Climate Change and Global Policy Regimes

Towards Institutional Legitimacy

Timothy Cadman

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137006127
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Policy
• Index: Economics

An analysis of the global climate talks and the key human systems threatened by increased greenhouse gas emissions including health, refugee management, energy production, carbon markets and local government.

1

The Discourses of Climate Change

Chris Taylor

Introduction

Climate change has been represented in a variety of ways. These representations have enacted their own discursive formations, which people discuss and act upon at local, national and global scales. Climate change was initially discussed within scientific disciplines and represented within a technical discourse. As it became popularised, through environmental organisations and the media, governments and intergovernmental bodies began to frame climate change within specific discursive formations, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Kyoto Protocol (KP). These gave rise to forms of governance and discourse that have attained an almost hegemonic status, where climate change was framed within an overall neo-liberal governmental framework and network. As discursive formations of climate change were moved from science to government, they were transformed from a technical to a technocratic discourse. Institutional distance was created, resulting in the exclusion of other stakeholders and alternative discourses. Governance structures became elitist and exclusionary. The framing of climate change within global and national economic frameworks became the point of entry for stakeholders in climate change discussions. This chapter provides an overview of these discursive formations and provides suggestions for ways in which stakeholders can move past these obstacles so that greater participation can result in addressing environmental change at multiple spatial and temporal scales.

Climate change as a threat

Climate change threatens the basic elements of life for people around the world – access to water, food, health, and use of land and the environment.

(Stern 2006: 65)

Threat and insecurity have always been among the conditions of human existence. During pre-modern times, threats led to the assignment of blame. They were ‘blows of fate’ that assaulted human beings from outside and could be attributed to external gods, demons or nature (Beck 2006: 7). However, the threats that confront late modern society contrast those of the pre-modern era. As Beck (2006: 4) argues, these threats are the products of the successes of modern civilisation, as opposed to some external entity. These threats include pollution, resource degradation, scarcity and over-population. Of these threats, climate change has become the most prominent. Climate change is the threat posed to late modern society as a consequence of its own success. In the many influential publications on climate change, including those of the IPCC and the Stern Review, climate change is framed as a threat that is projected into the future. While changes have already been noted in the current global climate, these projected threats are portrayed as risks to ‘basic elements of life for people around the world’ (Stern 2006: 65). In this sense, climate change is not presented as a catastrophe located in the present but as an anticipation of a catastrophe, a risk. Beck elaborates on this notion of an anticipated catastrophe and risk:

Risk is not synonymous with catastrophe. Risk means the anticipation of the catastrophe. Risks concern the possibility of future occurrences and developments; they make present a state of the world that does not (yet) exist. Whereas every catastrophe is spatially, temporally and socially determined, the anticipation of catastrophe lacks any spatio-temporal or social concreteness.

(Beck 2007: 9)

Anticipated catastrophe is evident in Article 2 of the UNFCCC, whereby its ultimate objective is to achieve stabilisation of greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’ (UNFCCC 1992). This has been equated with keeping global average temperature within a 2^◦C increase of the pre-industrial average. Excess of this threshold has introduced risks of global tipping points, where global ecosystems cease being sinks and become sources for GHG emissions. Hansen warns of these tipping points:

The relevant scientists – those who know what they are talking about – realize that the climate system is on the verge of tipping points. If the world does not make a dramatic shift in energy policies over the next few years, we may well pass the point of no return.

(2009: 171)

The impending catastrophes are the tipping points through which the world descends into dangerous climate change. This is where the change in the climate system, initially driven by an external forcing such as anthropogenic GHG emissions, is no longer required to sustain the new pattern of change (Russill and Nyssa 2009: 340). An example of this is the predicted loss of the Amazonian rainforest modelled under IS92a ‘business as usual’ GHG emission scenarios (Cox et al. 2004). Under the Hadley Centre climate–carbon cycle model, the authors predict local temperature increase of more than 10^◦K, along with a decrease in rainfall of up to 64 per cent. Such changes are predicted to result in the loss of 73 per cent vegetation carbon and 72 per cent soil carbon. Such a phenomenon is referred to as a feedback mechanism, whereby the ecosystem becomes a net source of GHG emissions, irrespective of whether anthropogenic GHG emissions cease. In this case, a tipping point has been exceeded.

