Video: Kevin Anderson: The current state of the climate crisis

00:00:00

so I'm here with uh Kevin Anderson who's a professor of energy and climate change at the Tindall Center for climate change research at the University of Manchester uh but at the moment we're in Upsala in Sweden it's a cold crispy

00:00:14

snowy day outside and the reason we're here is that uh over the last eight or nine years uh you've been a free visitor to Sweden uh you've been a visiting Professor here at gsol University uh at

00:00:28

the department of Earth Sciences and also at seus the center for environment and development studies uh and we've been working closely over these past eight years um together and I thought we'd start uh

00:00:42

this chat today which will be about the uh current state of the climate crisis uh with a quote uh that you well that you it's from an interview that you did with Nick Breeze and I have a bit of a

00:00:55

paraphrase quote here that I thought i' read out and then we sort of have that as a backdrop to a conversation um and this is what you said more or less the fossil fuel industry and high

00:01:07

energy use Industries have now completely co-opted the cop process this is not about climate change anymore it's about the incumbents maintaining power without removing the

00:01:19

lobbyists the power and the voices from poor communities will be overshadowed repeatedly by the self-interests of the wealthy countries and of course what you're speaking about here is the the ongoing actually climate negotiations um

00:01:33

that are happening at the moment as we speak I thought we'd have so to unpick this quote a little bit and and understand the the the way in which you

00:01:43

came to express this rather harsh um um criticism of of the way in which we've addressed climate change I thought we'd sort of Turn Back Time a little bit and go back to the ' 80s I guess because

00:01:56

before you went into uh into research and became a CL climate change researcher you were actually working in the oil industry yes I was indeed yes my my dim distant and slightly dark past

00:02:09

yes I I trained as an engineer and I found myself in the end uh working or designing and building offshore oil platforms um in the 1980s and through to the very beginning of the

00:02:19

1990s and during that time is when we start to see the the rise in the press and so forth about issues of of climate change now right from being a youngster I've been interested in issues of Nature and the environment as you might have

00:02:33

called them then I was brought up in a in a rural environment and I didn't know very much about climate change and so I decided to to leave the oil industry and go back to University and uh do a

00:02:45

master's course postgraduate course on on climate change and the environment and other than a a short return to to the oil and gas industry I've pretty much been working as an academic uh since the '90s through to till today

00:02:59

working on climate change and what sort of insights has that given you in terms of the the the state of the climate and and what what I guess also why climate change is such an important

00:03:11

issue yeah or is it yeah well it was actually quite helpful having the engineering background being in the oil and gas industry I think gives me a certain sort of lens into the challenges that we face today which a lot of other

00:03:23

a lot of other academics don't have that because it's that practical background in the industry that is causing most of the problems you know the are com of oil and gas and and coal fossil fuels um is

00:03:34

about 75% of the warming we've seen we've seen so far and that we expect to see is coming from fossil fuels the other 25% is broadly related to Agriculture and food production very important those issues are but my focus

00:03:47

has been on energy where is the main cause in terms of the urgency of this I mean I am very clearly of the view that climate change is just one symptom of

00:04:01

of contemporary Society of how we have chosen to to abuse our own home the planet in which we live whether that's overfishing our oceans whether it's dumping a lot of sewage and waste in the oceans um whether it's now making the

00:04:14

oceans more acidic from climate change but how we've also destroyed a lot of land how we've wiped out a lot of biodiversity from from insects to mammals so we're destroying our own own home and this has not been something

00:04:27

that we've done over thousands of years something that we've done really post industrial revolution most of it and indeed most of the damage has been done Post in the 1950s and 1960s so it's people of my generation that have decided to do this

00:04:40

and not respond appropriately to it and the reason I think climate change is probably there there the reason I focus on it is because I think it's of the numerous challenges we Face ecological challenges that we face I think it's the

00:04:52

most urgent the time frame we have to to deal with climate change is incredibly tight and and that's really why I work in this in this realm and why in fact that that quote it sounds you know

