The global environment in 2050: a realist and liberal democratic perspective

Can we be optimistic about the planet’s environmental future given humanity’s pursuit of economic growth and a rising global population, which results in greater greenhouse gas emissions and the destruction of many important forests around the world?

While humanity thus far has proven innovative enough to ensure a better way of life for an increasing number of people, it is difficult for any sane person to deny the reality that much greater pressure is being placed on the planet in terms of the economic-environmental balance.

But, from my liberal democratic perspective, one that strongly believes such societies are more likely to address emerging policy problems to a much greater extent than less democratic entities, just how effective can liberal democratic nations be with regard to influencing global environmental outcomes by 2050?

In reality, despite increasing global environmental awareness in recent decades, the affluent liberal democracies have inspired a way of life that has delivered both economic gain and environmental degradation, a trend enabled by technological improvements, freer trade, and the production of much cheaper manufactured goods in developing countries.

For example, and in line with one estimate that households account for around 75% of global carbon emissions through the demand for consumer products, annual global car production has continued to increase from about 34-40 million vehicles in the 1990s to 60 million in the 2010s.

While a 2019 Greenpeace report notes that the carbon footprint of the global car industry was around 9% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, three of the eight biggest car markets are now outside the OECD. In 2018, China had car sales of 22.49 million, the United States (US) 14.30 million, Japan 3.70 million, Germany 3.15 million, India 2.86 million, UK 2.36 million, France 2.19 million and Brazil 2.02 million.

And now, with the Western consumption of goods becoming less important in terms of their carbon footprint as more and more consumer goods are purchased by non-OECD nations, Western nations  have even less ability to influence global environmental problems.

Hence, based on the economic development of India and China alone, global greenhouse gas emissions will be extremely difficult to reduce in coming decades, despite China contributing around a third of the global renewables investment in 2018 ($US91.2 billion), much higher than the US ($US48.5 billion) and Europe ($US61.2 billion).

To meet the energy needs of its 1.4 billion population, China still used coal for 59% of its energy assumption in 2018 while natural gas, hydropower, nuclear power and wind power was 22.1 per cent.

With coal alone contributing 30% of all energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis notes that China and India currently account for 60.2% of global electricity generated by coal with the US and the European Union (EU) accounting for 11.1% and 5.2% given their greater use of natural gas and renewables. 

Any hope that India and China will reduce their coal use may depend on internal political pressure, as already indicated by some pressure for reform.

In India, with burning by Indian farmers at times “exacerbating the cloud of toxins already spewed by power plants, factories, vehicles, and stoves”, India’s government has distributed more than 700,000 solar cookers in recent years and added more than 34 million residential gas connections with a further 80 million more planned by 2020.

In China, after US officials from 2008 started releasing air quality measurements taken at the American Embassy, embarrassed Chinese authorities have since adopted measures to address air pollution with one report finding that average concentrations of pollutants fell in Chinese cities by 12% from 2017 to 2018.

In contrast, India still had 22 of the top 30 most polluted cities in 2018, including 7 of the top 10.

But solutions are difficult. After all, while China increased its per capita annual carbon dioxide emissions from 2.04 tons to 7.95 tons between 1990 and 2018, making China the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter as its share of global manufacturing output increased from 3% in 1990 to 28% by 2018, its per capita levels remain much lower than a number of liberal democracies, including Australia (16.77), Canada (16.08), USA (16.14), the Netherlands (9.50) and (Norway 9.43).

Good luck with asking China to reduce its per capita emissions.   

In any case, authoritarian China can hardly be trusted with any stated environmental aims. While China signed the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which committed countries to abolish the production and use of ozone depleting halocarbon gasses to zero by 2010, the Environmental Investigation Agency concluded that at least 18 Chemical Companies in 10 Chinese Provinces were still actively engaged in the production of CFC-11 to use as a blowing agent for insulating foam products used in the building and other industries. 

And, although China now invests heavily in renewable energy to reduce its use of coal at the domestic level, albeit still building large numbers of coal fired power stations at the domestic level, Chinese companies are involved in the design and construction of around 1,600 new coal power stations in 62 countries with 11 of the 20 largest companies either owned or financed by the Chinese Government.

Such an approach is hardly consistent with China being committed to any transition to a decarbonised economy.

With regard to deforestation, while much of the blame has been given to global agribusiness, often backed by American and European interests, China since 2000 has been responsible for the majority of growth for forest-clearing products including soy, palm oil and beef as the largest trading partner (by revenue) with Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil.

