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Yves here. I’m running this post because it makes a very important headline statement, that COP26-type official efforts to address climate change are tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. But otherwise this article is a hot mess.
The piece does stress that deaths resulting from climate change will dwarf Covid deaths, even allowing for a substantial official undercount. It would be nice if an article using Covid as a significant anchor got basic concepts right. For instance, it compares vaccine administration levels to “full three dose vaccination” requirements. It’s embarrassing that the author Paul Rogers hasn’t gotten the memo that vaccine-induced immunity is severely diminished by six months, so vaccinations more often than annually would be needed….of course assuming no variants that substantially or totally escape the vaccines. And he like too many commentators overlook morbidity cost. From GM via e-mail:
The risk has never been explained to the public properly and is constantly being minimized in the media. This is not a common cold virus, it does lasting damage to internal organs, even in mild cases, and it destroys your immune system in ways that might not be apparent now but very much will be years down the line. And that the media is entirely silent about.
In other words, a more accurate picture of Covid as a hazard to humanity would not in any way undermine Rogers’ point, that climate change damage is on track to be vastly, immeasurably worse.
The other, far more peculiar element is that Rogers does notice that COP26 is pointedly silent about the military, but the Rogers shies away from making the obvious observation that armed forces, above all America’s super-sized operations, are a major greenhouse gas producers. Instead he pumps for a nicer, friendlier role (so they become the world’s National Guard?) as if that has any impact on the direct harm they do at their present scale.
And as far as a more cooperative military is concerned, perhaps Professor Rogers should become acquainted with the fable of the scorpion and the frog.
By Paul Rogers, professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He writes a monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group. His latest book is ‘Irregular War: ISIS and the New Threat from the Margins‘ (IB Tauris, 2016), which follows ‘Why We’re Losing the War on Terror‘ (Polity, 2007), and ‘Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century‘ (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on Twitter at: @ProfPRogers. Originally published at openDemocracy
Three issues arise directly from COP26. Firstly, the architects of the COP21 Paris agreement, Christiana Figueres and Laurence Tubiana, believe that yet more negotiations will have to follow COP26 next year. Secondly, the respected Climate Action Tracker put the consequences of what had so far been agreed, both before and during the summit, at a 2.4°C rise in temperature. Thirdly, and perhaps most daunting of all, even if a firm agreement is reached to keep the increase to 1.5°C, we are already experiencing the severity of climate change at the present 1.2° level.
When extreme weather events such as floods, wildfires and storms affect the Global North, they attract plenty of attention. There is still much less focus on the far greater impact of extreme weather on the Global South, which is a persistent source of bitterness given the failure of richer countries to implement the agreement for $100bn of support for poorer states.
Meanwhile, in what might be considered a side issue this week, but most certainly is not, Britain’s chief scientific advisor, Patrick Vallance, has warned that climate change poses a much greater risk to humanity than COVID-19. He said: “The reason I say it is a bigger problem is because in terms of the overall effect on humanity, if this is not stopped it is a bigger, bigger challenge to the way we live, and lives will be lost.”
His view is widely shared by climate activists, but its significance increases when we take a hard look at where we are with the pandemic.
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Expect news, in-depth analysis, and a carefully curated round-up of links from our global team, campaigners and other media sites to keep you updated on everything that’s going on before, during and after this vitally important event.`
The Greater Cost of COVID-19
At the time of writing, the latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) sat at almost 5.1 million deaths worldwide, and 251 million confirmed cases. It also reported that almost 7.2 billion vaccine doses had been delivered. However, with a global population of 8 billion, full three-dose vaccination would require nearly 25 billion doses. This is unlikely to be reached until well into 2023 – resulting in large pools of virus interacting with only partially vaccinated populations, which is a recipe for more variants.
Although the WHO is reasonably confident of its vaccination figures, it does not claim accuracy for the deaths and confirmed cases. Senior staff have agreed that the real figures are likely to be much higher. Moreover, it is currently warning of a major COVID surge across Europe, and has been consistently repeating its calls for global vaccination rates to be increased.
The death rate issue stems partly from incomplete data from countries with limited health and diagnostic services. There are alternative methodologies, and one such estimate from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation puts total COVID-19 deaths worldwide at 12 million, which is more than double the official figures.
