Izabella Teixeira and Mônica Sodré
Izabella Teixeira is a biologist, former Environment minister, Senior Fellow Instituto Arapyaú, Adviser of CEBRI — Brazilian Center of International Relations, and ONU Award Winner of Global Political Leadership (2013).
Monica Sodré is a political scientist, executive director of RAPS — Political Action Network for Sustainability, and Senior Fellow of CEBRI — Brazilian Center of International Relations.
Late! The complaint about the delay in fulfilling commitments and responsibilities in facing the global environmental crisis, especially in times of climate emergency, is a common occurrence in societies worldwide. Criticisms intensify when facing the imposed contradictions of short-term perspectives and dealing with the urgency of the present. The prevailing dominance of fossil fuels in the energy sector, deforestation of forest ecosystems, as well as the associated political-economic structure, mark the fields of geopolitical, economic, social, and technological contention in addressing the global environmental crisis. While the problems, their origins, and impacts are within the domain of all societies, the solutions for facing the crisis and the urgently needed transformation are not. Moreover, according to science, the impacts of the global environmental crisis are and will be asymmetrical both in nature and in the humanity.
The main fact is that we have the Planet under unprecedented pressure. The term “Great Transition” was coined in 2005, as Thomas Friedman reminds us, to capture the interconnectivity among the three accelerations that impact and mutually reinforce each other: technology, globalization, and climate change. These are times marked by contradiction, uncertainty, chaos, and complexity. Thus, there is a need for a post-normal science, meaning one that deals with uncertain facts, contested values, significant interests, and urgent decisions.
The global (geo)political effort to build and approve the Paris Agreement does not encounter the same political-institutional conditions during its implementation. The world as it was in 2015 has changed. Environmental-climate governance is a hostage to the transition from multilateralism and is increasingly exposed and (inter)dependent on actions taken by governments outside the United Nations.
While the global society deals with the transition of geopolitical and economic power systems, nature imposes, in an increasing manner, the urgency to transform the relationship between humans and the environment. Evidence is manifested through extreme climate events that are more frequent and intense, accelerated loss of biodiversity, and depletion of natural resources. Present days already reveal (possible) changes in future living conditions on the planet and emphasizes the prospect of the Anthropocene Era. We are now in a hurry! We are exposed to the urgency of the present.
Therefore, the world ecological history records changes in natural conditions at an unprecedented pace, many of them irreversible, threatening life on the planet.
Living nature is a universal value and is under intense pressure in our times, with the potential extinction or vanishing of half of the flora and fauna species by the end of this century, and a potential extinction rate of 25% for flora and fauna in the next half-century. It is so threatening that we cannot even play God, as June Goodfield would say, in other words, take care of our own evolution.
The challenge imposed on science is the one to study even more the biosphere, which is complex and challenging. The uncertainty and complexity of dealing with the nature references the limits of the political role of science. There is a need for new greatness in the way of perceiving life, which was never so evident in the perspective of our time.
For such a purpose, human beings must see themselves as part of nature, and recognize the socio-environmental dimension of the planet crisis. Nature-based solutions bring the perspective of a fairer, more inclusive, and more resilient societies, and the pursuit of well-being with nature as an ally. However, truth must be faced, not denied: the natural world as we know is not only changing. It is changing at an unprecedented pace, being dramatically redefined, and in an unfinished way.
It is not about the end of the future, as previously perceived, comfortably, with an almost linear projection of the past. The future has changed, and the times have changed. Humankind and its political and economic systems must change. We can no longer plan the future based on what we know and how we live. If the 21st century will be different from the previous century, what will define a transition? Ruptures in the way of living and possessing, possibly. Exhaustion of development paradigms? Certainly! Disputes and conflicts over natural resources are likely to happen, as well as chaotic realities. What about the perspectives of political inclusion and restructuring of political systems, and individual and collective choices? Based on how we will deal with the convergence of climate, digital-technological, and biological eras, and the contemporary citizenship that may emerge or needs to emerge.
Global society is more aware of the new nature demands than the majority of governments and their leaders. It is even more imperative that we talk about changes, but sometimes, unintentionally, the truth defines the choices for the change to happen. Or will we prefer the irony of fake news, well exploited by false leaders, aggressive ignorance, and denialism? Are there new ideologies, or will we be mobilized for causes? Can the search for the common, for the simple, be seen as an emerging way of life that results from sustainable standards of production and consumption? Will we have a metamorphosis of productive structures?
