O brave new world, That has such people in ’t! (The Final One Hundred Years of Humanity (2030–2130) — Part Two)
[A] 4°C world is not the plausible worst-case, it is the expected outcome of the emissions pathway we are currently on. The worst-case version would be if the 4°C world occurred far sooner than expected. … one of the Royal Society articles, ‘When Could Global Warming Reach 4°C?’… contains this remarkable finding: If we stay near the high emissions pathway, and “If carbon-cycle feedbacks are stronger [than currently modeled], which appears less likely but still credible, then 4°C warming could be reached by the early 2060s in projections that are consistent with the IPCC’s ‘likely range.’”
Joseph Romm, ‘Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know’ 2015, pp. 137–8.
Will there be unicorns? In this future of yours… The one in which people around the word, and particularly in government, wake up and start doing something meaningful to address catastrophic human-caused environment change… in time…
My future is, as you know from the subtitle of the article, different. Mine starts from here. Well, it starts from last year. The year after the IPCC issued a report saying that something significant has to be done about greenhouse gas emissions if the average global surface temperature increase is to be kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030. And the year in which those involved in the Global Carbon Project reported that, after remaining stable between 2014 and 2016, carbon dioxide emissions increased in 2017, rose further in 2018 and were likely to increase further in 2019 and 2020.
That’s the future I’m writing about. The actual one. With no unicorns.
There are three things many of us have to think about when it comes to that future. My future (well, and yours too…). ‘Many of us’ because only some people will have to think about dealing with the effects of increased surface temperatures and rising sea-levels on the people of their nation. For, only if their nation survives in the face of catastrophic human-caused environment change, will people have to think about adjusting their population to take into account the effects of desertification (which includes ocean acidification, as it produces deserts of the sea) and rising sea levels.
Some people will live in places that are no longer viable due to the effects of desertification and rising sea levels (a 2-metre increase, with 2-metre storm surges, seem good numbers with which to work). These people will either have to be protected, so they can remain where they are, or they’ll have to be relocated.
This will create a lot of tension. No one will want to move. They will demand protection from the effects of catastrophic human-caused environment change from their governments. In some countries they will try to assert a right to remain.
Those with the power to do so will remain and their power means that it is likely that they will force governments to pay for their remaining.
But there will be other factors that will affect who gets to stay and who has to move. People in cities will have an advantage when it comes to remaining. Especially if their city is a political capital or a port.
Relocation will present another set of problems. These will relate to decision-making processes that determine who stays and who goes. But questions will also arise with respect to what the people being moved can legitimately expect and what compensation will be provided to those who have to accept an influx of relocated citizens to their locality.
Most people won’t have a nation to think about, though. They’ll either be engaged in civil war, if the combatants have the resources, or their government will have already collapsed. They’ll be fighting for survival, not power, or trying to migrate to those nations rich enough to survive well into the final hundred years of humanity.
Their concerns will be more international than national. One of the first things we will have to think about, when it comes to the international sphere, is whether ‘climate change refugees’ officially exist. People have tried to claim that status. But, so far, they’ve failed.
They’re going to try harder. And they are going to meet increasing resistance as everyone begins to understand that international politics has become a matter of survival. It won’t be about decency. Not about being humane. Most of these migrants will end up corralled in camps at the borders of those nations that survive the effects of catastrophic human-caused environment change. These camps will be the place where the loss of our humanity will be most clearly evident.
But international resource conflicts will contribute to our loss of humanity. Those governments that are still viable will fight over water and/or fish and/or the resources (including habitable regions) uncovered by the disappearance of polar ice.
The third thing to think about in my future (after national adjustment and civil war and international conflict) are the desperate measures that governments might undertake. Two that seem worth examining are: radical population reduction and Stratospheric Aerosol Injection
The problem of catastrophic human-caused environment change looks a lot like a problem of population. And it is; but not quite. Nonetheless, radical population reduction is likely to be one of the desperate measures that will be considered.
The problem with radical population reduction is that previous programs have involved those of the Global North ‘helping’ those of the South to reduce their populations. And this has been done while those in countries of the Global North seek to maintain or increase their populations. Not only have these programs been racist, but they will probably target the wrong populations: the radical population reduction needs to be in countries with higher carbon footprints, which are much more likely to be of the Global North than of the Global South.
Experience with the policy that appears closest to that required, China’s One-Child Policy (OCP), is troubling. First, because it appears that increasing affluence (i.e., consumption) better correlates with population reduction than government policy. Second, because the implementation of the policy led to corruption and brutal actions by government officials. And, third, because it resulted in a distortion of the population (increases in percentage of male children and of those in the country — who could more easily evade the OCP).
The other desperate measure that merits consideration is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI). It’s one form of Solar Radiation Management (SRM). SRM, in turn, is one of the two general types of geoengineering (large-scale manipulating of the planetary environment). The other is Carbon Dioxide Reduction, which is also known as Negative Emissions Technologies.
SAI is relatively cheap, likely to be effective and involves little disruption to business-as-usual. But it has no effect on greenhouse gas emissions, and may reduce the pressure to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions due to the temperature decrease that results from the enhanced reflection of solar radiation by the chemicals ‘injected’ into the earth’s stratosphere.
This is not the only problem with SAI. Problems will also arise with respect to: research and development, provision (once it’s in place, SAI will have to be maintained for as long as it takes to reduce the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases), monitoring and assessment, regulation, maintenance, compensation and counter-Geoengineering (which leads to the weaponizing of SAI).
National adjustment, civil war and international conflict and desperate measures are in my future.
And mine is an ugly inhumane future…
So, of course, I prefer yours. Especially if there are unicorns!
This piece is based on my ‘The Politics of the Final Hundred Years of Humanity (2030–2130), which is due to be published by Springer Publishing in March, 2020.
