This post was contributed by Delft University of Technology to mark the launch of LANDMARC.
What is the realistic potential for agriculture, forestry, and other land use sectors to enhance the uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere? This question will be answered by the LANDMARC research project, which officially started on the 1st of July. Funded by the European Commission, the nineteen LANDMARC consortium partners will spend the next four years (2020-2024) working to:
Estimate the climate impact of land-based negative emission solutions, for example in agriculture, forestry, and other land-use sectors
Assess the potential for regional and global upscaling of negative emission solutions
Map their potential environmental, economic, and social co-benefits and trade-offs
Land-based negative emission solutions are expected to play a pivotal role in future climate actions and policy scenarios. To date most climate actions have focussed on phasing out fossil fuels and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in, for example, industry, electricity, and transport. While zero emission trajectories in these sectors will remain a priority for decades to come, it is expected that some residual GHG emissions will remain. To be able to fulfil the Paris Agreement and meet the world’s climate goals research, policy and markets are increasingly looking at land-based negative emission solutions.
The LANDMARC project will enhance understanding in the area by providing better estimates of the realistic potential of land-based negative emission solutions in agriculture, forestry, and other land use sectors.
The research activities will deploy:
A mix of earth observation technologies, to be able to (better) monitor and estimate the effectiveness of land-based negative emission solutions
A suite of climate, land-use, and economic simulation models, to better estimate the true (scaling) potential of land-based negative emission solutions, both from an earth systems and human systems perspective
A social sciences-based approach for effective impact assessment and engagement with local and regional stakeholders – across 14 countries and 5 continents – that are already work on implementing negative emission solutions.
LANDMARC collaborations with science and society
The LANDMARC project is actively seeking collaboration with fellow research projects operating in our study countries and regions (see map). Collaborations can include:
Exchanging / sharing earth observations data and information (e.g. satellite, remote sensing, in-situ)
Climate change and land-use scenario development and modelling
Assessing climate resilience and climate sensitivity of negative emission solutions
Assessing generic and context-specific co-benefits and trade-offs of land-based mitigation solutions (environmental, societal, economic)
Engaging with local and regional societal actors such as NGOs, local governments, forestry/agriculture cooperatives (i.e. co-hosting events)
We encourage researchers to contact us to introduce themselves, their activity/project and express their area(s) of interest for possible collaboration with the LANDMARC team.
Team contact details:
Contact information:
Delft University of Technology Dr. Jenny Lieu; Assistant Professor, J.Lieu-1@tudelft.nl
JIN Climate & Sustainability Eise Spijker; Senior Researcher, eise@jin.ngo
Up until recently, only an estimated 9% of Americans have teleworked more than once a week. Slow adoption of teleworking has been due to a lack of consensus around its environmental benefits, the perception among workers that not being visible in the office may hinder career advancement, and fears among employers about potential drops in worker performance and efficiency.
In COVID-19’s wake, remote working across the globe has abruptly switched from a ‘perk’ offered by forward-thinking employers to a necessary practice for many workers. But before it became an integral part of public health policy, telecommuting was often seen as an employee-pleasing way to reduce energy demand and its associated carbon emissions. Emissions from daily commutes and office maintenance could be substituted by the lower emissions of home- or co-working space- based employment.
The findings of the paper are derived from 39 studies across the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. In their analysis, they try to make sense of how these individual papers vary between those suggesting teleworking can reduce emissions by up to 77% to others that suggest it could even increase emissions.
The table below summarises the results of the review, appearing to support the theory that teleworking reduces energy use, with two thirds of the sampled papers supporting that conclusion. However, due to the scope and variety of methodologies used across the papers surveyed, the evidence is not as clear-cut as it might first appear, as we will explain below.
Understanding teleworking’s energy savings
The premise that home working saves energy relies on a simple substitution effect: transport emissions from the worker’s commute are removed in favour of the typically lower emissions of ICT enabled remote working. However, by itself this provides an incomplete picture. The act of teleworking is surrounded by a variety of factors and influences on personal behaviour, which complicate the initially straightforward equation.
