Chance or Challenge?

Three different liberal views how do deal with Climate Change Politics Written by: Rainer Erkens, Jakarta May 28th 2012

Introduction1 The topic of Climate Change and the international political debate about its reasons, dimension and consequences rarely divide Social-Democrats, Socialists, Greens or Christian Democrats. Among those belonging to one of those ideological families there may be some controversy about the extent and the speed of Climate Change, what this means for mankind and how problems stemming from Climate Change can be solved. Not all Social-Democrats, Socialists, Greens or Christian Democrats will propose the same solutions for problems related to climate change. Personal interests, individual experiences or national priorities and traditions may lead to different answers. But notwithstanding minor differences there is a certain degree of consensus in the various political families mentioned above - and in many cases even between them. This consensus which can be called mainstream politics on Climate Change is well reflected in the international conventions, agreements and resolutions reached in UN-sponsored conferences such as Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Kyoto in 1997 or more recently , Bali 2007, Cancun 2008, Copenhagen 2009 or Durban 2011. In contrast to other political families, however, Liberals, i.e. those men and women who put freedom into the center of their political thinking, have to deal with profound cleavages among themselves on how to react to the public debate on Climate Change and indeed how to view Climate Change as a relevant issue. In general the politicization of the international debate on Climate Change in the last two decades has lead to a sad abdicating from the view normally held by Liberals that controversy when dealt with openly and constructively constitutes be the most promising way to find the best solution for our problems of today and tomorrow and thus produce progress. Instead, among many Liberals patience and the willingness to sit together
In March and April 2012 Stephan Melnik, a Liberal lecturer from Germany who has been dealing with the international debate on climate change for a long time has given a speeches on the politics of climate change and facilitated a training workshop on the same topic in Jakarta and Bandung, Indonesia. This paper has been heavily inspired by Stefan Melniks lectures and the contributions of FNF partners in Indonesia. Nevertheless any possibly misrepresentations, misinterpretations or any possible other mistakes are solely the authors fault.
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and listen to each other is running thin. Intolerance and the arrogance of knowing better than others run counter to the usual liberal creed of diversity of opinions, freedom of research and scientific debate and intellectual modesty. Instead of considering the fact that Liberals have different views as healthy and helpful, some Liberals see intellectual diversity as an unwanted nuisance. Competition between ideas, usually so important in liberal thinking, is deemed unnecessary or even as a waste of time. Views which contradict ones own opinion are not taken as a chance to test ones own opinion again (let alone as a chance to falsify it as Karl Richard Popper should have taught as) but as a dangerous and mean attack on ones personality and credibility. The present paper will try to tackle with this challenge. It wants to show that in the international political debate on Climate Change, in Climate Change politics, each part of the liberal family can play an important and indispensable part. However, if we want to promote public debate between Liberals (and of course, between Liberals and people of other political convictions) it is first of all useful to define what kind of positions Liberals stand for in the international debate on Climate Change. Thereafter we will discuss whether and how the different liberal positions can be brought together and whether they are a threat, a challenge or an asset for Liberals. Obviously there may be as many liberal positions as Liberals live on this earth. Nevertheless most of the liberal views on climate change can be grouped in three categories: Mainstream Liberals, Liberal Skeptics and Radical Liberals. To do this is an attempt to simplify reality for the sake of better understanding it, not for the sake of suppressing complexity.

1. Mainstream Liberals Many people who call themselves Liberals, in particular those organized in liberal political parties or working for Governments and major international Organizations such as the

