Are the science and the politics going in different directions?

Citation

Jones, G. (2013), "Are the science and the politics going in different directions?", Journal of Global Responsibility, Vol. 4 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jgr.2013.46604aaa.001

Are the science and the politics going in different directions?

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Global Responsibility, Volume 4, Issue 1

The next (5th) Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change is due to be released in September. A leaked draft suggests that the arguments for global managerial action are getting stronger. The report is still going through the peer review process, so commentators should be careful in promoting particular details of the findings as yet. However, in a more general sense, the report is expected to show that the human causes of climate change are now as certain as scientists are ever likely to claim anything to be certain. The projections for increase in global average temperature by the end of the century are now moving towards the higher end of the ranges quoted in previous reports, as much as 4-6°C by the end of the century.

When this happens we will effectively be living on a different planet. It is too early to draw statistical inferences about whether the storms we have been experiencing from Katrina to Sandy are trends. We will only be able to know for certain in retrospect by the turn of the century that this became the new planetary reality back in the 20 teens. Certainly the economic losses predicted in the Sterne report are now being felt. Such levels of temperature variance and the associated changes to weather patterns will inevitably create population shifts, which will create hundreds of millions of climate refugees, a reality for which we have no ready response outside of military force. The Rio Summit in 2012 was disappointing for its lack of binding, enforceable measures and in 2013 we are nowhere near achieving the targets for emission reduction set by the Kyoto protocol. Additionally, the protocol only covers about 15 percent of world emissions.

The world is moving in the right direction in as much as it is slowly building institutions to protect the earth, but can we get our act together in time? Australia has just instituted a Carbon tax and China is developing emissions trading schemes. Huge economies such as China, the USA and India are providing the tantalizing prospect that they might bind themselves to targets in 2015 that would then come into force in 2020. A number of rich countries have pledged $100 billion to help poor countries develop more environmentally friendly solutions. However, Russia, Japan, Canada and New Zealand have not agreed to join a second commitment period under the protocol.

Will our children be saying it was all too little, too late? The aftermath of the GFC is likely to make people swing their concern toward material issues. Findings of a survey of 15,351 Australians between the ages of 15 and 19 released in December showed that 30.8 percent rated the economy as the number one issue of concern followed by population issues (27.6 percent) and drugs (21.8 percent). The environment was nowhere on their policy radar. Despite our achievements, global concern will continue to be an issue because it engenders political concern which drives institutional development. It really is time for concerned academics do what they can to maintain and direct thinking in both the scientific and managerial fields.

In this edition there is a wide variety of progressive, responsibility based themes, ranging from the status of women leaders in the UAE, to innovative business education in Australia, environmental public policy in South Africa and various expressions of corporate social responsibility in a variety of countries. There is also an article which is both emotionally poignant and intellectually rigorous on the situation of the exile. This last article brings me back to an earlier point. The building of a global mindset is more necessary than ever in the face of political backlash against the accommodation of refugees. Large-scale population shifts are likely to become the norm over the coming decades suggesting the need for a great deal more scholarship to understand the scenarios and the associated humanitarian issues. The sheer numbers will overwhelm (perhaps are already overwhelming) the resources and the political will of the traditional nation state.

Grant JonesEditor-in-Chief