Climate change – has the UN got the wrong frame of mind?

If we really want to beat global warming we have to forget emissions testing and start thinking psychologically says Dr Laurence Matthews, a recent speaker at the Scientists for Global Responsibility conference 

For a long time, climate change discussions have focussed on emissions. The UN talks are all about cutting emissions; we have emissions trading schemes; we’ve looked at everything through the ‘frame’ of emissions. But what lies outside this frame?

We only have emissions because fossil fuels are extracted, sold, and then burnt. If you look upstream, from the symptoms to the causes, the root cause of emissions is fossil fuels. That’s why the recent ‘keep it in the ground’ campaign focuses on fossil fuels. We need to keep 80% of fossil fuels in the ground. But how? And which 80%? And who decides?

Looking outside the emissions frame is an example of looking up from what you’ve got your teeth into, looking around, standing back, and trying to see the bigger picture. All too often we confine ourselves to looking inside a ‘frame’. But what are the forgotten dimensions outside the frame? If you look, you can find frames all over the place, but here I’ll just mention two.

We’ve already seen one: a focus on emissions. Now escaping a frame like this isn’t just interesting - it can lead to totally new ideas for how to tackle the problem. Consider: if you had a sprinkler watering the lawn, then to save water, would you block up the holes? No; you’d just turn the tap off a bit. Our cars, factories and houses are like holes in the sprinkler, but instead of water they emit CO₂. You can try to cap these emissions, by arguing about which sprinkler holes to block up; or you can just cap the fossil fuels coming out of the tap.

Each tonne of coal, each barrel of oil, generates a fixed amount of CO₂ when it’s burnt. So you can control emissions without looking at emissions at all; just control the fossil fuels. Forget about the sprinkler holes; the tap does the work.

Of course, it’s no good if we do this but China doesn’t. And the climate talks are trying to tie together commitments between lots of countries. Poor countries want help to cope with something that hasn’t been their fault; but the USA doesn’t want to give money to anyone. And India...stop; look up, is there a frame here?

Yes. We tend to look through the frame that sees the world as being made up of countries. Is that how a CO₂ molecule sees it? What’s outside this frame?

Instead of trying to tie together national efforts in an international system, what about a single, worldwide system for the planet as a whole? A global approach would shortcut all the posturing and game-playing. And surely global emergencies require global action? After all, it’s global warming, not international warming.

So, here’s how to keep 80% of the fossil fuels in the ground: work out a carbon budget, so that the total over time – the area under the curve – is ‘safe’ (to keep under the 2 degrees target equates to burning roughly 20% of fossil fuel reserves). That gives a cap or limit each year for emissions. Issue permits for that amount, and auction these to fossil fuel companies, who buy permits for the carbon content of the fuels they extract. And do all this globally, through a single body like the UN, on behalf of all humanity. Finally, share the auction money out equally to all the people of the world.

That’s it. This approach is called Cap & Share. Cap the carbon, share the income.

Our activities have grown until we’re bumping up against the finite size of the planet, and that’s a problem, because we can’t stop – we’re hooked on growth.

Now why do we have that final bit, the ‘share’ bit? Well, that way it doesn’t cost us anything. You see, the fossil fuel companies will put up fuel prices, to cover the cost of buying the permits. So we’ll end up paying more for things; but if we share out all the auction money then we get it all back, as ‘carbon cashback’ payments. And why equal shares? Well, it’s a system operated on behalf of us all. It’s our sky, it’s our system, so it’s our money. Sharing it out equally is fair, in the same robust sense that one person one vote is fair.

But there’s a twist here. We pay higher prices, and we get all that money back, so it evens out - but that’s only what happens on average. In fact there’s a flow of money from rich to poor (or more accurately, from high emitters to low emitters). Why is that? Well, suppose we only have two people, rich A and poor B. They pay higher prices but A, using a lot more carbon, is affected more than B. Suppose A pays £150 and B pays £50, in higher prices. But the cashback payment is the same for everyone (£100), so the result is that A is £50 worse off, but B is £50 better off. If you have a lower than average carbon footprint, like B, you’ll come out ahead. And there are more B’s than A’s (there are many more poor people than rich people). The majority of people will be better off.

