07/02/2022

(AU New Daily) The Stats Guy: The Generational Demographics Behind The Climate Change Conflict

New Daily - Simon Kuestenmacher

The generational lens can help us to speculate about the future direction of environmental politics in Australia. Image: TND

Let’s not worry about the physical details of climate change in this piece. There are scientists much better placed than me to explore this perspective.

Instead, let’s examine environmental concerns through the demographic lens.

The scientific community and all environmentalists, from moderates to extremists in the field, agree that as humans we impact our environment. It matters what and how much we take out of the ground and what and how much we pump into our atmosphere, soils and rivers. Our actions impact the planet we live on.

If virtually all relevant experts agree on the basics, why don’t all politicians and business leaders rally around the cause?

Even hardened environmentalists must accept that our country’s collective economic success matters. Environmental issues will only be at the top of the national agenda once Australians have their basic needs covered and feel financially secure.

In the last two decades the Australian middle class has been squeezed. The cost of living grew at a much faster rate than wages, home ownership is but a dream for many, households carry way more debt, and about one in twelve workers (close to a million people) holds more than one job.

If you can’t afford housing, are worried about your income and can’t pay for childcare, bigger picture environmental concerns will not be on the top of your agenda.

If the environmental movement isn’t taking the concerns of the struggling lower and middle class seriously, we will continue to see environmentalism be a politised issue at the edge of politics, rather than a central concern. Economic success is a prerequisite to politics focusing on the environment.

The Australian habit of viewing environmentalism as an issue of the political left is seriously slowing any meaningful climate action.

Norway’s fossil fuel reserves are happily exploited to fund renewable energies. Photo: Getty

Conservatism and environmentalism are viewed as opposing views in Australia. This is utter nonsense. Politicians on the left might even be hurting the environmental movement by equating environmentalism with left politics.

In Germany, it was a conservative government that decided to phase out nuclear and coal – a move unthinkable for conservative Australians as of now.

In Norway, the nation’s huge fossil fuel reserves are happily exploited, and its profits channelled into a sovereign wealth fund that invests in renewable energies – a move currently unthinkable for progressive Aussie leftists.

How to sell environmental policies?

Conservative Australians don’t react well to having scientific facts thrown in their direction with the smug undertone of intellectual superiority.

Climate change and sustainability must be communicated in a way that completely avoids language that is ridiculing, shaming or moralising. These three are sadly the go-to modes of communication.

The environmental movement in Australia might want to take inspiration from the success of the Norwegian model. Viewing Norway as a successful model requires the left to embrace a pro-business, dare I say capitalist world view. Not an easy ask, as this means the comfort of perceiving oneself as intellectually superior must be left behind.

The depoliticisation of something as crucial as the environment must take national (and personal!) priority. The political opposition is not the enemy.

There is an increasing generational element to the climate discussion. Naïve, poorly informed young folks want to save the planet and moralise and shame ignorant, profit-hungry, poorly informed old folks who don’t give a damn about the planet’s future as long as they have a nice retirement.

If only it was so simple. People are much more nuanced in their world views than these stereotypes suggest. Are there any generalisations that are at least a bit more helpful than the old greedy-righties vs young naïve-lefties narrative?

I think the generational lens can help us to speculate about the future direction of environmental politics in Australia.

The Baby Boomers (born 1946-’63) are slowly leaving the workforce and political leadership positions behind.

Over half of the generation is already of retirement age and political positions of power are being largely handed over to younger generations.

Their influence on policy directions is shrinking even though they remain a politically active group and continue to be a very wealthy generation with economic influence.

By now all but one state premier (Dominic Perrottet was born in 1982 and is technically a Millennial) and the Prime Minister are members of Gen X (born 1964-81).

Even though Xers are a small generation, we must not underestimate their influence. There is a level of seniority built into many leadership positions. You become prime minister at 52 – Scott Morrison was born in 1968 – and the average CEO in Australia is 54.

These top jobs are firmly Gen X’s territory during the whole of the 2020s. This means climate policies and business strategy aren’t set by Greta Thunberg’s Gen Z (born 2000-17) but her Xer parents.

To appeal to Gen X, messaging around the issue of climate change must be pragmatic and solution-focused. Moralising will not yield any positive results as neither Xers nor Boomers are likely swayed by it.

I suspect Australia, as led by Gen X, to be much more open to hyper-pragmatic climate change solutions like the Norwegian model. Pragmatic, fact-driven, and outcome-focused – that’s how Gen X operates.

