2 Action Strategy
2.1 Mitigation Strategies
Xu Abstract
The historic Paris Agreement calls for limiting global temperature rise to “well below 2 °C.” Because of uncertainties in emission scenarios, climate, and carbon cycle feedback, we interpret the Paris Agreement in terms of three climate risk categories and bring in considerations of low-probability (5%) high-impact (LPHI) warming in addition to the central (∼50% probability) value. The current risk category of dangerous warming is extended to more categories, which are defined by us here as follows: >1.5 °C as dangerous; >3 °C as catastrophic; and >5 °C as unknown, implying beyond catastrophic, including existential threats. With unchecked emissions, the central warming can reach the dangerous level within three decades, with the LPHI warming becoming catastrophic by 2050. We outline a three-lever strategy to limit the central warming below the dangerous level and the LPHI below the catastrophic level, both in the near term (<2050) and in the long term (2100): the carbon neutral (CN) lever to achieve zero net emissions of CO2, the super pollutant (SP) lever to mitigate short-lived climate pollutants, and the carbon extraction and sequestration (CES) lever to thin the atmospheric CO2 blanket. Pulling on both CN and SP levers and bending the emissions curve by 2020 can keep the central warming below dangerous levels. To limit the LPHI warming below dangerous levels, the CES lever must be pulled as well to extract as much as 1 trillion tons of CO2 before 2100 to both limit the preindustrial to 2100 cumulative net CO2 emissions to 2.2 trillion tons and bend the warming curve to a cooling trend.
Xu Memo
The overall objectives of this perspective piece are threefold:
Assess the low-probability (5%) high-impact (LPHI) warming outcomes in the absence of a climate mitigation policy after accounting for major uncertainties in: (a) future emission trajectories; (b) physical climate feedback involving water vapor, clouds, and snow/ice albedo; (c) carbon cycle feedback involving biogeochemistry; and (d) aerosol radiative forcing. We ensure that the extreme outcomes projected in this study are consistent with published model parameters.
Identify the constraints imposed by WB2C and the criteria for meeting WB2C, and thus sharpen the definition of WB2C.
Explore the mitigation pathways that are still available to meet the WB2C goal.
Xu Summary
Basically, for a safe climate, all three levers (CN, SP, and CES) must be deployed as soon as possible. The CN and SP levers must be deployed by 2030 and 2020, respectively; the cumulative CO2 emissions from preindustrial must be limited to 2.2 trillion tons of CO2 (or 0.6 trillion tons of carbon); and the CES lever should extract and sequester as much as 1 trillion tons of CO2 (CES1t), depending on when the CN lever is deployed. If the CN lever is deployed as early as 2020, the required CES is much less than 1 trillion tons. We propose that mitigation goals be set in terms of climate risk category instead of a temperature threshold. In this paper, we offer three broad risk categories, but it is likely that a more granular set of categories is required. The temperature threshold has served policy very well; however, given the imminence of dangerous warming within decades, the focus must broaden to include extreme climate changes. Precipitation, flooding, fire, and drought will all become serious sources of concern. The temperature will still occupy our attention because of the heat stress phenomenon and the likelihood of approximately half of the population exposed to deadly heat by 2050. We conclude with a commentary on the feasibility of the mitigation options considered thus far. Over 24 technological measures to reduce SLCPs have been detailed previously. These measures include providing clean cook stoves to the poorest three billion of the world’s total population and installing particulate filters in all diesel vehicles to reduce global BC emissions by nearly 80% and also reduce air pollution-related mortalities by ∼2 million; routine maintenance of gas pipes and banning gas flaring to reduce methane leaks; recovering methane from landfills, water sewage treatment plants, and farm manure; replacing HFCs with other available refrigerants that have negligible greenhouse effects; and installing catalytic converters in vehicles to reduce emissions of ozone precursors. CN levers require switching from fossil fuels to renewables such as wind, solar, geothermal and nuclear sources, among others. Also, CO2 emissions from industrial processes should be eliminated. This requires electrification of all end uses and production of electricity from renewables. Since many renewables (solar and wind) are intermittent, storage is a crucial issue. Batteries, hydrogen production by renewables, and pumped hydropower are all