Attempting to untangle this issue begins by dividing end energy use into two types:
“Direct impacts” are defined as the energy used for the manufacture, operation and disposal of ICTs.
“Higher order impacts”, on the other hand, are changes in energy consumption stimulated by ICT use. These encompass the consequences of choices made around the initial decision to work from home.
Emission savings or rebounds?
While teleworking may eliminate or reduce energy consumption and associated emissions generated from the office commute, it may also lead to increased energy use due to homeworking, a so-called ‘rebound’ effect. This may be as a result of greater use of home appliances, heating, cooling, and lighting. Teleworking may also generate higher ‘non-work’ travel, as workers use their new ‘time savings’ to take more regulars holidays or breaks.
One psychological driver of the increase in non-work travel may be the simple desire to get out of the house; indeed, many people working under lockdown conditions could identify with the statement made within the paper that “another induced travel effect could be where the feelings of isolation and sedentariness generated by teleworking stimulate a desire for movement and mobility”. Alternatively, workers may purchase more consumer items online, contributing to higher society-wide energy consumption through increased production of goods and home delivery travel.
Where teleworking is only partial (say, two days a week), the overall travel distance per week may not be significantly reduced, especially if workers live far from the office (a phenomenon that has been, paradoxically, facilitated by teleworking). To take one example, a survey conducted as part of a Finnish study noticed teleworkers lived, on average, 3.7km further from the workplace. Their commutes were less frequent, but their average journey consumed more energy whenever it took place.
Overall, although workers may save money and gain time through their reduced or eliminated commutes on days that they work from home, increases in energy consumption in other areas (such as through non-work travel and home energy consumption) may mean that the net energy savings are minimal, or even negative.
Change of scope and methodology
The complexity and scope of the teleworking impacts will therefore need much further study. Many of the studies focus on comparing weekly work distance travelled, hence neglecting non-work travel. As a result, they may overestimate the total reduction in travel distance. One paper found “vehicle travel distance is 8% lower per month for teleworkers than non-teleworkers; whereas Zhu (2012), who also considers impacts on non-work travel, finds a negligible impact on total vehicle distance travelled.”
Dr Andrew Hook, one of the study’s authors, elaborates how differences in scope and methodology impact their findings below:
“While most studies conclude that teleworking can contribute energy savings, the more rigorous studies and those with a broader scope present more ambiguous findings. Where studies include additional impacts, such as non-work travel or office and home energy use, the potential energy savings appear more limited – with some studies suggesting that, in the context of growing distances between the workplace and home, part-week teleworking could lead to a net increase in energy consumption.”
Next steps for “teleworking” research?
The notion of teleworking itself is one that predates the internet, referencing a past where innovations like telecentres and the fax machine were seen as the answer to removing or reducing arduous commutes. These terms could be attached to outdated ideas of work, failing to account for the present day of Wi-Fi enabled work from libraries/cafes/trains, flexible working arrangements, and the increased proportion of the workforce on varying “zero hour contracts”. Future studies may need to address the fact that “modern modes of flexible or mobile work have become so non-linear and fluid (but also increasingly energy intensive in places) that it has become increasingly difficult to track their energy footprint, or to compare it with a dissolving notion of ‘regular’ work (Hopkins & McKay 2019).”
The use of digital services, such as videoconferencing and cloud storage, may lead to higher emissions from home working when compared to older technological regimes. The evidence base tends to lag behind recent trends, with most studies pre-dating these technologies. When we examine the benefits of home working, we therefore need to make sure the analysis is of the modern reality rather than of systems which no longer exist. The paper therefore concludes that future studies may better account for modern work practices and the uncertainties of tracking energy savings by trying to account for the complexity of new working patterns:
“Studies interested in appraising the potential of more flexible, ICT-enabled work practices should therefore aim to combine a range of methods capable of capturing the dynamic new configurations of working conditions. As well as accounting for change in commuting travel, non-commuting travel, distance between home and office, and home and office energy consumption, these studies must also consider other factors, such as the mode of commuting transport in the region being studied and the ways that people choose to use their time when they no longer have to commute to and from work. As many of these realities can only be established through qualitative methods, modellers must work together with other social scientists in order to build a better picture of the changing patterns of work and the energy saving potential of new working practices (e.g. Hampton 2017).”
