This article is part of
the April 'TintaLibre' magazine
.
The clearest sign that we are experiencing a climate emergency is that the Secretary General of the United Nations uses religious terminology while the Pope appeals to science. Last September, António Guterres declared that “humanity has opened the gates of hell,” and a month later, Francis I himself pointed out that the anthropogenic origins of global warming were beyond doubt. “The human origin of climate change can no longer be doubted,” the pontiff said. Of the top ten risks identified by the World Economic Forum for the next decade, five are directly environmental. The headquarters of capitalism in Davos is also aligned.
Traditional denialism is already an exhausted force. For decades, Big Oil orchestrated campaigns focused on deceiving the public and attracting policymakers to their cause, despite having been almost the first to understand the scientific reality we face. Today they are forced to begin a long withdrawal that will necessarily culminate with the end of their main line of business. In the meantime, every intermediate step we take toward greater climate awareness and consciousness will be the result of a hard-fought fight. Since they can no longer deny the problem, the discourse will focus on ignoring the solutions. After all, even the 2015 Paris Accords failed to use language that even mentioned the main driver of climate change: fossil fuels. This omission has finally been corrected at COP28 in Dubai, which has taken a small but vital step by daring to point them out. But let's not give up: getting the obvious to be recognized is always an arduous task.
As always, victories are partial. The new denialism is increasingly sophisticated and continues to deploy all the resources at its disposal to alter the terms of the debate. It will continue to sow confusion, working to generate cognitive dissonance in which the need to address climate change is recognized, but not all that it entails. According to their devious logic, stating the facts is alarmism, and apparently it is better to ignore disasters than to work to avoid them. The new denialism strives to prevent what is implicit from being made explicit.
More information
The trap of alarmism, stars in the April issue of 'TintaLibre'
The likely consequences of climate change are well known. Given that the IPCC is not immune to political pressures, that institutions tend to be cautious in their predictions, and that in the near future we will pass a series of still unknown tipping points, it is very likely that we are even underestimating the risks. Any sober assessment will refer to the loss of biodiversity and a sixth mass extinction, to ocean acidification and the increase in extreme weather events, to droughts, floods and forest fires, to the increase in the transmission of contagious diseases, to massive forced migrations, increased mortality, in short, a long list of disastrous consequences. Because what is at stake is literally a matter of life and death. Not acting on climate change is a “death sentence,” say Guterres and Greta Thunberg; Climate change kills, says the president while the Pope rejects the “homicidal pragmatism” of trusting in technological solutions. Alarmism, panic, hysteria... that's what the deniers say. If we are all going to die, there is nothing to do.
Decarbonization as a duty
However, not all of us are going to die. It is the most vulnerable, both among the world's poor and in their own countries, who bear all the risks, and it is the least vulnerable who are most likely to be complicit in those deaths. Climate change thus returns us to the essence of politics, but this politics of life and death – a constant throughout history – should not be a cause for alarm, but rather the role that the different actors in this have decided to play. history. The most dangerous, those who are panicking, are also the most attached to an energy regime that is becoming obsolete, and that is why they preach paralysis, a rearguard strategy that takes the form of a scorched earth policy.
For much longer and much better than others, the oil sector and its allies have understood the implacable logic of climate change: it exists, it is caused by humans, its main cause is the burning of fossil fuels and there is no doubt that there is We have to put an end to this burning, and the sooner the better. Their survival endangers that of everyone else and, therefore, decarbonization is both an economic necessity and a moral duty. Carbon abolitionism is a crusade whose strength is destined to grow.
In the first of the three cantics of his
Divine Comedy
, Dante teaches us how, upon crossing the threshold of hell, the traveler must abandon all hope. And that is, without a doubt, the easy way. Imagining future catastrophes is only useful when it serves as prophylaxis, not prophecy. The best advice is that offered by Héctor Tejero and Emilio Santiago in their manifesto What to do in case of fire?: find the middle ground between relaxation and panic. Optimism allows us to think from the point of view of an imagined collective victory. A much bigger mistake than minimizing the scope of the challenges we face is underestimating the possibilities for transformation and exaggerating the effects of social inertia.
Forecasts tend toward institutional conservatism because they extrapolate existing trends, but a fully decarbonized Earth is much easier to imagine by thinking backward from the future rather than projecting forward from the present. Because whether we like it or not, whether we are aware of it or not, a new world is being born and the signs are increasingly clear. We see them in the battle of Doñana, in the expanding drought, in the pellet crisis in Galicia and in general pollution, in the debate on different modes of transport and the revolt of a good part of the countryside. The climate agenda will continue to occupy an increasing part of the political agenda. We're still close to winter, but wait for the next record-breaking summer.
