and practical sources. We conclude that a better understanding of conceptions of justice in this context could assist exploration and understanding of public perceptions of and attitudes towards climate engineering and the different technologies involved. Such detailed public engagement would appear essential if sound, well-informed and morally justifiable decisions are to be made regarding research or development of climate engineering.
Environment And Planning E: Nature And Space, Dec 13, 2021
Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scient... more Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scientific literature and other media might deter measures to mitigate climate change through reduction of emissions at source-the phenomenon of 'mitigation deterrence'. Given the urgent need for climate action, any delay in emissions reduction would be worrying. We convened nine deliberative workshops to expose stakeholders to futures scenarios involving mitigation deterrence. The workshops examined ways in which deterrence might arise, and how it could be minimised. The deliberation exposed social and cultural interactions that might otherwise remain hidden. The paper describes narratives and ideas discussed in the workshops regarding political and economic mechanisms through which mitigation deterrence might occur, the plausibility of such pathways, and measures recommended to reduce the risk of such occurrence. Mitigation deterrence is interpreted as an important example of the 'attraction of delay' in a setting in which there are many incentives for procrastination. While our stakeholders accepted the historic persistence of delay in mitigation, some struggled to accept that similar processes, involving GGRs, may be happening now. The paper therefore also reviews the claims made by participants about mitigation deterrence, identifying discursive strategies that advocates of carbon removal might deploy to deflect concerns about mitigation deterrence. We conclude that the problem of mitigation deterrence is significant, needs to be recognised in climate policy, and its mechanisms better understood. Based on stakeholder proposals we suggest ways of governing GGR which would maximise both GGR and carbon reduction through other means. Highlights • Greenhouse gas removal discourses exemplify how technological promises enable prevarication through their enrolment in scientific, cultural, economic and political processes • Many stakeholders share concerns that mitigation deterrence is arising from exaggerated expectations regarding future greenhouse gas removal technologies • Novel futures scenario deliberations effectively expose and highlight cultural and political dimensions and risks of possible climate policy pathways • Policy recommendations include separate targets for removals and emissions reductions, and interventions to counteract the power of incumbent vested interests • Recognizing the risks requires a shift of deliberative register to one permitting reflexive consideration of cultural, political and economic effects
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, Mar 14, 2021
Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwi... more Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwined with its emerging politics. This review outlines ways in which research conditions or constructs solar geoengineering in diverse ways, including the forms of possible material technologies of solar geoengineering; the criteria and targets for their assessment; the scenarios in which they might be deployed; the publics which may support or oppose them; their political implications for other climate responses, and the international relations, governance mechanisms, and configurations of power that are presumed in order to regulate them. The review also examines proposals for governance of research, including suggested frameworks, principles, procedures, and institutions. It critically assesses these proposals, revealing their limitations given the context of the conditioning effects of current research. The review particularly highlights problems of the reproduction of Northern norms, instrumental approaches to public engagement, a weak embrace of precaution, and a persistent-but questionable-separation of research from deployment. It details complexities inherent in effective research governance which contribute to making the pursuit of solar geoengineering risky, controversial, and ethically contentious. In conclusion, it suggests a case for an explicit, reflexive research governance regime developed with international participation. It suggests that such a regime should encompass modeling and social science, as well as field experimentation, and must address not only technical and environmental, but also the emergent social and political, implications of research.
Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because intern... more Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge-traditions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet unspecified rational governance), but the practicality of international governance remains mostly speculative. Using evidence gathered from state delegates, climate activists and modellers, we reveal three underlying and clashing 'geofutures': an idealised understanding of governable geoengineering that abstracts from technical and political realities; a situated understanding of geoengineering emphasising power hierarchies in world order; and a pragmatist precautionary understanding emerging in spaces of negotiation such as UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). Set in the wider historical context of climate politics, the failure to agree even to a study of geoengineering at UNEA indicates underlying obstacles to global rules and institutions for geoengineering posed by divergent interests and underlying epistemic and political differences. Technology assessments should recognise that geoengineering will not be exempt from international fractures; that deployment of geoengineering through imposition is a serious risk; and that contestations over geofutures pertain, not only to climate policy, but also the future of planetary order. Policy Implications • Assessments of the feasibility and desirability of geoengineering technologies should never be based solely on knowledge produced under idealised conditions, (e.g. climate modelling or integrated climate and economic modelling). • Assessments of technologies with global implications should factor in risks and complications generated by the international fragmentation of world politics and histories.
