Political Climate

We set up Political Climate almost exactly a year ago, with our first post on the Copenhagen Accord. It’s been a bit tough at times balancing the blog with family life, and there have been a few times when we went a bit quiet, but we managed the keep the show on the road! We’ve really enjoyed writing the blog and we hope you have enjoyed (or at least been stimulated by) reading it, and hope you’ll stay with us over the next year.

Matthew and Andrew

PS Thanks to Laurence Chiles for handling the CSS

One of the big puzzles about climate policy is that, according to most studies, reducing emissions, even by a large proportion, appears to cost very little, but despite this, the politics are hard. Why is this? One reason may have to do with the difference between how costs are typically  expressed in such studies on the one hand and how people actually experience them on the other. Continue reading →

This thought-provoking FT Leader heralds the demise of technocracy in the face of harder economic times. It has, as all things thought-provoking should, got us thinking.

The elite that the FT Leader argues is now feeling the heat of populist indignation under its feet has been at the forefront of arguing for action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The evidence from the science and economics of climate change is on their side. But climate policy threatens to harm many people’s already hard-pressed interests.

‘The people are complaining loudly’ argues the FT. ‘Elites must both listen and respond.’

There are at least two ways in which this might play out for climate change. First, the implementation of technocratically defensible climate objectives may become tougher and tougher as people rail against wider hardships and the impositions of elites.

Second – and highlighted brilliantly by Andrew Revkin in the New York Times – rather than becoming embroiled in denialism, climate progress might simply be trampled underfoot as people scramble around more immediate concerns or be drowned out by the surround sound of populism.

Either way, the climatocracy that has emerged in recent years may be under threat if, as the FT suggests, people in moribund economies look to assert their will and bring down incumbents.

Last Sunday, Joss Garman of Greenpeace UK offered a gripping analysis of the shifting geopolitics behind the positions of the US, India and what he describes as a “relaxed and confident” China at the recent UNFCCC Ministerial.  As we have argued recently, hyping the  outcome of Cancun is not a good idea, but it is certainly true that the emerging powers came to Mexico in a constructive mood.  Joss argues that: Continue reading →

A thought-provoking piece from Michael Shellenberger at the Breakthough Institute in the US landed in my inbox this morning, which I thought was worth reproducing in full here, not least because it expresses very well some of the dilemmas that the UK faces as it struggles to catch up with the rest of Europe in investments in renewable energy:

“For forty years, presidents and policymakers have promised and planned for a new energy future just over the horizon. Continue reading →

After Copenhagen, getting the COP to agree on almost anything would have seemed an achievement, so it’s worth taking the outcome of COP 16 in Cancún – reported by many as a ‘deal’ – with a pinch of salt. Of course, not having more than 100 world leaders present probably helped by taking the weight off the UN’s shoulders. But without heads of government, political commitment to the process and its Mexican outcomes cannot be assumed.

Sleep Deprivation is probably playing a part in the somewhat dizzy response that’s emerging from Mexico. The Guardian’s ‘The Deal LIVE‘ is a good example. A more sober assessment of the implications comes from Fred Pearce on the News Scientist’s website. Continue reading →

By Nick Pearce, Director of ippr.

Expectations are low for Cancun. As Tim Wirth and John Podesta at the Center for American Progress – one of ippr’s partners in the Global Climate Network – put it, negotiators may ‘start to pivot toward a new strategy of gradualism’. On the Cancun agenda is how countries can be transparent in achieving emissions reductions, the introduction of credits for preserving forests into carbon markets, and the transfer of finance from rich to poor countries to help cover climate costs. Off the agenda is a comprehensive, legally binding climate treaty of the kind that was so spectacularly not agreed in Copenhagen this time last year.

The juxtaposition of the climate talks and the icy weather across most of northern Europe is important because, while the relationship between climate and weather is dynamic rather than direct, cold winters and failing global negotiations are both likely to weaken public support for action on climate change. Continue reading →

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