There are two Earths, two times, according to psychoanalyst Jorge Forbes. One that peters out and another that insinuates itself. One that speaks of aseptic reason, and another that speaks of sensible reason. One that speaks of the future as a projection of the present, and another that speaks of the future that devises everyday, of
a generation that adjust the route all the time. There is nothing stable for this emerging generation. There seems to be nothing stable for the resilient planet.
It is necessary to go beyond fear and deal with nature’s transition, go far beyond what we already went through as societies and as individuals. We find ourselves having to deal with realities that imply themselves, such as planetary boundaries, common goods, climate risks, and the growth of the world population, marking profound transformations that already influence and will continue influencing our way of living and our lives.
Even as we deal with this transition in our way of life as early as possible, environmental-climatic risk is likely to become increasingly present in power struggles, conflicts, and wars. Populations will seek other spaces, new migratory waves, new demands, and pressures on natural resources. Access to water will certainly play a paramount role in this century. And the State, the regular provider of responses, will not be able to eliminate all risks. Highlighted, the plant resilience and the humanity resilience.
The current decade has witnessed three global-impact crises in its first three years: the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Europe between Russia and Ukraine, and the recent war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas. There is a sense that the world has stopped and aggressively ignores or wishes to ignore contemporaneity. There is no more time to be acquired when the world is facing the effects of a 1.2°C increase in the average surface temperature of the Earth. The ambition for change must guide the short term as well, not only the horizons from 2050 to 2070.
For this, the emergence of leadership focused on solutions, knowledge, innovation, technology, and solidarity is necessary. A change of course is inevitable, imposed by nature itself, not by the awareness of global political leaders. Science emerges as a political player and announces the new environmental, climatic, and technological frontiers that govern the global planetary order. Moving societies reveal other and new frontiers, such as those related to gender, social inequalities, and democracy. The clash of contradictions is unavoidable. Choices need to be made!
In view of these choices, democracy matters.Historical experience demonstrates that these are the regimes capable of promoting better results in gender equity, respect for human rights, economic growth, an environment to conduct businesses, and higher levels of environmental respect. Their differentiator is significant, especially in a world where wars thrive: the civilizational belief that minorities should have their rights to existence and political expression preserved. Besides that, democracies are not the only game in town, and in just over three centuries we have witnessed three waves of democratization, each followed by a reversal, an autocratization, evidenced in totalitarianism, the Cold War, and the appearance of new populisms opposing liberal democracy, which is a quite recent phenomenon.
While historical retrospect might reassure us in view of the pendulum movement of regimes over time, there are new elements on the table. On the one hand, consolidated democracies, responsible for the pillars of their global expansion, show obvious signs of weakening and erosion, at a time when trust in politicians, individuals, and institutions is also weakened.On the other hand, we watch the expansion of non-free or partially free regimes, currently affecting 70% of the world population. There is nothing on the horizon that allows us to claim that the future of the world will be more democratic than on present days.
At the same time, global economic power is changing hands: almost half of the current global GDP is concentrated in autocratic regimes, while the participation of democracies in international trade has decreased from 74% in 1998 to 47% in 20221.
Additionally, a substantially new crisis that democracies face is the one related to nature, translating into a threat to the bases of the regime itself: its ability to ensure rights. Whether the right of people to live in a specific territory, which has become hostile to human presence due to the exhaustion of the capacity to generate and accommodate life, or even the right to existence. In view of a scenario of water and food instability, the capacity of democracies to protect and provide rights to their citizen will be under stress, with a potential increase of conflicts and social disturbances around the world. Moreover, given the existing relationship between economic growth and democracy, with the possibility of increasing democratic regression as economic activity and living standards decline, the negative economic growth of some countries due to the impact of extreme events may undermine democracies with low income levels. It is clear that the 21st century has put climate change on the agenda of the democracies.
On the part of governments and societies, when talking about choices and the capacity to influence the decisions stemming from them, it is necessary to understand, in the first place, that the global context of the planetary environmental crisis makes no political distinctions and is independently originated from the current political regimes. It affects democracies and autocracies and expresses, at least, two types of inequalities.
The first is among countries, given that the enrichment of nations occurred precisely based on an extractive and cumulative logic and the predation of natural resources and ecosystems. Always at the expense of the exploitation of natural and human capital, some countries adopted more successful development routes in wealth accumulation than others.
