Toward a Defensible Climate Realism Tom Athanasiou | February 6, 2008 Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
It’s a tough time to be an American climate realist. After all, which realism will you choose? The Beltway realism that limits U.S. commitments, and even U.S. initiatives, to those that are immediately sustainable by veto-proof congressional majorities? The internationalist realism that begins instead with the recognition that – as the recent multilateral climate talks in Bali clearly indicated – a viable global accord will necessarily require substantial rich-world financial commitments? How about a straightforward scientific realism that proceeds differently, ignoring the politics of the moment and stressing instead the physical demands of the climate system? ****** There is a way forward. We have the technology. And we have the money. After all, the United States is spending at least $2 billion dollars a day on the military. But if we’re going to engage the climate crisis in an environmentally adequate and politically viable manner, we need to find a path forward that satisfies all the “realisms” noted above. And the undeniable fact that this would be one of the hardest things we’ve ever done is no excuse for pretending that it’s not necessary. Fortunately, we’re getting closer. But the hour is late, and we can’t take anything for granted. The time now, inevitably, has to be one of preparing as well as one of acting. Because the scientific ground for the necessary emergency mobilization has been prepared, but not the political ground. And the problem? That the only way the Non-Annex 1 countries are going to make a “substantial deviation from baseline” emissions paths, in time, is if the wealthy countries provide them with the technology and development assistance necessary to do so without compromising their development prospects. Politically this can only happen in a progressive manner (not in the sense of “progressive politics” but in the sense of “progressive tax”) as part of a package that mobilizes the longing for economic justice as well as the drive for climate stabilization. In other words, we need a new deal that’s not limited to climate protection, but also reforms “development” and drives poverty alleviation in the wealthy world as well as the poor. Green collar jobs are part of the answer. So is the solar revolution. So is “cap and auction” (as against “cap and grandfather”). So is the new flexibility that was visible in Bali (though not from the United States). But they’re not enough. We also need a new realism, one that doesn’t ask either science or the poor to step aside in the interests of short-term calculation. It won’t be easy, but it’s the only real chance we have. Tom Athanasiou is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus and the executive director of EcoEquity.

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