By John Dixon
I’m worried about global warming. The idea that what thousands of scientists have been saying it is all a ‘grand conspiracy’ sounds itself like a grand conspiracy. And although I understand that there has been some verbal trash coming from the green corner (see David Cameron for numerous perfect examples) that doesn’t really compare to the huge mountain of it from the other side (I recently saw an advert by Exxon Mobile claiming that ‘Carbon Dioxide is life!’).
But there are problems I see in confronting global warming, in taking on the challenge. People agree global warming exists now (in general), but are we going to be able to do anything about it? I’m afraid I’m still rather sceptical.
Firstly, I don’t see the public will to deal with global warming. By that, I don’t just mean people supporting green issues, but rather people being unwilling to sacrifice convenience for the planet. If we are to deal with global warming it is not going to be easy: we can’t simply magic away 80% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and we can’t simply speak about global warming as if it’s the most important issue facing the world and yet treat it as if it’s a secondary issue that wont actually affect our everyday lives (much like the Bush administration’s stance on the war on terror).
It’s going to require radical structural changes in the way our economy and society function. People won’t do this on their own. Government must force the change, whether structurally or by actively moderating our behaviour.
There is no middle ground on environmentalism. We can either go all the way, and attempt to prevent the ensuing disasters that climate change will surely bring by checking climate change itself – or push the national effort into preparing for such calamities. Any middle road will be both ineffective and wasteful. Looking at our politics therefore (and politics around the developed world for that matter) there is cause for concern.
Our political landscape in the Tory, Labour and (dare I say it) to an extent the Liberal Democrat benches is dominated by compromisers, by people who would rather give in than give out. The Labour party and more recently the Tory party are both political groupings that have given up on their old ideologies and replaced them with a more populist (albeit vague) message. This is simply not the sort of politics that we can have if we are going to deal with a problem that is, in Al Gore’s words, ‘the greatest threat to civilisation since the 2nd World War’.
A national effort is required and, just like in the Second World War, it is going to require government intervention to a huge extent. This has led to some of our more libertarian and conservative colleagues (who declare freedom for businessmen and complacency for everyone else) decrying environmentalists as ‘undercover fascists’ and scolding the entire principle of climate change as a ‘far left wing conspiracy’. Absurd, of course, partly because the Green party doesn’t exactly exert nationalistic or fascist principles, but mainly because it lets the unattractive resultant solutions for a problem obscure the fact that there is a problem at all.
(In fact a similar thing happened with the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-49, when protectionist Tories said that the famine simply didn’t exist in an attempt to stop the protectionist Corn Laws. Strange how history repeats itself, no?)
Therefore, in the current malaise of centrist, compromising and populist politics, I do not believe our politicians will be able to make the tough decisions required to deal with global warming. We may make strong moves towards it, certainly, but I don’t see the economy being greened until we have politics that advocates not just strong leadership but strong action as well.
Secondly, the way we deal with global warming is a challenge in itself. The current preferred method is to set ambitious targets on cutting emissions and then to allow individual states to find they’re preferred method of achieving their set goals. As I have said we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by about 80% to achieve a 60% reduction world wide mainly – because we can’t honestly expect India or China to reduce their emissions as their countries grow, and their populaces become affluent enough to afford electricity.
This all sounds well and good but doesn’t this hark back to the techniques of socialist planning which our party so strongly rejects? If we are against targets so much when they are used in the NHS and education, why should we expect them to work and not cause government failure when applied to emissions? A certain economist has recently written an article on such a matter.
Which brings me to my third point. In order to tackle climate change we will have to, whether we like it or not, have huge amounts of government intervention. We may well become a socialist state. Carbon rationing, government monitoring of our firms’ environmental impact or even quite possibly government control. There are certainly quite a few people within our own centre-left party (let alone the general public) who would be against such a move.
Carbon trading schemes would allow a certain amount of marketisation within the greening society, but, as we have seen recently, unless strictly enforced they do not reduce carbon emissions, and can simply lead to more market and government failure if too highly or too lightly implemented.