00:05:06

really very challenging and quite depressing sometimes but we that's that's where we are we have to be honest about the position we're actually in today and when you say that it's urgent uh how do you how do you come to that conclusion well the science gives us a

00:05:18

well a blend of the science and the policy if you like we've made commitments going right back to 1992 the big Rio Earth Summit that we would avoid we as as an actually every country that signed up to it almost all countries in

00:05:30

the world signed up to the to the Rio Earth Summit agreement that we would um reduce our missions sufficient that we would um avoid dangerous levels of climate change if you roll that on for 23 years lots more negotiations

00:05:43

eventually the Paris agreement in 2015 said well what do we mean by dangerous and it said we must be well below 2 de centigrade and no more than 1.5 degre Centigrade of warming compared to the pre-industrial period that's a huge

00:05:55

change we've never seen in human history anything like that level of change and this is occurring almost overnight you know 1.5° Centigrade of warming will have occurred in the next 10 years probably um 2° Centigrade by about 2050

00:06:07

if we carry on like we're going now 3 to 4 degrees Centigrade towards the end of the century so the rate of change is phenomenally fast we know we know what's causing it we know how much um fossil

00:06:20

fuels uh bring about the emissions that we see and we know how rapidly we have to phase away from fossil fuels and change our agricultural practices and our all of that is really clear from the science if we to deliver on our

00:06:32

political commitments and it's not really the temperatures I guess that it's the impacts that are associated with those temperatures that you're concerned with yeah of course ultimately it is the impacts and the temp if the temperatures occurred over thousands or millions of years so what but if the

00:06:45

temperatures occurring as fast as they are today ecosystems and human systems cannot evolve fast enough to deal with what's happening and let's also be clear those impacts are being felt today at

00:06:56

1.2 de Centigrade of warming by lots of poor communities around the world people are dying their communities are being destroyed and it's creating a lot of instability in lots of parts of the world typically people who have very little Global political influence and

00:07:09

have had almost nothing to do with with the problem they've not caused the problem so people are living with our climate change today and it's getting worse and worse and we are imp putting that now increasingly on our own children's Futures in the northern

00:07:22

hemisphere as well and of course it's not only climate change that is driving those no climate change exacerbates a lot of other tensions that are there um and challenges that they face but I think increasingly climate change is becoming a key driver of the challenges

00:07:35

that they face I mean he exacerbated existing ones but now I think it's increasingly becoming a key driver so since the early 90s then when we started negotiating And discussing these issues at the international level how have we

00:07:47

been doing and start start yeah well if you looked at our um School record for the International Community you might say that uh um you know attainment would be would be e minus and but our ability to change would

00:08:01

probably be about an a you we have we have everything we we need at our fingertips to make the changes but we have chosen and the We There is very important it's those of us who frame the debate those of us who are responsible for most of the emissions we have chosen

00:08:13

to do nothing about climate change so today this year emissions will be about 60% higher than they were in 1992 at the time of the rear Earth Summit 60% higher we've emitted more carbon dioxide since

00:08:25

then than we admitted than we emitted in all of human history to that point emissions this year will be higher than they were last year so the signs are not good at the moment um you know our report card as I say you know we have

00:08:38

absolutely failed to address climate change despite all the rhetoric all the wonderful speeches all of these big events that we have every year we have failed to address climate change and when you say wether would you like to be more specific yeah well I mean some of

00:08:52

the data is really clear on this that half of half of global emissions come from just 10% of the population I think even more damning um that the top 1% of global emitters are responsible for

00:09:03

twice the amount of carbon as the bottom half of the world's population so the inequality in who's causing the emissions I think I would use the language of obscene that's what it is but who is framing the debate most of

00:09:16

the people framing the debate are in the top 1% um and so we do not really want to change the the business as usual storyline that we have done very well out of so quite a few of the people Gathering a cup this week almost all the

00:09:29

Senior People gathering at cop will be in that group yes and in terms of looking into the future then what this the the commitments that we signed up to in Paris what would that actually entail