The second is inequality within countries, with part of the world’s population left out of the carbon-intensive economy, excluded from access to electricity, food, and housing. However, this population is not only excluded from the impacts of the environmental crisis but also does not have the necessary conditions for resilience and adaptation to the new conditions of living on a changing planet.
These inequalities precisely threaten contemporary democracies and result in distrust of elected representatives and low confidence in democracies’ ability to deliver a better quality of life to their citizens. The perspective of communities vulnerable to the crisis with nature is to this context, as well as the need to deal with risks and uncertainties, human longevity, and the additional demand for natural resources, public services, and income.
It is important to distinctly consider the perspectives involving global society versus the climate crisis, and democracy versus the climate crisis. From the perspective of society versus climate change, we have a complex political context where the lack of trust and credibility guides international negotiations to implement the Paris Agreement. The timorous efforts to advance climate transition are exposed to short-term contradictions that express resistance to change and a lack of alternatives for all countries to implement them. This situation is particularly reflected in the agendas of energy transition versus energy security, food and nutritional security, eradication of hunger/poverty, and adaptation to climate change.
Energy transition reveals the world’s strong dependency on fossil fuels. However, viable solutions for the decarbonization of the energy global system are too far from the international economic and financial system, and the geopolitical interests of sharing associate technologies. The crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war against Ukraine, and the recent war involving Israel end up revealing the contradictions of countries around the ambition of energy transition, and the priority of enabling, in the short term, energy security. The continuance of fossil fuels in the global energy matrix implies the contracting of a new season of the climate crisis, with additional emissions for the global warming scenarios that are already acute.
The second agenda, focused on food and nutritional safety and the eradication of hunger and poverty, concludes a complex social, economic, and environmental scenario by highlighting the degradation of nature reflected through deforestation of forest ecosystems, environmental pollution, loss of biodiversity, and accentuated waste of natural resources, especially water and soil. Moreover, it has the historical burden of political exclusion and social inequalities. Poverty and hunger, in a world that wastes food and produces profound asymmetries in present and future food and nutritional safety, expose one of the most critical aspects of the environmental crisis. Territories that manufacture food are threatened by the effects of the climate change. Moreover, the challenge of producing food for an estimated global population of 10 billion people in 2050 with nature as an ally is transforming. To do so in times of climate emergency requires going beyond overcoming deforestation and technological enhancements, demanding a broader perspective on the rights of traditional and vulnerable populations and on protected territories or those requiring protection of natural capital.
A new overview of how the present is necessary to deal with the dimension of challenges that the convergence of climate, digital-technological, and biological eras end. Humanity will have to decarbonize the global energy matrix, promote the neutralization of greenhouse gas emissions from its economic systems, and, at the same time, adapt itself in a fair, inclusive, and resilient manner to a world exposed to uncertainties and climate risks. This requires, in addition to the pragmatism in the choice of solutions, the short-term actions, based on political pacts that exclude denialism and future regressions in the new development paths. It is necessary to build a contemporary political imagery that considers the differences and diversity of societies, and the conversion of views and common interests. It is necessary to be credible, delimiter of duties and obligations, and conductor of solidarity.
From the democratic perspective, the climate emergency reveals a double-character challenge for countries: reducing emissions from those whose living model is incompatible with what the planet can support, ensuring, at the same time, greater prosperity for populations that are marginalized to date. This includes access to goods and services without allowing it to result in an increase in emissions in a world that can no longer support them. This is not a simple task, especially considering the possible catch of the political process by interest groups: the biggest beneficiaries of “business as usual” are exactly those who have greater access to the political world. The complexity of the equation should not outshine the ethical and moral challenge it poses: the possibility of instrumentalization of the climate emergency to justify the perpetuation of inequalities, under the argument that inclusion and citizenship, which presumably depend on carbon, are incompatible and undesirable when considering global warming.
Thus, a question that is made for everyone is: what levels of inequality are we keen to tolerate? Or is there tolerance to inequalities from the perspective of environmental-climatic justice?