World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Funds (IMF) or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), i.e. most Liberals with direct political responsibility and influence, follow the mainstream in the international debate which at this stage both dominates the public debate and shapes international conferences on Climate Change like those mentioned above. Mainstream Liberals (i.e. Liberals which share the view of the mainstream in the Climate Change debate) assume that scientific research shows already convincingly that Climate Change leads to global warming. More research may be useful to understand Climate Change better but we cannot wait any longer if we want to make an impact and prevent drastic changes in nature with profound consequences for our lifestyle. The longer we wait, so goes the argument, the higher will be the price we have to pay at the end. For Mainstream Liberals Climate Change is already happening and visible. It is by and large the consequence of increased CO2 emissions caused by human beings and their activities. Climate change needs be answered through efforts to mitigate global warming by reducing CO2 emissions on the national and the international level. A bigger role is therefore given to mitigation of Climate Change (i.e. preventing or at least limiting rising global temperatures) than to adaptation to Climate Change and its expected consequences. While these positions are shared by, for example, Socialists or Greens who are part of the international mainstream the liberal approach within the mainstream differs (or if they seriously want to be Liberals should differ) from members of other ideological families by stressing the importance of market forces for overcoming problems connected to Climate Chance2. While Liberals in the mainstream accept that states have to introduce laws and sign international conventions which prohibit, limit, make more difficult and expensive or punish
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Obviously in this paper Liberal refers to those people who see themselves in the tradition of liberal political thought as presented, for example, by Adam Smith. Thus The definition here follows the European definition of the word liberal, not the American where from a European perspective a Liberal is often rather a social-democrat advocating redistribution of wealth and equality instead of freedom.

CO2 emissions by law they prefer to use policies based on economic incentives instead of the big stick Governments, thus, should deal with environmentally detrimental natural resources by taxing them more heavily, thereby increasing their prices. They can also create tax and other incentives to stimulate the discovery, investigation, promotion and better use of renewable energies, introduce and reward carbon trade, give money to Governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America for protecting the rain forests or invest more money on research on climate change. Contrary to many groups from the political left Mainstream Liberals stress that Climate Change can be mitigated without giving up economic growth, prosperity and development. While they do not necessarily speak about a Green Economy (even though the concept of Green Economy is compatible with the ideas of Mainstream Liberals) they certainly believe that market forces can provide the means, financially and technically, to solve problems associated with Climate Change such as floods, natural disasters, landslides, rising sea levels, change of harvesting seasons, droughts, desertification and so on. Like all other Liberals Mainstream Liberals appreciate freedom but they accept the necessity that for the common good, in this case the protection of the earth against Climate Change and its presumably very bad consequences, some state intervention is inevitable. Mainstream Liberals may be not be directly involved in the fear-mongering and alarmism of some people on the political left and some environmental organizations in civil society when it comes to the politics on Climate Change. They hardly threaten opponents to their views with horror scenarios about the imminent destruction of the earth or the end of mankind. Rationale debate about the right objectives and the appropriate means to achieve concrete solutions and visible progress remain much more important than mobilizing emotions and inciting populism. Even if mitigation is indispensable to limit the impact of Climate Change the high costs of mitigation is an important issue for Mainstream Liberals. Whatever is decided but must be in accordance with the size of the threat to our climate. Means and ends must be balanced. Mainstream Liberals advocate piece meal engineering instead of allembracing total solutions. They want to solve the problems related to Climate Change in a way which does not jeopardize unnecessarily freedom, economic development, prosperity, competition, diversity and private property.

And yet when it comes to the positions of Liberal Sceptics or Radical Liberals often Mainstream Liberals display a surprising degree of unwillingness to listen and to debate. Discussion for Mainstream Liberals, so it seems, is limited to people who are part of Mainstream thinking on Climate Change, not to people outside of this mainstream. Often it looks as if for a Mainstream Liberal it is easier to talk to Greens who put ecology before freedom than to members of their own family who cherish freedom.

2. Liberal Skeptics A second group of Liberals does not reject completely the view that the climate on our planet may change but people in this group are not yet convinced that we have sufficient evidence to treat Climate Change as a fact already. Such Liberals which are mostly found in liberal think tanks and in universities but sometimes also among politicians, in Government departments or in international organizations may be called Climate Change Skeptics. They do not yet know if climate change already takes place but they leave the possibility open that with more research and better scientific data in the not too far future mankind will be able to prove or refute the claim that the climate is changing. Liberal Skeptics advise politicians to be careful and critical before they invest a lot of taxpayers and consumers money into the wrong policies and before they introduce new legislation which infringes upon citizens freedom. At this stage, so they argue, we cannot yet exclude the possibility that such interventions may prove to be expensive, ineffective and unnecessary. Liberal Skeptics also advise governments to keep in mind what the priority problems of the population in their respective countries are. Spending taxpayers money on reducing poverty, fighting unemployment, improving the health system, fighting malaria and dengue or providing better education may be much more beneficial for the people in developing countries than putting money in a rather abstract and remote objective such as mitigating climate change.