Chapter 1 Environmental Space, Equity and the Ecological Debt Duncan McLaren 'No les... more Chapter 1 Environmental Space, Equity and the Ecological Debt Duncan McLaren 'No less than a decent quality of life for all, no more than a fair share of the Earth's resource' INTRODUCTION This chapter sketches out the relationships between sustainability and equity. It offers the ...
Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately fro... more Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately from existing and future targets for emissions reduction. Failure to make such a separation has already hampered climate policy, exaggerating the expected future contribution of negative emissions in climate models, while also obscuring the extent and pace of the investment needed to deliver negative emissions. Separation would help minimize the negative impacts that promises and deployments of negative emissions could have on emissions reduction, arising from effects such as temporal trade-offs, excessive offsetting, and technological lock-in. Benefits for international, national, local, organizational, and sectoral planning would arise from greater clarity over the role and timing of negative emissions alongside accelerated emissions reduction.
For more than 40 years we’ve seen that the wellbeing of people and planet go hand in hand – and i... more For more than 40 years we’ve seen that the wellbeing of people and planet go hand in hand – and it’s been the inspiration for our campaigns. Together with thousands of people like you we’ve secured safer food and water, defended wildlife and natural habitats, championed the move to clean energy and acted to keep our climate stable. Be a Friend of the Earth – see things differently. Summary synthesis of literature review on bioproductivity
Abstract This paper aims to establish a framework in which potential methods for evaluating envir... more Abstract This paper aims to establish a framework in which potential methods for evaluating environmental impacts can be considered, with particular reference to the UK planning system. To do this a number of complementary ways of conceptualising sustainable ...
Swedish press debate regarding the idea of a 'circular economy' is analysed to enable critical re... more Swedish press debate regarding the idea of a 'circular economy' is analysed to enable critical reflection on the development and use of the concept. We examine how actor positions formed around ideas of increased circularity. Using press material from 2012 to 2019 we identify positions on circular economy taken by Swedish companies, public authorities, political parties, and opinion makers. Our analysis reveals convergence amongst these actors at the national level despite ongoing situated local environmental conflicts. We show that this convergence is enabled by the convening power of ambiguity, which characterizes the use of circular economy ideas as an 'floating signifier' in the debate. In Sweden ideas of a circular economy may have been deployed by resilient capital to harness an otherwise economically disruptive process, as a new expression of ecological modernization. Further research into the political economy of circular economy ideas is encouraged.
It has taken many years to establish the argument that pollution prevention is required to contro... more It has taken many years to establish the argument that pollution prevention is required to control environmental damage. Policies for pollution dispersal influenced by the self-interest of the industrial lobbies gave us taller chimneys (and acid rain) and longer outfalls (and polluted seas). Pollution dispersal has been a failure. Moreover, the most pressing pollution problem we face is already dispersed: the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with the associated threat of an unprecedented rate of climate change. It is the total quantity of carbon dioxide (C02) in the atmosphere that is the problem: not whether it is concentrated or dispersed. Climate change has rapidly climbed national and international political and research agendas. The main contributors to the problem are carbon dioxide, CFCs, methane, nitrogen oxides and ozone. The 1990 report of the inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change indicated that a reduction in carbon dioxide
Non-technical summary. In the face of limited carbon budgets, negative emissions technologies (NE... more Non-technical summary. In the face of limited carbon budgets, negative emissions technologies (NETs) offer hopes of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It is difficult to determine whether the prospect of NETs is significantly deterring or delaying timely action to cut emissions. This paper sets out a novel theoretical perspective to this challenge, enabling analysis that accounts for interactions between technologies, society and political and economic power. The paper argues that, seen in this light, the scope of NETs to substitute for mitigation may be easily exaggerated, and thus that the risk of harm from mitigation deterrence should be taken seriously. Technical summary. This paper offers a new theoretical perspective on the risk that geoengineering interventions might deter or delay mitigation (previously typically described as moral hazard). Drawing on a brief review of mitigation deterrence (MD) in solar geoengineering, it suggests a novel analytical viewpoint going beyond and contrasting with the methodological individualist, managerialist and economist analyses common in the literature. Three distinct registers to assist identification and interpretation of situations and processes through which MD might arise are elaborated and compared. The paper shows that moving from a realist register via a cultural register to a cultural political economy register, makes it clearer how and why misperceived substitutability (between negative emissions technologies (NETs) and mitigation) and narrow climate policy goals matter for MD. We have also identified several plausible mechanisms for MD under a neoliberal political regime. The paper argues that MD cannot be overcome simply by better informing decision makers (the 'realist' response), or even by opening up the standard techno-economic framing of climate change and our responses (the 'cultural' response). The paper also concludes that the entire political regime that has evolved alongside specific economic interests is implicated in MD, and that the likelihood and significance of MD probably remain underappreciated and understudied.