In contrast to the US and Europe, where pressure from non-profits and consumers led companies to adopt sustainable sourcing initiatives, Chinese importers are rarely members of sustainable sourcing initiatives.  

However, even from a realist perspective that recognises the growing importance of developing nations to the global economy, it would be mindless for any liberal democracy to put environment goals in the too hard basket.

Liberal democracies, although also committed to economic growth to maintain their high standard of living, can lead by example with regard to encouraging national examples and international solutions that help address/temper environmental degradation. This includes policies that address rising greenhouse gas emissions, plastic pollution, freshwater problems which are leading to greater desalination that can damage ecosystems, and the loss of forests and habitats needed to protect the biodiversity of plants and animal species.

We already see this through many liberal democracies (including the UK, France and Germany) indicating an intention to reduce net carbon emissions to zero by 2050, primarily through a market price to address carbon emissions, a strategy that will become much more effective if the three biggest emitters (China, the US and India) get involved.

With California having a cap-and-trade program and nine other US states already setting  a cap on emissions from the power sector and require companies to buy tradable pollution permits, China since 2011 has also been experimenting with cap-and-trade programs in several pilot cities (including Shanghai and Shenzhen) with Chinese officials talking with representatives from California and the EU as part of its plan to gradually roll out a nationwide cap-and-trade program.

We can see this through a commitment to better farming practises, as noted by the past loss of forests creating grass and heathland to support traditional farming practices that were also wildlife friendly up until 1940. 

We see this through innovation by Australian farmers, backed by government, to store carbon and increase productivity by selling carbon credits.

We see this through sensible biomass planning, given a current estimate that 700 million hectares of land will be needed for bioenergy feedstocks in a 1.5°C global warming scenario. For example, Sweden’s use of biomass for its energy needs reached 47% in 2017, mostly from managed forests, while researchers at the University of Oxford are experimenting with the more water-efficient succulent plants that can help dryland populations obtain energy given they would struggle to maintain solar and wind facilities.

We can see this through sensible debate about population numbers. After all, even Australia, despite its high per capita resources and per capita surface water levels, has its own problems given that its  dry continent requires considerable water for agricultural production which is also being lost to housing as Australia’s population grew by more than 380,000 people in the 12 months to June 30, 2019 to reach 25 million.

We see this by Western governments implementing laws that boost the ability of consumers to repair phones and other electronic goods rather than throw them away after the ‘right to repair’ movement emerged to counter design concepts that “deliberately seek the high turnover in goods” by voiding a product’s warranty when a repair job is attempted.

We may see this through better consumer choices which weigh up the environmental cost of products, albeit many consumers will continue to purchase what they can afford. For example, with Volkswagen intending to spend over $US30 billion on electric vehicles by 2023 with an aim for such cars to 40% of its global sales by 2030, consumers of electric cars may consider purchases which take account of energy savings that include where the battery is made, how it is made, and what source of energy is used to make it or fuel it.

We may see this through higher density living which may result from consumer choice or even necessity as people confront tougher economic times given that the average size of a house in Australia increased from around 100 square metres in 1950 to 230.8 square metres as of 2017-18, albeit the average home was 186.3 square metres when taking account of apartment sales (average 124.8 square metres).  

Liberal democracies may continue to reduce per capita emissions by choosing carpooling or public transport; purchasing energy-efficient products; reducing landfill by recycling and composting; buying products with minimal packaging; reducing food waste given a United Nations estimate that it accounts for up to 10% of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions by rotting in landfills and emitting methane; and reducing their meat intake (especially beef) which has a much larger carbon footprint per calorie when compared to grain or vegetable products.

In the end, however, our national example is all we have as liberal democracies as the world remains driven by cheaper consumer choices for products produced around the world as we continue to rely on economic growth for our salvation.

We can only hope that the world unravels new forms of technology to address the planet’s sustainability as we currently know it.

For example, academic researchers and the private sector are working on the compression of carbon into hard rock for storage underground, which even has the potential to be used as a building material, while Chinese scientists continue to work on heating plasma (a hot ionised gas) to temperatures of 100-200 million degrees Celsius in the hope that such fusion reaction becomes viable by producing more power than it uses.  

In this world of very different societies in terms of wealth and ideas, it remains to be seen how innovative humanity can become by 2050 to address or even temper global environmental degradation in this human-centric world.