Skeletons on the Throne
Why moving towards a more sustainable world is not in everybody's interest
Note: This post is re-edited from an essay I wrote as a student journalist at economica.id in 2019.
“The car’s on fire and there’s no driver at the wheel […]
We’re trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
And the machine is bleeding to death”
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Dead Flag Blues
The Amazon is burning down. In fact, massive wildfires happen each year during the dry season of July and August. The reason we’ve been hearing about it so much recently is due to the spike in the number of wildfire occurrences this year – there has been almost three times as many fire this past August as there were the previous August. These fires are mainly caused by human activities: Farmers are deliberately starting fires to clear the land for agricultural purposes. More than three-quarters of Amazon slash-and-burn operations is intended for cattle ranching or soy production, industries which make up a large chunk of Brazil’s economy.
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has explicitly endorsed these practices, and since taking the presidency in January, he has been scaling back protections for the rainforest. This should not come as a surprise – throughout his presidential campaign he has declared Brazil’s vast protected lands an obstacle to economic growth and promised to open them up to commercial exploitation. The fact that the Amazon is the world’s largest climate sink – helping us fight accelerating climate change – seems to mean little to him. When the international community threatened to reject the pending EU-Mercosur free trade agreement between European and South American countries, Bolsonaro finally relented and banned the use of fire for clearing land for 60 days.
For many of us, it might seem downright absurd and comically evil how people like Bolsonaro justifies sacrificing long-term sustainability of the planet for short-term economic benefits. Are our world leaders really this short-sighted? Or are there other forces at play?
But of course there are, and (also obviously) it is none other than good old politics and political interests. A business-minded populist such as Bolsonaro would never have won the presidential office without being helped to power by Brazil’s business elites. Meanwhile, a democratic political system only works when the interests of its policymakers are aligned with the People. This analysis will attempt to show that the misalignment of incentives in the case of climate change policy is not limited to cases such as Brazil and the Amazon; In fact, such a misalignment is present everywhere, such that the people who hold the most influence in moving towards a more sustainable are often people who would benefit the least from it. Such is the way things are in regards to climate change, and it is the monumental roadblock we, the People, must overcome to reach a more sustainable future.
Living through Armageddon
The issue of climate change is what some have dubbed a “hyperobject”- the concept is so large and complex that it becomes extremely difficult to comprehend by laypeople1. For example, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in their latest report of the dangers concerning a two-degree rise in average global temperature from pre-industrial levels. Many of us might find it difficult to intuitively grasp why a two-degree rise would be such a big deal. The effects of climate change are not limited to what we commonly hear as rising sea levels, melting ice in the Arctic, or slightly hotter and longer summers2.
In simple terms, there has long been a wide consensus among the scientific community regarding two things: First, that there exists a long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth’s climate (what we call global warming), and secondly, that this global warming is anthropogenic, i.e. mainly caused directly by human activities3. This is due to our use of fossil-fuel based transportation, coal and gas-based electricity production, along with a myriad of other industries which release greenhouse gases (such as CO2 and methane) into the atmosphere, preventing heat from the sun to escape back into space4.
Forecasts on what the world would look like decades from now is highly varied, as climate science is complicated and involves a wide array of uncertainties. However, even the most conservative of estimates predicts that by 2100, whereby cities like Miami, Dhaka, Shanghai, and Hong Kong would be flooded, overpopulation combined with crop failures and food shortages will kill billions, and the air will be so hot in some areas (particularly the equator) such that they will be literally uninhabitable for humans5. One common mistake is to read “2100” and think that the calamitous effects of climate change is still far in the distance; on the contrary, these things will not happen instantaneously as an “event”. Rather, it is a gradual and continuous progression into hell.
It has already started, as you would observe if you paid attention to recent events: Farmers from Central American countries such as Guatemala and Mexico have been fleeing en masse to the U.S. due to continued crop failures. Besides the Amazon, massive wildfires have ignited across the world, coinciding with record-breaking levels of heat throughout Europe due to unusual heat waves in July. Meanwhile in the tropics, hurricanes are observed to be increasingly more destructive; this is also proven to be linked to climate change. Another study finds approximately a quarter of the global population (1.8 billion people) headed towards a water crisis 20. Climate breakdown is not far in the distance: we are living it right now.
