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'we’ve become mitigation-deniers'
– Prof Kevin Anderson @KevinClimate
Essential reading – Thread https://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/turning-delusion-climate-action-prof-kevin-anderson-interview
– Prof Kevin Anderson @KevinClimate
Essential reading – Thread https://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/turning-delusion-climate-action-prof-kevin-anderson-interview
'I'd like to hear much more of what many academics say in private being said in public. This is also true of many others I engage with across the climate change community – from those in NGOs to more informed policy makers, business types, journalists, and more.'
'The enthusiastic and almost unquestioning support by many academics for the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC UK) ‘net zero’ report ... exemplifies how we’re prepared to forgo analysis and integrity to maintain politically-palatable fairy-tales of delivering on Paris.'
'Over past 20yrs I’ve witnessed an emerging preference for spinning an appealing but increasingly misleading yarn abt what's needed to meet our various climate commitments. Disturbingly, many of those who should know better have even begun to believe their own delusionary tales'
'I take a straightforward view of our role as academics. We need to develop a culture of being disinterested in whether people like or dislike our work, our only interest should be in whether people agree or disagree with our analysis and conclusions – and why.'
'academia should not be a fashion contest, or a desperate clamour for funding, committee memberships, gongs, awards and prestige.'
'As for whether honesty, integrity and robust bluntness would have significantly changed where we are now - well in my judgement, yes and significantly so.'
'I can understand the levels of measured optimism of the early 1990s; that substantial but nonetheless incremental changes to business as usual could have led to a timely decarbonised future. But by 2000 it was becoming obvious that such optimism was now misplaced.'
'Rising emissions & more locked-in fossil fuel infrastructure and associated expectations, had kicked the potential of incrementalism into the long grass. During the subsequent 20yrs the academic &climate change community has not played a straight bat when it comes to mitigation'
'As the years have passed, through 2005, 2010, & onto 2015 & Paris, we've adopted increasingly exotic technologies, technocratic fraud, dodgy accounting and eloquent nonsense as a salve for ever-rising emissions. There is no group that can be singled out for this abject failure.'
'Certainly the academic community learnt credibility to the fluff and nonsense that has filled the void left by failing to mitigate. But the journalists have played their role – more spin and glossy stories than investigative reporting.'
'The policy makers, the business community, the unions, civil service and the electorate, at least in democracies, don’t come out of this any better.'
'And nor do the climate great & good –from Gore to Attenborough to Goodall –all have been party to a greening of business as usual. On mitigation & particularly cutting emissions in line with Paris, we’re all players in a grand unifying delusion –we’ve become mitigation-deniers'
'If, on mitigation (as distinct from the science), academics had collectively favoured meticulous analysis, system thinking and blunt communication over spin and well-intentioned sycophancy, then I think we could have catalysed a different and more honest debate.'
'Whether this would have led to the profound changes to contemporary society now required by Paris cannot be known.'
'The policy makers, the business community, the unions, civil service and the electorate, at least in democracies, don’t come out of this any better.'