Gen Z-ers like Greta Thunberg will need to appeal pragmatic Generation X to achieve effective climate change policy. Photo: Getty

The problem here is that Millennials (1982-’99), who are by far the biggest generation in Australia now, will need to curb their desire to make climate change a moral issue.

If climate change continues to be moralised, if it continues to look and feel like virtue signalling to older generations, the pragmatic Gen X leaders might be less inclined to act.With Gen X at the helm, now is the time for a pragmatic approach to climate change.

This might well include investing fossil fuel money into clean technologies, setting us up for a truly renewable technological future.

This Norwegian approach of leveraging profits of the Australian fossil fuel industry is probably going to be disliked by many Millennials who think any future extraction of fossil fuels to be immoral.

While Gen X is in the driver seat, Millennials are best to support the Norwegian approach during the 2020s.

In the 2030s, when Millennials will not only be the largest generation but will also be of leadership age, Australia might well see less compromise-driven climate policies.

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(Grist) Should The World Ban Solar Geoengineering? 60 Experts Say Yes.

Grist - Shannon Osaka

They say the technology poses an “unacceptable risk.”

Sina Schuldt / Picture Alliance via Getty Images

The island nation of Tonga has been covered in ash from an underwater volcanic eruption. It sent tsunami waves surging across the entire West Coast. And it also released a cloud of sulfur dioxide, a chemical that, in large enough quantities, reflects the sun’s rays and cools the planet.

Scientists quickly determined that, unlike Mount Pinatubo’s eruption in 1991 — which cooled the planet by around 1 degree Fahrenheit for several years — the Tonga volcano hadn’t released enough sulfur dioxide to alter global temperatures.

But the eruption illustrated a question that has been dogging scientific and climate experts for decades: If the world got unbearably hot, should scientists and governments opt to put sulfur dioxide or similar chemicals into the atmosphere to slow the rate of global warming? Is it ethical to even research such technologies?

In an open letter published in the journal WIREs Climate Change, more than 60 researchers from around the globe offered a resounding “no” to both questions.

They called for an “international non-use agreement” on so-called solar geoengineering technologies, which would cool the planet by releasing sun-reflecting chemicals into the atmosphere.

The authors want governments to ban outdoor experiments and deployment of solar geoengineering, prohibit national funding agencies from providing financial support, and refuse patents for such technologies.

The signatories included many prominent climate scientists, as well as the writer Amitav Ghosh and Sheila Jasanoff, an expert on science policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. 

Solar geoengineering technology, they say, poses an “unacceptable risk” to the planet’s environment, climate, and most vulnerable people.

“Governments and the United Nations need to take effective political control and restrict the development of solar geoengineering technologies before it is too late,” they wrote.

The prospect of dimming the sun to combat global warming has been in discussion for almost as long as climate change itself.

The first report on global warming that was handed to a U.S. president — Lyndon Johnson in 1965 — suggested it as a way to halt rising temperatures without stopping the use of fossil fuels. And in the past few years, attention to the concept has grown.

Last year, the U.S. National Academies of Science created a plan for a research program that would investigate the idea, and a Harvard project planned to test a solar geoengineering balloon in Kiruna, Sweden. (The test flight was halted after backlash from Swedish indigenous communities.)

Critics of the technology argue that it could create a moral hazard: that is, if solar geoengineering becomes an option, the world might not try so hard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the actual underlying cause of global warming.

Companies heavily invested in fossil fuels could also use it as an excuse to avoid reducing the use of oil and gas. 

The writers of the open letter argue that solar geoengineering could cause uneven impacts around the globe — potentially affecting local weather patterns or food supply. What’s more, they suggest that the new technology is effectively “ungovernable.”

If one country decides to spray aerosols into the atmosphere, the repercussions will affect the entire globe, whether the residents of poor countries have agreed to it or not.

The deployment of solar geoengineering, they write, would require creating international organizations with “unprecedented enforcement powers” that don’t yet exist.

But other researchers have argued that solar geoengineering may be necessary to research — even if it is never deployed.

Some have critiqued the open letter as an attempt to stifle scientific progress, or have argued that further research could eventually be useful to countries who face the worst impacts of climate change — heat, extreme weather, and drought. 

Holly Jean Buck, a professor at the University of Buffalo and an expert in geoengineering, wrote on Twitter: “Can you not imagine someone in, say, 2050, who is suffering from extreme heat, wondering why their parents’ generation decided to forbid research on something that might be able to cool the climate and save them from a dangerous heat wave?” 

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(UK The Conversation) Net Zero: UK Government Sued For Weak Strategy – So Here’s What Makes A Good Climate Change Plan.