I n recent years, and especially following the Paris Agreement, the target of "net zero" car... more I n recent years, and especially following the Paris Agreement, the target of "net zero" carbon emissions by has come to the forefront of global climate politics. The U.K., for instance-while hosting the twenty-sixth UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties from October to November of declared that its principal goal was "to secure global net zero by mid-century and keep . degrees within reach." At the latest count, countries have made net zero commitments. Meeting a global net zero target would involve any "residual" carbon emissions being counterbalanced by anthropogenic carbon removals achieved through "negative emissions techniques" (NETs). Achieving net zero is essential to stabilizing the increase in temperatures, although the specific temperature at stabilization depends upon the cumulative emissions until that date. If emissions peak in the next few years and net zero is reached by , there will be a reasonable chance of limiting warming to .°C. Though achieving .°C will be formidably difficult, the widespread embrace of national net zero targets would provide an important step toward climate stabilization.
Global Environmental Change-human and Policy Dimensions, Nov 1, 2016
Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justi... more Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justice concerns are an important but as yet under-recognised dimension influencing public reactions to these emerging techniques. This paper describes and explores justice issues raised by participants in a series of deliberative public engagement meetings. Such justice issues included the distribution of costs and benefits across space and time; the relative power and influence of beneficiaries and others; and the weakness of procedural justice measures that might protect public interests in decision making about climate engineering. We argue that publics are mobilising diverse concepts of justice, echoing both philosophical and practical sources. We conclude that a better understanding of conceptions of justice in this context could assist exploration and understanding of public perceptions of and attitudes towards climate engineering and the different technologies involved. Such detailed public engagement would appear essential if sound, well-informed and morally justifiable decisions are to be made regarding research or development of climate engineering.
Environment And Planning E: Nature And Space, Dec 13, 2021
Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scient... more Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scientific literature and other media might deter measures to mitigate climate change through reduction of emissions at source-the phenomenon of 'mitigation deterrence'. Given the urgent need for climate action, any delay in emissions reduction would be worrying. We convened nine deliberative workshops to expose stakeholders to futures scenarios involving mitigation deterrence. The workshops examined ways in which deterrence might arise, and how it could be minimised. The deliberation exposed social and cultural interactions that might otherwise remain hidden. The paper describes narratives and ideas discussed in the workshops regarding political and economic mechanisms through which mitigation deterrence might occur, the plausibility of such pathways, and measures recommended to reduce the risk of such occurrence. Mitigation deterrence is interpreted as an important example of the 'attraction of delay' in a setting in which there are many incentives for procrastination. While our stakeholders accepted the historic persistence of delay in mitigation, some struggled to accept that similar processes, involving GGRs, may be happening now. The paper therefore also reviews the claims made by participants about mitigation deterrence, identifying discursive strategies that advocates of carbon removal might deploy to deflect concerns about mitigation deterrence. We conclude that the problem of mitigation deterrence is significant, needs to be recognised in climate policy, and its mechanisms better understood. Based on stakeholder proposals we suggest ways of governing GGR which would maximise both GGR and carbon reduction through other means. Highlights • Greenhouse gas removal discourses exemplify how technological promises enable prevarication through their enrolment in scientific, cultural, economic and political processes • Many stakeholders share concerns that mitigation deterrence is arising from exaggerated expectations regarding future greenhouse gas removal technologies • Novel futures scenario deliberations effectively expose and highlight cultural and political dimensions and risks of possible climate policy pathways • Policy recommendations include separate targets for removals and emissions reductions, and interventions to counteract the power of incumbent vested interests • Recognizing the risks requires a shift of deliberative register to one permitting reflexive consideration of cultural, political and economic effects
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, Mar 14, 2021
Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwi... more Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwined with its emerging politics. This review outlines ways in which research conditions or constructs solar geoengineering in diverse ways, including the forms of possible material technologies of solar geoengineering; the criteria and targets for their assessment; the scenarios in which they might be deployed; the publics which may support or oppose them; their political implications for other climate responses, and the international relations, governance mechanisms, and configurations of power that are presumed in order to regulate them. The review also examines proposals for governance of research, including suggested frameworks, principles, procedures, and institutions. It critically assesses these proposals, revealing their limitations given the context of the conditioning effects of current research. The review particularly highlights problems of the reproduction of Northern norms, instrumental approaches to public engagement, a weak embrace of precaution, and a persistent-but questionable-separation of research from deployment. It details complexities inherent in effective research governance which contribute to making the pursuit of solar geoengineering risky, controversial, and ethically contentious. In conclusion, it suggests a case for an explicit, reflexive research governance regime developed with international participation. It suggests that such a regime should encompass modeling and social science, as well as field experimentation, and must address not only technical and environmental, but also the emergent social and political, implications of research.
Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because intern... more Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge-traditions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet unspecified rational governance), but the practicality of international governance remains mostly speculative. Using evidence gathered from state delegates, climate activists and modellers, we reveal three underlying and clashing 'geofutures': an idealised understanding of governable geoengineering that abstracts from technical and political realities; a situated understanding of geoengineering emphasising power hierarchies in world order; and a pragmatist precautionary understanding emerging in spaces of negotiation such as UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). Set in the wider historical context of climate politics, the failure to agree even to a study of geoengineering at UNEA indicates underlying obstacles to global rules and institutions for geoengineering posed by divergent interests and underlying epistemic and political differences. Technology assessments should recognise that geoengineering will not be exempt from international fractures; that deployment of geoengineering through imposition is a serious risk; and that contestations over geofutures pertain, not only to climate policy, but also the future of planetary order. Policy Implications • Assessments of the feasibility and desirability of geoengineering technologies should never be based solely on knowledge produced under idealised conditions, (e.g. climate modelling or integrated climate and economic modelling). • Assessments of technologies with global implications should factor in risks and complications generated by the international fragmentation of world politics and histories.
Chapter 1 Environmental Space, Equity and the Ecological Debt Duncan McLaren 'No les... more Chapter 1 Environmental Space, Equity and the Ecological Debt Duncan McLaren 'No less than a decent quality of life for all, no more than a fair share of the Earth's resource' INTRODUCTION This chapter sketches out the relationships between sustainability and equity. It offers the ...
Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately fro... more Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately from existing and future targets for emissions reduction. Failure to make such a separation has already hampered climate policy, exaggerating the expected future contribution of negative emissions in climate models, while also obscuring the extent and pace of the investment needed to deliver negative emissions. Separation would help minimize the negative impacts that promises and deployments of negative emissions could have on emissions reduction, arising from effects such as temporal trade-offs, excessive offsetting, and technological lock-in. Benefits for international, national, local, organizational, and sectoral planning would arise from greater clarity over the role and timing of negative emissions alongside accelerated emissions reduction.
For more than 40 years we’ve seen that the wellbeing of people and planet go hand in hand – and i... more For more than 40 years we’ve seen that the wellbeing of people and planet go hand in hand – and it’s been the inspiration for our campaigns. Together with thousands of people like you we’ve secured safer food and water, defended wildlife and natural habitats, championed the move to clean energy and acted to keep our climate stable. Be a Friend of the Earth – see things differently. Summary synthesis of literature review on bioproductivity
Abstract This paper aims to establish a framework in which potential methods for evaluating envir... more Abstract This paper aims to establish a framework in which potential methods for evaluating environmental impacts can be considered, with particular reference to the UK planning system. To do this a number of complementary ways of conceptualising sustainable ...
