Climate action is a classic good-news-bad-news story thus far. On one hand, all the countries are engaged in the negotiations to mitigate our impacts on climate and the planet. On the other hand though, we have failed thus far to bend the emissions curve. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and even accelerate despite all the collective efforts to mitigate climate change via renewable energy deployments and the nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement.
It is self-evident that climate change mitigation is a challenge that requires global collective action. Then why are we not bending the curve yet? Are we even capable of such action as a species? Are our evolutionary traits an advantage or a barrier to collective action beyond our own groups? We cannot keep dreaming of unrealistic global warming targets and sustainability without considering the stuff we are made of.
We are a non-zero species but there’s a catch
The optimistic view of our global efforts to mitigate climate change needs a reality check with each day that passes without bending the curve. Signs are everywhere that we tend to fool ourselves easily to feel rosy-eyed about how great we are doing on climate action and all the solutions that we keep inventing. Especially, the news about increasing deployment of renewable energy and carbon capture and sequestration projects across the planet are really intoxicating.
But the subversive elements of our intrinsic approach to economic growth are evident everywhere. For example, even the most climate progressive countries of the European Union have been quick to slap on a tariff on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs). This is of course to protect their own automotive industries against domination by China. The US has followed suit on this as well.
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All the big giants of the corporate world put out brochures about their sustainability efforts but nearly all fail in transparency while depicting progress. Greenwashing is everywhere, from corporations to governments to carbon offsets.
The most fundamental tenet of economic growth, often euphemistically called “economic development”, is that every cooperative, business, corporation, State, or country considers trading as necessary for economic growth but always as a non-zero sum game. In other words, we lose if someone else wins. There is no way everybody can win.
Robert Wright argues elegantly in his book Nonzero that we are destined to be a ”non-zero species. In a limited sense, this is true. Someone can invent or innovate something and sell it to a lot of people, such as a phone, a laptop, a car, or a better mousetrap. The buyers can use the device to make a living or to improve their lives in some way while the seller can earn a lot of money and live well.
But evolutionary biologists point out that while we are the most cooperative species and we can work collectively to build and sell things, we remain cooperative within groups but mostly compete for resources and markets across groups. Of course, we form coalitions across groups for mutual benefits or to fight common enemies but those alliances tend to be very transient.
Are we even capable of global collective action at all?
The conclusions of evolutionary biologists are not too optimistic on our ability to engage in collective action at a global scale. As a species, we are very ambitious and we have grown bigger and bigger in the scale of exploitation due to our intra-group cooperation. Now our reach is global, with economic growth and trading being interlinked even as regional conflicts, competitions, and hegemonies continue to thrive.
Elinor Ostrom, a Nobel laureate in Economics, concluded from a lifetime of case studies that humans are indeed capable of sustaining shared resources or commons. But she also concluded that economic growth and climate change are at a scale that do not fit into her analytical approach and her conclusions.
We need to drop most of our evolutionary baggages to evolve towards effective cooperation across groups, We need to progress towards thinking of economic development as a non-zero sum game and the planet as a home that needs to be protected for all of us and all the species.
Most climate progressive countries of the European Union have been quick to slap on a tariff on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) “to protect their own automotive industries against domination by China.” | Photo Credit: CHALINEE THIRASUPA
This is a tall order. To go back to the Chinese EVs, they would have to be allowed freely into all markets for the sake of mitigating climate change faster. But that would also mean accepting the potential negative impact on indigenous industries and thus, on economic growth itself. No politician will even dream of proposing such a suicidal approach to managing economic growth for the sake of climate action.
What is the way forward then? Clearly, we will need a value system that accepts global commons such as the atmosphere, oceans, and terrestrial habitats for all species as a collective responsibility. The most fundamental driving principle will have to be that sustainability is a global non-zero-sum action.
Can we accept sustainability as a non-zero-sum pathway?
It is anathema to our species to think of giving up self gain or a group advantage for the sake of the greater good. Humans do remain the most philanthropic especially during disasters. Altruism seems to be intrinsic to us and yet it is a learned trait which is easily lost during adverse conditions. Reciprocal altruism is a stable behaviour—most of us invest in good or helpful acts with the hope or expectation of a favour in return.
Cooperation is very effective within groups. Environmental regulations within regions, States, and countries are good examples of such cooperative action. But cross-border environmental issues tend to be relentless struggles. As for climate action, mitigation within state boundaries with renewable energy investments are a no-brainer since they bring energy security and economic advantages. But sharing new technologies or intellectual properties for helping other states for the sake of global mitigation will not happen without profit-making.
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The current model for economic growth is obviously about cornering resources, trading, competing, and playing dangerous geopolitical games for advantage. The good news though is that we are the most ambitious species. We always want to think big and bigger. In this context, we face two potential futures.
One is that we realise the follies of the zero-sum approach to the global economy and move towards merging our economic growth pathways into global non-zero economic development. The other is that we will rely on our aspirational nature to find solutions for continuing our energy-intensive lifestyles with carbon-free energy and a decarbonised system.
We wait and watch the future. But we wish for a non-zero world for posterity. Because even a decarbonised system will need natural resources which are not limitless. And then there are other species which also need a safe future in this shared home.
Raghu Murtugudde is Professor, IIT Bombay and Emeritus Professor, University of Maryland.