The instrumentalization of the climate emergency can also work for other purposes, such as the reduction of freedoms and the promotion of fear speech, leading to outcomes that escape democratic principles. Therefore, countries concerned with the climate matter should worry about the erosion of democracy: it is easier for autocracies to adopt popular measures at the expense of the climate. Moreover, they lack incentives to appropriately report their emission levels, based on the low capacity of civil society and the press to object to official data. Besides that, governments that promote political participation, free flow of information, an active and mobilized civil society, and procedures for evaluating their elected representatives, holding them accountable for their actions, are more likely to succeed in dealing with such a complex matter.
As multilateral climate agreements, such as the Global Climate Regime, the Kyoto Protocol, and more recently, the Paris Agreement, have low enforcement mechanisms, regressions should be avoided. If democracy matters, as science has indicated, countries that worry about the consequences of global warming should take care to mitigate the prevailing democratic erosion to avoid additional challenges to global climate governance. Therefore, an alliance among democracies is desired and motivated. The convergence regarding the understanding that global warming was a threat to life on Earth allowed a group of countries to give rise to the Paris Agreement in 2015. Democracy needs to be construed as an element in this equation, as well as one of the variables to impact our ability to implement it. Such an alliance requires going beyond the edges of the political imagination of the climate constituency, and has a direct impact on individual and collective freedoms in society.
The construction of an ordinary understanding about the development of artificial intelligence and standards for its use is necessary, especially due to the devastating effects it can have on democracy: the multiplication of fake green, climate denialism, and fake images and audios attributed to politicians engaged in transforming development processes, for instance, strengthening the ongoing trust crisis. It is also important to create restrictive measures to export surveillance technology to non-democratic countries, such as facial recognition, and to establish an understanding about fighting against digital misinformation. This might require, for instance, that digital platforms, which rule the stage of part of current political disputes, actively inform the governments about foreign government efforts and non-state player attempting to manipulate public opinion. Furthermore, it is paramount to establish shared mechanisms for preventing electoral interference, in order to toughen disclosure requirements for online political advertising.
What about Brazil? It is back to the world, the international community, for its democracy. An emerging economy and a candidate to be among the largest economies in the world, with unique characteristics and alternatives to face the climate-environmental crisis. To achieve this, it must focus on the future and overcome the past through a reflection about its political ambitions. We should discard the idea of being a country of the future and concentrate on better understanding the ways to a better future.
The country can only be seen and recognized as a green power in a world of low greenhouse gas emissions if there is dedication to that goal. It can only aspire to be a leader if it builds the necessary political conditions to be chosen as a leading country. This requires more than political ambition. It requires a development view, an international integration project based on soft power, a new relationship between its society and the State, the protection and strengthening of its democracy, the strengthening of institutions and public policies, a real fight against inequalities, and a realignment of values guided by equity, social justice, and ethics.
Being a super diverse country, rich in natural resources, and home of the most significant part of the world’s largest tropical rainforest, the Amazon, with important social and cultural diversity and pacified borders for over 150 years, the country is a key player for the planet’s climate security. Being back in the international community, being received with certain optimism, should enable the country to have a future once again. This will require a new political context for Brazil, guided by innovative arrangements for public governance and business models, by another relationship between society and the Brazilian state, by an attitude of renewal and strengthening of its democracy, in addition to an objective and well-founded understanding of environmental and climate risks in its paths of sustainable development.
For a society that has alternatives, the climate agenda should be understood as an opportunity and a change challenge that must be broad, ambitious, and robust, going beyond its economy, and facing social and environmental inequalities. The Amazon and the South Atlantic represent challenges for contemporary Brazil that go beyond the domains of territories and the traditional exercise of its national sovereignty. It is necessary that the country develops a fresh look on its natural capital and understands the challenges imposed by the global-planetary dimension, in addition to its social and cultural diversity. There are numerous possibilities for Brazil to move forward in a low-carbon global economy. However, for this to happen, the future needs to become clearer for society and its leaders.
Discussing the future from the perspective of the triple environmental-planetary crisis means allowing the production of life on the planet. Brazil is the country that produces the most diverse and extensive life on the planet. Its options about the future must be supported by these assumptions, with more inclusive and fairer development paths. If, on the one hand, the restructuring of its economy must be guided through the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions by the economic sectors, on the other hand, it must ensure the emergency of new economies, notably bioeconomy, circular economy, and longevity economy. Deforestation must be beaten, and definitely left behind. The development paths must look for nature as an ally, grow with nature, and not against it, restore ecosystems, advance the valuation of natural capital, and appreciate their native and traditional people. Brazilian solutions go through its still abundant nature and social and cultural diversity, and the password for what is expected from the future is in the protection of the Amazon, Atlantic Rainforest, Cerrado, Caatinga, Pantanal, Pampas, and the offshore and marine ecosystems.
