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62 — village july 2009
, loudly in private, climate
scientists everywhere are saying the same
thing: it’s over. The years in which more than
two degrees of global warming could have
been prevented have passed, the opportuni-
ties squandered by denial and delay. On cur-
rent trajectories we’ll be lucky to get away with
four degrees. Mitigation (limiting greenhouse
gas pollution) has failed; now we must adapt to
what nature sends our way. If we can.
It’s more or less what Bob Watson, the en-
vironment department’s chief scientific advis-
er, has been telling the British government. It
is the obvious if unspoken conclusion of scores
of scientific papers. Recent work by scientists
at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Re-
search, for example, suggests that even global
cuts of % a year, starting in , could leave
us with four degrees of warming by the end
of the century. At the moment emissions are
heading in the opposite direction at roughly
the same rate. If this continues, what does it
mean? Six? Eight? Ten degrees? Who knows?
Faced with such figures, I can’t blame an-
yone for throwing up his hands. But before
you succumb to this fatalism, let me talk you
through the options.
Yes, it is true that mitigation has so far
failed. Sabotaged by Clinton, abandoned by
Bush, attended half-heartedly by the other
rich nations, the global climate talks have so
far been a total failure. The targets they have
set bear no relationship to the science and are
negated anyway by loopholes and false ac-
counting. Nations like the UK which are meet-
ing their obligations under the Kyoto protocol
have succeeded only by outsourcing their pol-
lution to other countries. Nations like Canada,
which are flouting their obligations, face no
meaningful sanctions.
Lord Stern made it too easy: he appears
to have underestimated the costs of mitiga-
tion. As the professor of energy policy Diet-
er Helm has shown, Stern’s assumption that
our consumption can continue to grow while
our emissions fall is implausible. To have any
hope of making substantial cuts we have both
to reduce our consumption and transfer re-
sources to countries like China to pay for the
switch to low-carbon technologies. As Helm
notes, “there is not much in the study of hu-
man nature—and indeed human biology—to
give support to the optimist.”
But we cannot abandon mitigation unless
we have a better option. We don’t. If you think
our attempts to prevent emissions are futile,
take a look at our efforts to adapt.
Where Stern appears to be correct is in
proposing that the costs of stopping climate
breakdown - great as they would be - are far
lower than the costs of living with it. Germa-
ny is spending €m just on a new sea wall
for Hamburg - and this money was committed
before the news came through that sea level
rises this century could be two or three times
as great as the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change has predicted. The Nether-
lands will spend .bn on dykes between now
and ; again they are likely to be inade-
quate. The UN suggests that the rich countries
should be transferring $-bn a year to the
poor ones now to help them cope with climate
change, with a massive increase later on. But
nothing like this is happening.
A Guardian investigation reveals that the
rich nations have promised $bn to help the
poor nations adapt to climate change over the
past seven years, but they have disbursed only
% of that money. Much of it has been trans-
ferred from foreign aid budgets anyway: a net
gain for the poor of nothing. Oxfam has made
a compelling case for how adaptation should
…
Climate Change Politics still ignores the Science
g e o r g e m o n b i o t
Monbiot
63
be funded: nations should pay according to
the amount of carbon they produce per capita,
coupled with their position on the human de-
velopment index. On this basis, the US should
supply over % of the money and the Euro-
pean Union over %, with Japan, Canada,
Australia and Korea making up the balance.
But what are the chances of getting them to
cough up?
There’s a limit to what this money could
buy anyway. The Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change says that “global mean
temperature changes greater than °C above
- levels” would “exceed … the adap-
tive capacity of many systems.” At this point
there’s nothing you can do, for example, to
prevent the loss of ecosystems, the melting
of glaciers and the disintegration of major
ice sheets. Elsewhere it spells out the conse-
quences more starkly: global food production,
it says, is “very likely to decrease above about
°C”(). Buy your way out of that.
And it doesn’t stop there. The IPCC also
fi nds that, above three degrees of warming,
the world’s vegetation will become “a net
source of carbon”. This is just one of the cli-
mate feedbacks triggered by a high level of
warming. Four degrees might take us inexo-
rably to fi ve or six: the end - for humans - of
just about everything.