For example, rising incomes due to better education, more freedom to do business and in general higher economic growth in developing countries will enable more and more people to move their houses away from cheap but threatened areas close to rivers and dangerous slopes which are too risky for human settlement and time and again fall victim to floods or landslide. They may also help an increasing number of citizens to pay for insurances from which they can claim money back in case of natural disasters. Contrary to Mainstream Liberals those who are Liberal Skeptic prefer adaptation as opposed to mitigation because in their view mitigation is only possible on the international level when all major players agree. Given the resistance against an costly international climate regime shown by the Governments of China, the United States of America, Russia or India, today the four countries on earth with the biggest emissions of CO2, it is highly unlikely that mitigation can be reached. As much as Germany, Indonesia or South Africa may try: their CO2 emissions are too small to have a decisive impact on Climate Change even if a lot of money is spent in those countries on mitigation. For Liberal Skeptics adaptation has the advantage that it can happen in a decentralized way. Hence it can be applied where and when it is really needed and in a way which is in accordance with local resources and traditions. Where Climate Change has a concrete, discernible and measurable effect adequate counter measures should be taken - but only there. If, for example, an area is threatened by rising sea levels due to Climate Change walls and dams can be built or heightened, homes can be transferred into the interior, land can be reclaimed from the sea or additional sand can be brought to the beach. Adaptation can provide local answers to local problems making use of local wisdom and taking into account local knowledge, experiences and conditions. For adaptation no complicated international agreements are required. Also adaptation is much less costly than mitigation because money can be spent in a focused way and the impact of investment can be easily measured. Liberal Skeptics point to the fact that during history humanity has shown an incredible capacity to develop new technologies or use existing technologies in a new way whenever changing environmental conditions made this necessary. They are optimistic that what today

seems to be a serious challenge may be easy to solve in ten, twenty or fifty year given the pace of technological progress. Since Climate Change will take place over many years and decades there is enough time to adapt provided there is enough freedom for people to think differently, to try out new things and to experiment and to discuss frankly. Progress and an open society will help us to deal effectively with Climate Change if in the future it proves to be really the global threat to mankind Mainstream Liberals and others assume. Liberal Skeptics criticize the tendency of most of those belonging to the mainstream to discriminate against skeptical researchers, scholars, experts or politicians and sometimes even try to deprive them of access to international conferences, the media or publishers. For Liberal Skeptics the quality of scientific debate does not depend on the quantity of people sharing a view in the scientific society but on the quality of their argument. Nothing is ever true or convincing because it is accepted (or claims to be accepted) by the majority in the political or in the scientific community. As the history of Western civilization over the last centuries has shown criticizing mainstream views on Climate Change should not be seen as an irritation but rather as a chance for those dealing with Climate Change to continue to strive for better evidence, falsify what is not supported by data and facts and try to improve their knowledge. In this respect Liberal Skeptics have something in common with the group of Radical Liberals described below who are strongly opposed to the mainstream politics of Climate Change. However, as stated above Liberal Skeptics in contrast to Radical Liberals about whom we will speak in a moment do not reject the possibility that we are facing Climate Change and that sooner or later we could have to cope with its consequences. Therefore Liberal Skeptics are willing to accept those policies formulated by the mainstream which may be useful from and compatible with a liberal viewpoint anyway. So when international conventions, national governments or political parties advocate and put into effect policies which are compatible with liberal ideas and promote liberal objectives they should be supported regardless whether there is Climate Change or not. Thus if national Governments plan to reduce fossil energy subsidies on petrol or coal or attempt to discourage the waste of scarce resources they should be supported because the reduction of

