Jon Foley - Drawdown Roadmap

Jon Foley’s talk was well-rehearsed and provocative, to say the least! Although he was hosted by PICS and UVic as a separate event, I’ve chosen to include my reflection in the guest speaker category. A video of a similar talk he gave at UBC can be found online. I tried to find the PICS recording and was unable to:

There are a few key takeaways and points that stuck with me from John’s talk.

We are STUCK.

A great deal of noise and confusion distract us from the most impactful solutions. For example, carbon capture. There is a 10 million fold gap between carbon emissions and removal. We cannot scale fast enough. This was interesting to me since I’ve seen a lot floating around about carbon capture and offsets (I realize these aren’t the same thing, but, I feel they are similarly flawed since they deter the focus from the need to reduce emissions). I loved how he clearly showed that carbon capture was an inadequate solution and used this as a means to motivate solutions that actually make a difference.

“Those who have the privilege to know, also have the duty to act. ”

— Albert Einstein

Focusing on actions such as carbon capture is greenwashing and provides organizations and individuals a license to pretend they are doing something that matters. This makes me think back to Dr. Krawchenko’s lecture again and the BC LNG campaigns as prime examples. I found this article from the Washington Post, which points out that carbon capture technologies are, ironically, most effective at getting more oil out of the ground.

The collection of articles questioning the merits of carbon capture seems to grow daily, but the dialogue and hype continue…Do we have the responsibility to do better, and how, exactly? One audience member pointed out that several protests against deforestation felt fruitless and pointless, while another shared experiences of knowing the science is wrong and feeling tempted to walk away. Jon’s response to these questions leads to my next key point:

It is not either individual OR corporate action but rather a BOTH AND situation.

Jon explained that we need to take a Hippocratic oath of climate change. That is, we need to address climate and equity injustice simultaneously. I feel like so much of the messaging around climate solutions frames them as taking resources away from those in need when, in fact, they are part of the solution. He mentioned needing more “quiet heroes” who are willing to speak up and do the work. But even if we’re quiet, we need support, right? Perhaps this can act to underline the importance of the CCSL and the community of support we will create as a cohort.

The notion of conflict between either/or, both/and also made me think of the current landscape we are seeing at many educational institutions with a recovery plan, sustainability plan, and financial plan all underway separately when, in fact, these plans are inextricably connected and need to be tackled together. While one-third of climate solutions need to happen at the individual level. We NEED collective action, but how is this possible when our views of climate change are so divergent?

We must balance the narrative on problems with solutions and show climate doomers and doubters that a better future is possible.

This reminded me of Ian Mauro’s mention of framing and, of course, the discussion this course began with of climate optimism. Dr. Foley undoubtedly was in the optimistic camp, which was encouraging, particularly knowing that he was clear on the science. my question is, how? While I can tell myself to be optimistic, I have some work to do before I can convince close friends and family to do the same.

Catherine Abreu - Destination Zero

Catherine has a very warm and grounding presence. While some other speakers were high-energy and provided lots of amazing information, Catherine made space for us to converse. This seems fitting as she shared the personal belief that relationship and community building are key to tackling the climate crisis. The vision of her organization, Destination Zero, embodies the same:

While she shared stats we have seen before that point to a less-than-ideal future (such as the fact that we are heading more toward 2.5 degrees with the continued expansion of fossil fuels), she did so with an optimistic mindset. She offered solutions that mobilize relationships and communities for transformational change and has and will actively work at meetings of minds, such as the COP meetings, to create this change. She spoke about a target-setting mindset and the need to move into the “implementation” phase, which reminded me of last week’s student-led lesson, which highlighted the “implementation” gap. It’s comforting to feel my knowledge improve as this course progresses and to feel increasingly equipped to ask our guest speakers pertinent questions.

On the implementation and solutions side, Catherine emphasized that Canada has missed every emissions reduction target it has set and shared the importance of legislated accountability frameworks. Legislated climate accountability frameworks can hold countries accountable in the long term and are the norm in countries that take climate change seriously. The Climate Action Network, which she served as Executive Director of from 2016 to 2021, was instrumental in passing Canada's first comprehensive climate law. I found it to be both encouraging that an accountability mechanism is in place and disheartening that the science of climate change isn’t enough for the country to do something about it. I was inspired to see that, rather than be discouraged by these systemic failures, Catherine is working to mobilize action, even going so far as to create her own

“Action is the antidote to despair”

— Joan Baez

We need to get "fossil fuel" (the words) out in the open. It is not mentioned as the cause of climate change in any international agreements. Glasgow was the first mention of coal. The goal in Dubai (next COP) is to phase out all fossil fuels.

A later topic of discussion, which our instructor, Julia, brought to the fore, was the notion of fossil fuels, or, rather, the complete absence of acknowledgment that they are at the heart of climate change. While some UN websites cite fossil fuels as the largest contributor to global climate change, and more political leaders are directly linking fossil fuels to climate change, I was surprised to learn that this is not mentioned in any international agreements.

