Realist versus sceptic: Two takes on the climate crisis

Climate Change and the Nation State – The realist case by Anatol Lieven; False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet by Bjorn Lomborg

The world feels the heat like ever before. Warmth is shattering the Greenland ice shelf. Wildfires rage with such ferocity the exacerbating factor of climate disruption is undeniable, though it prompted United States president Donald Trump’s greatest environmental lie: “I don’t think science knows, actually.”

Science knows this is the case! It could not be clearer. Hardcore denialism aside, however, the response continues to be woefully inadequate. Global citizens and corporate business have never been so engaged on the issue, yet there is much confusion on what to do. Having reached an unprecedented level, climate activism is stalled by Covid-19, letting politicians off the hook.

This was meant to be the year governments continued to adopt Paris Agreement targets on reducing carbon emissions, with wealthier countries supposed to increase ambition even further. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that we have 10 years to avoid irreversible impacts due to anthropogenic emissions. Governments , however, have been distracted by the pandemic, though it has provided an unexpected indication of what a better, decarbonised world might look like.

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The climate issue, like Covid-19, is marked by horrible uncertainty. Too many books are in the “last chance to save humankind” mode, though inaction makes the case for graphic accounts of what might be in store – if only to shock people into action. The stakes are high as environmentalist Bill McKibben has highlighted: “The main question is whether we’ll be able to hold the rise in temperature to a point where we can, at great expense and suffering, deal with crises coherently, or whether they will overwhelm the coping abilities of our civilisation. The latter is a distinct possibility.”

Doomsday talk, however, is poor at prompting effective mass action; a better course is to focus on solutions, which also counters climate anxiety.

Anatol Lieven’s Climate Change and the Nation State and Bjorn Lomborg’s False Alarm fall into that “big on solutions” category though their respective merits are poles apart.

Lieven, a former foreign correspondent, is an adept analyst of geopolitics whose take on the climate crisis includes a brilliant assessment of the scale of the threat, relative to other crises in pockets of the world. His main solution is surprising and goes a long way in explaining why climate activism has not been as successful as it should be.

Given expertise in defence, it’s not surprising his initial verdict is through the prism of climate as a security threat. A US-China cold war, fallout with Iran, and tension in the South China Sea are tiny threats, if not meaningless, in the context of rising sea levels, water stress, intensified extreme weather events and uncontrolled migration driven by global heating. Yet, he warns: “These crises in turn will make it less possible to create political consensus behind action to limit climate change.”

Lieven does not set out the basic science, because he rightly sees the solution as largely a political one, nor is it a technological one or caused by lack of financial resources. He firmly puts the nation state as the driver rather than vague globalism, though social cohesion is critical. So it’s less of the idealism, and more robust national policy instead of protest. The climate slogan “think globally, act locally” should be, “think globally, act nationally”.

Within the international context, “the world’s great powers are far more threatened by climate change than they are by each other”. Here the essential problem is “lack of motivation and mobilisation of elites all over the world and of voters in the west”. Building national buy-in on the climate response, he stresses “does not abolish wider human responsibilities”.

Lieven’s nationalism is not patriotism, or the polarised, anti-immigrant version with its rank racism, often set on a trajectory towards violence, that Trump and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil have weaponised against climate action.

He advocates a civic rather than ethnic nationalism that underlines national unity and solidarity in countering climate impacts, underpinned by pursuit of green growth, radical reform of capitalism and embracing genuine sustainability. Realism is vital: “It would be a mistake... for progressives to deceive the public and themselves that there will be no need for sacrifice.”

Lieven’s best illustration of impasse is political partisanship in the US where Republican/red equates with climate denialism and Democrat/blue with climate action and decarbonisation. The importance of strong recognition by the US military of the climate threat is of great importance, he contends, because of the influence the military has over conservative audiences no longer willing to listen to civilian experts.

‘Sceptical environmentalist’

For many years Lomborg, a Danish statistician, has been a self-styled “sceptical environmentalist”. He has never denied the human’s role in global warming; the problem is his verdicts have provided intellectual cover for climate sceptics.

In The Skeptical Environmentalist (1998) he paints a picture of “everything is fine... everything is getting better... we are not headed for a major energy crisis...there is plenty of energy”.

There is a pattern. His take on climate change can be crudely summarised as it’s not as bad as most scientists predict; humankind will adjust in time assisted by growing wealth – and a flawed global response will cost trillions when the main focus should be on issues such as poverty, deficient health systems and education.

Some of his arguments have value such as the need to dial back panic. Likewise, cutting emissions is “incredibly effective”; technology, especially carbon capture and storage, is needed, zero-carbon energy sources must be developed at least cost, and renewable energy is not the magic bullet. But it is simply not true, for instance, that the climate crisis is making us ignore issues such as pandemics, food shortages or conflict.

Lomborg is persuasive on the vulnerability of Africa and need for greater emphasis on building climate resilience. But his case is undermined by loose interpretation and giving too much weight to studies whose findings differ from robust climate science.

This is compounded by preoccupation with financial costs and accusations of media overhyping – the climate story was marked by deplorable lack of media engagement for too long when the science was becoming undeniable.

Lack of urgency and coherence from governments deploying flawed policies may be evident, but most at last accept a sustained multifaceted response is needed, underpinned by principles of climate justice.

Lieven endorses that approach, “because states and societies are already facing a growing set of challenges, they cannot afford to suffer severe effects of climate change as well”.

The risk is it will “feed into and exacerbate most other existing social, economic, health and political problems”, not forgetting the biodiversity crisis; species loss, deforestation and acidification of oceans. And effects will be particularly bad in the developing world, Lieven warns. He predicts the Indian economy could decline by mid-century with knock-on consequences for the rest of the world with no chance that development aid will rectify matters.

This, he concludes, is the answer to those like Lomborg, who argue “we would be better off just leaving climate change to future generations because they will be richer than we are”.

Lomborg acknowledges nationalism surges resulting in “less interest in a shared response to global warming”, but concludes the markets will do what’s required, provided governments set the right price for carbon.

It is a pivotal year for climate politics. There is the prospect of a green deal on both sides of the Atlantic, where “for the first time action against climate change is fully linked to radical reform of major economies and social policy”, Lieven observes. It comes with the prospect of acting with common purpose – and, dare we say, a new form of national unity.

If Trump goes, the US gets back on the Paris Agreement horse and the US-EU axis is likely to usher in a green finance system that dictates the global climate agenda. If he stays, Lomborg’s lower-risk scenario continues to provide comfort for those in the “wait and see” faction, international momentum is further undermined and fossil fuel industry buys more time.

Kevin O’Sullivan is Environment & Science Editor