Eco-elites or mob rule? Democracy in the face of

climate change

Halina Ward

Environmental Funders Network Webinar, 12th April 2011

halina.ward@fdsd.org

www.fdsd.org

What’s the problem? Climate change could be a significant disruptor

of democracy (shifting winners and losers; eco-elites versus business or military elites)

If democracy is to rise to the challenges of climate change – to remain resilient – it will need to adapt and evolve

Learning from previous shocks: two World Wars; economic crises (rise in social unrest/fear of ‘the other’); pandemics; the war on terror

What’s the problem (cont’d...)

A curious lack of pro-democracy advocacy on democracy and climate change

Endemic short-termism The extrinsic values of consumerism The (partial) failure of sustainable development... Low levels of public participation Governance lagging behind our rapidly accelerating

impacts as a species: “Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more

rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel”

2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Intergenerational climate justice...

[w]e act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote; they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions” (WCED)

“this is a generation that has practiced [sic] diachronic competition (that is, competition with future generations) more ruthlessly than any other since the dawn of our species”. (Richard Heinberg)

...versus intragenerational climate justice...

“.. unless we act in a manner that fundamentally changes their lives the poor of the world may lose confidence in their representatives and the democratic systems to which we remain committed, seeing their representatives as nothing more than sounding brass or tinkling cymbals.”

2002 Johannesburg Declaration

How do we currently understand democracy?

Surely it’s not just about voting? Is it just about communicating to our representatives

how issues affect us as individuals? Building a stronger set of intrinsic values around

democracy (cf Common Cause) Political versus social understandings of democracy The dominance of opinion polls...

Are climate change and precautionary action like capital punishment?

Deliberation, leadership, accountability The messy state of global governance

The state of democracy... (pre 2011) Widespread disenchantment with democracy Stagnation in the spread of democracy (2006-2008);

decline in the spread of democracy (2008-2010) “In the US, there has been an erosion of civil liberties

related to the fight against terrorism. Problems in the functioning of government have also become more prominent. In the UK, there has also been some erosion of civil liberties, but the main feature is an exceptionally low level of political participation across all dimensions—voting turnout, membership of political parties and willingness to engage in and attitudes to political activity”. (EIU, November 2010)

The state of democracy, cont’d

Both meaningful action on climate change (impact on economy) and inaction (long-termism/future generations) create pressures for democracy

If democracy has failed to take greater hold in a period where both resource and environmental contexts have been relatively benign, how will it fare at a time of increasing resource squeeze, climate change and population growth?

The state of democracy cont’d

China and her middle class; cultural exceptionalism

Democracy versus democratisation (democracy promotion discredited)

What to expect next from North Africa, Middle East and Gulf States?

Who’d want ‘eco-elites’ to rule (‘for the [present and future] people’)?

Authoritarianism is inevitable and we should make it work for humanity as a whole: “We feel there is some merit in the idea of a ruling elite class of philosopher kings.. who will attempt to preserve remnants of our civilisation when the great collapse comes... These new philosopher kings or eco-elites will be as committed to the value of life as the economic globalists are to the values of money and greed” (Shearman and Wayne Smith)

“after the Copenhagen debacle, an exceedingly dangerous talking point went viral: the real culprit of the breakdown was democracy itself” (Naomi Klein, April 2010)

Shaping the aftermath of collapse

Dark Mountain Project: “We believe we are entering an age of material decline, ecological collapse and social and political uncertainty, and that our cultural responses should reflect this, rather than denying it… . We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’.”

Will centre-left environmentalists and libertarians of the hard right find that they have common cause in refusing to take collapse as a starting point?

Eco-elites/authoritarianism

Muttering about China in an era of financial and economic crisis and commodity peaks... (The Singaporean model. NYT: Trading Democracy for Prosperity)

Rise of ‘green nazis’/‘eco-fascists’ rhetoric in the blogosphere

Could authoritarianism at the centre be linked to vibrant forms of social democracy at the grassroots in the way that some eco-elitists might like?

James Lovelock on D & CC

“We need a more authoritative world. We've become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world... It's all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can't do that. You've got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it. And they should be very accountable too, of course... But it can't happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What's the alternative to democracy? There isn't one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while”.

Why bother to shore up democracy?

The only decision-making system that is able to deliver respect for human rights on the scale that is necessary, ethically, to maintain the dignity of humankind.

In an autocracy:“Without appropriate political participation of ecologically aware individuals or groups, business interests can easily dominate in the political process, opening gates for excessive pollution and resource depletion. As the media is censored and public expressions of criticism constrained, there is no free flow of environmentally relevant information. Moreover, official secrecy towards environmental degradation undermines transparency even further....” (Drosdowski, 2006)

“The attraction towards authoritarianism as a means of saving the planet is dangerous, not just because of the tyranny it may let in, but because it represents a flight from politics that is itself futile” (John Lotherington)

Is democracy good for the environment?

Drosdowski (2006): ‘[t]he available theoretical and empirical literature strongly suggests that democracy be an important prerequisite of natural preservation and environmental quality improvements’.