possible options for storage. While about 50% of reductions are possible with scaling up of existing technologies, innovations are required for achieving carbon neutrality in a cost-effective manner (40). Achievement of carbon neutrality also requires societal transformation, governance, and market mechanisms such as cap and trade and carbon pricing (40). The encouraging sign is that 52 cities, 65 businesses, and numerous universities have already embarked on the CN pathway. Some of these living laboratories, like California and Stockholm, have shown that the gross domestic product (GDP) can be decoupled from carbon emissions. Their carbon emission per GDP has decreased by 20% while bending the carbon emissions curve. The technology development and innovations from these living laboratories should be scaled to the world to greatly accelerate efforts to achieve CN within decades. Of the three levers recommended here, the third lever dealing with CES is the most challenging and formidable due to lack of scalable technologies. However, many technologies are being explored, including capturing CO2 in bioenergy power plants (42), biochar production by pyrolysis and storage in soils (43), restoration of soil organic pools (44), chemical weathering of rocks, mineral sequestration, reforestation, and urban forestry, among others. The availability of land and conflict with food production is another important constraint in some of the CES solutions. Major breakthroughs are needed urgently, and in the meantime, the best option is to start on the CN goal by 2020 and mitigate the SPs as soon as possible, since cost-effective technologies are already present to immediately start bending the emission curves.
2.3 (Joint Strategies?)
Battistoni
Paradoxically, it is because climate change is a permanent state of affairs that the politics of it have tended to focus outsized attention on events, whether climate disasters or Cop summits, which offer discrete moments of action and attention in the face of an otherwise amorphous problem.
If everyone expects that this “climate chaos” will lead us to turn on each other – every person or nation or “race” for itself – then that is what we will get.
The need for “an ecosystem of tactics – electoral campaigns, community and union organizing, public demonstrations, and, yes, property destruction”. In Gramsci’s terms, the moment requires both wars of manoeuvre and wars of position: we need to dig in on some fronts, and disrupt and destabilise on some others.
Our efforts must help manage not only the “energy transition” but a fundamental reconstruction of productive and reproductive systems (at least those upon which the wealthiest parts of the world rely), and of the collective commitment to global wellbeing. It is impossible to imagine that there is only one answer to these challenges.
Abstract Fazey
The most critical question for climate research is no longer about the problem, but about how to facilitate the transformative changes necessary to avoid catastrophic climate-induced change. Addressing this question, however, will require massive upscaling of research that can rapidly enhance learning about transformations. Ten essentials for guiding action-oriented transformation and energy research are therefore presented, framed in relation to second-order science. They include:
- Focus on transformations to low-carbon, resilient living; (2)Focus on solution processes;
- Focus on ‘how to’ practical knowledge;
- Approach research as occurring from within the system being intervened;
- Work with normative aspects;
- Seek to transcend current thinking;
- Take a multi-faceted approach to understand and shape change;
- Acknowledge the value of alternative roles of researchers;
- Encourage second-order experimentation; and
- Be reflexive.
Joint application of the essentials would create highly adaptive, reflexive, collaborative and impact-oriented research able to enhance capacity to respond to the climate challenge. At present, however, the practice of such approaches is limited and constrained by dominance of other approaches. For wider transformations to low carbon living and energy systems to occur, transformations will therefore also be needed in the way in which knowledge is produced and used.
2.5 STS - Societal Transformation Scenario
Kuhnhenn: Beyond IPCC
To stop climate change, we have to limit global warming to 1.5°C. But can we still achieve this target? And if so, what pathways can society take in transiting towards a climate-just economy? One important yardstick emerging from it was the need for global emissions to reach net-zero by 2050, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says in his «Special Report on Global Warming to 1.5°C». One important problem with this and other scenarios is that virtually all rely on continued global economic growth.