Swedish press debate regarding the idea of a 'circular economy' is analysed to enable critical re... more Swedish press debate regarding the idea of a 'circular economy' is analysed to enable critical reflection on the development and use of the concept. We examine how actor positions formed around ideas of increased circularity. Using press material from 2012 to 2019 we identify positions on circular economy taken by Swedish companies, public authorities, political parties, and opinion makers. Our analysis reveals convergence amongst these actors at the national level despite ongoing situated local environmental conflicts. We show that this convergence is enabled by the convening power of ambiguity, which characterizes the use of circular economy ideas as an 'floating signifier' in the debate. In Sweden ideas of a circular economy may have been deployed by resilient capital to harness an otherwise economically disruptive process, as a new expression of ecological modernization. Further research into the political economy of circular economy ideas is encouraged.
It has taken many years to establish the argument that pollution prevention is required to contro... more It has taken many years to establish the argument that pollution prevention is required to control environmental damage. Policies for pollution dispersal influenced by the self-interest of the industrial lobbies gave us taller chimneys (and acid rain) and longer outfalls (and polluted seas). Pollution dispersal has been a failure. Moreover, the most pressing pollution problem we face is already dispersed: the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with the associated threat of an unprecedented rate of climate change. It is the total quantity of carbon dioxide (C02) in the atmosphere that is the problem: not whether it is concentrated or dispersed. Climate change has rapidly climbed national and international political and research agendas. The main contributors to the problem are carbon dioxide, CFCs, methane, nitrogen oxides and ozone. The 1990 report of the inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change indicated that a reduction in carbon dioxide
Non-technical summary. In the face of limited carbon budgets, negative emissions technologies (NE... more Non-technical summary. In the face of limited carbon budgets, negative emissions technologies (NETs) offer hopes of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It is difficult to determine whether the prospect of NETs is significantly deterring or delaying timely action to cut emissions. This paper sets out a novel theoretical perspective to this challenge, enabling analysis that accounts for interactions between technologies, society and political and economic power. The paper argues that, seen in this light, the scope of NETs to substitute for mitigation may be easily exaggerated, and thus that the risk of harm from mitigation deterrence should be taken seriously. Technical summary. This paper offers a new theoretical perspective on the risk that geoengineering interventions might deter or delay mitigation (previously typically described as moral hazard). Drawing on a brief review of mitigation deterrence (MD) in solar geoengineering, it suggests a novel analytical viewpoint going beyond and contrasting with the methodological individualist, managerialist and economist analyses common in the literature. Three distinct registers to assist identification and interpretation of situations and processes through which MD might arise are elaborated and compared. The paper shows that moving from a realist register via a cultural register to a cultural political economy register, makes it clearer how and why misperceived substitutability (between negative emissions technologies (NETs) and mitigation) and narrow climate policy goals matter for MD. We have also identified several plausible mechanisms for MD under a neoliberal political regime. The paper argues that MD cannot be overcome simply by better informing decision makers (the 'realist' response), or even by opening up the standard techno-economic framing of climate change and our responses (the 'cultural' response). The paper also concludes that the entire political regime that has evolved alongside specific economic interests is implicated in MD, and that the likelihood and significance of MD probably remain underappreciated and understudied.
I n recent years, and especially following the Paris Agreement, the target of "net zero" car... more I n recent years, and especially following the Paris Agreement, the target of "net zero" carbon emissions by has come to the forefront of global climate politics. The U.K., for instance-while hosting the twenty-sixth UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties from October to November of declared that its principal goal was "to secure global net zero by mid-century and keep . degrees within reach." At the latest count, countries have made net zero commitments. Meeting a global net zero target would involve any "residual" carbon emissions being counterbalanced by anthropogenic carbon removals achieved through "negative emissions techniques" (NETs). Achieving net zero is essential to stabilizing the increase in temperatures, although the specific temperature at stabilization depends upon the cumulative emissions until that date. If emissions peak in the next few years and net zero is reached by , there will be a reasonable chance of limiting warming to .°C. Though achieving .°C will be formidably difficult, the widespread embrace of national net zero targets would provide an important step toward climate stabilization.
Uploads
Papers by Duncan McLaren