What sustainable policies could help us face the consequences of Covid-19?
A digest of some 30 analyses and opinion pieces about how to push for a more sustainable world
Hello fine folks! Welcome to this web-only special Corona edition of the Symbolic Life of Energy. You might have been wondering what Sars-CoV-2 will do to our energy futures. You’d not be alone. There’s been a flurry of punditic activity and so I wanted to put a finger on the pulse:
Where are we at in terms of public debate about the relationship between the health crisis, the economic recession, and clean energy?
To find answers, I checked in with Evgeny Morozov & Co’s The Syllabus, where they’ve been collecting writing about Covid-19 from progressive sources. In their searchable database, I checked the category for climate (‘Anthropocene’) and went through about half of the 350-some results, following links that promised to have something to do with energy.
I rounded up the results below in a number of overarching categories: a preamble on crisis as opportunity, then straight to policies for the energy sector, the finance system, energy-intensive sectors, and final reflections on international cooperation.
Incidentally, I did a similar round-up of reactions to Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs’ Planet of the Humans documentary. If you want to know why it’s unlikely you’ll learn anything useful (or even truthful) from watching it, you can read it here.
A brief note and a quick observation before we start:
Just to be clear: these articles do not talk about how to deal with the health crisis as health crisis. One could certainly also compare that challenge with the challenge of climate change, but that’s what I wanted to focus on here.
it’s a state of the art of progressive voices. Since these are not representative of majority opinions, I close off with a reflection about how all these relates to actual current policymaking.
Most voices are converging on some version of green growth. The only real dissenters are those advocating degrowth. They will get a somewhat short thrift in this overview of policy ideas though, because the articles I read often went more into either diagnosis of the problem or laying out the principles of a degrowth future, while they talked less about specific policies to get there.
Undoubtedly that’s in part because it is easier to imagine (and to sell) Green Keynesianism (which combines conventional left wisdom about 2008 and the conventional wisdom of climate activists) than it is to advocate for (and devise a step-by-step itinerary to) the end of capitalism as we know it.
There are almost 3000 words here, so it may take you upwards of 10 minutes to read, but look at it from the bright side: it won’t take you all day!
Preamble
Crisis as opportunity
My previous Corona-related post was about the notion of crisis and urgent energy policy. The premise for most authors in this overview was indeed the perception that now was the time to get cracking, for various reasons.
There is now “an usual margin for accelerating profound change” (Pérez Ruiz and Wirthwein Vega). Let’s not spend our strength on getting back to normal.
It is possible (for many countries) to make it to zero-carbon by 2035 (or 2050), thanks in part to new construction, agricultural and battery technologies. But we have to make it happen this decade. Meanwhile, the Covid-19 crisis requires significant investments. It is therefore only logical these investments should be the kind of investments that allow us to meet those 2035-2050 targets. (Denis-Ryan)
A similar point: there are enormous funds being released for stimulus and recovery. These funds are not going to keep coming. Better make it count. (Arzt, DE)
This post has a nice intro with reflections on ‘the nature of crises’ from the humanities and social sciences. After that it expresses the hope that Europe could become a pioneer for a new economy based on decarbonisation, planification and re-localisation. (A pinch of green growth, and a touch of degrowth.) (Duverger & Roche, FR)
But in the wake of government failure to adequately prepare for this crisis, the argument to invest in the economy to protect us from the next crisis – climate chaos – is only growing stronger. (Salter)
There’s also a “Yes, but”, though:
Naomi Klein’s point about crises that is that they tend to get used to push through policies that would otherwise be unacceptable. The geographer David Harvey always argued that through its crises (neoliberal) capitalism gets stronger. (Velotti, IT)
Even if this crisis will be used for good in the North, that’s just because lives in rich countries are at stake. The climate crisis for these countries is still a while away. The crisis is real in many parts of the South. The decisive nationalism in how Covid-19 is being tackled is not much of a model for the future. (Minet, FR) Inequality and the politics of letting poor countries fend for themselves cripple our capacity to act against corona and warming. (O Taiwo)
Re-evaluation of state and government
Progressives have had about two decades to build up some conventional wisdom, most of which started to coalesce after the deeply problematic response to the financial crisis of 2008, a response that may have prevented a domino-effect among our financial institutions, but did too little besides to spur economic recovery and a lot to inhibit it. A key point in this conventional wisdom is – after years of assault on the state as the source of all capitalist evil – is a return to an unabashed faith in a strong public sector.
