The Politics of Climate Change

by Anthony Giddens

  It isn’t clear at present how far such communities can be generalized, or what some of their drawbacks might be. They are an example of the opportunities created by the twin problems of climate change and energy security. Could they be the outliers for broader processes of social transformation? I believe so, because now is surely the time for us to try to come more to terms with what I have earlier called the problems of over-development – put another way, the downside of affluence.

  Consider that emblem of modernity, the car. The fate of the car will have a profound impact upon our struggle to limit global warming. Cars and other motor vehicles account for 14 per cent of total world CO2 emissions – more if one includes those produced during the course of their manufacture. More than a billion cars have been made since the earliest models were introduced. If car-ow nership and use follow their current trajectory, in little over a decade there will be a billion cars on the roads at the same time.37 In the US, car use plus car manufacture account for fully 60 per cent of the country’s emissions; the US produces 45 per cent of all CO2 emissions generated by cars worldwide. What is the definition of a ‘pedestrian’ in America? Answer: someone who has just parked his car.38

  We don’t know the extent to which, or how quickly, new forms of propulsion for vehicles, such as electricity from renewable sources, or hydrogen, can come into use on a large scale. Yet, whatever happens to fuel sources, we can already catch a glimpse of the possibility of ‘life beyond the car’.

  The attraction of cars has always been that they offer freedom, mobility and speed. Yet the proliferation of cars on the roads negates these very qualities. What meaning do they have when drivers are endlessly stuck in traffic jams? We say ‘stuck in a traffic jam’ as though it came from external sources – in fact, every individual driver is the traffic jam. Part of the logic of eco-towns is to break dependence on the motor-car, and numerous experiments are being tried within orthodox city environments. For instance, local authorities have introduced congestion charging and traffic calming, and have banned cars altogether from some areas, thereby encouraging people to put a positive value on walking or cycling.

  As French economic historian Jean Gimpel has shown, technological ‘progress’ is sometimes achieved through reversals.39 For instance, nylon was once touted as the material of the future for clothing. Yet the ‘traditional’ cloths of wool and cotton made a dramatic comeback. A possible future (brought about by planning) is certainly likely to be a return to localism, involving networks of small, self-reliant communities (the future that many greens envisage). James Kunstler has remarked that city life will be marked by ‘a return to smaller scales of operation in virtually every respect of travel and transport’.40

  Much more likely, and desirable, is that such a tendency will interact with its opposite – a further expansion of mobility, but where transport will change its nature.41 There could be a return to cityscapes that existed before the invention of the car, but which could nevertheless be integrated with a world of high mobility. The driverless car is already here, with its robot driver proven as being more capable and safer than even the most skilled and careful human counterpart. In cars now on sale, high-tech devices already exist that help prevent collisions on fast-moving roads without the intervention of the driver.

  A digital system of transport could follow, perhaps combining driverless with driven cars, all composed of small, ultra-light vehicles. The transportation device would be a ‘personal multimodal pod in which passengers can stay in comfort throughout a journey leaving all the hassle of switching between different transport modes and network levels to the pod’.42 Smart cards would be used to pay and control access. Such a system would rewrite the relationship between the ‘public’ and the ‘private’. Real-life travel could be integrated with virtual access within ‘tele-immersion environments’.

  Utopian? Well, yes, but also actually at some point quite probable. The division between ‘private’ vehicles – the car – and ‘public’ transport has already begun to break down. Thus car clubs, where members don’t own the vehicles they drive, but have privileged access to them, have sprung up in numerous cities in the US and Europe. It is not difficult to see that such systems could be liberating, as well as add significantly to quality of life. One should also remember that the car is a lethal instrument. The freedom it confers, and the love it can inspire, comes at a terrible price – it has been estimated that some 40 million people have been killed on the roads since the car first made its appearance, greater than the number that died in the two world wars combined.

  Whatever happens from now on, climate change is going to affect our lives and we will have to adapt to its consequences. Politics intrudes here just as much as everywhere else and how processes of adaptation will be managed is an issue of prime importance. Just as in the case of controlling emissions, the developed countries have responsibilities towards the rest of the world as far as adaptation is concerned, and in the following chapter I shall discuss what these are.

  7

  THE POLITICS OF

  ADAPTATION

  Initially borrowed from evolutionary biology, the term ‘adaptation’ has come into widespread use in the climate change literature. In a way, it is a misleading term, because it implies reacting to the consequences of climate change once it has occurred. However, just like our efforts to limit the warming of the world’s climate, adaptation as far as possible has to be anticipatory and preventative.