Popular coverage on working from home often makes the assumption that it provides unarguable environmental benefits. This work questions that assumption, hopes to indicate where future studies need to be focused in order to more accurately account for the rebounds inherent in these practices, and understand what sustainable teleworking should look like going forward.
Benjamin Sovacool adds a cautionary addendum to those seeing it as an easy win-win:
“A scenario after the threat of coronavirus has cleared where workers will want the best of both worlds; retaining the freedom and flexibility they found from working from home but the social aspects of working at an office that they’ve missed out on during lockdown, will not deliver the energy savings the world needs”.
Marquee climate events like COP 26 have been notably sidelined by this year’s dramatic public health emergency. However, research projects across the globe have persisted through the pandemic, continuing to conduct their necessary work tackling decarbonisation targets across the globe.
In the next two months, three more European Union Horizon 2020 projects will commence with the involvement of several Sussex Energy Group academics. Our researchers will contribute their expertise to help inform vital decisions on balancing emission reduction with social and economic goals, both within and beyond the EU.
CINTRAN (Carbon Intensive Regions in Transition –
Unravelling the Challenges of Structural Change)
CINTRAN will investigate the effects of EU decarbonization
efforts on coal-dependent regions. These regions are particularly vulnerable to
the economic and social upheaval (and resultant inequality) that can be caused
by the deep structural changes resulting from EU climate mitigation activities.
The project focuses on four of these fossil-fuel dependent
regions: Western Macedonia (Greece), Silesia (Poland), Ida-Virumaa (Estonia)
and the Rhenish mining area (Germany). To minimise harmful consequences to
these areas and others like them, it is necessary to understand:
Patterns and dynamics of structural change in response
to decarbonization at the regional level
Parameters determining the pace of
transformation
The capacity of regional actors to cope, adapt
and pro-actively create alternative structures.
Better understanding of these areas will produce insights
about the patterns and dynamics of decarbonisation and corresponding structural
adjustments. These insights have relevance for all carbon-intensive regions in
the EU and neighbouring countries.
JUSTNORTH (Toward Just, Ethical and Sustainable Arctic
Economies, Environments and Societies)
The development of the Artic has been historically
characterised by inequitable practices, further complicated today by the
adverse effects of climate change. JUSTNORTH combines justice theories with the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in order to evaluate the true
viability of economic activities in the Artic regions.
JUSTNORTH will provide policy makers with insights from indigenous communities, local businesses, state government and NGOs of the social, economic and environmental complexities of the Arctic. The project will carry out 16 case studies, covering topics as diverse as Icelandic fisheries, polar tourism, wind farming, reindeer herding and employment. These activities will inform the creation of a “JUSTscore framework”, aiming to create transparency, documentation and standardisation for sustainable development across the Arctic, and even further into the EU.
LANDMARC (LAND-use based MitigAtion for Resilient Climate pathways)
The Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector is responsible for about a quarter of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in a wide variety of ways, for example through deforestation, drained peatland, the application of manure or burning biomass. Land use based mitigation technologies (LMTs) can contribute significantly to the global efforts in climate change mitigation and meet the challenges of sustainable ecosystems management. Despite the presence of LMTs in most of the submitted Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, doubt remains on the effectiveness of mitigation measures in reducing emissions. This project will assess the potential effectiveness of Land-use based Mitigation Technologies (LMTs) as net sinks for greenhouse gases.
LANDMARC is an interdisciplinary
global consortium bringing together 18 partners from agriculture, ecology,
engineering, climate sciences, satellite earth observation sciences, economics,
social sciences and more. The partners are based in the EU, Africa, Asia and
the Americas, providing a global perspective on this far-reaching concern. The consortium
will carry out 8 work packages and 16 case studies in five continents, covering LMTs in different land use systems
including agriculture, forestry, reforestation, agro-forestry and peat soils. The
project will achieve this through the creation of a suite of modelling tools
and a model system to inform decisions by private sector stakeholders and
policymakers.