Will the long winter of the welfare state soon be over? (Photo by Caleb Fisher on Unsplash)
“For planet-sized risks, government must lead.” For the energy sector this is only natural: rural electrification, wartime construction of fuel pipelines, the postwar highway project or the development of nuclear power: the state made it happen, “not some invisible hand”. (Denning)
“The state can do what the private sector can’t: long-term planning and the equitable sharing of benefits.” (Salter)
What the state also can, apparently, is take downright socialist action, for the common good, against all Big Lobby interests. See Johnson’s Corbyn-like measures. When can it do so? When it comes to protecting life. So let’s take that as a principle for our politics going forward. (Velotti; Granziero, IT)
There is also scepticism about this sort of re-evaluation of the state though. This will usually bring you to degrowth circles (see also the end of this post).
The state is inevitably part of the system of material accumulation in search of abstract wealth (money). All it can do is reduce its negative consequences. The only alternative for capitalism as we know it, is need-oriented societal self-organisation, beyond the manufacture of ‘goods’. (Trenkle) This principle of societal commons should extend to, say, pharmaceutical research whose profits out of public funding little sense anyway (Muraca, DE).
Energy sector
Alright, after this political preambulating, let’s get to the heart of the matter: what energy policy is our best way out of the economic crisis and our best entry into the future?
First of all, should we focus on energy at all?
Clean energy as the right sector for recovery
Yes, says Denning, “electrification is tailor-made for a recovery plan prioritizing employment and investment in new technologies rather than just propping up old industries”.
Coupled with an ambitious apprenticeships scheme, a green jobs programme would build the foundation of a zero carbon, renewable energy system. (Salter) Researchers from Stanford University have estimate getting the world running on 100-percent renewable energy could create 28.6 million jobs worldwide. (Lenferna)
Cool cool. What does the energy sector need?
Reforming the energy sectors
“Alternative models of ownership would improve service quality and shift towards carbon neutrality at high speed.” (Salter)
With the nine-to-five rhythm of the weekday grinding to a halt, the lockdown has, er, flattened the challenging duck curve so no time like now to go all in on distributed energy generation. (Barry)
What the energy sector doesn’t need, is more oil.
Oil is a waste of bailout money
It’s the beginning of the end for oil, as financial markets are starting to withdraw. In the meantime, demand for renewable energy is still growing. (Roberts; Ambrose) (Partly) nationalize oil rigs and remove subsidies, take care of the workers and swiftly downscale of output. (Salter; Ponte) Funding for retraining, relocation or direct financial aid must be part of the investment required for remaking American energy. (Denning) Oil subsidies should be turned towards R&D of battery storage, clean energy. (Barry)
The future of energy is neon. (Photo by Max Bender on Unsplash)
Finance
High-flyin finance caused the Great Recession, but now the Corona-induced recession might trigger another financial crash. Trenkle (DE) suspect we’ll be saving banks again soon, just to avoid falling off the cliff again. This is precisely what happens when economic growth without societal transformation comes to an end. Postgrowth has ideas about we can say goodbye to growth without the misery (Muraca).
Back to energy.
