Only a minority of the public see combating climate change as a priority – which is why politicians are strong on rhetoric but very short on action
Whatever the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change conference, extreme environmentalists will not be happy. Failure, of course, will be failure. But even success will fall short of their ambitions. Short of grounding the world’s airplanes, bikes replacing cars and sewing by candlelight for evening entertainment, nothing can match the scale of the revolution they seek in our social and economic habits.
To judge from the rhetoric, there is no great gap between such extremists and our political leaders. Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemns the ‘dangerous, deceitful’ climate change sceptics. The faithful decry the leaked University of East Anglia e-mails not for what they tell us about the ethics of climatologists but for what they tell us about the ethics of the hackers. You would believe from most of the governing class – in Britain and to a certain extent in most developed countries – that the end of the world is indeed nigh.
There is something dangerous about this runaway rhetoric. There are two kinds of issues in our world: those where compromise is possible and those where it is not. So, for example, the political process can find ways of, on the one hand, combating terrorism and, on the other, preserving civil liberties. But, in the abortion debate for example, there can be no peace.
If we are to deal with global warming, we shall need compromise – between, for example, developing countries such as China and developed countries such as Britain. If we accept that warming is happening and caused by humans, the debate should focus on issues that are inherently political.
How much of our scarce resources should we devote to slowing global warming? How much harm will it do unchecked? To whom? To what extent should the burdens be confined to richer countries? Is it politically possible to make the kind of radical changes that climate change enthusiasts want to see? Should today’s relatively poor generation be forced to bear the costs of actions whose benefits (if any) will be garnered by tomorrow’s much richer generations? Beneath the headlines, these are the arguments that underlie the Copenhagen conference of world leaders.
But democracy does not find it easy to conduct such arguments. There are two fundamental dilemmas. First, democracy tends to be short term. It gives greater weight to the views of this generation, who can exercise votes for today’s politicians, than to tomorrow’s, who will vote for politicians as yet unheard of.
Secondly, democratic politicians find it hard to reconcile the views of many of their constituents who hold one view quite weakly with those of some of their constituents who hold another view passionately.
The articulate minority, led by that unlikely crusader Al Gore, believe this is the transcendental issue facing humanity. For such people, combating climate change is the equivalent of a religious crusade. There is no ‘on the other hand’.
The cost of action is dismissed as irrelevant. Bjorn Lomborg, author of The skeptical environmentalist, once argued that, although climate change probably existed, the world’s resources would be better expended on a problem causing huge suffering to millions now – the shortage of water. But a Bateman ‘The man who…’ cartoon could not do justice to the excrement heaped on Lomborg’s head. And young voters in particular, on whom future political careers hang, are taught at school to be eco-warriors to the boy and girl.
But this is a minority view. A recent poll in The Times showed that a majority of voters are climate change sceptics. This does not suggest that voters will flock to a party that promises to cut their jobs and incomes to combat it.
For most politicians, therefore, the safe course is this. On the one hand, employ rhetoric that makes the environmentalists think you are on their side – ‘talk the talk’. On the other hand, avoid committing yourself to any policy that would seriously inconvenience your constituents. No ‘walking the walk’.
In light of this, it would not be a surprise if Copenhagen fails to agree a deal. If a deal is reached, it will be a triumph of political morality over political exigency, however inadequate it might seem to extreme environmentalists.
David Lipsey is a Labour peer