Decarbonization is underway. As you read these lines, record public investments are being made in energy research and development. New technologies, such as electric vehicle batteries, are becoming cheaper and are being deployed at an unprecedented speed. China installed as much solar photovoltaic capacity in 2023 alone as the entire world did in 2022. And we already have some certainties: those who do not accelerate their efforts will be left behind; those who fail to innovate will become dependent on others; Those who remain anchored in 20th century mentalities will be the losers of the coming decades. Either we decarbonize or we will be decarbonized.
It is not an easy task. Decarbonisation will involve the total transformation of the economy and the renewal and replacement of our entire built environment, from the paving stones on our streets to the solar panels on our roofs. The speed of change will be unprecedented in history: its scope will represent the greatest transformation since the Industrial Revolution. As a consequence, all politics will be climate politics and all public policies will become climate policies. According to Guterres, this implies a strategy about everything, everywhere and everything at the same time. And although the opposite is the new and unworthy denialism, the slogan must still be transformed into action, which seems impossible without a multiplication of the reasons, policies and institutional and social actors for decarbonization. It will undoubtedly be incredibly difficult, but also better than listening to the advice of panic and paralysis, useless twins who tell us that it is impossible.
As Elvira Lindo has said, it is essential to combine environmental objectives with social justice and economic optimism. The recent wave of agrarian mobilizations once again highlights the need for a just transition and the political difficulties inherent in its realization. Large democratic majorities will also be essential. The climate agenda will require increasingly broad coalitions: between economic sectors; between cities, towns and rural areas; cross-border coalitions and between public administrations, between the private sector and civil society. And we will have to launch appeals in all registers, with all the reasons and emotions, launched to all identities: to citizens, to workers, to consumers, to generations, to families.
The entire taxonomy of climate arguments will have to be deployed. Not just the traditional “green” ones, which point out the loss of biodiversity, the consequences of a sixth mass extinction and the damage being caused to our air and water. Or the “reds”, who focus on social justice and health damage, and who confirm that the climate crisis intensifies existing inequalities between and within countries. Also what we could call “blue arguments”, focused on competitiveness, opportunity and capturing market shares, and which illustrate how it is better to invest in mitigation today, to avoid the worst, than in adapting tomorrow, when the damage will already be made. And, finally, the “black” arguments, those that tell us that decarbonization is also a matter of geopolitics, national security, sovereignty and protection. Because not decarbonizing is a sign of weakness.
None of this can be achieved without us deploying the full range of available instruments (economic, fiscal, regulatory, administrative, bureaucratic, etc.) in a coordinated manner and at the highest level. Everyone has a role to play here: the economic ministries for sectoral changes; social ministries in the management of distributive conflicts that are intensifying; but also the hard core of the State in what must entail an ambitious project of national, continental and global renewal. Sooner rather than later, all ministries will be, in some way, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition.
As the saying goes, defeat is an orphan, but victory has a thousand fathers. This is how we applied it in its day to the welfare state: the socialists went from demanding the nationalization of the means of production to universal public services; the liberals, from laissez-faire to the Beveridge report; the conservatives, from the repression of workers to benevolent paternalism. As economist Branko Milanovic argues, competition with Stalin's communism and the fear it aroused also contributed. Everyone played their part. Likewise, decarbonization will become the progeny of a very unconventional family of actors.
Herein lies the virtue of the battle of ideas. Provoking changes in rhetorical positions is linked to the reconfiguration of interests. Just as, compared to just a decade ago, almost everyone has now recognized the reality of climate change, it is only a matter of time before they take the next steps and finally assume what is needed to confront it. Better late than never for new converts, but it would be better if they did it as soon as possible. Even the most recalcitrant will eventually understand that, if the seasons are distorted enough, we will all feel like foreigners in our own country. The Sahara, this time, will begin at the foot of the Pyrenees.
It does not have to be this way. Living through the climate emergency entails a permanent contradiction. Trends indicate that each year will be the warmest in history, but the coldest in the coming decades. Between utopia and dystopia lies the hard path of one reform after another. The hope? Produce a political and economic cascade in time to avoid the worst of climate escalation. The new deniers are combated by accelerating steps in the right direction. Because, in reality, Dante was wrong: if you find yourself at the gates of hell, do not abandon all hope. Above all, turn around!
*David Lizoain is an economist and author of the book 'Crimenclimate' (Debate).
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