The waiver of climate denialism and the aggressive ignorance that tried to occupy Brazil in its recent past is an important suggestion for a country and society that is moving towards changes. Given a changing world, the Brazilian democracy needs to change as well, aiming at its strengthening. A new moment of democracy in Brazil undergoes a few elements: the revitalization of political parties, projected to be guardians of the democratic regime and sometimes collaborating with its weakening. The creation of means to make politics more diverse and inclusive is paramount, disrupting the political monopoly of certain groups in representation, and providing spaces for representation of the diversity of the Brazilian society. No democracy works without political parties, and we should not be misled into thinking that technology will allow direct participation without representation. That is not going to happen, at least not in the near future. Or we should think creatively about other forms of aggregating preferences and representing interests.
The strengthening of our regime will also demand the creation of new categories of rights, given a digital world, and the climate and environmental challenges. Among them, the right to know and decide who knows about our lives, vulnerabilities, risks, our possible choices, and ensuring that national States can protect this information and data.
Its revitalization also requires the construction of new political imagery, capable of positioning climate as a central component of the country’s economic development, with real gains in prosperity, overcoming two mistaken and limiting perceptions: that it is solely an environmental matter, thus transcending the tightening of this perspective, and the perception that it is a cause of the left wing, with which players from other positions on the political-ideological spectrum would have little involvement.
Additionally, it will be necessary to avoid green-wishing and calibrate the catastrophic element, to raise awareness and create a sense of urgency in citizens and decision-makers, without pushing the typical paralysis in situations where nothing is done as problems seem too big to be solved. The construction of this imagery should mobilize opportunities and solutions, not paralyze it due to difficulties. The climate emergency needs to be regarded as an issue to be solved, not as an inevitable catastrophe that is waiting for everyone.
A better democracy also requires the qualification of our decision-makers, figures who are likely to come under increasing pressure in the coming years in a political education process that is likely to have never been experienced before.
Climate emergency imposes decisions that are not only unpopular but also imposes consequences and benefits only noted in the long run, which differs from the short-term sense, moved by rules and electoral interests that govern the daily lives of our parliamentary and executive representatives. The transition to a low-carbon economy is intensive in minerals, and here, in Brazil, we have some of the largest reserves of critical and strategic minerals in the world. The electrification of transportation systems is heavily dependent on these minerals, just as food security relies on mineral fertilizers. The quest for energy in a digital-technological world will be increasing, and new innovation tools, such as artificial intelligence, demand more energy than the tools that are already under the domain of the global society.
Our decision-makers, both those already elected and those that will be elected the future, will be the ones to make choices about how, where, and whether to exploit these resources. They will decide if we will continue to behave as mere exporters of commodities, without the capacity to transform and add value to what we extract from the soil, perpetuating the extractive model that has brought us here, or if we will invest in research, science, and education, as well as make the necessary political choices to change the course of our development. They will also decide, for instance, if our necessary transition to the green industry can benefit from external technology and financing, originated from trade agreements under discussion, such as Mercosur and the ones from bilateral cooperation, or if it will not be possible.
In a speedy world of polarization and misinformation, it is wise to find ways to prevent the catch of political discussion by reductionism. If none of the future scenarios for limiting global temperature increase at up to 2°C is achievable without the complete decarbonization of the global energy matrix, questions about how much oil we still need for our transition, when it is estimated to happen, and how we can neutralize carbon emissions from potential new exploitations should be among those on the menu for our decision-makers, more than just personal beliefs on the subject. This decision belongs to a society that is properly instructed, informed, and guided by innovative proposals for public concession regulatory models.
Therefore, the revitalization of our democracy requires decision-makers that are capable of understanding the geopolitical movements of the world, participating in the spaces where decisions are being made, and intervening in them, not as spectators of decisions that will affect us, but as agents of choices. It also requires not only courage from those who are currently making decisions about our tomorrow, but also willingness to focus on the future, producing a change of perspective that allows bringing it into the present, behaving as representatives of national interests rather than just defenders of their original places.
With so many transitions, movements and changes in the world, the future is certainly not the same as it once was. Here, we worry about looking at everything that still needs to change. Opportunities make the world go round, and they also move.