mazzucato17_David McNewGetty Images_wildfire california

Vermeidung eines Klima-Lockdowns

Sep 22, 2020 Mariana Mazzucato

LONDON – Als sich COVID-19 Anfang dieses Jahres ausbreitete, verhängten die Regierungen Lockdowns, um zu verhindern, dass der Gesundheitsnotstand außer Kontrolle geriet. In naher Zukunft muss die Welt womöglich erneut auf Lockdowns zurückgreifen – diesmal, um den Klimanotstand zu bekämpfen.

Eisverschiebungen in der Arktis, wütende Waldbrände im Westen der USA und anderswo und Methanlecks in der Nordsee sind sämtlich Warnsignale, dass wir uns beim Klimawandel einem Kipppunkt nähern, an dem der Schutz unserer künftigen Zivilisation dramatische Interventionen erfordern wird.

Bei einem „Klima-Lockdown“ würden die Regierungen die Nutzung privater Kraftfahrzeuge begrenzen, den Konsum von rotem Fleisch verbieten und extreme Energiesparmaßnahmen verhängen, während die Produzenten fossiler Brennstoffe ihre Bohrungen einstellen müssten. Zur Vermeidung eines derartigen Szenarios müssen wir unsere Wirtschaftstrukturen gründlich überarbeiten und eine andere Art von Kapitalismus verfolgen.

We hope you're enjoying Project Syndicate.

To continue reading, subscribe now.

Already have an account? Log in

Support High-Quality Commentary

US President-elect Joe Biden may have promised a “return to normalcy,” but the truth is that there is no going back. The world is changing in fundamental ways, and the actions the world takes in the next few years will be critical to lay the groundwork for a sustainable, secure, and prosperous future.

For more than 25 years, Project Syndicate has been guided by a simple credo: All people deserve access to a broad range of views by the world’s foremost leaders and thinkers on the issues, events, and forces shaping their lives. At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, that mission is more important than ever – and we remain committed to fulfilling it.

But there is no doubt that we, like so many other media organizations nowadays, are under growing strain. If you are in a position to support us, please subscribe now.

As a subscriber, you will enjoy unlimited access to our On Point suite of long reads and book reviews, Say More contributor interviews, The Year Ahead magazine, the full PS archive, and much more. You will also directly support our mission of delivering the highest-quality commentary on the world's most pressing issues to as wide an audience as possible.

By helping us to build a truly open world of ideas, every PS subscriber makes a real difference. Thank you.

Subscribe Now

Mariana Mazzucato

Writing for PS since 2015
19 Commentaries

Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London and Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, is the author of The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy and The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths.

Capitalism’s Triple Crisis
Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images

Capitalism’s Triple Crisis

Mariana Mazzucato shows why only a forward-looking, entrepreneurial state can save the system from itself.

21
No More Free-Lunch Bailouts
Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

No More Free-Lunch Bailouts

Mariana Mazzucato & Antonio Andreoni show why governments can and should attach mandatory conditions to state aid to private businesses.

20
How to Build a Patient Investment Bank
PhotoAlto/Eric Audras

How to Build a Patient Investment Bank

Mariana Mazzucato & Laurie Macfarlane say that a new Scottish financial institution could serve as a model for other countries to follow.

3

new comment has been posted. new comments have been posted.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 20 in all 20 Comments on this article

Ludwig Hermann Sep 30, 2020

The European Commission has adopted several of Mariana Mazzucato's excellent proposals providing a robust framework for policy action including missions. Unfortunately, member states' governments are not adapting policies, getting lost in populistic details, apparently supported by a majority of citizens. How can the majority be convinced that an economic and social transition is inevitable for human survival?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Haeshu Kasiiki Sep 29, 2020

If the liberals weren't always skirting rules (like passing Obamacare strictly along party lines using a reconciliation bill in the middle of the night over a holiday weekend) I might listen to this. If liberals spent their four years being good examples of how to live green instead of attacking a duly elected president with all kinds of fake charges and a partisan impeachment, I might listen. If Al Gore had not made so many claims about global warming that never came true and if the scientists of the 1970's were not panicked about global cooling, I might listen. If blue cities took a pandemic that kills just 60 mostly old and very sick people per 100,000 population, I might trust their judgement. But all I see when I read these sorts of articles is more fake news, more attempts at control (for the masses only, not those in power), money for special "green" interests and less freedom for us all. Until then, I hear you, but I cannot be asked to listen seriously to any of this.
- Helen Clemens Oct 4, 2020
  
  Did you read and digest her last para? You sound like the man on the roof in the flood sure God will rescue him but who ignores the offers of help that come along.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Leo Arouet Sep 28, 2020

I like the argument of this article of Mariana Mazzucato.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Cary Fraser Sep 28, 2020

Edward Teller provided an analysis in 1959 forecasting the "greenhouse effect" at a meeting of the American Petroleum Institute. See below...