This is the question I therefore put to all of you: will we have to become a socialist party (at least in method) to retain our green credentials in the future? And if so will the political parties be honest with the electorate about the resultant changes to their lives of a greening society and economy. As I said earlier, I’m still sceptical.
* John Dixon blogs at a radical writes.
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18 Comments
Please exuse the misake I made during the piece, the potecionist tories were against the Corn Laws! not for them.
It is perfectly possible to have a pro-market, liberal green agenda. All we have to do is tax carbon (and other greenhouse gases). If we doubled the price of carbon it is amazing what measures people would be able to come up with to cut consumption:
– more people pumping up their car tyres
– more LED lights
– more insulation, esp. in firms
– more people going to Spain rather than California for their holidays
– more nuclear power, which would then be economic
– more biomass/solar/etc/heat pump, which would then be economic
It really won’t be hard to move to zero carbon for all stationary power within a generation, which combined with a 50% cut in land and sea transport (trains and ships are getting worse not better, helped by paying no tax on fuel). The tough one is aviation, but so long as we get the rest right, aviation on its own is not sufficient to produce enough CO2 to matter, on any plausible aviation projection, including building new runways.
We could also be ingenious. For example, we could build more roads, which will mean people drive further. Petrol is heavily taxed, and the govt can use some of that new tax revenue to subsidise solar/wind etc to carbon offset the new road twice over (and still cover the cost of the road, etc etc). Result, we all do more of what we want to do, and total carbon emissions fall. Equally we could raise the speed limit to 100mph on motorways when the road is clear and dry. Cars use more petrol at that sort of speed, that means more tax, and the govt can double offset the extra carbon emissions. Again, less carbon, and no need for any socialism.
We have adapted pretty well to petrol having a 100% tax on it. We could do the same to other forms of CO2 emission.
Actually, I think the protectionists were all for the Corn Laws, whereas the Anti Corn Law League were, erm, against them.
But this example also points to a rather significant truth: that markets can often do far more efficiently what state planning is hopeless at. The corn laws lead to mass starvation; socialist planned economies do pretty much the same thing. Has China’s one child per family policy actually worked? That’s a significant question because it was concerned about a scarcity of resources.
Apart from the fact that I doubt such soviet-style planning would actually work, I certainly can’t see it being very popular.
It may well be that we can’t solve this problem and that the human race is headed for a fall. It won’t be a pleasent experience, but I suspect we’ll survive as a species. I also suspect that the absolute worst case scenarios simply won’t happen: most doomsday scenarios discount the human race’s ability to knuckle down in a crisis and its ability to develop new technologies.
Ultimately we have to win hearts and minds on this issue. I doubt we’ll achieve that by stamping on people.
I agree with the first half of James’s post (I’m less complacent than him on the effects if we get it wrong).
John assumes this is a question of whether we can stomach the necessary socialistic measures, when I’d argue that fixing the carbon-blindness of the market is much more likely to succeed that state planning (as well as being less likely to the erosion of our liberties, but in the apocalypse scenario, that’s a side issue).
We need to create a tax system that penalises environmentally damaging behaviour, and then let the power of innovation respond to it. Soon, you’ll see cars being advertised for their fuel efficiency more often etc. etc. and companies competing on the point. Much better than blunter interventions.
The point where you may have a point is on energy and public transport policy, where it could be that an expansion in state subsidy (e.g. for renewables and rail infrastructure) is needed. But on the more general idea of curbing carbon outputs from personal behaviour, I am sure tax will be more effective than ID card carbon allowances.
There will be a need for state intervention to curb the biggest market failure in the history of the world. But that must be an intervention that patches the failure, rather than one which attempts a Soviet-style change in our economy overall. I think the Green party’s dislike of liberal capitalist democracy leads them to supporting a lot of things which aren’t very Green, just socialist. The confusion of eco-tinged-communism with environmentalism has done the latter enormous harm.
Not only is it more likely to succeed, but it’s more likely to take the public with us (vital in a democracy) and guarantee individual liberties (vital in a liberal society).
The best book I’ve seen on this principle (and more broadly as a vision of a social liberal economy) is Adair Turner’s “Just Capital”. Can’t be praised enough, IMHO.