The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung and the Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie realised the importance of broadening the discussion’s perspective and considering societal pathways that are currently not included in either the IPCC reports or the public debate. Together with researchers from engineering and the natural and social sciences, Heinrich Böll Foundation and Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie developed a «Societal Transformation Scenario» for this publication – a global climate mitigation scenario that explores the climate effects of limiting global production and consumptions and of envisioning a broader societal transformation to accompany these transformations to reach a good life for all.
The Societal Transformation Scenario (STS) is a climate mitigation scenario that distinguishes itself from the scenarios cited by the IPCC in that it assumes a socio-ecological transformation, leading to a better life while reducing consumption and production in the Global North.
The scenarios so far covered by the IPCC usually portray a world that sees no radical societal change, and has global GDP to rising until 2100 in all regions. Since economic growth is a major driver of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, these scenarios often rely on high-risk Carbon Dioxide Removal technologies and on a dangerous “overshoot” of the 1.5°C limit.
IPCC scenarios are very much shaped by what is currently often assumed to be economically and socially feasible, without considering new lines of societal change and progress.
The consequence of adhering to the growth paradigm is that mitigation scenarios have to rely on high- risk technologies such as geoengineering, CCS and nuclear energy to reach mitigation goals. In many cases, such scenarios even assume the temperature will «overshoot» the 1.5°C goal at least temporarily – with unknown consequence for humans and eco- systems and at the risk of hitting irreversible tipping points.
Being convinced that a sufficient decoupling of economic growth from GHG emissions is unlikely to happen in the future (see Section 1), we focus on reducing consumption and production in countries of the Global North as a way to reduce emissions.
A substantial reduction in consumption cannot result from a sum of individuals changing their behaviour; it has to be achieved by reshaping key infrastructures of socie- ties and by regulative frameworks, economic principles and incentive structures guiding behaviour within society. For different sectors (mobility, housing, food), we provide a first rough collection of instruments for achieving just those aims.
The STS instead envisages is a comprehensive socio-ecological transformation that involves radical redistribution of wealth and labour and a change of welfare systems, economic principles and lifestyles.
The STS excludes any mitigation options that lead to disproportionate environmental degradation and destruction, including nuclear energy 31 and so-called «negative emissions» technologies.
The STS is not primarily about producing and consuming less; it is about organising society differently.
The assumes a society that finds ways and instruments to prosper without an ever-increasing level of consumption and production, to prosper beyond growth, with redistribution of wealth and work as a fundamental building block.
The transformation is not envisaged as the result of some master plan that is implemented top-down; it is developed bottom-up.
2.6 Societal Impact (Lack of)
How to reshape research agendas for sustainability
Abstract Lahsen:
After decades of inadequate responses to scientists’ warnings about global environmental threats, leading analysts of the science-policy interface are seeking an important shift of research focus. This switch is from continued modeling and diagnoses of biogeochemical conditions in favor of enhanced efforts to understand the many socio-political obstacles to achieving just transformations towards sustainability, and how to overcome them. We discuss why this shift continues to prove elusive. We argue that rarely analyzed mutually reinforcing power structures, interests, needs, and norms within the institutions of global environmental change science obstruct rethinking and reform. The blockage created by these countervailing forces are shielded from scrutiny and change through retreats behind shields of neutrality and objectivity, stoked and legitimated by fears of losing scientific authority. These responses are maladaptive, however, since transparency and reflexivity are essential for rethinking and reform, even in contexts marked by anti-environmentalism. We therefore urge greater openness, self-critique, and power-sharing across research communities, to create spaces and support for conversations, diverse knowledges, and decisions conducive to sustainability transformations.