Carbon tax
A carbon tax would provide an important signal for innovators to shape and build on government-led infrastructure renewal. Proceeds could be paid out to citizens, perhaps especially communities currently tied to fossil-fuel production. (Denning) Income tax compensation could also work to compensate for effect of high carbon prices on vulnerable citizens. Compensation is important because this crisis has shown that countries with relatively strong welfare states fare the best, in terms of (health) casualties. That should be a guiding principle. (Miller, DE)
Credit and investment
Long (say 50 year) term investment funds for undeserved domains that are important for sustainability and environmental protection. (Ottmar Edenhofer, in Miller)
Public banks with “patient capital” could administer these long-term investments. This is the opposite of calls for ‘innovative’ financial products and techniques, underpinned by public guarantees and subsidies to reduce risk, the very kind of finance that “inflated and then burst a massive bubble in 2008”. (Kozul-Wright)
Thanks to Micheile Henderson on Unsplash for this visualization of the green bank.
Think of “green bonds”, which can also be issued by central governments. That investment could help transform the electricity system to integrate renewable energy generation, roll out charging points for electric vehicles, and build cycle networks and low-carbon housing. (Barry). These bonds should be design with the logic of “impact investing” (Di Turi, IT)
This will require re-educating our financial consultants and developing international standards (like the UN SGDs). (Di Turi)
One standard under active development is the EU’s Taxonomy, which sets out to define “sustainable business”. An investment should further at least one and not contradict any of the following goals: environmental protection, climate adaptation, circular economy, restoration of biodiversity. It also stipulates social standards. (Arzt, DE)
While we’re busy setting up sustainable finance, we might as well re-regulate wild wild west finance, bringing an end to speculating and hedging on food, housing and sovereign debts. (Muraca)
Financial assistance to (big) companies
Tie help with liquidity to sustainability conditions. It will make the economy regionally competitive. Resist the sectoral lobby trying to get out of the EU’s Green Deal stipulations like emission standards for passenger cars. (Fischer & Streit, DE)
Exclude companies that made use of tax avoidance. Tax heavens are so 2019. It will strengthen collective power and increase trust in public institutions. (Ponte)
Per economic sector
Speaking of companies, let’s do a sectoral review of expectations for recovery and investment in energy-intensive sectors.
Aviation
Nationalize airlines and make them more sustainable through a frequent flyer levy. (Salter, also proposed by Greenpeace UK).
If you don’t want to nationalize, at least order submission to market mechanisms to reduce emissions, enforce acceptance of clean fuel policies. Also, especially with low oil prices: time to cut fossil fuel subsidies. More R&D in hydrogen fuels (Pérez Ruiz & Wirthwein Vega).
Transport
Frans Timmermans proposes a green trade-in scheme for cars, with mandatory participation for car companies; boost railways and public transport by favourable pricing it.
Cycling and walking are back! Make more space for cyclists and pedestrians, especially during the pandemic (see this very interesting example by Milan). As a safe alternative, cycling could keep us out of quarantine. (Sánchez Nicolás)
Plans for Corso Buenos Aires before and after the Strade Aperte project in Milan.
Fashion
Big Fashion (not actually the second most polluting sector) wants to change (apparently) but they don’t know how. Let this quarantine be a moment for reflection. (Cortes, ES)
Health
Invest it clean energy to improve air pollution: investing in health makes absolute economic sense: it’s a source of jobs and healthy people can work. (Di Turi)
Housing
a mass home insulation effort after the crisis, targeting households which are struggling most with fuel poverty first. This would pay for itself in energy savings, and warmer homes would improve the health and well-being of many, while also creating green jobs that can’t be outsourced. (Barry)
Economic activity
Enough with the sectoral special treatment, it’s all about the economy stupid!
invest in infrastructure to improve online connectivity so that learning, medicine and work can get through stay-at-home orders; enable people to accumulate wealth in other ways than buying a house like better pay, capital market investment incentives (🤔); allow government aid to automatically increase as the economy began to fall, like automatic triggers for jobless benefits, increased medical aid and new construction. (Tackett)
make unionization easier, reform taxes to make municipal and cooperative forms of organization more attractive, facilitate employee ownership, and stimuli to expand the radical and democratic ecological experiments like shared living communities. Make the economy about quality of life and wellbeing, rather than growth. (Ponte) See also Muraca (GE) who sees greater worker control as a counterweight to the iron fist of the market.