Until recently, scientists spoke of carbon
concentrations - and temperatures - peaking
and then falling back. But a recent paper in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci-
ences shows that “climate change … is largely
irreversible for , years after emissions
stop.” Even if we were to cut carbon emissions
to zero today, by the year our contribu-
tion to atmospheric concentrations would de-
cline by just %. High temperatures would
remain more or less constant until then. If we
produce it we’re stuck with it.
In the rich nations we will muddle through,
for a few generations, and spend nearly every-
thing we have on coping. But where the money
is needed most there will be nothing. The ec-
ological debt the rich world owes to the poor
will never be discharged, just as it has never
accepted that it should off er reparations for
the slave trade and for the pillage of gold, sil-
ver, rubber, sugar and all the other commodi-
ties taken without due payment from its colo-
nies. Finding the political will for crash cuts in
carbon production is improbable. But fi nding
the political will - when the disasters have al-
ready begun - to spend adaptation money on
poor nations rather than on ourselves will be
impossible.
The world won’t adapt and can’t adapt:
the only adaptive response to a global short-
age of food is starvation. Of the two strategies
it is mitigation, not adaptation, which turns
out to be the most feasible option, even if this
stretches the concept of feasibility to the lim-
its. As Dieter Helm points out, the action re-
quired today is unlikely but “not impossible.
It is a matter ultimately of human well being
and ethics.”()
Yes, it might already be too late - even if
we reduced emissions to zero tomorrow - to
prevent more than two degrees of warming,
but we cannot behave as if it is, for in doing so
we make the prediction come true. Tough as
this fi ght may be, improbable as success might
seem, we cannot aff ord to surrender.
www.monbiot.com
This article was fi rst published in the Guardian, March 2009
“climate change… is largely irreversible for
1,000 years after emissions stop”
In the bath
this month Bertie Ahern
BERTIE AHERN, former Taoiseach,
lay back in the bath and thought
of what a wonderful job he’d done.
He’d love to be back at it. He’d rel-
ish the opportunity to deal with the
crisis. Not his crisis of course. The
International Crisis. And maybe a
little bit Cowen’s crisis. RELISH it.
He’d be smashing. Maurice. Noel.
Tony and Bill. He feckin’ hated be-
grudgers slaggin’ them off. He’d
burst them. Or he could be Lord
Mayor. “I think it would be an ex-
cellent job and I hope it is taken
seriously”. He was however fear-
ful that you’d get somebody just
joining up for the craic who won’t
know two ends of politics and be
going around acting as Lord Mayor
of Dublin, making an ass of them-
selves and ourselves. I didn’t make
an ass of meself. Ye have to roll
outta bed in the morning and say
listen here, here goes. He loved his
hangin’ baskets. Sometimes he’d
look in the mirror and say, I’m me
same old self, a good few times to
himself. Then he’d say something
humble and think about something
inane. Yes I’ve never changed, he
thought. The hard workin’ Presi-
dent. Ah Bass, ah Croker ah Man
U. He loved mass and the same
old things. Jayz I’m great. Jayz I’m
simple. Jayz I never change, the
hard workin’ man said simply, and
unchanged, to himself. Sometimes
he thought people were laughing at
him because he said such ridicu-
lous things. Breakfast roll. I’m big
enough to take it, but Jeez I hope
he doesn’t come to a sticky end.
He loved Gift Grub, Mario and Spar.
That nitwit Higgins. I love me com-
munity. I am one of the few so-
cialists left in Irish politics and I
have a very socialist view on life. I
own the Phoenix Park, and I own
THE DIGESTED MONBIOT
even 3% emission cuts = 4° warming by 2099
the cost of mitigation is less than
the cost of adaptation
4° exceeds the adaptive capacit
of many systems
Above 3° the worlds vegetation be-
comes a net source of carbon
Mitigation is the most feasible solution
64 — village july 2009
, , ; the
Interconnector - the proposed new under-
ground railway project between Conolly ad
Hewuston Stations - appears to have it all but
for a minimum of €bn and that’s just for the
tunnel. Yet there may be an alternative – pos-
sibly costing as little as € million – that
could deliver similar and perhaps even supe-
rior benefits.
