The Future of Green Politics - Pain vs Pleasure
There is a difficult duality at the core of the climate debate which is becoming more important.
The instruments which brought mankind many of the advancements we appreciate today are also the tools harming the environment. Probably the oldest industry this could be applied to is agriculture, which has allowed us to grow our population size to one that would have been impossible without modern agricultural techniques but is also the largest producer of harm to the environment in Northern Ireland. Things will have to change if we are to see an improved environmental outlook but that change might be hard to accept for some, especially those who are keenly aware of how much the agricultural community has done for society. We can already see examples of that locally within the two climate bills currently working their way through Stormont. Clare Bailey of the Green Party introduced a Climate Change Bill that would set a hard deadline of 2045 for carbon neutrality along with a number of other policies looking to strengthen that deadline. Not long after, Edwin Poots’ DAERA brought forward a bill that takes a substantially more relaxed approach to the net zero discussion (with Poots claiming this bill will better protect the agricultural community).
The Two Bills
To start off, let us establish the actual difference between each of the proposed bills:
What does Clare Bailey’s Bill want?
-A hard deadline of 2045 for not only a net-zero Northern Ireland but also a climate resilient and environmentally sustainable economy.
-A state of climate emergency to be announced with the success of the bill, which sets up a (relatively) tight system around the statement. With it only being called off if the assembly meets the goals of the Paris agreement.
-A requirement for an in-depth climate plan (bill specifies what has to be included in each plan) brought before the assembly frequently. With the bill specifically laying out what must be included in those reports, including targets.
-A fully staffed climate office with an independent climate commissioner who would oversee the progress of the climate plan.
What does Poots’/DAERA’s bill want?
-First off, it lays three milestones for carbon reduction:
2030 - 48% reduction
2040 - 69% reduction
2050 - 82% reduction
(But these milestones could be changed by the departments if necessary.)
-Stipulation that international aviation and shipping could (depending on the department's view) not be taken into account in relation to carbon pollution.
-Give DAERA power to decide under which circumstances carbon pollution is debited or credited to NI’s carbon footprint.
-A provision, in contrast to Bailey’s bill, which looks to create a staffed ‘administrator’ who would track carbon units while under the control of the department.
-Set up carbon budgets with 5 years durations which would allow NI to meet the three previously mentioned milestones (but even the budgets appear to have some leeway as you can carry over amounts to different periods - however reasoning must be provided and policy solutions put forward to improve the situation).
-Create a report for each budgetary period where each NI department must cooperate with DAERA - while less detailed than the Bailey bill, it looks to do effectively the same thing just under the departments control.
-DAERA must create statements for each milestone.
When taking in the summaries of both bills, it becomes obvious that one bill stands for outright reform (Bailey’s) while the other advocates for an incremental and flexible approach to climate politics (DAERA’s). The latter bill is strongly influenced by the farming community's cries for a non-confrontation approach to climate policy which allows business to either change slowly or not change at all if possible. Bailey’s bill would be the polar opposite of that, the uncompromising piece of legislation which asks the business community to move out of the way for the sake of the environment. Additionally, Bailey’s Bill looks to set up independent oversight of net-zero while DAERA’s Bill wants to keep net-zero oversight within departmental control. There we see a divide form in this climate argument: those who are prepared for wide ranging reform and those who want to see slow, compromised progress. Further to that, one side holds the fight against climate change as sacrosanct amongst all other policy areas while the other side views the issue of climate change as just another policy area that must be weighted into decision making.
A Shifted Paradigm
This would signal a shift in the traditional arguments made around the environment. It was not unusual, ten years ago, to see policy makers divide into two camps of climate-change deniers and climate-change believers. Now, the divide does not come down to the argument of whether we should protect the environment or if climate change is real but how we should approach protecting the environment and how seriously we should take the fact of climate change (a movement in overton’s window to give it a proper theoretical grounding). For the purposes of this article, we will name the camp that views climate change as wholly important the reformists and the group who are mildly committed to climate change as the incrementalists. Poots himself becomes a signifier of the latter camp who, ten years ago, would most likely have shrugged off the issue of climate change altogether but now accepts some degree of seriousness to the problem even if it is not a wholehearted commitment to the cause (recently his department even highlighted the issue of single use plastics harming the environment). His criticism of Bailey’s bill then centres around how it would affect other areas of society, claiming Bailey’s bill will cost ‘£1bn a year’ and would potential harm the business community.
The incrementalist view of climate change is that the environment is only one of many factors at play in the political arena, all of which are fighting for public attention. In the incrementalist position, you can claim that you are fighting the good fight while simultaneously protecting the interests of the business community (in Poots' case, specifically the agricultural community). The incrementalists can then criticise the reformists based upon a possible callousness towards people in their efforts to protect the environment. The arguments in this case then can be presented as a Human oriented (Incrementalists) vs Environment oriented (Reformists) dialectic where the Incrementalists argue for the protection of people's contemporary interests in the face of the environment's potential needs going forward (while never denying the existence of climate change). However, the reformists would view the divide as being those who are thinking short term vs long term in their view of humanity.
Recently the Department for the Economy released a plan to help NI’s energy supply reach net zero by 2050. However, as the plan was released we saw energy prices rise for many in Northern Ireland with the Department for Communities having to lend a helping hand to those in fuel poverty. It would not be hard to imagine a situation where the transition to net zero would impact energy prices further. Politicians who take the incrementalist position would then be able to point out that the group suffering most are those regular people who are either threatened by fuel poverty or enthralled within it. This and other potentially painful situations could be used to further label the cause of the reformists as being harmful. Populism is a potent weapon in our political moment (especially when linked to something as primordial as resource scarcity) and green politics has always been linked with expert opinion and technocratic government. Few would look forward to another public discourse which appears to come down to expert opinion vs. public sentiment (with Farage already having suggested that the UK needs a referendum on net zero deadlines).
Fear of Pain
That leads me into my next point: I think we need to question whether our political system is ready for or capable of short term reform to see long term benefits. To answer that I would have to pull from the theory that Byung-Chul Han brought forward: the palliative society and the algophobic mentality. To break that down into simpler terms, the algophobic mentality would be a constant fear of pain while the palliative society would be a society that prefers to avoid all pain despite the fact that some discomfort may prevent further agony in the future (or that pain may be needed in the short term to produce pleasure in long term). This can be seen in the current opioid crisis (particularly oxycontin’s rise as presented in the TV show ‘Dopesick’). The preference of doctors to provide their patients with addictive opioids that would treat their short term pain but not deal with the underlying causes of that pain (or even accept that some degree of pain may be necessary) has led to many unnecessary deaths and a whole new drug epidemic.
The incrementalist, in the climate change argument, contributes to this algophobic feeling within society. Showing that we would rather avoid the pain of true change in favour of the short term opioid of convenience. Even our political system favours this approach. A political system which favours a slow, methodical and prolonged approach to policy making (when the government is even up and running to start with). In many cases this works perfectly fine and allows for well thought through policy to prevail but what about when a silent crisis envelops the jurisdiction that the system looks over. In those times of emergency, quick action must be taken with fundamental changes being applied. In the case of COVID-19, many would say we acted too late and lives were lost. In the case of the Opioid crisis, we still have not acted thoroughly enough and lives are still being lost. So the question has to be asked: is our political system even equipped to handle a crisis like climate change until it is too late?
On a more positive note, if green politics can develop adequately, this dialogue could force through a viable alternative to the assumed status quo. Green politics vs capitalist politics finally might renew some mainstream debate as to whether history has ended in the Western Neo-Liberal Democracy. That is what is fundamentally at war here, the welfare of the environment vs the welfare of the economy.