Technology that create space for the commons, beyond patents and profit. (Muraca)
Participative budgeting and cooperative solutions. Create a basic income in sustainability for young people to create new green craft and industry. (Duverger & Roche, FR)
“Just as grounded aviation staff were offered roles to support the Nightingale hospital, a green jobs programme would offer upskilling for workers and expand sectors like carework, energy efficiency, green transport, agroecology and reforestation.” (Salter)
Care work is low-carbon. (Photo by Dominik Lange on Unsplash)
International
The vast majority of these articles address policy options in ‘the rich world’, which is probably in good part due the filter of ‘energy’ that I used. Some thought about it on a global scale though.
Many nations in the Global South don’t have low interest rates to borrow for recovery investments. Their interests are high and often come with strings attached: the structural adjustment programs. As counterweight, create an international Organization for Emergency Environmental Cooperation. It would raise $8 trillion each year to help countries address the impacts of climate change according to their need. (Lenferna)
We need a new multilateralism to review free trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties in order to manage global public goods and mitigate common risks. Also, no nation’s pursuit of the goals of a green new deal infringe on the ability of other nations to do the same. (Kozul-Wright)
Cancel the debts! (Muraca) Or less radically, revise SAPs, grant debt relief, and restructure debt (UNCTAD in Lenferna).
Practically speaking
Thus far, I’ve covered authors who were basically already convinced about the need for decisive action and who are now finding new fodder for their guns. Do other people find these arguments convincing? Have events occasioned a change of heart? There are some signs that this crisis might shake up ways of doing (see also Lorenzo Velotti’s [IT] remark about Boris Corbyn) and shift the Overton window (but how long either effect lasts, who knows – it will depend on how thoroughly these sudden changes will be institutionalized).
Impact of crisis on policy-making
A few contributions have drawn attention to climate policy-making is being impacted by the crisis.
The ministers of environment and climate change of ten European countries signed a petition to support the Green Deal as the roadmap for overcoming the current crisis, highlighting hydrogen for example. Fatih Birol, Director of the International Energy Agency, and Mariana Mazzucato, also advocate climate-friendly investments. The Economist argues there is political margin to include ecological considerations. (Pérez Ruiz & Wirthwein Vega)
Allen Winkler worries we [in the US] don’t have the willingness to work together, the way Roosevelt made sure we did in 1930s. (Tackett)
Public support for action
Some wrote have written about what the general public might think of all this. (Generally speaking, in many Western countries there is strong abstract support for climate action, though how that support plays out in political practice depends a lot on politicization of the issue and distribution of costs and benefits.)
Support for climate action will depend whether it’s instrumental for economic recovery, since it tends to be lower during economic recessions. At the same time, people are most clearly willing to accept drastic polices in the name of health. Make health the pitch for climate policy, (Turaga) now that the public (and politicians) are sensitized to it (Granziero, IT)?
People are torn about Climate v Economy, because the economy now is parasitic on the climate. If we reshape the economy to satisfy people concrete needs and end the endless accumulation game, the contradiction ceases to exist (Trenkle)
Youth and children are terrified that we do not learn any lessons and that we will go back ‘to normal’. (Hickman)
Youth wanting us to learn lessons. (Photo by Roaming the Planet on Flickr.)
“The public will expect reforms that make the nation more resilient against future emergencies, so people feel comfortable enough to take the risks that lead to innovation.” (Tackett)
By golly, you didn’t think you would make it, but you did! 👏 Hope this digest has been helpful for you; if it was, let me know with a line or a heart!