The incredibly complex and all-encompassing nature of climate change makes it difficult to construct narratives that are compelling as well as impactful. On one hand, we have seen promising progress with movements such as Greta Thunberg’s school strikes and the Extinction Rebellion (XR), but there has arguably not been enough social movement in response to climate change considering its urgency. On the other hand, we have seen more movements which tell incomplete or misleading narratives; For example, the recently popular anti-straw movement, despite straws making up a mere 0.03% of all waste in the ocean.
Fatal tradeoffs
In this way, large-scale transformations to emissions-heavy human activity can only be carried out by certain people with much greater influence on world affairs. However, despite various large-scale international efforts to combat climate change (such as the recent Paris Agreement), we are not even close to reducing emissions to acceptable levels, let alone reversing the damage already done. Studies by the independent Climate Action Tracker finds that most Paris signatories’ targets fall woefully short.
The IPCC recommends that we must cut emissions to net-zero by 2050 in order to meet Paris targets. For a sample of what this means, we can look at targets set by the U.K.’s Committe on Climate Change (UKCCC), the government of which has officially pledged to reach net-zero by 2050. In regards to cutting emissions, the U.K. has aimed to phase out all petrol and diesel vehicles, replacing them with electric or hydrogen-powered ones by 2035. Consumption of beef, lamb and dairy must be cut 20% by 2050. No houses built after 2025 will be connected to the gas grid, and older buildings will have to switch their heating systems to low-carbon ones by 2035. In total, reaching net-zero is expected to cost the U.K. around £1 trillion ($1.3 trillion), all to eliminate the U.K’s contribution to global emissions, which stands at around 1% of the whole.
You might begin to see where this is going: Reducing emissions demands high costs, the considerable brunt of which will hit vital industries, and by proxy the economy – energy, transportation, agriculture, housing. Now imagine what it would take to reduce emissions in the rest of the world, especially emerging countries: Heavy, high-emissions industries such as energy (oil, coal, etc.), agriculture (land-use for forestry, meat and crops), as well as transport (which use up energy) make up the majority of global emissions. It has been found in a recent study that to accelerate emissions reduction, a short-to-medium term decline in economic growth is necessary. This makes political actors highly reluctant to pursue such options, as shrinking growth implies rising unemployment and a risk of deepening social polarization.
Political actors, though, still need legitimacy for their agendas. In representative democracies, the political elite still need the People’s vote. It has been found that climate policies could affect everyone unequally, burdening certain demographics worse than the other. Clean and renewable energy standards are found to be regressive, with its burden falling harder on regions reliant on non-climate friendly fuels such as coal6. Meanwhile, carbon pricing is likely regressive in countries with an average annual per capita income of more than (PPP adjusted) USD 15,0007. Although there are no conclusive remarks towards climate policies in general and its proportionate effect due to variance of policies and its socio-economic-cultural landscape, the unequal effect of climate policies across demographics might fuel the People’s contempt and support political actors which reject climate policies. In short, even the poor have short term incentives to push back climate policies due to the economic impact they have, and they paved the way for right wing ‘champions’ that would push back climate reforms.
Meanwhile for businesses, there is little incentive to radically transform business operations while sacrificing profitability. In response to social pressures to reduce emissions, business leaders will find it more acceptable to slightly modify business models, or even worse, use misleading marketing campaigns to promote an impression of transitioning to more sustainable practices while keeping the bottom line intact; this is commonly known as “greenwashing”. For instance, in 2017 Volkswagen was found to have rigged its cars with “defeat devices” meant to cheat emissions tests, when it had been advertising that the cars was equipped with “Clean Diesel” engines. In fact, the engines emitted 40 times the permitted levels of nitrogen oxide.
More recently, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Nestle for claiming to use “sustainably-sourced” chocolate for their cocoa beverage – the suit accused Nestle of driving deforestation in West Africa with its cocoa farms, as well as using child and slave labor. The recent anti-straw campaigns by several companies such as McDonald’s and Starbucks also arguably fit this category. In the case of Starbucks, it was found that their new strawless cup lid winds up using more plastic.
At this point one might wonder, given what we know about the grave threats of climate change, would these nations and industries, with the smart minds leading them, not see that urgent, massive-scale action is needed? How could they not see that their efforts are not enough? According to the IPCC, we already have a wide array of choices available that would make even a 1.5 C world feasible still8. Yet, our leaders’ actions fail to reflect this.