The Oil Companies Knew about Climate Change by the 1960s ...medium.com › the-oil-companies-knew-about-climate-...
Oct 6, 2019 - 1954: American Petroleum Institute warns that fossil fuels were increasing ... 1959: API warned by Edward Teller about “greenhouse effect”, global ... Center for International Environmental Law [CIEL] (2017), “Smoke and ...
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Rajiv Chopra Sep 28, 2020

The problem here is that we all want to preserve our 'lifestyle'. I beieve that our lifestyle will suffer if we don't act now
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Madurai Padmanabhan Sep 28, 2020

While recommendations here may lead us in the right direction, fighting the current systems headon may not be the the most wise approach.

If a “greener planet” for all breathing life forms is the objective, the suggested reforms would at best be tweaks and never fulfill the actual requirement, which is in itself a bone of contention. We humans, in our hubris, declare 1.5C. The other unheard creatures may have a different sensitivity.

The anthropogenic framing is the fundamental fallacy cascading immediately across unseen nation-state boundaries, inhabited by licensed citizens, who depending on past atrocities wield power today to manage monetary wealth, building businesses as they please, spewing “knowledgeable narratives” that echo in chambers that only they visit and have the ears of policy makers who are only half listening while their attention is on the “democratic”process of election that needs greenback fuel from within this chamber.

Tough ask indeed. But we are human after all and cannot see beyond our limited range. A 75 year old body advised by “Elders” wields no power. Why should I consider the recommendations of a middle aged(?) academic.

The need to transform and save ourselves for the sake of future generations is the crying need in an increasingly uncertain world.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
John Bruch Sep 27, 2020

Overpopulation is the root cause of the environmental crisis. So what's coming is not a lockdown, but a worldwide one-child policy.

Bright green "solutions," like clean energy, can only postpone the day of reckoning. Why? Because ALL development, including green development, pollutes. Green development pollutes more slowly than dirty development. But all development ultimately involves sacrificing Location A (a mine site, a destroyed forest, land that is paved over, clean groundwater, etc.) for "development" at Location B.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is a rough measure of the damage we inflict on the environment. So, even a constant GDP inflicts damage. And with a growing population, GDP must GROW. The speed of destruction increases as population grows.

Yes, the affluent must reduce their consumption! But that is very easy to accomplish through tax policy. The difficult piece is allowing population to naturally decline.

Do we really need 241,000 new people to be added to the planet (net of deaths!) every single day? Seriously. Think about that number. Do we really think that there is some way to accommodate such a birthrate without destroying all of our woods, wildlife, and water?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Colum McCaffery Sep 27, 2020

Given that inequality is opposed, it's odd that a sane relationship between the highest paid and the lowest paid or indeed the state minimum wage is not one of the suggested conditions for state aid, investment or custom.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Paul Hobcraft Sep 27, 2020

Lockdowns are as heavy as you can get in stopping economic activity. They are blunt instruments. We will need to find far more effective tools, methods, economic condition penalties to mitigate the effects of climate warming and these need to be found and discussed within this decade. The (human) emitters of carbon need to radically find ways to reduce all harmful gases. There is an economic and social cost- are we ready to pay?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Peter Schaeffer Sep 27, 2020

We need a "green" lockdown immediately. It will permanently shatter the credibility of the greens and that will not be a bad thing.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Robert Callaghan Sep 27, 2020

97% of great fresh water species gone since 1970 ( Guardian 2019 )
96% of mammals are livestock and human by weight ( Ecowatch 2018 )
= 4% wild
96% of tigers gone in 100 years ( IFL Science 2019 )
90% of elephants gone in 100 years ( Hurriet 2019 )
90% of lions gone in 100 years ( African Impact 2019 )
90% of Leatherback sea turtles gone since 1980 ( Earth Watch undated )
90% of Monarch Butterflies gone in 20 years ( Inhabitat 2014 )
80% of Antarctic Krill gone in 30 years ( Research Gate 2005 )
77% of Eastern lowland gorillas gone since 1996 ( Treehugger 2020 )
68% of world’s wildlife has been wiped out since 1970 ( Mongabay 2020 )
50% of Marine vertebrates gone since 1970 ( WWF 2015 )
50% of Great Barrier Reef gone since 1985 ( Live Science 2012 )
40% of Giraffes gone since 1990 ( NRDC 2019 )
40% less insects in next 30 years ( PNAS 2019 )
4% of mammals are wildlife ( Vegan News 2020 )
700 Marine Species Might Go Extinct Because of Plastic ( Green Planet 2019 )
500 vertebrate species of less than 1,000 individuals ( PNAS 2020 )
500 species of animal have gone extinct since 1900 ( RD 2019 )