Farzin and Bond (2006): ‘democracy provides the best conduit to environmental quality, relative to other government structures’.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Local communities are far more likely to act in ways that conserve natural resources if they have real influence in the decisions on how resources are used—and if they end up with a fairer share of the benefits.

Natural assets will receive far better protection if their importance is recognized in the central decision-making of governments and businesses, rather than leaving policies associated with ecosystems to relatively weak environment departments

Implies significant evolution in democracy; but potential to deliver change on the scale that is required is not explicitly assessed

What about ‘mob rule?’

The dark side of ‘crowdsourcing’: UK Coalition Red Tape Challenge linked to a presumption against legislation... No more windfarms? No more energy efficiency certificates for appliances? No more Climate Change Act? No more permitted wood burners in smoke control areas? (cf deliberative approaches)

Mob rule, cont’d (David Holmgren)

Earth Steward scenario: “Outside the gated communities, salvage, fuel harvesting and animal husbandry are the main economic activities, with trade controlled by gangs and local warlords”

Lifeboat scenario: Most forms of economic and social organisation progressively collapse; “warrior and gang cults provide meaning”..

(Holmgren: Future Scenarios: How communities can adapt to peak oil and climate change)

Richard Heinberg’s perspective

‘if we want peace, democracy, and human rights, we must work to create the ecological condition essential for these things to exist: i.e. a stable human population at or less than the environment’s long-term carrying capacity’.

No call for investment in democratic resilience. Rather, investment of time in personal and community preparedness

Return to small communities and to extensive farming could provide a springboard for ‘the rebirth of democracy’ in the United States (Richard Heinberg, Peak Everything)

Heinberg, cont’d

The only real question is: “whether societies will contract and simplify intelligently or in an uncontrolled, chaotic fashion.

Four kinds of D/CC interaction

Democracy challenges in managing climate change mitigation.

Democracy challenges of managing climate impacts including scarcity, migration and disaster.

Democracy challenges of adapting to climate change

Democracy challenges of managing geopolitical dimensions of climate change: e.g. opening up of the Arctic to year-round navigation.

The climate risk to democracy: migration “since another [2] billion people are expected by

2050, it is difficult to see.. How mass migration due to environmental factors will be avoided... ...environmental migrations of people from damaged areas to more environmentally stable areas... are likely to lead to a variety of conflicts and calls for less democratic means to keep order” (Jerome Glenn)

BUT: in some parts of the world, migration flows may decrease

The climate risk to democracy: economic crisis

Anthropogenic climate change could exacerbate economic crises (particularly in the democracies of the OECD: cf economic cost of Japanese earthquake), social unrest and polarization.

Authoritarian measures and a reduction in democracy are one possible outcome

Indirect impacts of climate change: freedom of expression and movement Is mainstream media up to the task of reporting on climate

crisis? (The future of journalism; cf Fukushima; but also US response to Wikileaks...)

‘Nothing to see here’... Look beyond democracies to see possible responses to

crisis: Algerian food riots; Chernobyl OR: could crisis nurture greater democratic engagment? (cf

post WWI suffrage) Short-term restrictions in time of crisis versus long-term

erosion of the freedoms that underpin liberal democracy (cf Spanish influenza, 1918/19)

Confusion between liberalism and libertarianism (cf ‘the right to shop’)

Possible climate impacts..

A warning: many statements about impacts are hard to evaluate... BUT:

Sea level rise up to 5m by 2100 (allowing for non-linear rises): densely populated areas and vulnerable settlements

Global mean increase of 4 degrees now considered possible as early as the 2060s (just as global population peaks)

Diverse health impacts (vector-borne diseases; mental health impacts; malnutrition)

Water stress Increased food insecurity Significant biodiversity losses Reductions in agricultural GDP (though income effects depend

on location)

Possible climate impacts (2)

Some climate impacts are credibly likely to be worse than envisaged in the fourth assessment report of the IPCC (e.g. those as a result of sea level rise)

The prospect of climate change processes reaching a number of tipping points at which processes of change could accelerate and impacts worsen dramatically is more real than previously considered.

Scenarios for the future of democracy in the face of climate change, and policy-makers, need to have the worst case in view.

Adaptation versus mitigation Fewer challenges for democracy from adaptation (communities of

actors more comfortably fit current ideas about democracy) than mitigation

Mismatch between prerequisites for effective (democratic) mitigation (uncontested science; access to information; available technologies; public will, etc) and prerequisites for effective (democratic) adaptation? (Need to think some more!)

Does democracy help climate adaptation? It ought to. Research shows correlation between potential ‘features of democracy/democratic social organisation’ on the one hand, and adaptive capacity on the other. But more work needed to assess any correlation between determinants of democratic resilience (in the wide sense of democracy) and determinants of adaptive capacity

Little transnational assessment of ‘preconditions for effective and democratic climate mitigation’

Problems applying IPCC work...

Insufficiently clearly presented to facilitate development of robust public (or even policy maker) understanding on climate change and its impacts. E.g:

baseline years; target dates; underlying assumptions etc are often left out of both technical and policy-maker summaries in the IPCC Working Group reports.