  Adaptation has been described as the ‘poor and derided cousin of emissions reduction’.1 For some while, discussing adaptation was taboo among environmentalists, on the grounds that it would adversely affect efforts directed at combating climate change itself. Times have definitely changed, however. In the discussions at Cancun (see below, pp. 193–5), as much time was devoted to discussion of adaptation as to mitigation. An Adaptation Fund, set up by the UN some years before, has had some flesh put on its bare bones. The fund had been widely criticized for being too difficult for countries to qualify for and for being seriously underfinanced. In future, developing countries will have direct access to it and it will have significantly greater resources to dispense.

  In some ways the issues surrounding adaptation are even more complex than those to do with mitigation. For in preparing to adapt before climatic changes have actually taken place, or when they are in their early stages, we have to specify what the effects of global warming will be, in the many contexts in which they will have an impact. Providing some concepts to help guide our efforts at adaptation is important, because such concepts can help give shape and direction to policy. Let me first underline the relevance of the distinction already made, between adaptation after the event and adaptation oriented to possible futures. I shall speak of proactive adaptation (PA) to refer to the second of these categories. Within the limits of our knowledge – and in any real-life context, of funding – PA should be the prime focus of our attention whenever we think about adaptation, although reactive adaptation will certainly be necessary.

  PA is about diagnosing and responding to vulnerabilities. Vulnerability is once again all about risk – the risk of suffering damage to a valued activity, way of life or resource. Vulnerability is plainly an economic and social phenomenon, not just one concerned with the physical environment. We can’t discuss vulnerability without also focusing on its opposite, resilience. Resilience can be defined as adaptive capacity, the capacity not only to cope in the face of external changes or shocks, but, wherever possible, to respond actively and positively to them. It can be a property of the physical environment, of an individual or of a group. In the first case it is about the capability of the built environment to withstand shocks of one kind or another. It could take the form, for example, of strengthening dykes, or building new ones, in advance of expected increases in vulnerability to flooding. In the second, it refers to qualities of character – the ability to make the best of adverse circumstances, or actively to triumph over them. Defined as
a quality of a group, it concerns factors such as the capacity of members of a community to act together rather than to become divided and fragmented; and to be able to modify, or even transform, existing ways of life should it become necessary so to do. Smallholders who grow a variety of crops, for example, will be more resilient than those dependent upon a single cash crop.

  Most of the concepts introduced earlier in this book are directly relevant to adaptation. In deciding what forms of resilience to invest in and cultivate, we always have to bear in mind a balance of risks. Adaptation sounds like a version of the precautionary principle, because (as PA) it is a pre-emptive doctrine – it is intervention taken to prevent or contain future risks. Yet, as in all risk situations, when deciding on a particular strategy, we have to weigh different risks and opportunities against each other. The percentage principle applies.

  Political and economic convergence are as important to the politics of adaptation as they are to mitigation – they are likely to influence how far citizens accept whatever policies are proposed. The limitations of the politics of fear and anxiety are just as pronounced here as elsewhere. ‘The polluter pays’ principle is also just as relevant as in the case of mitigation, both within nations and among them. The richer countries must shoulder the lion’s share of responsibility for adaptation, as far as the developing world is concerned, just as they have to do in limiting the progress of global warming. The developing countries are much more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than the industrial ones, partly because many are located in climatically volatile regions and partly because they haven’t got the resources that the developed countries have to prepare.

  As with mitigation, the state will have to play a lead role in policy formation and enactment. However, all the points made earlier in the book apply. To promote adaptation, governments must help stimulate innovation and creativity in the diverse worlds of business and civil society. Citizen involvement is necessary, with a distribution of rights and responsibilities across the different levels of governance. A major political problem is the fact that funding for adaptation projects will inevitably compete, to some degree, with investment needed for mitigation.

  What a country needs to do in order to adapt will vary greatly depending on its existing climate patterns and geographical location. The US has one of the most volatile climates in the world; extreme weather events will become even more pronounced and frequent. In countries with more temperate climates, such as in Northern Europe, climate change may initially produce some positive effects. The edge will go off winter, while the other seasons will, by definition, be warmer, although with greater day-to-day temperature fluctuations than before. However, if global warming proceeds unchecked, the adverse effects will quickly overwhelm these temporary benefits.

  In the UK, as the frequency and intensity of storms increase, large volumes of rain will fall quite suddenly, resulting in flash floods. Yet, at the same time, summer droughts will put pressure on water supplies. As temperatures rise, there will also be wider implications for health; existing ailments, such as skin cancer or cataracts, will increase, and subtropical diseases previously unknown in the country could also make an appearance.

  The first premise of adaptation policy for any country is to do a detailed mapping of vulnerabilities, local and national. Adaptation could promote innovation in much the same way as mitigation strategies can do. At least some such changes could be valuable in and of themselves, whatever happens to the climate – for instance, actions to promote more efficient use of water, improved systems of weather prediction, or the introduction of crops hardy enough to thrive under adverse circumstances.2 Adaptation brings us back to the issue of planning, since it involves thinking ahead in a systematic way. It should be understood not only as looking for vulnerabilities and blocking them off, but as investigating also what the knock-on consequences of mitigation strategies are likely to be.