PS Degrowth is only path forward
If you’re interested in the de-growth perspective on the future:
GND means ‘green growth’ and that’s a fiction. Capitalism is an economic system is based on over-exploitation of people and planet. (Mediavilla)
Discussion of the idea of a foundational economy: what if we re-evaluate what and how we value things. Not market value, but what it serves to some pre-established (human) need. (Gough)
Put quality of life central to economic planning. (Hickel)
Sources
Ambrose, Jillian, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/30/covid-19-crisis-demand-fossil-fuels-iea-renewable-electricity
Arzt, Ingo, https://taz.de/Gruener-Wiederaufbau-nach-Corona/!5680660/
Cortes, Agathe, https://elpais.com/ciencia/2020-04-28/el-momento-clave-para-concienciar-sobre-la-segunda-industria-mas-contaminante-del-mundo.html
Denis-Ryan, Amandine, https://lens.monash.edu/@sustainable-development/2020/04/22/1380128?slug=coronavirus-stimulus-spending-creates-a-golden-opportunity-for-low-carbon-transition
Denning, Liam, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-29/don-t-leave-america-s-post-pandemic-energy-policy-to-chance
Di Turi, Andrea, https://www.avvenire.it/economia/pagine/economia-sostenibile-bicciato
Duverger, Timothée & Sylvain Roche, https://www.alternatives-economiques.fr/saisissons-de-crise-realiser-leurope-post-carbone/00092517
Fischer, Eva & Matthias Streit https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/coronakrise-lobbyisten-wollen-den-green-deal-torpedieren/25776786.html
Gough, Ian, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/times-climate-breakdown-how-do-we-value-what-matters
Granziero, Silvia, https://thevision.com/coronavirus/emergenza-climatica/
Hickel, Jason, https://thecorrespondent.com/357/outgrowing-growth-why-quality-of-life-not-gdp-should-be-our-measure-of-success/12273689274-d1c81273
Hickman, Caroline, https://iai.tv/articles/urgent-and-immediate-danger-covid-19-climate-crisis-auid-1449
Kozul-Wright, Richard, https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/04/after-coronavirus-we-need-a-global-green-new-deal
Laker, Laura, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/milan-seeks-to-prevent-post-crisis-return-of-traffic-pollution
Lenferna, Alex, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/coronavirus-global-green-new-deal-south-postcolonial
Mediavilla, Margarita, https://www.elsaltodiario.com/coronavirus/crisis-climatica-no-saldremos-crisis-new-green-deal-pacto-verde
Miller, Simone, https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/nachhaltig-wirtschaften-das-klima-retten-trotz-corona.2162.de.html
Minet, Pascaline, https://www.letemps.ch/sciences/augustin-fragniere-relance-economique-risque-saccompagner-dun-rebond-emissions-co2
O Taiwo, Olufemi, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/coronavirus-failure-climate-failure-200318121417697.html
Pérez Ruiz, Andrea and Kilian Wirthwein Vega, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/eurocrisispress/2020/04/26/ecological-transition-post-covid
Ponte, Stefano, https://www.cbds.center/post/a-green-and-fair-covid-19-recovery-plan
Roberts, David, https://www.vox.com/2020/4/20/21224659/coronavirus-stimulus-money-oil-prices-fossil-fuels-bailout
Salter, Eleanor, https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/04/coronavirus-recovery-needs-a-green-stimulus
Sánchez, Nicolás Elena, https://euobserver.com/green-deal/148162
Tackett, Michael, https://www.businessinsider.com/out-of-pandemic-crisis-what-could-a-new-new-deal-look-like-2020-4
Trenkle, Norbert https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Klimakrise-und-gesellschaftliche-Transformation-in-Zeiten-von-Corona-4708238.html?seite=all
Turaga, Rama Mohana R., https://thewire.in/environment/covid-19-lockdown-public-support-climate-change-mititgation
Velotti, Lorenzo, https://gliasinirivista.org/decrescita-emergenza-climatica-e-cura/