2020 : Electricity is 20% of total global energy
2020 : Fossil fuels have been 80% of global energy for nearly 30 years
2020 : Total greenhouse gases are up 45% in 30 years
2020 : 2% of global energy is solar and wind ( IEA stats 2020 )
2025 : 66% of the world will live in water stressed areas
2020 : 50% of world's thermal power capacity is threatened by oncoming water shortages
2040 : 15% of global energy will be renewable
2050 : 28% of global energy will be renewable, at best -- assuming no problems
2050 : 600 ppm CO2 BAU = 2X safe limit of 300 ppm set by James Hansen

nobody knows when we will hit 600 ppm
Receipts at Loki's Revenge Blog, now rated PG13

zzz
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Mirek Fatyga Sep 24, 2020

So I heard this interview with Michael Moore who, to his credit, has begun to smell the rat in the green agenda and made a movie about it, called "The Planet of the Humans". He earned a swift and quite violent backlash from the Green Forces, even though he still can only see at best half of the rat, and the smaller half at that.

He alluded to the bigger half, though, so there may be hope left for him, he is a smart guy.

Michael said roughly this: I participated in the first Earth Day ~1970, and the tipping point was 350ppm of CO2. We are at 420 ppm today so, concluded Michael, we lost 50 years and we are so much worse off today. He blames the Green Princes for that, the last 1/3 of his movie deals with them.

But Michael, here is a hint: Perhaps, just perhaps, neither 350, nor 420 ... , just saying.

Like Donald J Trump, the Green Forces may be coming into a little bit of trouble. You can only gaslight for so long and then, all of a sudden, like magic, nobody believes you any more. Not even Michael Moore.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Larry Kaumeyer Sep 22, 2020

Evict fossil fuel interests?? Really? This narrow and naive approach is what has California currently experiencing significant "brown outs". The dystopian thought of leaping from fossil fuels to green even in a warm climate is ludicrous. We need a transition. Lets start with coal. If China eliminated all of the CO2 producing coal and replaced it with another fossil fuel, clean burning natural gas, 50% of all GHG's would disappear globally!
- Michael Public Sep 23, 2020
  
  Half those GHG are exported, much of it to America. The keyboard you are typing this on is made in China and its GHG belong to you - not China. China also has more people - the biggest GHG per capita is America. If America and China cut their GHG that would be 75% of it gone. Instead, they are shaping up to focus their efforts on another Cold War.
  - Peter Schaeffer Sep 27, 2020
    
    MP, You have all of your "facts" wrong. Exports to the U.S. are only 20% of China's total exports.
    
    In real life, most of China's CO2 comes from domestic energy consumption. Quote from "Mapped: The world’s largest CO2 importers and exporters"
    
    "China and India have both seen dramatic increases in emissions since 1990. Despite the massive expansion of exports, particularly from China, their emissions are still mostly due to domestic consumption. China’s production emissions have increased by 430%, while their consumption emissions have increased by a slightly lower 400%."
    
    Of course, the US isn't even close to being the largest producer of CO2 (per-capita). However, it is true that China produces far more CO2 per-dollar than the USA. See the world bank data on the subject.
    
    Of course, since China and US and the USA don't even account for 50% of total global CO2 emissions, a 75% reduction by China and the USA would not solve the "problem".
    
    You need to try harder. Try actual facts and numbers.
    A new reply to this comment has been posted.
  - Emil Kaneti Sep 25, 2020
    
    australia is a larger GHG per capita contributor than the USA, whose GHG emissions have fallen below 1990 levels
    A new reply to this comment has been posted.
  - Larry Kaumeyer Sep 24, 2020
    
    Michael, I agree. How much credibility down put into Xi ( China) pronouncement yesterday to be net zero by 2060? And I've got some terrific swamp land for sale in Florida.
    A new reply to this comment has been posted.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Tony Sherlock Sep 22, 2020

Thank you for a frank and forthright assessment, if only the decision makers were to act in interests of their children & grandchildren and those in wealthy nations (me included in a privileged Australia) were prepared to make a series of innocuous lifestyle adjustments for the betterment of so many others. The data is compelling, leaving me staggered at our leaders reluctance to act unilaterally. I fear it will take events of mass crop failure for action to occur, by then it will be too late.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.

https://prosyn.org/arLUoChde

Cookies and Privacy

Vermeidung eines Klima-Lockdowns

To continue reading, subscribe now.

Support High-Quality Commentary

Capitalism’s Triple Crisis

No More Free-Lunch Bailouts

How to Build a Patient Investment Bank

New Comment

Email this piece to a friend

Contact us

Log in/Register

Cookies and Privacy

Vermeidung eines Klima-Lockdowns

To continue reading, subscribe now.

Support High-Quality Commentary

Edit Newsletter Preferences

Set up Notification