subsidies and waste is good in any case. If national Governments introduce programs against deforestation which lead to the strengthening of (individual or group) private property rights, better law enforcement against illegal logging or diminish the chances for corrupt officials to receive bribes from those illegally trading timber they deserve full support not just from Mainstream Liberals but also from Sceptical Liberals. So even if Liberal Skeptics are still not sure whether Climate Change is already happening and whether it will really constitute a serious problem to mankind in the future they are willing to endorse mainstream climate change policies which are in accordance with liberal principles. Since there might be a chance that in a decade from here new scientific research proves that the mainstream was right it is better to take already precautionary measures today which are useful by themselves anyway from a liberal perspective. This view should great a lot of space cooperation with Mainstream Liberals.

3. Radical Liberals Most Radical Liberals come from the group of Libertarians for which freedom is the overriding principle of their life and their thinking. For them the argument that Climate Change has already started, is highly questionable. Most Radical Liberals deny that Climate Change constitutes a serious threat to mankind and to nature. Instead, Climate Change is considered by Radical Liberals to be a new method, a new trick of the political left in politics and civil society to bestow more power onto governments, provide them with public and private funds and in general works to the benefit of people who do not cherish individual freedom. It is a new method, a new way to attack, strangulate and ultimately destroy the market economy and to replace it by a planned economy. Climate Change from this perspective is not a threat to the environment but a threat to individual freedom. In the name of politicized and therefore dubious scientific research and supported by an atmosphere of irrational fear-mongering, alarmism and panicking people are bullied into giving up their freedom to say, think, research, eat, consume, dress or simply live as they like. Contrary to the Liberal Skeptics most Radical Liberals do not give much relevance

to what the International Panel on Climate Change, the Stern Report or other mainstream speaker and documents say about Climate Change. If there was truth in theory of Climate Change, so the Radical Liberals the Market would reflect it (for example by signaling drastically higher fees for insurances against disasters) Radical Liberals reject spending taxpayers money on international conferences on Climate Change and wasting a lot of time and energy on reaching international conventions. Contrary to the Liberal Skeptics who like to discuss with people who are part of the mainstream Radical Liberal are hardly ever willing to form part of international activities on Climate Change. For them talking to people in the mainstream is a waste of time and useless. They prefer to discuss among themselves and those open to their positions. In their publications or when they meet among each other they try not only to falsify the results of mainstream research but often also ridicule those advocating Climate Change. They like to provoke those having a mainstream view by sometimes taking just the opposite view. Where mainstream politicians warn that the temperatures may be on the increasing they see the danger of global cooling. Where mainstream politicians see threats they see chances. Their trust in human ingenuity in an open society to cope with climate and other challenges is almost without limits. While in most of the world there may not be many Radical Liberals, most of them from libertarian think tanks, civic organizations or private citizens, they constitute an important and influential factor in the public debate in the United States of America and may well be one of the reasons why the US has not yet signed to Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of CO2 emissions from 1995. Since their prime aim is to maintain and expand freedom they reject basically any effort of governments to promote mitigation or adaptation to Climate Change. One of their objectives is to prevent the use of public money on Climate Change and resist laws which detract from individual freedom in the name of protecting the planet. In the unlikely case that one day Climate Change is turning out to be a real problem mankind will be resourceful enough to find ways to deal with it but only then and certainly not in the form of what they consider a worldwide circus of international conventions and conferences. Instead any

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solution should be decentralized and market oriented protecting private property and competition.

4. Can the three different liberal views be reconciled? So far we have focused on the differences between Mainstream Liberals, Liberal Skeptics and Radical Liberals. The interesting question remains whether there can be bridges between people who despite all differences all claim to accept the overriding importance of freedom and are committed to reason? It is easy for Radical Liberals to call Mainstream Liberals or even Liberal Skeptics traitors who are willing to sacrifice individual freedom on the altar of political convenience and opportunism. It is equally easy for Liberals Skeptics to blame Radical Liberals for being apolitical or even crazy. And yet it should already have become visible that at the present stage of the international debate on Climate Change all three type of Liberals have their role and these roles must be necessarily different if Liberals want to achieve a maximum impact. This is easiest to see when we come to Mainstream Liberals. Many of them are at home in institutions and organizations which are involved in political decision-making: parliaments, governments, big international and national Non Governmental Organizations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, private and public banks and companies, industrial and agricultural organizations etc. Among the Liberals they are the ones who have most influence, most access to political and economic power. They are the movers and shakers within the liberal family or at least they could be. However, for this purpose they should be less inclined to follow blindly the mainstream on Climate Change but give more attention to dissenting voices from the Liberal Skeptics and the Radical Liberals. Just as in other political field also when it comes to Climate Change Mainstream Liberals too often are willing to accept social-democratic policies in the name of the common good, social justice, helping the poor and so on. Instead of considering other parts of the liberal family as troublemakers they should see them as important resource persons who can provide good