Cap & Share is an example of what I’d call ‘wising up’. It’s not enough to be technically savvy. Our ideas also need to be politically savvy, and psychologically savvy.

What do I mean by psychologically savvy? Well, contrast Cap & Share with the idea of ‘doing your bit’– a message we’ve had from both governments and environmentalists. I could say a lot about this idea, but for the moment, just look at the psychology of ‘doing your bit’. You’re always stressed, obsessing about your kettle or your heating. You feel guilty, because global warming is all your fault. But you can see many others doing even less, so you feel resentful. And you despair, because the mismatch between the huge problem and one person’s tiny contribution is all too obvious. This psychology is terrible.

Contrast that with Cap & Share. You can relax, forget about it and go about your daily life. There’s no need to monitor your emissions: it’s all taken care of by the cap. You don’t need to feel guilty, since any carbon you use is within the safe overall limit or cap. If you do use less carbon you’ll save money, but still get the same cashback; so low carbon usage is now rewarded, not undermined. There’s no need to be resentful of rich people using more carbon: it doesn’t bust the cap, and they are now paying for it. And you can be confident that climate change is being tackled effectively. All in all, psychologically, isn’t that a better deal?

We also have to wise up politically. For Cap & Share to work, we need fossil fuel companies to sign up - to agree to buy permits to cover the carbon content of the fossil fuels they extract. Why on earth would they do this? One route is national legislation. The UN might request this as a condition for releasing the cashback funds for the population of that nation. National populations might push for this, despite pressure from vested interests resisting it.

However, we needn’t rely on ratification by nations. Fossil fuel companies might sign up in order to label their fuels ‘climate-safe’ (similar to ‘fair trade’ goods or ‘dolphin friendly’ tuna), because those that refuse to sign up are a clear target for divestment and litigation campaigns and more general confrontation on moral grounds. And we can call for other corporations, starting with energy companies, to be climate-safe too, meaning that they only used climate-safe fuels. NGOs would investigate and highlight supply chains (much as they do now for palm oil, say). And since the flow of money from rich to poor helps to tackle world poverty and inequality, campaigners against poverty and inequality will be allies here.

To be politically savvy, we have to recognise the power of opposing vested interests, and recruit allies. The ‘share’ element of Cap & Share provides incentives to help line up forces on our side.
If we look up, and wise up, we’ll have good reasons to cheer up too. With savvy and robust ideas, we can be more confident of getting real. It’ll still be a fight, but we’ll have a fighting chance. Also, we’re bound to be gloomy if we continue to accept the framing of climate change action as a cost, somehow opposed to progress: it can then seem hopeless and it’s easy to feel we’re doomed. But when we regard climate action as insurance - a question of being prepared, being prudent - we can feel more upbeat, we can feel more in control. When we treat it as the right thing to do, we can stand tall, feel good about ourselves; we can look our children in the eye.

Finally, here’s something deeper, that you can see if you stand right back, and look at the really big picture. We’ve done pretty well, as a species, haven’t we? Reaching the moon, measuring the universe: onwards and upwards. This is a story we can be proud of. But our activities have grown until we’re bumping up against the finite size of the planet, and that’s a problem, because we can’t stop – we’re hooked on growth. Growth is strongly framed as good, vital and necessary – sometimes by the very language we use; the phrase ‘economic recovery’ suggests that zero growth is an illness, something you recover from. Inside that frame, questioning growth can seem quixotic or deluded. We need to move beyond this.

Now, growth isn’t bad: a child grows, and we celebrate this, perhaps by marking progress up a wall. But in adulthood, growth gives way to maintaining health and developing in other ways. Growth, in other words, is something that happens in childhood, and is good only up to a point. When you outgrow growth, you’ve reached maturity.

And this is where we are in our story, in the long history of humankind. This is where we reach the finite limits of the planet, and adapt to this new situation. This is where we swop growth for being grown up. This, right now in this generation, is the coming of age of our species.

It’s an exciting time to be alive: let’s all make the most of it. Look up, wise up, cheer up.

The author:

Dr Laurence Matthews worked in the transport industry and as a statistics lecturer. Now, he has turned to the psychology of climate change. He has been Chairman of the climate policy NGO Cap & Share UK, and has given evidence to Select Committees of the UK House of Commons. Laurence and his wife Alison are co-authors of the recent book Framespotting.