The targets set by firms in the corporate Hall of Fame
Many of the biggest and the best-known firms across the
world have set ambitious targets to tackle climate change – and this means
tackling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electricity use which is a
significant contributor to most organisations’ carbon footprint. Many big name
brands have joined RE100, an organisation that encourages organisations to pledge
to using 100% renewable electricity as part of the fight against climate change.
Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Marks & Spencer, Virgin Media, Zurich: the
200-plus companies that have joined RE100 reads like a Who’s Who of the
corporate world. The Crown Estate is listed among them too: renewable
electricity targets are not limited to the business world.[i]
The electricity through your socket: you don’t get what you pay for
Buying renewable electricity (RE) is not as simple as it may
seem. If an organisation has its own on-site wind turbines or solar panels, it
is directly consuming RE. If it is taking electricity from the grid, then the origin
of the electricity coming through its sockets is determined by whichever
methods of electricity generation are sending electricity to the grid.[ii]
An organisation’s GHG emissions from electricity use can be
calculated in two ways[iii]:
It can be calculated by finding out which grids it is
connected to and the average emissions per unit of electricity on those grids.
This is known as the location method because it is the location of the
organisation which counts.
There is a second method of estimating emissions. The
market-based method bases emissions on the contractual arrangements (known
as instruments) an organisation enters for the provision of electricity. The instrument
could be a green tariff with an electricity supplier, or a contract directly
between the RE generator putting electricity onto the grid and the consumer organisation,
or energy attribute certificates.
Energy attribute certificates document that 1 MWh of
electricity has been produced by a particular electricity generation method
(usually a renewable method). A common European certificate is the Guarantee
of Origin. This was created by a European directive in 2001.[iv]
The GO – or GoO depending on your sense of humour – had a troubled upbringing. There was a wrangle
at European level over the best means of public support for RE: a European-wide
quota system or feed-in tariffs. The quota camp lost but the GO remained in the
directive with a vague, residual role as a label of RE[v].
Organisations that want to claim they were using RE buy GOs. Sometimes they are
packaged with electricity or they can be stand-alone purchases. Typically, organisations
use them to cover part, or even all of their electricity consumption, and then say
they have reduced their emissions from electricity use.
So, what’s the problem?
Prima facie, buying GOs is positive course of action.
From conversations with firms, I am convinced that some staff apply neoliberal
axioms related to supply and demand and genuinely believe that the purchase of
energy attribute certificates or green tariffs will incentivise more investment
in solar, wind farms and other RE generating capacity. Unfortunately, research on
the impact of the GO (and European green tariffs which are usually backed by
GOs) does not support this. Supply has consistently exceeded demand, in a large
part due to the huge amount of decades-old hydropower. Figure 1 shows how
hydropower GOs dominate the market. Norwegian
hydropower pumps out certificates that are exported all over Europe. Evidence
suggests that new RE capacity has been driven by financial incentives from public
policy that have significantly outweighed the tiny extra income that RE generators
make from certificate sales. [vi]
Figure 1: GOs issued over the period 2010-2015 by generation method.
Note: The figure is taken from Dagoumas and Koltsaklis
(2017) and is based on data from the Association of Issuing Bodies.
There is considerably less research on the US certificate –
the Renewable Energy Certificate. However, what there is shows that the price of RECs has been too low
to make a difference to investment decisions for new wind power.[vii]
These situations create a zero-sum game. Organisations that
use RE contractual instruments typically go on to report reduced GHG emissions
as a result of their use. The emission rate of the electricity used by everyone
else increases commensurately as organisations buying GOs and RECs lay claim to
low-carbon electricity on the grid for a small fee. While these organisations typically
report their RE use and GHG emissions on their websites and in their Corporate Social
Responsibility reports, the emissions of organisations that do not use RE
contractual instruments may go unreported or are reported using the
location-based method, which means organisations use the same emission rate
irrespective of their RE contractual arrangements. The result is no net change
in emissions, but the public and politicians are potentially left with the
impression that organisations are driving new RE capacity more than they
actually are.
