The Wafflers on Climate Change

In the climate change debate, the wafflers are replacing the deniers. The COP 23 Bonn climate talks are intended to set out rules for the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement, mainly by slashing carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

 John Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University,  “wafflers’ are the more dangerous, because their arguments to postpone aggressive climate action now in favour of economic progress has the potential to increasingly influence debate and government policy.” According to Professor Holdren, the wafflers claim to favor research and development on better technologies so emissions reductions can be made more cheaply in the future, and further argue for accelerating economic progress in developing countries as the best way to reduce their vulnerability as well as counting on adaptation as needed.

He went on to explain that it is ironic that the current US administration “with climate deniers and wafflers occupying top positions” are cutting support for the same approaches they propose. “Of course, the deniers and the wafflers in the top positions in the Trump administration are, with surpassing cynicism, busy cutting support for all of these approaches,” he said, referencing the numerous reversals that the Trump administration has made even to the ‘win-win’ adaptation-preparedness resilience measures adopted under Obama.

Professor Holdren’s address was titled: Why the Wafflers are Wrong—Addressing Climate Change is Urgent—and a Bargain 

Agreeing that research and development are important steps in tackling climate change, Professor Holdren, who is former Assistant to President Obama for Science & Technology, argues that even if implemented, the wafflers’ favoured economic approaches would be grossly inadequate because while clean energy is essential to provide options for the next stage of deep emissions reductions, the global community needs to be reducing now with the available technologies. He says climate change is already causing serious harm around the world with increases in floods, drought, wildfires, heat waves, coral bleaching, among others, all of which are “plausibly linked to climate change by theory, models, and observed ‘fingerprints’; most growing faster than projected”.

The global community has three options: mitigation, adaptation – or suffering. Therefore, minimizing the amount of suffering in the mix can only be achieved by doing a lot of mitigation and a lot of adaptation.

“Mitigation alone won’t work because climate change is already occurring and can’t be stopped quickly. And adaptation alone won’t work because adaptation gets costlier and less effective as climate change grows. We need enough mitigation to avoid the unmanageable, enough adaptation to manage the unavoidable,” he adds. In arguing for adaptation specifically, Professor Holdren believes that many adaptation measures would make economic sense even if the climate were not changing because there have always been heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires, powerful storms, crop pests, and outbreaks of vector-born disease, and society has always suffered from being underprepared. Additionally, he says, virtually all reputable studies suggest that the economic damages from not adequately addressing climate change would far exceed the costs of adequately addressing it.

“The idea that society cannot afford to address climate change is wildly wrong,” he said, calling for urgent climate action now and not later.

The United States hopes to promote wider use of fossil fuels at a global meeting on climate change next week, a White House official said, reflecting the gaping divide between Washington and the rest of the world on the issue of global warming. Trump's administration has envoys at the U.N.-sponsored talks in Bonn, Germany, even though the United States has derided the Paris Agreement climate accord and has begun a years-long process to withdraw from it. One of the three main priorities for the administration will be promotion of "universal access to affordable, reliable energy, including highly efficient fossil fuels," the official told reporters.  The other two priorities include raising "support for open and competitive energy markets that enhance energy security and innovation and technology, and decoupling emissions growth from economic development," the official said.  He  defended the U.S. focus on fossil fuels at the summit, saying that other countries were just "burying their heads in the sand" if they did not engage in a conversation about coal, which continues to be used heavily in populous places like southeast Asia. As part of the effort the White House advisers, along with energy company representatives, will lead a side event at the conference to promote "fossil fuels and nuclear power in climate mitigation." That group will include George David Banks, a special assistant to Trump on energy and environment; Francis Brooke, a policy adviser to Vice President Mike Pence; and representatives of coal producer Peabody Energy Corp, nuclear engineering company NuScale Power and liquefied natural gas company Tellurian Inc.

Obama's administration had pledged to cut U.S. emissions by at least 26 percent by 2025 from 2005 levels under the deal, something Trump has said would cost the U.S. economy trillions of dollars.