Probabilities/likelihoods are inconsistently presented and jumbled up.

Many climate impacts ‘projections’ (sometimes mis-presented as ‘predictions’) are based on climate models which draw on SRES scenarios but without specifying which; or

draw on SRES scenarios which are based on ‘no additional policy measures or actions’; or are based in other considerations which are not spelled out.

Problems applying IPCC (2) SRES scenarios (assume ‘no additional policy measures’) run to

2100; but exist in six separate families, none attached a likelihood of materialising (unsurprisingly), and inconsistently used as baselines in subsequent climate research.

methodological problems abound across different sets of climate scenarios – from Ricardian analysis of income effects of climate change (each study we have read includes a section setting out at least six critiques of the methodologies applied), to SRES methodologies, to the Stern Review.

A bewildering number of types of data/units of measurement Assessment of mitigation options without socio-political

feasibility (cf Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: socio-political factors as determinants of responses)

BUT: tacit assumption that radical change is not possible in the time available (mitigation options based on ‘business as usual’ economic models/little consideration of mitigation based on lifestyle change or cultural or values transformation). Is the opposite in fact true?

More problems with the IPCC’s work...

No summary of regional impacts linked to mean temperature rises/ underlying scenario assumptions over time, save for this indicative range of impacts for ‘outlier’ (high and low) scenarios:

More problems...

“I've attached the all-important emissions table (showing global GHG emissions in 2050 and 2100 under the IPCC's six SRES 'marker' scenarios). The problems I've encountered are as follows:

1)    There is no Excel emissions data for the SRES marker scenario A1B-AIM

2)    I do not know which modelling approach (AIM/IMAGE/MESSAGE etc) applies to the SRES marker scenarios A1T and A1FI (it is not clear from the SRES Report section 4.6. ‘A Roadmap to the SRES Scenarios’)

3)    Most of the gases in the SRES Report Appendix VII ‘Data tables’ do not have corresponding GWP values in the IPCC’s table.

4)    How can emissions units not in the form MtC eq or MtGHG (such as MtN2O-N, MtS, Mt, MtN) be converted to MtCO2 eq? And how can emissions units in the form MtGHG (such as MtCO) be converted to MtCO2 eq when the IPCC gives no GWP for that GHG?

Hope that makes sense!“

Problems assessing other links between D and CC

Hard to account for all external drivers of change (role of civil society; perceptions of ‘expertise’; peak oil)

Northern bias in literature on democracy and its future The problem of time.. (e.g is 50 years a long time or

not?) A rise in direct democracy is predicted in the democracy

futures literature. Without a investment in deliberation/reflective learning, that is very unlikely to enable effective climate action. Is a rise in direct democracy even a threat to effective climate action?

More problems! Insufficient reflection in the sustainable

development literature on the future mix between direct, representative and deliberative democracy.

Extrapolating from other ‘crises’ to CC is imperfect. (To what extent is this like WWII, or Spanish flu, or the War on Terror, or the Japanese Earthquake?)

Conflation of democracy ‘as is’ and ‘democracy as it could or should be’..

Narrow (or too-wide) definitions of democracy

So what resources do we need to keep democracy resilient and adaptive? Reinforcing the case for democracy (cf Chinese middle classes and

eco-authoritarians...) Science and the citizen: the role of the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change (sources of legitimacy; scenarios are not projections; communication needs; updating scenario assumptions; key missing diagrams and explanations...)

The value of precaution.. Nurturing belief in the societal value of democracy (climate change

re-enforces the value of existing work) Respect for leadership beyond short-term self-interest

The resources needed...

Active citizen engagement and deliberation Reconciling and managing conflict and trade-offs across

different levels of climate decision-making (inter-level accountability)

2004 European Green Paper on the Future of Democracy: “Can ... apparent loss of democratic legitimacy be

compensated by other forms of legitimacy underlying ‘guardian’ and ‘governance’ institutions?” (cf: Alliance for Future Generations)

“Can non-majoritarian institutions of guardianship/governance be reconciled with and justified by reforms in democratic practices?”

Are there implications for funders? Amplifying the case for democracy (since it can no longer be

assumed) A broader concept of climate justice: building democracy and

public participation/engagement into climate work in order to make democracy resilient

Help to generate the evidence (for everyone) on framing choices and democracy

Revisiting the basics of climate communication: IPCC etc Bringing active citizenship to ideas on sustainable consumption Building understanding of choices in relation to ‘long-termism’

and precaution Bringing sustainable development to democratisation (heading

off the China/Singapore effect...)

Further reading... The Future of Democracy in the Face of Climate Change

(papers one to four); via www.fdsd.org/reports David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith, The Climate

Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy, 2007, Praeger, Westport

Finnish Parliamentary Committee for the Future papers on ‘the future of democracy’

IPCC 4th Assessment Report David Holmgren, Future Scenarios: how communities can

adapt to peak oil and climate change, 2009, Green Books, Dartington

‘Mobilising Democracy to Tackle Climate Change’ (February 2010); via www.fdsd.org/reports