“So what’s required is for folks in the Global North… to shift from only seeking investment with financial returns, to investing for social and ecological ‘returns’.”

Praveen Gupta: You have recently cited the Lancet Planetary Health study: “Existing climate mitigation scenarios perpetuate colonial inequalities”. Would you wish to elaborate please?

Bill Baue: Sure! This study, by Jason Hickel and Aljosa Slamersak, reviewed 172 IPCC climate  scenarios aligned with the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to well below 2°C shooting for 1.5°C, and found that they essentially colonize the atmosphere by allocating more emissions allowances to the Global North (which is already disproportionately responsible for climate change) than to the Global South. 

PG: You then go on to say: “The IPCC climate scenarios fail to take Global North / Global South inequities into account. Global South, therefore, deserves a longer runway”?

BB: Well, the first thing to know is that IPCC climate scenarios do actually integrate a degree of equity considerations, specifically taking into account differentiated capacity to achieve robust emissions reductions between the Global North and Global South. However, climate scenarios exist outside the IPCC databases that apply a more robust “equity tilt” that essentially not only accounts for imbalances in capacity to achieve emissions reductions between the Global North and South, but also takes into account imbalances of historic responsibility, which results in overburdening the Global North with emissions reductions expectations, and underburdening the Global South. Specifically, the Climate Equity Reference Project, and its Climate Equity Reference Calculator, created by researchers at the Stockholm Environmental Institute (and colleagues), embeds scenarios that enable users to dial up or down the level of responsibility and capability they wish to allocate between OECD regions (which generally align to the Global North) and non-OECD regions (which generally align to the Global South).     

PG: It is nice to see white men and women taking up these historical inequities faced by the Global South. However, given the pace at which the climate tipping points are manifesting – do we have the luxury of an extra margin of time?

I believe that addressing historical inequalities supports this time-bound urgency, by calling on Global North regions to go beyond their own direct current responsibilities, adding to that their historical responsibilities.

BB: I fully agree on the urgency of immediate action, and I believe that addressing historical inequalities supports this time-bound urgency, by calling on Global North regions to go beyond their own direct current responsibilities, adding to that their historical responsibilities. This is possible due to the excess capital sloshing around in the Global North, looking for a place to invest. So what’s required is for folks in the Global North with excess capital to shift from only seeking investment with financial returns, to investing for social and ecological ‘returns’.

PG:  Most rich white countries refuse to accept the climate debt they owe to poorer countries and communities arising from what Erin Fitz-Henry calls their ongoing “atmospheric colonisation”. Isn’t this a double whammy for the Global South?

BB: Absolutely. Part of the problem is that folks in rich white countries live in cognitive bubbles that insulate them from grokking the degree to which the conditions of their lives are predicated on centuries of systemic colonization, exploitation, extraction, and genocide. I live in the United States, and the historical record is absolutely clear that all of these dynamics have been consciously employed throughout our national history, yet this knowledge is, as they say, “unevenly distributed.” So, in order to gain acknowledgement and accountability for this ongoing “atmospheric colonization,” a key first step is to burst through this cognitive bubble, which is unfortunately fortified by layer upon layer of (unearned) power. As you can see, the work of redress is prodigious.  

PG: Jason Hickel talks of a novel method for “Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: an equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary”?

BB: Well, this is a great approach, but the method is not at all novel – this approach has been applied in the corporate realm for more than a decade-and-a-half. The general practice of context-based sustainability, and the specific practice of context-based carbon metrics, has been around since 2006, when Unilever subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s started assessing the degree to which their carbon footprint fits within the remaining carbon budget.

This approach has been codified into the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which I helped to instigate in 2012 (it launched in 2015). Unfortunately, SBTi has suffered from corrupt governance of the BINGOs who run it (CDP, WWF, WRI, and UNGC), but the core concept is sound. Applying it at the national level is simply a variable. I’d encourage Jason to collaborate with the folks who originated the concept and practice in the first place (the Center for Sustainable Organizations), so he can benefit from their decades of experience and learnings (often from making mistakes that we now see others replicating…) 

PG: How should these issues be resolved rather than fuel ongoing polemics which distracts the real issue?

BB: First, you need to understand who benefits from the framing of a dynamic as “polemic.” When the evidence is crystal clear, and yet certain constituencies – who happen to inhabit centers of political power – continue to defend status quo positions that, objectively speaking, are “extreme.” At the same time, folks who inhabit the political fringes, yet are more aligned with scientific evidence and ethical imperatives, are framed as “extreme.” This framing creates a polemic which is essentially artificial: one extreme (the mainstream status quo) is objectively speaking wrong, while the other “extreme” (the marginalized) is objectively speaking right. So a first step is to stop framing this as a “polemic,” and more accurately characterize the status quo as dangerous extremism.

Perhaps the most important thing we can convey to power-holders is that their power becomes moot when problems escalate to the levels of systemic and existential risk.

Given that the mainstream power centers are unlikely to relinquish power of their own accord, a key strategy of power-holders is to legitimize existing power structures. I mean, don’t you understand that this distraction from the “real issues” is conscious and purposeful? Perhaps the most important thing we can convey to power-holders is that their power becomes moot when problems escalate to the levels of systemic and existential risk. Ultimately, we’re in this together, and the sooner that power-holders recognize that solidarity is both altruistic AND self-interest, the better.    

PG:  Many thanks Bill for your candid and insightful thoughts. Best wishes for your ongoing endeavours.