The global trend towards electrification has been recognised by the climate process, and the policy challenge is that the shift will involve less commonality and greater differentiation.
The G7 should not be allowed to set the agenda, as the Paris Agreement did 10 years ago. The lesson from 35 years of diplomatic negotiations as well as alternate models of growth to those of the West is the need to reframe climate policy. This suggests shifting the discussion from the global impact of coal-based emissions to the role of electricity in national well-being. The shift will be away from reliance on global models to a review of national actions. Global emissions of carbon dioxide deal with the symptoms, not the root cause of the problem: national energy use. Shifting the global policy focus from production to consumption patterns will require a reframing of the climate process. Real collaboration will only come with a new conceptual framework that treats the global crisis as a collection of national inactions. This framework comprises interlinked ‘global values’ that are universal, ‘global goods’ that are determined by global science, complex ‘global models’ based on global projections and ‘global rules’ arrived at through multilateral conference diplomacy in global organisations. In the case of climate change, the gap between the evolving science of global ecological limits and the growing energy needs of urbanising countries seeking comparable levels of well-being was resolved through arm-twisting in an unequal world. There was no commitment to transfer financial resources as ‘means of implementation’. Climate policy should now by driven by practice, as a societal problem and not through global models, natural science and environmental law. Electrification is making the internal combustion engine redundant. Yet this technological trend in energy use is not captured in global emissions models used by the UN. Third, given the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme events which affect the Global South, where insurance coverage is limited, continuing with token provision of climate finance by developed countries in negotiations needs to be reviewed. More practical measures include global early warning and regional technical cooperation in disaster relief.
Academics in the West, acting as “epistemic communities”, set up the framework of climate policy and law.
First, emerging countries are using much less energy to achieve well-being in cities than the West did earlier, redefining lifestyles and ecological limits.