I will be curious to see whether and to what extent fossil fuels are mentioned at the next COP and whether the phase-out goal becomes a key component of international agreements, as Catherine hopes. I’m glad to know that, despite Canada’s continued failure to meet targets, we have capable representatives like Catherine representing our country on the international stage in the journey towards a fossil-fuel-free future. I noticed that Catherine has been a guest on several podcast episodes posted in the media section of her website, and am keen to see her appear in more following the upcoming COP meetings to hear what she has to say about progress made and her experience in Dubai.

Zeke Hausfather - Carbon Brief

Zeke Hausfather is our first guest speaker of the term. Given his long list of credentials and just hearing him speak about this, he is clearly an expert and has explained this a great many times! In his presentation, he creatively used this “What’s Causing Global Warming” video to drive the point home in less than 2 minutes: Greenhouse Gases are causing global warming. I enjoyed how he used the video graphics accompanying his dialogue (even though, on finding the video online, it has a separate dialogue).

Also, during this first week, my team led the first “Student Led Discussion,” which included several articles on climate modeling. So, I felt a bit less out to pasture with all of Zeke’s discussion of graphs and models, but honestly, I was still overwhelmed by the number of graphs and models. I’ve followed him on social media channels, where he seems to post quite often, so maybe these graphs will make more sense to me over time. At least he drew upon some of his work we had already reviewed for the student-led discussion, notably this figure discussing the relationships between commitments and targets.

He shared a similar idea from another paper (Hausfather & Peters, 2020) we hadn’t read depicting integrated energy models. They emphasized the need to begin using more likely scenarios rather than “worst case”. This idea resonated with me as a risk management technique we often see in accounting, that is, in the name of conservatism, to overestimate liabilities rather than underestimate them since, well, it’s better to underpromise and overdeliver, right? I’m not so sure…. the idea of using only the most extreme scenarios had me reflecting on some of my research and knowledge of past theories, specifically prospect theory.

“Overstating the likelihood of extreme climate impacts can make mitigation seem harder than it actually is”

— Hausfather and Peters, 2020

Born out of the Nobel-Prize-worthy work Kahneman & Tversky (only Kahneman won as Tversky had passed on by the time the prize was awarded), the paper prospect theory explains that we tend to overweight extreme outcomes. It’s why we buy lottery tickets or are willing to pay our insurance premiums, even when the chance of the extreme outcome each hints at is extremely unlikely. So, why amplify the potential harm of climate scenarios be a bad thing? Wouldn’t this encourage action? Or… maybe it would cause folks to give up and conclude nothing can be done?

I wondered how Hausfather and Peters’ 2020 article was on point and whether this might allow behavioral scientists to step in. Specifically, I asked myself whether using the most extreme scenarios might be necessary to motivate people to act and/or why it might be ineffective in this instance.

As I read Hausfather and Peters’ article, it seems to be targeted toward policymakers. So, maybe the psychological mechanisms that make prospect theory work on an individual level don’t work for emissions reductions as these decisions are more collective and hence require theories more in the realm of sociology. I’m hesitant to draw hard lines between the disciplines (one of the reasons why this interdisciplinary program has been so great for me!), but maybe lines are needed around some topics. I’ll need to continue thinking about this.

Zeke also discussed the GDP and the myth that emissions reductions come at the expense of GDP. We have not heard too much about this measure in the course yet, though I suspect we will later in the economics section. The graphs around decoupling consumption and emissions piqued my interest for several reasons. First, until now, we haven’t heard much about consumption and consumerism contributing to climate change. Second, Canada was largely absent from these graphs, and I was unsure why. I’ll need to dive into the data a bit more. I found the originating article Zeke wrote with the Breakthrough Institute, but it did not provide much insight into the absence of Canada on the graph.

But back to reason #1… so before the session with Zeke, I looked him up and found it strange that his employer is “Stripe.” As an accountant for small businesses, I came across the system several times. When I think “payment processing,” I think “consumerism”. So… I entered the session feeling confused and wondering what a climate scientist was doing promoting consumerism. So, it turns out Stripe has a whole climate division that allows businesses to sign up to offset carbon with purchases made through it…but this feels like greenwashing, so I’m not sure what to think.

How much of the solution to climate change is carbon capture and offsets if we keep consuming? I’m not too sure. But I did notice that Zeke contributed to the “Climate Book” by Greta Thunberg and is a prominent voice for climate science in general, so maybe there’s something I’m missing as far as the Stripe affiliation goes, or maybe there will be an opportunity to ask in the future. For now, I’ll share a quote from Bill McKibben that Zeke shared in his presentation. McKibben founded 350.org and is the author of a seminal book, The End of Nature.

“There is no silver bullet in the fight against climate change. It requires silver buckshot.”

— Bill McKibben