Boykoff: Decarbonize and de-escalate now!

For the past 18 days and counting, the U.S. government has been shut down. 

Let’s face it: These ignominious impediments to action do not demonstrate our ability to successfully navigate our complex and collective futures. This is a time when such cooperation is vitally needed to address shared contemporary and chronic challenges, and this is an embarrassing display of despicable dysfunction.

As things have stalled, it is a moment to return to the basics as well as remind everyone that decarbonization and de-escalation are twin partners for environmental, social and political progress.

As a reminder, decarbonization is a process of decreasing the carbon content of energy-generating fuels. The ultimate objective here is not political; instead, it is to eliminate carbon emissions that contribute to climate change and other harmful environmental problems. Decarbonization is pursued through a combination of political and economic measures as well as cultural and societal demands. An influential 2018 United Nations report called for decarbonization by 2050 in order to avoid warming past 1.5 C (2.7 F). 

It is also important to remember that these processes impact our everyday lives, lifestyles, relationships and livelihoods. They are intersecting challenges that force us to re-examine the carbon-based ways in which we work, travel, play and relax in today’s world. Tools to ratchet up decarbonization efforts involve efficiency gains (e.g., switching from coal to fossil (or “natural”) gas) and mode-switching (from carbon-based sources to renewable energy sources). There have been prolific market signals as well as increasing regulatory interventions that have effectively contributed to accelerating these processes. 

It is worth reflecting on conditions here in Colorado, where the planned closure of the last coal-fired power plant near Pueblo by 2031 animates contemplation and discussions about where replacement energy can and should be generated. Irrespective of left-right politics, coal (a fuel that has contributed significantly to climate change) is no longer seen as a financially wise source of energy generation. I have shared before how its detrimental environmental impacts — along with oil and fossil gas — have also driven these shifts. 

It is clear that considerations about sustainability — and the connected concept of sustainable development — weave through these decarbonization deliberations. Conversations about “what is sustainable” and “what to sustain” call on us to think critically about how we meet our needs and desires in line with stewardship requirements of the environment, nature and ecosystem services. 

A widely accepted starting point to define sustainable development came out of a United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) report in 1987 called “Our Common Future,” chaired by then Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. Here, sustainable development was defined as “development that meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” This WCED report has also been referred to as the Brundtland Commission report and has been critiqued and built upon in the subsequent years and decades since then. While there are shortcomings of any simplified definition of a multi-layered and complex concept, sustainable development is frequently seen as the convergence of three components of environmental well-being, economic health and equity (“three e’s”) with attention paid to current and future human and non-human generations. 

In the past ten years, the UN has built upon this framework in the development of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2015, the UN General Assembly meeting convened in New York City announced this set of seventeen global goals with a focus on a “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (now just five years away!). 

Sustainability and these SDGs involve inextricable decarbonization work for the well-being of planet Earth and its inhabitants. To get there requires elements of de-escalated cooperation in many places and spaces in order to alleviate the negative consequences of 21st-century climate change and environmental harms. 

Here in the U.S. — challenging its reputation as a moral and functional leader for the global community — the Senate has adjourned until Monday, with more finger-pointing and blaming than a reality TV reunion show. Instead of devolving into blame games, let’s separate a funding agreement from a vote on health care protections and get on with the tremendous work ahead while we still have a fighting chance.

This is a biweekly sustainability and environment column authored by Max Boykoff. Max is a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder, though the views expressed here are based upon his scholarly expertise and research/creative experience as well as personal views and should not be considered the university’s official position on any specific issue.

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