Jack Santa Barbara argues COP26 is tackling the wrong problem. He explains why.
Comment: There are many challenges to the success of the climate conference in Glasgow when considered on its own terms, how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a safe level. However, there is a more fundamental reason why it will fail to provide a safe environment for humanity. It is focusing on the wrong problem.
The COP26 conference, and the entire IPCC, is focusing on climate change as an existential threat to humanity. To be clear, it is an existential threat. But it is only one of several existential threats, all of which have a common cause.
Why only treat one symptom, when we already understand the common cause of a whole range of existential threats that now confront us?
Treating the cause is the most efficient and effective way of dealing with this entire set of risks. They cannot be solved one symptom at a time, which is what COP26 is trying to do.
If the underlying cause is ignored it will simply continue generating symptoms, ever more serious existential threats.
Ecological overshoot: 101
For some time scientists have been trying to warn us that ecological overshoot is the underlying cause of our most serious environmental risks. Ecological overshoot is a well-studied phenomenon.
It occurs when any species expands to the point where it consumes more natural resources than are available and creates more waste than nature can safely absorb. Climate change is a waste management problem – we emit too many greenhouse gases for global ecosystems to safely absorb and dispose of them.
Before identifying just how many of our current existential threats can be traced to ecological overshoot, let’s explore the phenomenon a bit. The following graph shows that overshoot occurs when a species grows beyond its carrying capacity (the flat black dotted line).
There is an enormous body of research demonstrating the phenomenon depicted above.
Carrying capacity is a way of measuring our ecological footprint. It is the combination of population and consumption that is sustainable, that can endure indefinitely because total consumption is within the biophysical limits for ecosystems to continue providing essential resources (food, water, temperature, etc) and absorbing wastes.
As the graph indicates, it is possible to exceed carrying capacity for a period of time, until the impact of resource exhaustion and/or accumulation of pollution, interferes with the continued expansion of the species. At this point, overall consumption declines, usually through reduced population.
Note that as overshoot occurs, the carrying capacity diminishes (the dotted red line). That is because the excess consumption is eating into the stored resources (rather than living off what is provided each year), or forcing systems change due to excess waste absorption.
Overshoot causes a reduction in nature’s ability to continue providing the same level of services to species dependent on it.
The longer overshoot lasts, the more damage is done to ecosystems that either provide essential resources, and/or safely absorb waste.
Importantly, if consumption continues beyond nature’s carrying capacity for too long, then systems’ collapse is inevitable. Overshoot is terminal.
This is the situation humanity is currently facing, with climate change, biodiversity losses and a host of other risks.
The graph also shows the course we need to take for our species to survive and thrive (the green line). We need to consume less and reduce our waste streams significantly.
It should be noted that overshoot is a phenomenon that every species goes through. Humanity is no exception.
What is significantly different about humanity’s journey is that, unlike all other species, we have made use of fossil fuels to extend our capacity to continue consuming.
For all other species, natural limits impose constraints on how much resources can be consumed, or waste produced.
Fossil fuels, and the technologies they make possible, have together allowed us to consume resources way beyond what we could do with manual and animal labour alone. And provide more waste than nature can absorb.
The many symptoms of overshoot
Let’s look at some of the data to demonstrate the overshoot situation we have created for ourselves.
The Ecological Footprint measure indicates how much of the Earth’s carrying capacity we use each year. A sustainable level would be one that is a bit less than what nature provides each year in terms of food, fuel and fibre.
The “bit less” provides a safety margin and creates resilience.
The data show that since about 1960, humanity has been using up carrying capacity that exceeds nature’s annual levels of production and waste absorption. That is why we would need almost two Earths to continue just as we are now. And these are conservative estimates.
Since we only have one Earth, we are operating at a seriously unsustainable level. We are in ecological overshoot. We are destroying nature’s capacity to regenerate itself on a grand scale.
Climate change is clearly an existential threat because of its rapidity and intensity. We are slowly learning just how much we rely on a stable climate, and the multiple disasters that occur as a result of its current trajectory.