The construction of this ecological (and social) catastrophe was modelled using a climate–carbon cycle general circulation model (GCM) (Cox et al. 2004: 139). This was based on the third Hadley Centre coupled ocean atmosphere model (Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3 – HadCM3) that was in turn coupled to an ocean–carbon cycle model (Hadley Centre Ocean Carbon Cycle Model – HadOCC) and a dynamic global vegetation model (Top-down Representation of Interactive Foliage and Flora Including Dynamics – TRIFFID). The models include variables such as movements of carbon within the ocean system, the state of the terrestrial biosphere in terms of soil carbon and the structure and coverage of five plant functional types. These models bring the predicted future collapse of the Amazonian rainforest into the present and represent it through graphs, tables and maps. Such representations make the impending catastrophe calculable.

The decline of the Amazonian rainforest is a side effect of the rapid modernisation of society, particularly in the global North. The modelling of it, along with other impending environmental catastrophes, constructs global risks and their distribution throughout space and time. They are part of modernity that reflects on itself, in what Beck (1992) has termed ‘reflexive modernisation’. However, the reflexive does not necessarily mean more knowledge about risk, but more non-knowledge. This is not to be equated with denial but with the uncertainty of science in the face of risk (Beck 2007: 122). While modelling can represent a future risk into the present, it is, in essence, an ‘abstraction of reality’ (Demeritt and Wainwright 2005: 207). Climate models, no matter how sophisticated, can only provide a partial representation on a highly complex reality. They effectively reduce reality to an analytically simplified set of physical processes as a form of abstract reasoning (Demeritt 2001: 314).

Representing the threat as discourse

The representation of climate change as a threat cannot be reduced to any one particular discursive practice, formation or series of statements. As the discussion of its risk moved from scientific discussion into broader social and political debate, it was essentially transformed into a complex series of interpretations, and it generated a new network of social practices and relations. These are inherently complex and require multi-dimensional forms of critical analysis in order to examine their underlying social structures and respective relations of power and knowledge. Such revelations can provide critical insights into how new interpretations of the risks of climate change are created and how forms of governance emerge in the attempt to respond to those risks.

One particular form of analysis is through the discourses associated with the risks of climate change. There are numerous definitions of discourse. One of the most widely adopted is that of French philosopher Michel Foucault, where he describes discourse as a group of statements ‘in so far as they belong to the same discursive formation’ (1972: 131). Fairclough (2003: 124) expands on this definition by seeing discourse as a way of representing the world, including the processes, relations and structures of the material world; the mental world of thoughts, feelings and values; and the social world itself. In addition, discourses are also projective and representative of possible worlds that are different to the actual world. This can include modelled worlds, such as those that model risk. The relations between discourses also involve relations of power. Foucault elaborated on these relations, where power produces knowledge, and suggested that there is ‘no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge’ (1977: 27).

Climate change represented as a change in a statistical average

In analysing ‘climate change’ as a term used in a variety of discourses, a good starting point is to analyse the discursive formation of the term ‘climate’. It must be noted that the object of climate is not directly experienced. It is the weather that is experienced directly through the senses and its impacts that are identified in the natural and built environments. By contrast, climate is the abstract construction of averages over a defined period of time. For example, the IPCC (Solomon et al. 2007: 104) defines ‘climate’ as the ‘average of weather’ in the form of a statistical description. This average is determined for weather statistics measured over a 30-year period (Hulme et al. 2009: 199). In this sense, ‘climate’ is a statistical abstraction. It is a product of social practices and conventions that made it possible to construct a universal from multiple observed particulars (Demeritt 2001: 312). This quantification opened new interpretations and utilities. Comparative climatic analysis could be undertaken that relied on numerical data that provided for measurement and quantification. Climate was ‘normalised’ against these statistical baselines (Hulme et al. 2009: 198). It imposed order onto seemingly chaotic weather patterns.

A change in climate is a change in the long-term statistical average of weather. This essentially defines the term ‘climate change’. According to the IPCC (Solomon et al. 2007: 104), this term refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified by changes in the mean and/or variability of its properties. These changes are required to last for an extended period of decades or more. However, the term ‘climate change’ differs from previous interpretations of past climate variations, because it is identified as the result of anthropogenic GHG emissions. This is encapsulated in the definition provided by the Framework Convention on Climate Change, which states that ‘climate change’ is a change in climate that can be attributed directly or indirectly to human activity (Solomon et al. 2007: 943).