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arguments against wrong decisions and wrong investments even and sometimes particularly if they challenge the mainstream. Obviously, having access to political power Mainstream Liberals will always be forced to make compromises with politicians who come from other political families. But it is easier to compromises and to know what liberal essentials are if you are well informed. Liberal Skeptics and Radical Liberals can provide valuable knowledge which may strengthen the position of Mainstream Liberals in international and national forums and decision-making bodies. Their optimism about human ingenuity may be useful as an antidote to the alarmism of those who want to do away with rationale debate and reasonable, cost-effective solutions. The Liberal Skeptics obviously could form a kind of bridge between Mainstream Liberals and Radical Liberals because while they are still critical about the mainstream acceptance of Climate Change and some mainstream policies adopted in international conferences they are willing to take part in the worldwide debate and support some of the policies of adaptation against the possible consequences of climate change. They love dialogue and discussion even of very controversial ideas, something the other two types of Liberals sometimes neglect. Although they have doubts about some aspects of the conventional wisdom on climate change they are pragmatic enough to understand that without access to people with power and influence who belong to the mainstream in the international debate on climate Change their analyses and their proposals may turn out to be irrelevant. Liberal Skeptics do not want to die in beauty by just defending at all costs what they think is right without being willing to compromise. They want to be part of the game and make the world a better place. If they intend to be of value for Mainstream Liberals they must look for innovative and feasible solutions which strengthen market economy and an open society. Liberal Skeptics should identify what in the Mainstream debate is acceptable from a liberal perspective on the one hand and take up and spread good ideas, practices and solutions offered by Radical Liberals on the other hand. They could be the brain behind the liberal movers and shakers among the Mainstream Liberals and the political minds behind libertarian ideological purity. For people outside the United States of America it is not always easy to accept the view of Radical Liberals with their strong and sometimes noisy inconvenient and even arrogant

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commitment to freedom without Government intervention. Most people (including many Liberals) are used to accept that Governments have to play an important part in identifying and addressing problems such as Climate Change. From this perspective the never ending reference to the market and to individual freedom on the part of Radical Liberals to more often than not seems strange and unrealistic. However, as a permanent reminder that government policies on Climate Change have both material and immaterial costs Radical Liberals with their uncompromising commitment to freedom can play a vital role in the Climate Change debate. Without their fierce resistance the mainstream including Mainstream Liberals and Liberal Sceptics may lack challenge, competition and often good arguments. For on the market of ideas challenges, competition and good arguments are indispensable because they help to replace wrong concepts with less wrong concepts, the only recipe for innovation and progress. They also can equip Mainstream Liberal and Liberal Skeptics with good and sober arguments when they debate with members of other political families about climate change.

5. Summary Thus is should be visible that all parts of the liberal family can play an important role to influence the international debate on the politics of Climate Change in a way which is at the same time conducive to human freedom, to development and to the protection of the environment. Taking serious the virtue of tolerance and respecting the view indeed one of the basics of liberalism that each of us has only very limited knowledge about the world and that therefore we need co-operation and the free exchange of opinions in an open society we should be able to make more out of the fact that Liberals among each others dare to differ on Climate Change and its implications. After all daring to differ has always been one of the most important principles of survival of liberal idea. Keeping this in mind the fact that within the liberal family there are three different currents concerning the politics of Climate change may be rather seen as a chance than as a challenge.

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