Memo Lahsen:
Lock-in on biogeochemical climate science
…witnessed internal conversations about not ‘overselling’ policy-relevant science by mak- ing overly strong claims about its conclusiveness, reflecting attempts to reconcile continued science funding with policy relevance. Decades later, dia- gnoses of biogeochemical realities and uncertainty reduction remain the dominant center of global change research.
A study of the allocation of climate research funding by 333 funding sources in 37 countries found that 770% more funding went to natural science compared to social science, and that only 0.12% of funding went to social science focused on climate mitigation — that is, to prevention of climate change, as opposed to generally less transformative resilience and adaptation efforts.
Early career scientists, pushed for greater inclusion of social questions, including devel- opment and inequality challenges, and questioned decades-old prioritization of atmospheric and Earth system modeling and observation systems.
Starved of decisive funds and power, Future Earth was born weak, however, a shadow of what was intended.
The Belmont Forum has since joined forces with Future Earth in some endeavors, including a sub- program on transformations to sustainability. How- ever, it continues to direct its massive budget primar- ily towards diagnosing biogeochemical conditions and earth system modeling.
The shield of value neutrality allows incum- bent interests against institutional restructuring to present the lack of support of Future Earth as a defense of quality science.
The persistent underfunding contrasts the importance of these branches of research for understanding and foster- ing cultural orientations—including ‘changes in the hearts and minds of the people’ — conducive to transformations towards greater environmental sustainability and socio- economic solidarity and equity.
Lahsen (2021) Sustainability Transformation Obstruction (pdf)
Anderson
The main socioeconomic problem with CDR is that only a tiny fraction of the population is aware of carbon removal, which limits meaningful engagement and just deployment. This lack of awareness is set within the wider problem that many in society do not realize the scope of transformation needed for decarbonization, in terms of deploying clean energy at a massive scale, building electrification, redesigning transport, retrofitting factories, reforming agricultural practices and more. Without that knowledge base, publics are not well-equipped to debate the nuances of CDR approaches within the wider climate response. So if you ask someone whether they want a CDR facility near them, the answer is probably no because it is an unfamiliar industrial project. This is similar to challenges with battery manufacturing plants, transmission lines or other industrial underpinnings of this transition. If you ask people whether they think there should be CDR facilities to compensate for emissions from aviation, or alternatively whether they think there should be limitations on flying, or whether we should use biomass-derived aviation fuels (even if they bring land use and food price impacts) or whether we should carry on as we are despite climate change, who knows what the answer would be. But we are very far from a society-wide deliberation on these trade-offs because the basic contours of the challenge are not fully appreciated.
2.7 Deep Adaptation
Bendell Abstarct
Abstract The purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide readers with an opportunity to reassess their work and life in the face of what I believe to be an inevitable near-term societal collapse due to climate change. The approach of the paper is to analyse recent studies on climate change and its implications for our ecosystems, economies and societies, as provided by academic journals and publications direct from research institutes. That synthesis leads to my conclusion there will be a near-term collapse in society with serious ramifications for the lives of readers. The paper does not prove the inevitability of such collapse, which would involve further discussion of social, economic, political and cultural factors, but it proves that such a topic is of urgent importance. The paper reviews some of the reasons why collapse-denial may exist, in particular, in the professions of sustainability research and practice, therefore leading to these arguments having been absent from these fields until now. The paper offers a new meta-framing of the implications for research, organisational practice, personal development and public policy, called the Deep Adaptation Agenda. Its key aspects of resilience, relinquishment, restoration and reconciliation are explained. This agenda does not seek to build on existing scholarship on “climate adaptation” as it is premised on the view that societal collapse is now likely, inevitable or already unfolding. The author believes this is one of the first papers in the sustainability management field to conclude that climate-induced near-term societal collapse should now be a central concern for everyone, and therefore to invite scholars to explore the implications.
Bendell (2018) Deep Adaption: A Map for Navigating Climate Tradegy (pdf)