Another comes from The Economist, which has been running a long-term study and publishing daily figures. Its work indicates a 95% chance that the figure for global deaths is between 10.6 and 19.9 million, with the most likely figure within that range being 17.1 million deaths.
We are therefore looking at well over double, and quite possibly treble, the number of deaths stated in official counts. This compares with the death counts of the two greatest pandemics of the past 120 years, HIV/AIDS at over 36 million, and the 1918-19 H1N1 influenza virus (known as Spanish flu) at 50 million. However, HIV/AIDS figures are spread over four decades, and while the flu pandemic was utterly appalling given the much smaller global population, it was at a time when medical services were far less effective than today.
So COVID-19’s impact is far higher than what is commonly assumed, and there is still a long way to go. Global vaccination rates are hopelessly inadequate, yet very few governments have any clear vision for what is really needed. And then there is Vallance’s view that the impact of climate change will be much greater than COVID-19. Indeed, climate breakdown is likely to be far more catastrophic over the longer term – but since the global response to the pandemic hasn’t been anywhere near as effective as what is required, where does that leave hopes for climate change? Whatever the outcome from COP26, what has been discussed so far may have been appropriate two decades ago, but now is appallingly late.
At the very least, we have to rethink what we even mean by international security. These two issues represent by far the greatest security challenges facing humankind, yet there is close to $2trn a year spent on the military outlays that are largely irrelevant when it comes to pandemics and climate breakdown.
Even worse is that COVID-19 is seen as peripheral to the military understanding of security, while climate change is already being securitized. Militaries thus prepare to protect their country’s population from what they perceive to be the great threat of mass migration, failing states, transnational breakdown of social order and other diverse impacts on their particular state, while arguing little, if at all, for the critical need for conflict prevention through radical and rapid decarbonisation.
This old way of thinking is unfortunately not surprising, given the narrow mindsets of the military-industrial complexes that persist in every well-armed state, from the US to the UK, Russia and China.
For the military-industrial complexes, the working environment is one of state-on-state threats that require military responses. Frankly, that is an utterly obsolete mindset in the face of the global threat looming from climate breakdown, that will affect every country, and can only be met with globally-orientated, cooperative responses.
Any thinking along such lines of cooperation, with all that this implies, is rare in current military discourses. Just as we have failed to respond cooperatively to COVID-19, so the even greater challenge of climate breakdown has little impact on fundamental military approaches to global security.
Instead, any innovative thinking on security remains in the hands of a few small and underfunded think tanks and NGOs. In the UK, an Alternative Security Review is being launched on 18 November by the Rethinking Security group. That is certainly a start, and there are some similar groups in other countries, such as Rethinking Security Germany. However, such initiatives are still few and far between – yet we have reached the point where they are desperately needed.
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Learning from past mistakes always helps.
Why will globalisation be an environmental disaster?
Western companies couldn’t wait to off-shore to low cost China, where they could make higher profits.
Maximising profit is all about reducing costs.
China had coal fired power stations to provide cheap energy.
China had lax regulations reducing environmental and health and safety costs.
China had a low cost of living so employers could pay low wages.
China had low taxes and a minimal welfare state.
China had all the advantages in an open globalised world.
Environmentally friendly measures cost money and reduce profit.
The goal is to maximise profit.
Why do firms move to Mexico and export into the US?
Companies prefer Mexico with its cheap labour, lax health and safety standards, and lack of environmental regulations.
They can expose workers to hazardous chemicals and just pump toxic waste straight out into the environment, without incurring the costs associated in dealing with them in an environmentally friendly way.
https://thoughtmaybe.com/maquilapolis-city-of-factories
Every avenue must be explored to reduce costs.
The lower the costs, the higher the profit.
The more environmentally friendly you are, the less internationally competitive you will be.
“ ….. today, authorities in Inner Mongolia approved restarting production at 38 open-pit coal mines to boost China’s supplies ….”
“Meanwhile, Chinese banks are financing a blizzard of new coal plants across South East Asia as part of the Belt and Road”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/11/27/chinas-latest-coal-mania-alarming-green-technology-has-already/
Coal is one of the cheapest forms of energy.
It will help them keep costs down.
As we shut down coal fired power stations in the West, new ones opened up in South East Asia.
“Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome” Warren Buffet’s partner Charlie Munger
Environmentally friendly measures cost money and reduce profit.