The debate you’ve raised is one that may bubble about when we have our party policy debate on the environment. There is still is a vital debate to be had, and I for one hope we continue to develop a liberal environmentalism, not ape a watered-down version of the Green party’s eco-communism. Certainly, the Green Tax Switch was an excellent move towards Georgist principles, which I think will be the core of a liberal environmentalism.
And yes, the Peelite Tories were in favour of repealing the Corn Laws, while the (majority) Bentinck Tories were convinced protectionists. The 1846 repeal act split their party, and left a strange interlude in the party system where the various free-trading factions slowly coalesced into… us. Anyway, I don’t think the historical example helps you at all.
We in Hackney are organising a garden party on Sunday, July 15th on the theme of “We must be Green but what about freedom?”. We have invited Chris Huhne MP to be the speaker, so by all means have your debate here, but come along to this as well, it should be good.
Details on the flock togther website http://www.flocktogether.org.uk/
Sorry James, I did mention in my first comment I had made a mistake.
Anyway, onto the comments by Tim first. you make the point that we could essentialy do numerous things like say:
– more people pumping up their car tyres
– more LED lights
– more insulation, esp. in firms
– more people going to Spain rather than California for their holidays
– more nuclear power, which would then be economic
– more biomass/solar/etc/heat pump, which would then be economic
The problem with all this is that it may not simply be strong enough to actually reduce our carbon emmissions let alone reach an 80% reduction target by 2030. We don’t just need to switch our holidays from America to Spain, we need to reduce the overall amount of overseas holidays altogether. Internalising externalities can have the effect of just pushing up inflation unless it acually gets us to change our behaviour and as I have said on my own blog the recent attempt at a carbon trading scheme in Europe has failed to reduce CO2 emmissions and has actually just given a large subsidy for industry in Europe.
We can’t just have changes in taxation or buld more roads (we want to discourage driving not encourage it) what we need is a huge change in the way the British economy is to function if we are to meet the target of an 80% reduction and, as nice as it would be if it did, carbon offsetting or higher government investment wont make a difference unless it actually reduces emmssions (which we have yet to see from Labour’s attempts).
Onto you James, first the Corn Laws didn’t lead to the famine in Ireland, look on wikipedia or my blog for an explanation of the complex series of causes and how the British government failed to do its job leading to the deaths of over 1 million people.
The point you made in your 3rd paragraph is a great example of what the climate sceptics are trying to promote. The idea that although climate change exists and it is a bad thing it’s probably not worth dealing with and we can sort it out later. Sorry but not true. The Stern report argues that we have to act now for a reduction of 7% in emmissions per year if we are to avoid what will be a humanitarian catastrophe. We simply can’t act at the last minute. Even if all carbon emmissions were stopped now we’d have a 1.3′ rise in temperature into 2050 because of the amount of time the planet taks to adjust. If we are to prevent a 2′ rise then we must act now! The effect of such a rise will be calamitous to humanity (even if we do survive which is more than likely). Contemplate this, what would a world of 9 billion people suffering from major drouts and in net food production deficit be like?
I certainly don’t enjoy thinking about it.
Thanks Geoff, that does sound really good and I think I agree with Richard Huzzey. the point about the corn laws is to show how peole often ignore that there is a problem at all just because some of the ways to deal with that problem go against their philosophy. And I’ll see myself to checking out the book over the summer.
John,
From reading your article, you seem to be saying that we NEED to become a “socialist” party/state in order to take the action – “tough decisions” – needed. I would question whether what you’re suggesting is actually socialist (socialism is surely about the public ownership of the means of production, and the distribution of wealth?). I think what you’re talking about is a form of authoritarianism. And it’s a good question: Can one be at the forefront of the environmental agenda without adopting stringent eco-authoritarian measures?
I suppose I’ve two points to make on this: the kind of negative freedom where individuals, businesses and Governments are free to ruin the planet is not liberalism at all, I don’t think – such action would heavily restrict the freedom of most of the world’s population. But we don’t have to make a choice between a free for all and rigid authoritarianism.
