The Monday release of a U.N. special report on limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius confirms what a long, hot summer of fire and storms has already told us. We’re not doing enough to combat climate change. …
We are decarbonizing faster than ever, but emissions are still rising. This paradox means that climate politics will become less distributional and more existential.
“Distributional” politics refers to a contest over “who gets what, when, how.” This describes most climate politics today, including battles over whether to tax carbon or cap emissions, subsidies for different kinds of energy, and how much money wealthy countries should transfer to vulnerable nations.
By “existential” we mean the contest over whose way of life gets to survive. Should we have coal mines (and therefore coal miners)? Should we have Miami Beach and the Marshall Islands, or should we have ExxonMobil and Chevron?
This distinction matters because political behavior differs at opposite ends of the distributional-existential spectrum. No one fights harder than someone with no options left. CONT.
Thomas Hale, Jessica F. Green & Jeff D. Colgan, Monkey Cage