Our Climate Change Cul-de-sac

or The Wrong Trouser Leg

When I contemplate just how ineffective the COP26 agreement is, it seems the world is still driving at full speed down a climate change cul-de-sac towards a terminating brick wall. The major participating countries with their independent plans have a wide variety of agreed targets and timescales for net zero carbon emissions, none of which are adequate. But of course they are inadequate. Any country that agreed to an adequate plan would be at an economic disadvantage to the others. Worse than that, any country on a change of government can change the plan or even do a complete U-turn. The global warming problem doesn’t have a global solution for the global problem and so is bound to fail.

I’m reminded of Terry Pratchett’s book Jingo and the trousers of time. The hero Sam Vimes makes the right decision, chooses the right trouser leg and saves the day, but he is kept in touch with the disaster that happens in the alternate universe where he made the wrong decision and took the wrong trouser leg of time. I feel like I’m in the wrong trouser leg in this multiverse and I want to change legs.

So what’s happening in the right trouser leg of time where good decisions were made?

Firstly it was agreed that a global plan was needed with a global limit on carbon emissions that reduces year by year to sustainable levels. At first this carbon ration starts at current levels and reduces slowly since this change is going to be difficult to adjust to. Then the rate of reduction speeds up as everyone adapts to a lower but totally predictable level of carbon ration.

Secondly it was recognised that the place to control carbon emissions from fossil fuels is at the beginning of the supply chain from producer to consumer. The complex network of fossil fuel extraction and distribution has so many branches that it is nearly impossible to control at the point of emission. Just think of all the gas that is flared from oil wells. It’s far more efficient to include all carbon at the point of extraction.

So now we have the idea of a global ration for carbon extraction from the geology of our planet. And the extraction of carbon by fossil fuel organisations is limited by that ration. But how is the ration distributed fairly? In my vision it is decided that every person on the planet has an equal right to a fair share. For practical reasons the carbon extraction ration is actually distributed free to every country in proportion to their population. This ration is then sold on a global market so that every fossil fuel extracting organisation can buy the quantity of ration they need to match extracted carbon. No one is allowed to extract geological carbon without adequate ration. This ration is controlled with block chain computing and is open to all to see and is part of the audit process for all fossil fuel extraction organisations.

Countries, especially developing low carbon countries, get a lot of revenue from this system and the world becomes a more equitable and stable place with fewer wars and refugees.

Because countries do not control the carbon emission plans, just the way they adjust by switching to non-carbon energy sources, it is impossible for countries to mess up the system. Countries are responsible for regulating and monitoring any fossil fuel extracting organisations based on their soil, and any disputes are settled by an independent dispute settlement system as with most trade agreements.

There is also a parallel but completely separate system for rationing organic carbon extraction. This is to control carbon extracted by forest clearance, peat extraction and similar activities. The reason they are separated is to allow for carbon sequestration either geologically or organically. This is needed because organic sequestration of carbon in the short-term carbon cycle is so fragile that the possibility of the carbon being released suddenly by sequestration woodland burning down needs to be catered for.

The final important item is that the right leg of the trousers has a net negative carbon target instead of net zero carbon. This is because we are starting with an atmosphere that already has far too much carbon in it, and so is way out of balance. And that imbalance is getting worse all the time. Net zero sounds great, balanced, a “what goes up must come down” situation, but it’s not going to fix the imbalance, only net negative carbon will put things back like they were. But the good news is that because the balance of carbon in our atmosphere is so badly out, about half of the excess carbon we emit is naturally sequestered by natural process on land and sea. So the sustainable levels target of carbon extraction for the next few decades turns out to be between 10% and 25% of current levels if we want to keep below +2°C of global warming. 10% of current levels could even keep us close to +1.5°C.

If only I could somehow get into that right trouser leg of time. Well just maybe we can back out of this cul-de-sac and take a better path.