00:09:41

then if we look at the what the science is telling us and also the political commitments together well we have to eliminate fossil fuel use from 1.5 degrees Centigrade at a global level we have to

00:09:54

eliminate all fossil fuel use by 2040 at the very latest but given that we signed up and every agreement to to abide by the concept of equity then and and that has been very clear in all the agreements that means that the poorer

00:10:06

parts of the world have longer to move away from fossil fuels and the Richer countries have to lead on that for 1.5 degre Centigrade it means for wealthy countries that we need to be zero emissions zero fossil fuel use by about

00:10:18

2030 2030 now as I say globally it may be near 240 for 2° Centigrade we have about another decade at most on that so incredibly tight time frames for the wealthy parts of the world and the poor

00:10:30

countries also have to not lock themselves into fossil fuels and but also phase out the fossil fuels that they're using today so the time frame is incredibly tight um but what that means for us clearly from the science is that

00:10:44

there are two elements to that one is we have the Technologies to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels we have to phase the fossil fuels down you have to out have to eliminate them all together from the system but we have the

00:10:56

Technologies to allow us to have plenty of energy still to live good quality lives we have the energy in terms of generating power but we also in terms of using much less power for our transport for our heating for all of those things

00:11:08

the Technologies are there to do what we need to do today but in in themselves they're now insufficient we also require deep social change and that's been very made been made very clear in some of the

00:11:20

statements from working group two of the intergovernmental panel on climate change we have to ask fundamental questions about power about our social values about our economics it makes this very clear within that within that um part of the

00:11:32

ipcc and so you have to align those two things to do together the social change fairness and Equity with the Technologies you put those together and we've got a slim chance of staying within the commitments we made at the

00:11:44

Paris agreement do you also see that statement from the second working group with ipcc do you also see that as a pre prerequisite in some sense for not exasperating other environmental and social issues when trying to phase out

00:11:57

fossil fuels because I think that's one of the concerns sometimes is that well to actually deliver on these commitments what will that do to other um things that we care about yeah I this is a

00:12:09

systemic challenge so just focusing on climate change and just thinking it it's some sort of technocratic solution but then we will exacerbate other challenges that we Face climate change has to be seen as one of a suite of challenges that we faced you can't you must see it

00:12:22

oh it's a symptom it's a symptom of contemporary Society how we've run contemporary Society um and so yeah we have to be very careful when we respond to climate change we're not exacerbating the other ones that are there and

00:12:34

ideally we want to try and respond to all of these challenges at the same time and there are a lot of crossovers between them but there are also real risks that sometimes you you solve one thing and cause another now in contemporary Society we have been very

00:12:47

good at reductionist thinking of of silos of thinking one bit and then causing another problem elsewhere we we don't have that opportunity anymore we have to start to think of these issues at a system level

00:12:59

and and what would that look like then in terms of these deadlines that we have if if we actually to stay within those carbon budgets that that that that we uh that the science is telling us and that we signed up to iner us what would just to

00:13:12

give a little bit of flavor of of of uh what that would look like in a country like the UK that you're from or in okay well it would mean major changes to all the key parts of our lives that where we use lots of fossil fuels so where that's

00:13:25

heating our homes running our Industries our Transport Systems and some of that can be dealt with with technology but so for instance on transport one that most people are quite familiar with almost all wealthy countries now is dominated

00:13:37

by the car it's not about moving people it's about moving lumps of metal around with one person in them You' have to move away from that I mean it's not to say you wouldn't have some cars but this idea that everyone owns their or aspires to owning their own car and that's how

00:13:50

you move in my case 85 kg of me from one place to another that would not be viable we would have to have active transport and public transport introduced very rapidly indeed that's not to say you wouldn't have some EVS but probably not everyone electric

00:14:04

vehicles not everyone would be owning these we'd have to massively reduce how often we fly but who flies it's generally the wealthy who who are driving the flying not you know the average people don't fly very often and when it comes to energy production we'd

