IPCC Ignores That Institutions Are the Creatures of Fossil Fuels

• Author: Craig M. Pease
• Position: Ph.D. scientist and former law school professor based in New England
• Pages: 17-17

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 | 17

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, November/December 2021.

Copyright © 2021, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Science and the Law

THE Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change’s latest re-

port is grim. Global CO2 emis-

sions were a mere 0.2 billion tonnes

per year in 1850, increasing to 6 bil-

lion in 1950, and are 36 billion now.

We are nowhere close to net-zero.

Emissions continue to grow. In

1981, when James Hansen and his

colleagues published their seminal

paper on climate change, the atmo-

spheric CO2 level was 340 parts per

million. Today it is 415 ppm.

e wishes of policymakers not-

withstanding, it is now practically im-

possible to limit warming to 2 degrees

Celsius. Since 1850, cumulative CO2

emissions have been 2,500 billion

tonnes. Very roughly, each additional

1,000 billion results in about 0.5 de-

grees of warming.

Holding warming

to 1.5 or 2 degrees

would require future

cumulative emis-

sions to be limited

to roughly 500 or

1,300 billion tonnes,

respectively. at is just 20 percent to

50 percent of total cumulative emis-

sions since 1850.

As shown by University College

London’s Dan Welsby and colleagues

in a recent Nature piece, staying un-

der 1.5 degrees would require fossil

fuel use to decline each year by several

percent. Even staying under 2 degrees

would require a quick decline in fos-

sil fuels consumption. Yet since the

groundbreaking 2015 Paris Agree-

ment, global CO2 emissions have

continued to increase.

Climate policy has been a colossal

failure. Why?

is thorough and comprehensive

IPCC report, “Climate Change 2021:

e Physical Science Basis,” is an ex-

traordinary account of how carbon di-

oxide alters energy ows through the

atmosphere, oceans, ice, biosphere,

and climate. To understand the fail-

ure of climate policy, following the

reasoning of pioneer systems ecologist

Howard Odum, we need to augment

the report with the physical science

basis of human society, especially

energy ows through human institu-

tions.

Critically, those 2,500 billion

tonnes of CO2 emitted since 1850

not only altered the climate, but just

as importantly, entirely restructured

our institutions. Today’s economic

actors and corporations, government

agencies, and civil society organiza-

tions are qualitatively dierent from

the institutions of 1950. ey are

even more dierent from those of

1850, when the institution of human

slavery was widespread in the United

States. In 1900, roads were designed

for horses. In 1930,

less than 10 percent

of U.S. homes had a

refrigerator.

Energy from fossil

fuels powers today’s

institutions. About 80

percent of total hu-

man energy use today derives from

coal, oil, and natural gas. Few appreci-

ate that to successfully address climate

change, we must replace or profound-

ly restructure the entire institutional

ecosystem that sprang forth to feast

on the energy from fossil fuels.

e dramatic increase in CO2

emissions since 1950 accompanied an

equally dramatic increase in goods and

services. Will Steen and colleagues’

classic 2015 paper on the Anthropo-

cene presents graphs showing huge in-

creases from 1950 in water use, fertil-

izer use, tourism, foreign direct invest-

ment, McDonald’s restaurants, motor

vehicles, paper consumption, and so

on. Underlying each good or service

are diverse and numerous institutions,

including multinational corporations,

small businesses, government pro-

grams and regulations, and advocacy

organizations. e goods and services

we take for granted are most all pro-

duced by institutions whose energy

source is fossil fuels.

e energy transition needed to

address climate change will be slow,

dicult, and ridden with conict.

Since 1850, the world has enjoyed an

ever-expanding energy pie, leading to

abundant opportunities for conicts

to be resolved with win-win solutions.

A successful climate policy will cause

the energy pie to shrink. In a world of

net-zero emissions, many more con-

icts will be zero sum.

Carbon dioxide is dierent. Clas-

sic environmental problems such as

water and air pollution, endangered

species, and ozone depletion are all

unwanted byproducts of wanted

goods and services. ose externali-

ties have no intrinsic value. We regu-

late them in ways that impact only

the periphery of our institutions,

without altering core energy ows.

By contrast, a successful climate

policy must regulate energy, which

most certainly has substantial value

to producers and consumers. Energy

is not an externality. It is intrinsic to

modern civilization.

Quickly reducing fossil fuel con-

sumption would likely result in an

equally quick collapse of our institu-

tions, ways of living, and economy. If

instead we fail to stop burning fossil

fuels, we face a collapse caused by cli-

mate change, albeit somewhat less im-

mediate. e institutions that dene

modern civilization exist only because

of the energy from fossil fuels.

IPCC Ignores at Institutions

Are the Creatures of Fossil Fuels

The needed energy

transition will be





Craig M. Pease is a Ph.D. scien-

tist and former law school professor

based in New Eng land. Email him at:

pease.craig@ gmail.com.