A commentary on the climate change issue

Abstract

The climate is changing and the balance of scientific evidence indicates a human contribution through increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, continued emissions of which will lead to further climate change. Hence, there is an issue to manage through both reducing net greenhouse gas emissions and implementing adaptation strategies. This is not about scientific certainty but probability and risk management. Timely responses to this challenge are somewhat thwarted; first, because policy developers receive relevant knowledge about climate change largely through ad hoc processes open to unintended barriers and manipulation and, second, because behavioural characteristics such as subjectiveness, short-sightedness and irrationality are barriers to the acceptance of a need for action. Businesses that see future opportunities in a low-carbon society, or have an ethos of sustainability, might consider the value of being early starters; strategic and flexible; using expert knowledge and building technological skill; and spreading risk through a portfolio approach. Climate change reflects the way we are as individuals, our expectations, culture, history, education, and our institutional structures, market economy, governance, shared behavioural norms and legal frameworks. There is a need to reassess the foundation of these characteristics in light of the climate change issue.

Keywords:

• climate change
• risk management
• greenhouse gas emissions
• human behaviour
• sustainable business

Acknowledgements

The author is indebted to anonymous reviewers and Kevin Hennessey, who provided thoughtful and valuable suggestions for the improvement of the text.

Notes

1. Each greenhouse gas contributes differently to warming of the Earth because of its molecular structure and how long it stays in the atmosphere before being absorbed by the oceans or biosphere, or chemically transformed. The effect of each gas is expressed as the amount of CO₂ (CO₂ equivalent) that would cause the same amount of warming of the Earth over a defined period, say 100 years.

2. “the Council […] acknowledges that to meet the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, overall global temperature increase should not exceed 2°C above pre-industrial levels; […]”. (European Union 2004, p. 29).

3. Article 2 of the UNFCCC (1992) states: ‘The ultimate objective of this Convention …is to achieve, … stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’.

4. The term ‘non-reality world’ used here derives from a 2004 interview by journalist Ron Suskind in which an adviser to US President George W. Bush described journalists as being part of a group of people ‘who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality’ and then declared that ‘… we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality … we'll act again, creating other new realities… .We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’.