Already an underground railway connects
Heuston and Connolly Stations, yet it has rare-
ly been used in recent years, because Irish Rail
has been obstructed by a lack of capacity – the
number of trains at Connolly and the Loopline
bridge is already at the maximum trains
per hour – and although this will increase to
per hour each way with improved signal-
ling, by .
The route of the line from Connolly forms
an arc just beyond the North Circular Road,
and connects to Heuston via Croke Park and
a tunnel under the Phoenix Park. It is ready to
go: twin-tracked all the way, the line is cur-
rently often used for special trains and com-
plies with requisite safety standards.
Yet if the line coming into Connolly were
to be switched at the North Strand junction
to direct traffic away towards the north – an
alternative to the Interconnector begins to
emerge; it might be called the ARC (All Rail
Connector). Connectivity and capacity with-
in the system would be released, and a new
station at Phibsboro could become an inter-
change between the Maynooth and Wicklow
trains (on the Connolly line) and Dundalk/Kil-
dare trains (on the Heuston line). With this
system, existing diesel Commuter trains could
service new through services, with the Dart
left untouched – except now providing high-
frequency interchanges with Maynooth/Wick-
low services at Connolly, and with Dundalk/
Kildare trains at Clontarf Road. A minor junc-
tion adjustment at Spencer Dock terminus sta-
tion - which will also connect to the Red Luas
early next year - would also further upgrade
the network’s capacity.
At far less cost, disruption and lead-up
time a solution such as the ARC has robust
appeal. Three new stations could open in the
heavily-populated but under-served north in-
ner city: Phibsboro, Croke Park (which is af-
ter all Europe’s fifth biggest stadium) and Ca-
At €2bn the Interconnector is too expensive
r u a d h á n m a c e o i n
Rail plans
“At far less cost,
disruption and
lead-up time a
solution such
as the ARC has
robust appeal.”
65
bra. By contrast Irish Rail’s Interconnector’s
new stations will service areas already well-
serviced: St Stephen’s Green already has Luas
and the Christchurch station is within me-
tres of the already existing Red Luas Line Four
Courts station. These areas will be even bet-
ter placed when the two Luas lines are even-
tually connected.
Construction of the ARC would require
about metres of new rail and bridges,
mostly around Fairview Park. By contrast,
the Interconnector would require nine kilo-
metres of tunneling, with half of it gratuitous-
ly parallel to the existing east-west rail/ light
rail corridor. Exact costs for the alternative
-metre link are difficult to quantify, yet
informal discussions with engineers would
indicate a probable range of € – € mil-
lion. With most of the required route already
in state ownership, preliminary site inspec-
tions suggest that the number of houses need-
ed for acquisition could be minimised.
Stations built by Irish Rail in recent years
at Phoenix Park, Dunboyne and Midleton, have
cost between €m and €m each and so based
on thos figures upgrades at Heuston, Clontarf,
and Connolly, should not require more than
€m in total. Hence the total amount need-
ed for the ARC proposal – combining the
metres new rail link and the station upgrades
- is an estimated € – €m. The completion
of the Green Luas line via O’Connell Street and
Broadstone Station to Phibsboro Station – con-
necting with diesel commuter trains, would be
the perfect complement to the package and
based on Luas construction cost to date, this
could probably be done for €m.
Hence Dublin could have a truly integrated
rail and Luas network for about €m. Near-
ly the whole population between the city’s ca-
nals would be no more than minutes away
from a rail station. In the longer term Balbrig-
gan/Naas and Greystones/Maynooth could be
electrified and upgraded to DART standard.
There is concern that unrealistic projects
conceived in a different economic climate un-
der then Transport Minister Martin Cullen
- such as the Interconnector and Metro - are
wasteful and so unlikely to be completed –
risking a disjointed transportation shambles.
The ARC potentially offers an elegant, frugal,
expeditious and realistic solution for the inte-
gration of Dublin’s rail network.