Consensus in the scientific community points to the finding that human activities are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents that absorb radiant energy and that most observed warming over the past 50 years is attributed to the increase in GHG concentrations (Oreskes 2004: 1686). However, the risks of its threats and impacts are mostly represented in an abstract manner, resting on scientific models and calculations. These can be difficult to prove or refute on the basis of everyday experience (Beck 2007: 71).

Climate change and the discourse of limits to growth

To achieve the ultimate objective of the Convention to stabilize greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, we shall, recognizing the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2^◦C, on the basis of equity and in the context of sustainable development, enhance our long-term cooperative action to combat climate change.

(Copenhagen Accord 2009)

With the climate in a state of change, current political discussion has focused on an acceptable stabilisation level for a changed climate. The UN Conference of Parties (COP), European Union (EU) and other policy organisation proposals have selected a 2^◦C temperature target as the maximum, allowing warming to avoid ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’ (Randalls 2011: 598). While the target has been criticised by economists, scientists and politicians, it has re-introduced the concept of ecological limits into global environmental discourse.

Ecological limits gained international prominence in the early 1970s when environmental discourse was dominated by predictions of global ecological doom, accompanied with a priority on human survival (Hay 2002: 174–175). This was encapsulated in the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth, whose authors warned of ecological limits being exceeded through accelerating industrialisation, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of non-renewable resources and a deteriorating environment (Meadows et al. 1972: 21). Its ‘apocalyptic’ message helped to explain why the message of environmental doom had such unprecedented impact on elite opinions (Hajer 1995: 81). These issues presented a global ecological crisis that was seen to threaten the existence of humanity.

In its overriding preoccupation with human survival, The Limits to Growth discourse sidelined ‘new left’ calls for freedom and citizen participation. In its place came discussions of resource rationing, increasing government intervention, centralisation and population control (Eckersley 1992: 13). It held the view that human populations were constrained by the operation of ecological laws, which were biological. They were understood as having economic and political consequences and were expressed in the economic form of externalities impacting ecologically defined goods (Rutherford 1999: 53). This approach was anti-democratic and judged human nature harshly (Hay 2002: 174). However, ecological limits have been re-introduced into climate change discourses. A number of environment groups have been pushing for deep cuts to anthropocentric GHG emissions, with some advocating for ‘zero emission’ scenarios (see Beyond Zero Emissions). Plans to facilitate these scenarios have been introduced into public discussion, but as opposed to supporting The Limits to Growth discourse, they propose a new growth economy based on technologies free from emissions (Wright and Hearps 2010).

Climate change and the discourse of sustainable development

The Limits to Growth discourse was seen by many economic and political circles as unacceptable to the dominant paradigms of neo-liberalism and economic development, because it pitted environmental protection against development. This was evident in the largely failed attempt to achieve outcomes in the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm (Bernstein 2001). Following this failure, environmental protection was seen to be achievable if it was nested within the norms of economic development. Early manifestations of this concept emerged during the early 1980s in the discursive formation of ‘sustainable development’. The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987) report, ‘Our Common Future’, often referred to as the ‘Brundtland Report’, formally defined ‘sustainable development’ as:

[D]evelopment that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

(1987: 43)

According to Bernstein (2001: 63), ‘sustainable development’ was the cornerstone of the WCED. It became the dominant conceptual framework for responses to int...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: Global Governance and Climate Change
• 1. The Discourses of Climate Change
• 2. A Cooling Climate for Negotiations: Intergovernmentalism and Its Limits
• 3. Gender and Climate Change: Stakeholder Participation and Conceptual Currency in the Climate Negotiations Regime
• 4. Governing Adaptation Policies and Programmes
• 5. Applying an Empirical Evaluation to the Governance Legitimacy of Carbon Offset Mechanisms on the Basis of Stakeholder Perceptions
• 6. Evaluating the Clean Development Mechanism
• 7. Stakeholders in Climate Policy Instruments: What Role for Financial Institutions?
• 8. Challenges for Global Health Governance in Responding to the Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health
• 9. Climate Change and Sustainable Water Management
• 10. Food Security, Food Sovereignty and Global Governance Regimes in the Context of Climate Change and Food Availability
• 11. Innovation and Global to Local Energy Governance
• 12. Climate Change, Population Movements and Governance: Case Studies in Response Mechanisms
• 13. Migration and Climate Change: Global Governance Regimes and the Incorporation of Climate Change Displacement
• 14. The ICLEI Cities for Climate Protection Programme: Local Government Networks in Urban Climate Governance
• 15. The Influence of Non-State Actors on Corporate Climate Change Disclosure
• Conclusion
• Index