I believe that there might be answers to this question which are not discussed in the popular climate change discourse. In order to explore this train of thought, we must first remember that the course of the world might be majorly influenced by nations and industries, but inside the cockpits, hands on the steering wheels, are living, breathing, human beings. Thus, to understand the actions of nations and industries, we must take a closer look at the exact persons that are in control.
Living skeletons
Last year, as two major wildfires started in California, wealthy residents made sure they were safe from its impacts. In areas such as Malibu and Ventura where average household incomes surpassed $100,000, homeowners hired private militias and firefighters for their insured mansions. Meanwhile in poor Butte county, incarcerated people were forced to fight the fires for $1/hour. The report reads, “while the rich are taking advantage of privatized systems and protecting their multi-million dollar mansions, the poor are dying”. This is one example of what a U.N. human rights report calls “climate apartheid”, where the rich can buy their way out of the global warming impacts while the poor bear the worst of it.
One article documents the stories of wealthy doomsday preppers, communing in private Facebook groups, swapping tips on gas masks, bunkers, and locations safe from the effects of climate change. In the article, a venture capitalists shares some of his strategies, such as stocking up on Bitcoin and buying vacation homes across the world they could escape to. This points to an asymmetry not only in wealth, but also in information: Wealthy and powerful people naturally tend to be more well-informed and are much better equipped to maneuver their way through the climate crisis.
Another little-talked-about aspect of the rich and powerful is the simple fact that they are older than the poor majority. In the US, the Silent Generation holds 1.3 times the amount of wealth as Baby Boomers, more than twice that of Gen-X-ers and 23 times that of millenials. The same goes for their politicians – the average age of the American congressional representative is 59. Additionally, for most of us it takes a lifetime to build up power and wealth. All of this skews the demographics of the world’s most influential people to people who grew up in an age where environmental activists were mocked as “tree-huggers”. Bolsonaro even expressed this view explicitly; he once said that “the environmental issue is only valid for vegans, who only eat vegetables”. Perhaps, even perhaps, these old and wealthy people would find less urgency in saving the planet because they don’t expect to still be around 50, or 100 years from now. The thrones of the modern world are sat on by living skeletons, immune to danger and waiting to pass away.
Final disclaimer
To end with, I feel the need to note that I find it absolutely reasonable for the world’s rulers to act in their personal interests; people are, after all, driven by incentives, and it would be a tall order to demand any different. Representative democracy was meant to represent the needs and wants of the people, but the current representatives and those that support them have different incentives. Their own personal incentives are standing in the way of performing this function effectively. I am not trying to create an “us-vs-them” narrative between the haves and have-nots in a counterproductive and destructive fashion. No, the problem is that the incentives between the people at the wheel and the passengers are misaligned. This can be fixed by only one thing: We must realize that when corporations and governments feign concern for climate change, the stakes are much lower for them than it is for us. The only way out is mass awareness and movement to push them into radical action; and in accomplishing this, we must also pay the painful costs of radical transition for a sustainable future.
Boulton, E. (2016). Climate change as a ‘hyperobject’: a critical review of Timothy Morton’s reframing narrative. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 7(5), pp.772-785.
Jackson, R. (2019). The Effects of Climate Change. Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet.[Accessed 4 Aug. 2019].
IPCC. (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 151 pp
C2ES (2019). Global Emissions. Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. [Accessed 6 Aug. 2019]
Wallace-Wells, D. (2019). The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. Tim Duggan Books
Rausch, S. and Mowers, M. (2014). Distributional and efficiency impacts of clean and renewable energy standards for electricity. Resource and Energy Economics, 36(2), pp.556-585.
Dorband, I., Jakob, M., Kalkuhl, M., & Steckel, J. (2019). Poverty and distributional effects of carbon pricing in low- and middle-income countries. World Development Vol. 115, pp . 246-257
IPCC. (2018). Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty [V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, H. O. Pörtner, D. Roberts, J. Skea, P.R. Shukla, A. Pirani, W. Moufouma-Okia, C. Péan, R. Pidcock, S. Connors, J. B. R. Matthews, Y. Chen, X. Zhou, M. I. Gomis, E. Lonnoy, T. Maycock, M. Tignor, T. Waterfield (eds.)]. In Press.