That’s the problem.
The incentives push everyone towards being environmentally unfriendly.
Love the thoughtmaybe.com link. Great website for documentaries!
I suppose the one good thing to come out of COP26 is that its obvious that all the major world leaders are being briefed behind the scenes that climate change is on top of us, and its very, very serious. Even those who sabotaged the final agreements clearly did so on the basis that it was politically impossible for them to be seen to make commitments to essentially destroy the coal industry.
It is unfortunate that in most countries the only well funded bodies who are given the job of seriously analysing future risks are those directly or indirectly connected with their militaries. So climate disasters almost inevitably become framed as security issues. They are security issues of course, but they are so much more than that.
There are only three circles for this venn diagram, and one can move them around per one’s personal preferences….
1. more fission,2. conservation + punishing hydrocarbon-material consumption (taxes/removing subsidies/banning), 3. Manhattan Project for energy/material sciences (batteries, powertrains, fusion reactors, superconductors, etc.).
then cross your fingers that material science/alternative energy is not a “great filter” for the Fermi Paradox.
Pick your poison. just saying.
Fission will fail. Again. That’s a good thing. Uranium is a non-renewable resource. Vastly increasing the amount of potentially weapons-grade material in the world is a dealbreaker.
Fusion won’t happen soon enough to still have the global logistical and economic capacity to make it more than a niche solution. Ditto carbon capture on a big enough scale to matter.
When you assume that a technology skyhook will magically save us, you’ve already given up.
High tech got us here and high tech will not get us out. Simplify, simplify, simplify. To pick a poison is to accept that one must drink something. Personally, I’m not very thirsty. Back to the garden.
While I think increasing nuclear power some, where it’s feasible & tightly regulated, would probably be a net gain, I’m with the other replies that I don’t think technology will save us. I have a really weird spin on it I’m going to post on its own below.
There’s also always the Jevons paradox to contend with.
The one tangent I wanted to add is that I’m still not entirely sure controlled fusion power will ever be a thing. I only have a basic physics background so it’s just a layman’s weird intuition, but what if the two known cases (stars & thermonuclear weapons) are actually exceptions that prove the rule?
Far more radical thinking has been around for a couple of centuries. It is the profit motive–the core of capitalism–that is driving global ecocide. The fuel lobby is just one fine example of the profit motive in action.
The solution is a globalized economy of cooperation, managed and owned by those who do the work. That’s socialism, and it isn’t just a slogan. Rosa Luxemburg famously remarked that it was a choice of “socialism or barbarism”; an updated version would be “socialism or extinction.” Or is that too radical thinking?
The need for more radical thinking about security? Naturally we invoke the military, the greatest force for pollution in the history of the world. Possibly with the exception of mega volcanoes. Security has always been a weird way to describe murder and mayhem… Really the only radical thought possible here is peaceful cooperation. It’s a lovely irony that the word “radical” has always been associated with crazy-pants anarchists and molotov cocktailologists. The point is subtle by necessity – because if we mobilize our militaries to mitigate the worst damage we anticipate from climate change it will change the military for good. As in both senses – forever and for better. So although this is a watered-down analysis of what a new military century might become – not even an analysis – it is the way we need to start thinking. We need to give our militaries a new mandate for security asap. And thank you for your service.
Until the two fundamental problems created by humans are addressed we will indeed be merely “rearranging the chairs on the Titanic”:
1. Too many of the Earth’s top predator (humans) rapaciously utilising the Earth’s finite resources and overexploiting the Earth’s renewable resources.
2. An economic system addicted to growth.
Until these two fundamental problems are addressed (and at this point in time they are not even acknowledged by those with their hands on the levers of power), the inevitable ecological consequences of overpopulation by any species, i.e. disease, intraspecific conflict and famine, will continue to escalate and intensify, along with that uniquely human induced consequence of overpopulation and endless economic growth , anthropogenic climate change resulting from our profligate use of fossil fuels.
In the mean time we humans are causing the sixth great species extinction in the history of the Earth.
Sorry to bang on about this one, but to somebody like me who studied ecology and evolution this is all bleeding obvious.
Sadly the planet is largely run by business, military, economic, legal and accounting people who exhibit absolutely no understanding of ecology and evolution, and who place no value on other species and natural habitats unless they can see opportunity for commercial exploitation of them.