00:14:16

have to phase out fossil fuel use very rapidly indeed but we have plenty of alternatives to that already that are very low carbon that are actually often cheaper than fossil fuels we should be building those incredibly rapidly so the

00:14:28

scale of challenge here technically is all doable but it doesn't mean a fundamental sort of rewriting in in how we use our labor and our resources in modern societies but all of that now we've left it so late won't work unless

00:14:40

we address the the fairness issue as well within countries within countries as well as between countries you know um as I say most of the emissions are just just come from a very small proportion of the world's population

00:14:52

and what you're telling us now what what you're sort of painting out here why is that not something that's spoken more often about in sort of academic debates or in the public debate and that for that matter s so why don't we hear this message more from researchers and from

00:15:04

the media I mean there lots of reasons for that but the key reason is that the people framing the debate are in the top 1% we've done very well out of business as usual we don't want to rock the boat and so whether it's the um the policy

00:15:18

makers the CEOs of our companies and the senior managers whether it's the uh the senior academics and the professors the editors or the owners of the newspapers and the editors of the newspapers we're all in that group so we don't want to we don't want to really you know shake up

00:15:31

how well we've done so um and not only that but we of course fund the research so there's a whole sort of um momentum behind maintaining the status quo even though our commitments and our science tells us that that isn't

00:15:43

viable so we we need to be shaken out of that very comfortable Zone that we're in that the the cop that that quote you that you read out at the beginning that feeds into I mean the cop is there to maintain the current power relationships

00:15:57

a few people from the poor parts of the world are allowed to have come and you know we we hear them we don't listen to them we hear them what who we listen to are the oil lobbyists that are there in great with greater representation than

00:16:10

any of the negotiators from the countries of the world so so we are listening to particular groups who are interested in maintaining the status quo at these big events we have to remove them from these events and from our negotiations and from our wider thinking

00:16:23

on climate change if we are going to respond to the challenges that we face and who who should remove them then I'm thinking of sort of the role of Civil Society here also what do you how do you see that coming in and how that relates to the work that you've been doing well

00:16:35

I'm going to put on the record that I would like to thank Civil Society very much over over the last five six seven years that it has pushed an agenda that is much more in line with what our commitments say it's required and what

00:16:47

our science has told us so the scientists have done a fantastic job in understanding climate science understanding how the climate Works what we have fundamentally failed on as experts as professors as academics ICS

00:16:59

is to translate that into what that means for modern society Civil Society is pushing us really hard on that so you know I want to thank them for holding our feets to the fire on this but the job is not over we are still there are

00:17:12

still very strong powerful voices trying to maintain the status quo and Civil Society is is absolutely essential in pushing us to be honest to our own analysis I also go slightly further than

00:17:25

saying that as academics as experts we're very good at looking at the world in silos but we're not going to solve this problem or indeed many of the other eological challenges we Face by thinking like that we need to think at a more

00:17:38

systemic level and actually in some regards Civil Society is better at doing that Society in general is better at doing that than we have been as experts so there is there is this difficult relationship here between civil society

00:17:49

and expertise here but that combination of the two gives us hope I think that we can drive a necessary change but hope isn't sitting back and doing nothing that hope is being out there either active as a

00:18:02

citizen driving the change or as academics and as experts being more honest to our own expertise on that not I think we we we'll wrap up this little chat but is there anything else you'd like to say

00:18:14

before we turn off the camera um well there's a quote that I've used increasingly using actually from gramsky gramsky and it's pessimism of the intellect optimism of the will and I

00:18:26

think it captures where we are today when you look at everything around us when you do the analysis you can't help but be pessimistic the optimism comes out of the will the will to drive change and that that is if you like um hope that

00:18:40

emerges from action and so I think when you combine those two together that really captures where we are today everything tells us you know every reason we have to be deeply pessimistic but that's no reason to give up in some reason that in some ways that's a more

00:18:52

of a reason to to fight harder and that's the optimism of the will I guess that's true for many issues not only climate change indeed yes thank you thank you