The Conversation -  | 

Roserunn/Shutterstock

Authors
  •  is Professor of Climate Economics and Policy, University of Oxford
  •  is Net Zero Policy Engagement Fellow, University of Oxford
Two-thirds of countries have now committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions at some point this century.

During 2021, the share of large companies with net zero commitments jumped from one in five to one in three.

Sadly, few of these net zero targets were accompanied by measures necessary to achieve them. This discrepancy is increasingly the subject of legal challenges.

The governments of the Netherlands and Germany, as well as oil major Shell, are among defendants who have been ordered by courts to cut emissions faster.

Judges found that tepid climate strategies violated human rights laws by infringing on the rights of young people. Globally, the number of climate-related court cases has doubled since 2015.

The UK is the latest country whose government environmental groups have sued for failing to take sufficient action on climate change. While the country’s net zero strategy deserves praise for some aspects – like setting a deadline to phase out new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 – even the government’s climate change advisor thinks it won’t be enough to meet statutory carbon targets.

So what does a good net zero strategy look like? In a new perspective paper we set out how to get net zero right. We argue that net zero strategies can be measured against three principles: the urgent pursuit of emission cuts, the cautious use of carbon offsets and carbon removal, and alignment with broader objectives for sustainable development.

Urgency

Because global temperature change is determined by cumulative emissions, the pace at which we reduce emissions is important. The longer we wait, the sooner the remaining carbon space in the atmosphere is used up.

Net zero strategies must contain measures to start cutting emissions immediately. These are often lacking or vague. The UK strategy, for example, proposes replacing gas boilers with heat pumps, but the support programme it offers is available to only a small proportion of buildings and households.

Gas boilers urgently need low-carbon replacements. Skimin0k/Shutterstock

Emissions cuts must also be comprehensive and include the most difficult sectors to decarbonise, such as heavy industry, aviation and agriculture.

 Tackling them will require consumers to make difficult choices, for example, on how much they travel and what they eat. Most net zero strategies shy away from spelling these out.

Integrity

The net zero strategies of many companies and governments rely heavily on carbon offsets. That is, rather than reducing their own emissions, they pay third parties to reduce theirs, for example, by funding renewable energy projects or planting trees.

This raises a number of problems. It is difficult to prove whether offsets actually reduce emissions. Many projects funded via offsets would have happened anyway. The offset market needs much more rigorous regulation.

More importantly, net zero requires all emissions to come down. Offsets shouldn’t be used to allow pollution to continue unabated. They are a last resort.

If a strategy does include using offsets, those offsets should remove carbon from the atmosphere, rather than reduce emissions elsewhere. This is the meaning of net zero – a balance between emissions and removal.

Most options for removing carbon are biological, such as tree planting. Technological solutions, such as capturing carbon directly from the air and storing it underground, are still at the pilot stage, and there are concerns about their cost and ability to safely store CO₂.

Tree planting isn’t a get out of jail free card. Farid Suhaimi/Shutterstock
Most modelled pathways for meeting the Paris Agreement’s goal of averting dangerous climate change involve scaling up carbon removal.

The world needs more investment in these techniques, but also stronger legal frameworks to ensure their risks are managed properly, and an honest public debate to make sure people are on board with it.

Sustainability

Net zero strategies don’t work in isolation. They must be aligned with broader environmental, social and economic objectives.

Net zero strategies will fail unless they proactively manage the impact of decarbonisation policies on workers, communities and households. Thankfully, labour market interventions like re-skilling programmes can help workers transition into low-carbon employment and social welfare payments can shield households in poverty from energy price rises. Both must form an integral part of net zero strategies.

Climate action can have multiple additional benefits, for biodiversity, public health, and food security. But this is not guaranteed. Interventions can have unintended consequences. For example, commercial plantations of exotic tree species in naturally treeless habitats may claim to store carbon, but they could crowd out native species, rob local people of traditional livelihoods or succumb to pests and diseases.

There are economic opportunities which net zero strategies should aim to capture. Low-carbon technologies like electric vehicles may unleash a virtuous cycle of innovation, investment and growth as information technology did two decades ago.

More immediately, investment in, for example, home energy efficiency and renewable energy could help the economy recover from the pandemic in a sustainable way. Unfortunately, only a fraction of economic recovery packages offered by governments have been genuinely green.

The necessity of reaching net zero emissions is a scientific reality. The growth in net zero targets suggests that political and business leaders know this to be true. They are still struggling to make social, economic and political sense of net zero, as the emergence of court challenges shows.

But we are starting to understand how to get net zero right. If interpreted and governed well, net zero could be the best hope we have for climate action.

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