Secondly, we adhere to a number of regulatory rules without feeling our liberties have been taken away from us already. For example, health and safety rules. Most Liberal Democrats(?) see Government as the regulator and the enabler, performing the difficult balancing act, keeping such interventions as small as possible, and making decisions at the correct level of Government, which maximises the involvement of those affected. The key is how such rules are framed.
Richard points out that we feel that natural innovation is more effective than state planning – so we have to frame Government action, local, national and international, in ways that either disourage polluting activities or encourage non-polluting activities, or both. The Green Tax Switch is one such attempt. As is, on a different scale, Islington’s climate change partnership and grant-making Climate Change Fund.
Richard, I don’t accept that I’m being complacent. Conversely, I think there are things we can and should be doing. The naysayers who argue that anything less than the best will be disastrous, that China and India represent insurmountable problems and are dismissive of our ability to innovate are the complacent ones.
I’ve commented in detail here
Just to add. The steps we might take are not so reliant on innovation as is suggested. Enough technology exists, but it has not been widely used to to its cost. Innovation will drive down those costs – I am not suggesting that we gamble on new clean energy sources being invented – I am suggesting that we switch to the cleaner energy sources that already exist.
That link again
http://joeotten.blogspot.com/2007/06/being-green-and-socialism-response-to.html
trying html again:
joeotten.blogspot.com/2007/06/being-green-and-socialism-response-to.html
hmmm, hyperlinks not working, just click on my name for the link.
Thanks for the comments guys, really interesting reading your thoughts and comparing them to the ones I’ve recieved on Labour home (theres a blogger on there called ‘glass house’ whos sounding like a complete dick!)
I’ve also set out similar messages to all the environment and shadow environment ministers (including Huhne)and I’ll post up the relpies they send. In response to Joe I recently recieved an e-mail on the Monbiot messageboard about an electric car called the ‘Tesla’. It can apparently do 0-60 quicker than a porsche, can go over 150 mph and uses up less energy at faster speeds. although the first model costs around $100000 with no upgrades the follow up models are set to bring the price down to $30000. doesn’t sound bad ehh?
As an autocar reader I was a little surprised to see the Tesla talked about quite so positively. There is no doubt that it is a very impressive car – it is the first to use LiON batteries (like computers). But don’t get too excited – not only is it very expensive, but it is also a lightweight 2 seater (it is Lotus Elise derived), and it takes 3.5 hours to recharge, every 200 miles. Making a full size, full safety electric car that still goes a decent distance and can be recharged rapidly is some way off -even the Tesla is not due in Britain until c. 2010.
But as we showed in the 1970s, and as the comparison of the US and Europe shows now, raising petrol prices persuades people to buy mroe fuel efficient cars – my sister’s Yaris has averaged over 50mpg in the 5000 miles that she has had it. The wonders of a market economy!
The autocar test of the tesla is here:
http://www.autocar.co.uk/CarReviews/FirstDrives/Tesla-Roadster-Roadster/223095/
Electric cars are not a solution to any of our problems. Firstly, electricity is a very inefficient means of transporting energy when the losses in transmission and in most methods of generation, the loss of energy to the environment are taken into account; and secondly, electric cars play into the hands of the advocates of nuclear power because as they are likely to be largely recharged at night this creates the off-peak demand that nuclear power stations require for their effective operation.
Tony,
If we build a lot of renewable generating capacity, this will also be largely unwanted overnight and ideal for charging electric cars. So while having lots of nuclear electricity would be good for electric cars, the converse is not so clear.
In any case nuclear is clearly a potential part of the solution to global warming even if it is the cause of other problems. It seems difficult to oppose unless the other problems are more serious than that of global warming.
I suppose it really depends if the big car companies start taking on electric cars. I heard that theres been a lot of lobbying by the oil industry to car companies that have stopped them adopting one or two electric cars in the past. If the government were to actually encourage companies though to adopt new technology, say through a green tax switch, then maybe their might be more interest.
take a look at carbon trade watch if you really care about freedom http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/summary.shtml?x=544225
for my take click here http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Dec2006/dec-06-stern.htm