Beyond the target: a bottom-up approach

Looking back on my first ever post, I spent quite a bit of time justifying my position on climate stabilistation. I wanted to make clear that while my blog was meant to be quite critical, it should also be pragmatic, There is no point in questioning just for the sake of questioning, and we have already reached a point where action needs to be taken to combat the momentum of climate change.

With that in mind I think its about time I start talking solutions to the main issue I've talked about so far:

How can we hope to stablilise climate without a clear target to aim at?

From my reading I've come across one key idea:

A bottom-up approach to climate change mitigation 

If you've read my last few post, you will hopefully agree that meta-targets over simply the complex and subjective issue of climate change impacts. They often are more political than they are scientific, can create geopolitical tension and prove ineffective in motivating those who's values are underrepresented in the target formulation process.

Not surprisingly then there have been a number of calls to abandon meta-targets all together and instead focus on motivating climate change mitigation from the bottom-up.

How to eat and Elephant: a bottom-up approach to climate policy - (Rayner, 2011)

Rayner has been one of the most vocal critics of meta-targets. In his 2011 paper, he explores the shortcomings of a 'faulty UNFCCC architecture' built upon a 'targets and timetables' as I have done in my past few posts (he focuses much more on Kyoto principles than I have chosen to do though, so don't feel bad about also reading it as well).

But I've talked enough about problems with the past, so i'll just focus on the solutions he offers.

In stark contrast to the 'hyperbolic multilaeralism' of the past (Prins et al., 2010), Rayner proposes that policy should be both 'designed and implemented at the lowest feasible level of organisation' (Rayner, 2011).

My first thought when I heard that was again highly sceptical. Whenever  hear bottom-up approaches I can't help but think about neoliberal economics; a lot of theory with limited practical relevance (any economists out there are more than welcome to challenge me on that statement). However, Rayner puts a lot of effort into practically exhibiting what he means by this statement. 

He proposes a flexible approach to climate change mitigation. 

"A bottom-up approach to mitigation abandons the idea that climate change policy requires universal framework"

The proposed bottom-up approach recognizes that climate change mitigation is ultimately a 'multilevel governance problem' and should be treated as one (Rayner, 2011).. He emphasizes that climate change mitigation will benefit from complimentary capabilities and interests being brought to the table. For example, separate climate change discussions for the big emitters, and the developing world.

And to me at least this makes some sense. Global emission targets have always been constrained by ethical dilemmas over who has the right to pollute. By separating the targets of the big emitters in the developed world, we are more likely to see progress being made in the 20 countries responsible for around 80% of total global emissions (Prins and Rayner, 2007).

There remains a need for a global cohesion in our efforts to combat climate change, but Rayner proposes that this cohesion must emerge from lower scale efforts. As an example, his paper talks about global carbon markets needing to be cap and trade orientated, allowing them to vary at different scales and in different regional contexts. In his vision, cities can become the hubs of mitigation, and through their connectivity can form regional and ultimately global trading schemes.

If there was perhaps one key point to take from Rayner's proposition, it is probably this:

"Rather than loading more and more issues onto the climate mitigation agenda, we should, as

far as possible, divide climate into a series of more tractable problems, which local or sectional

actors have a strong incentive to solve for themselves in efficient ways and at the same time take

a bite out of the larger problem." (Rayner, 2011)

And this really is the challenge posed by climate change mitigation; tackling the issue on a practical and efficient scale, while keeping in mind how the local feeds into a global effort.

Summing it all up

Climate change mitigation targets are about as problematic as it gets. They are theoretically vital to creating a environment that encourages top-down policy implementation. But in reality, they prove too disputable to be successful in this way. Not only that, but they can discourage efficient mitigative action on practical scales. As Rayners (2011) points out, ' grandiose emissions targets without any plausible technological pathway for achieving them' does very little to motivate change.

So then, counter intuitively perhaps the best thing we can do to stabilise climate change is to not really think about stabilising climate change; instead eat the elephant one bite at a time.

Am I entirely convinced? Well not yet, but at least this paper has got me heading in the right direction; in the next section of my posts I'm going to look into carbon trading and have a think about whether Rayner's vision is really a possibility.

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