Climate change is a direct result of our continued emissions of greenhouse gases. The greatest expansion of human civilisation has occurred at the same time, and has literally been fuelled by our use of coal, gas and petroleum.
Biodiversity loss is another example of overshoot. We are currently experiencing the sixth mass extinction of species in the history of the planet. It is the only mass extinction triggered by human activities – the scope of our expansion destroys habitats for many other species.
At the dawn of human civilisation, humanity made up about 1 percent of the mammalian biomass on the planet.
The expansion of the human population, along with the domestication of livestock for our food, brings us and our mammalian food source to about 95 percent of total mammalian biomass on the planet. We have simply crowded out other species with our own expansion.
This phenomenon is also evident in the decline of many fish species due to overfishing, as well as in the dramatic decline of birds and insects. These losses seriously threaten the pollination services we rely on for much of our food supply, and the food supplies of other species.
Another threat to human wellbeing is soil erosion and the destruction of fertility in what remains. These impacts are a direct result of the scale and chemical intensity of our agricultural practices.
Ocean acidification caused by fossil fuel emissions is seriously threatening the entire food chain of marine life.
Pollution of fresh water resources from industry and agriculture has created water scarcity for millions of people across the globe.
The magnitude of the waste we generate has resulted in harmful waste particles not only in our soils, air and water ways, but also in human tissues.
The creation of our modern industrial society currently sees us using about 100 billion tonnes of raw materials each year, and rising. Most of these raw materials are non-renewable. This is at least 100 fold larger than pre-industrial society.
All these examples of serious existential threats are the result of the successful expansion of the human enterprise. This is the paradox we have created. The scale of our impact on nature threatens the very ecological systems essential for our wellbeing and survival.
Implications for COP26
How we view the problem determines how we seek solutions. If humanity’s focus is on climate change in isolation of the ecological overshoot issue, we will fail to solve the climate crisis, or any of the other existential threats we face.
Some examples.
Failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible will result in increasingly dramatic climate disasters. Voluntary pledges for reductions are unlikely to result in sufficient actual reductions that really matter. We have been making such pledges for decades and emissions continue to rise.
If humanity viewed the problem as an overshoot one, and understood the implications, we would start an international rationing program for fossil fuel reduction, something like the Tradable Energy Quota developed by a British economist.
We would also recognise that no version of a Green New Deal is going to provide an adequate substitute for fossil fuels. We would begin thinking of how we can reduce our need for energy, and plan more carefully for ensuring that what energy we use actually makes a contribution to human wellbeing.
Currently we waste enormous amounts of energy. If we returned to a 1950 or 1960 level of per capita energy consumption (roughly half what we currently use), we could live well with much less.
Understanding overshoot would also help us realise that even if we found an energy source to replace fossil fuels, we would have to restrain our use of energy. Any energy use is going to have an environmental impact, and the more energy we use the more impact we will have.
Learning to live within planetary boundaries means reduced consumption. But if we are clever enough we can still lead fulfilling lives with some level of security.
An overshoot perspective would see a much greater emphasis on public and active transport, and focusing EV use for critical services, rather than as replacements for personal transport.
How we plan for essential infrastructure would also be affected. If we have to live with less consumption of material resources, we would focus on essential services for wellbeing, and design for durability.
And the really big question we would want to ask, and answer, is what’s the carrying capacity of New Zealand? What is the right mix of population and consumption that would allow for a sustainable wellbeing society to pass on to future generations?
The ecological footprint data for New Zealand indicates that we are consuming way beyond our fair share of earth’s resources. The data also indicate that our enviable biocapacity excess is declining, largely because of our exports.
If we are going to get serious about climate change and the host of other existential threats we face, we need a new mind-set that focuses on ecological overshoot. An overshoot perspective can help create an effective climate response.
Reducing consumption while maintaining, and even increasing, wellbeing for all should be our goal.
But this won’t happen until enough of us understand the real problem, and let our politicians know what we want them to address.