  In the rest of this chapter I shall look at issues of adaptation in Europe and then consider in some detail a case study from the UK – adaptation to risks of flooding. I will then switch gear to consider the formidable problems that adaptation poses in the developing world. The role of insurance is likely to be crucial in adaptation – although most current discussions seem to ignore it – and I shall consider it in some detail. The insurance industry has done a great deal of work on climate change, as well it might; yet that work does not seem, thus far, to have been integrated with the rest of the climate change literature.

  Adaptation in the context of Europe

  Europe is diverse climatically and geographically. Adaptation will rarely be straightforward because of the combination of that diversity with the inherent complexity of the effects of climate change. This observation is even more apposite if one accepts that ‘Europe’ doesn’t end at the boundaries of the EU, but stretches over to central Asia. The average temperature in Europe defined in this way rose by a full 1 per cent over the course of the twentieth century, more than that for the world as a whole.3 I shall concentrate here on effects that are either being felt now, or are almost certain to happen regardless of how far climate change is successfully controlled from here on in.

  A warmer atmosphere contains a higher proportion of moisture, and means more rainfall, but new patterns of precipitation will vary from one region to another in their frequency and intensity. Rainfall and snowfall have increased in Northern Europe, while in the south droughts are becoming more common. There are several main areas of especial vulnerability as global warming takes hold. Not just Southern Europe, but the whole of the Mediterranean basin will suffer from the combined impact of high temperature increase and reduced rainfall in areas already facing water shortages.

  The effects of rising temperatures are more marked at higher altitudes than lower down and will affect the Alps in particular, leading to melting of the snow and changing river flows. Coastal regions will suffer from more storms, and in some areas increased erosion. Floodplains holding large populations will be at greater risk of flash floods. In Scandinavia, much more rainfall is expected than in the past, most of which will actually take the form of rain rather than snow – major changes will occur in particular in climatic patterns in the Arctic Circle, where temperatures are rising more rapidly than anywhere else.

  A very large range of activities will be influenced in some way by these changes. They will affect businesses of all shapes and descriptions. Agriculture, forestry, fishery and tourist industries will be in the front line. In parts of the subcontinent, where rainfall will decrease, water flow for thermal and nuclear power plants, as well as for hydroelectricity, might be affected.

  Possible adaptation measures are many, as are the levels of governance at which they would take effect. Inexpensive measures could make a significant contribution – for example, improving water conservation, making changes in crop rotation, changing the dates at which seeds are sown and introducing crops that are able to survive periods of drought. Other sorts of strategies that could be contemplated are much more demanding and expensive. New early warning systems could be introduced, perhaps on a pan-European level, such as flood and forest fire warning systems. Whole communities could be relocated away from low-lying coastal areas and floodplains. Poorer groups will be most vulnerable and systematic policy innovation will be needed to ensure their protection.

  Flexibility in most cases is the key to resilience, since it isn’t normally possible to predict in detail what will have to be confronted and when. Wherever possible, mitigation and adaptation should be combined. For example, insulation for buildings could be provided in such a way as to make them sturdier.

  The principles of no risk without opportunity and looking for climate change positives apply. For instance, tourism in some areas may decline – rising heat, coupled to water shortages, is likely to affect summer resorts in the south. Yet as a result of the same changes other coastal areas could be opened up as tourist destinations. New economic opportunities could
be created as a result of technological innovation, such as in the case of building techniques, materials and products. The need to rethink health systems could be a driving force of new forms of preventative medicine or healthcare.

  The EU precept of subsidiarity – that decisions should be taken and policies applied at the lowest appropriate level, and the closest to the citizen – should come fully into play. Many policies will be best forged and delivered primarily in local communities. Local knowledge will be important in how best to proceed. There are examples already to hand. For instance, in southern Spain, farmers have got together with local municipalities to create initiatives to save water through electronic management and distribution systems for the irrigation of crops.

  At the same time, coordination necessarily will have to be pursued at an EU level. Climate change will have effects everywhere and these will not follow administrative boundaries. This theorem applies to the EU itself, which must concern itself also with ‘wider Europe’ – the North African side of the Mediterranean, and the Caucasus region – since coordination across these areas will certainly be desirable. Some sectors within the EU are already closely integrated – such as those covering agriculture, water, biodiversity, fisheries and energy networks – and adaptation policies will have to be tailored to this fact.

  The European Commission is developing a range of programmes designed to apply to widely shared problems. In 2008 it set out a framework to tackle the impact of global warming upon human and animal health. The programme will consider different aspects of the effects of climate change on mortality and morbidity, including likely changes in the means of transmission of certain infectious diseases. The Water Framework Directive provides the opportunity for an EU-wide programme for water management that could incorporate adaptation objectives.