Is there a solution?
Some organisations try to address the issue of supply
outstripping demand through only buying certificates from RE generation
facilities less that a certain number of years old, thereby trying to create
scarcity in the market and encourage new supply. Other organisations enter into
power purchase agreements (PPAs) directly with RE generators, undertaking to
buy a certain quantity of electricity at a certain price for a certain number
of years. I expect it may be easier for RE project developers to find finance for
new wind and solar farms and other types of RE if they have a guaranteed income
from a PPA. However, neither tactic has been investigated by academics.
Would it be better for firms not to use RE contractual instruments?
Dr Matthew Brander, Dr Michael Gillenwater and Dr Francisco Ascui have been among the leading voices calling attention to the problems of the market-based approach as outlined above[viii]. They have also raised the further question of whether use of RE contractual instruments may actually divert organisations from measures that reduce GHG emissions i.e. electricity efficiency. They argue there could be a reduced incentive to cut electricity consumption if there were no reported emissions from electricity. This question was one of two addressed by my PhD thesis.
My thesis looked at the factors influencing the GHG
mitigation strategies of 11 large German and UK firms as they evolved typically
over more than a decade. I focussed on the interactions between RE contractual instrument
use and efficiency improvements in all types of energy use, although the effect
on other mitigation measures is assessed. I found that RE contractual
instrument use did not always entail any cost for these firms. Even if
it did, the cost was small compared to other operating costs. Where there was a
cost, a re-allocation of funds to internal mitigating activities e.g. energy
efficiency might have only led to small, on-going emission reductions, although
if the money had been spent on offsets instead, there would have been substantial, but one-off reductions.
I also found that
the use of emission rates based on RE contractual instruments[ix] use had led to a change
in focus or a potential change in focus on other GHG mitigation activities in
very limited instances. I characterised the circumstances in which I
found a change or a reduction in focus on energy efficiency/saving or the
potential for this. This outcome depended on the intersection of circumstances
(all three were necessary conditions):
1. where a
reputation/moral motivation was driving RE contractual instrument use[x];
2. where energy
efficiency/saving were not being driven solely or strongly by cost-saving;
3. where staff
did not prevent a reduction or change in focus on energy efficiency/saving
activities.
I have suggested some
simple reporting requirements that could be introduced to prevent this
change/reduction in focus from occurring (see this briefing).[xi]
Conclusion
In summary, the use of RE certificates and green tariffs has
not been shown to have a positive effect on RE investment. However, if the firms
I studied are typical of other organisations, any negative impact on other GHG
mitigating activities is very limited. I would prefer that organisations spent
any premium that they pay for RE certificates and green tariffs on good quality
offsets instead, as they offer more certain benefits. However, offsetting’s
poor reputation may make organisations wary, and carbon footprinting rules
discourage this course of action.[xii]
A more promising course of action is to steer organisations
towards ensuring that their use of RE contractual instruments draws on new
investment. PPAs look like the contractual instruments most likely to achieve
this as they offer RE generators a guaranteed income usually over several
years. This may be especially useful in the era of Covid-19 where public
financial support for RE may be diverted to other purposes. However, this needs
to be checked by research on the efficacy of PPAs in incentivising extra
investment[xiii].
Organisations need to know what characterises an effective PPA or any other RE
contractual instrument. We do not have time in the battle against climate
change to go down any dead-ends.
[i] Alarcon, C., and M. Reynolds. 2019. ‘Going 100%
Renewable: How Committed Companies Are Demanding a Faster Market Response’.
RE100 Annual Report Progress and Insights.
http://media.virbcdn.com/files/5c/aa8193f038934840-Dec2019RE100ProgressandInsightsAnnualReport.pdf.
[ii] Monyei, C.G., and K.E.H. Jenkins. 2018. ‘Electrons
Have No Identity: Setting Right Misrepresentations in Google and Apple’s Clean
Energy Purchasing’. Energy Research & Social Science 46 (December): 48–51.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.06.015.
[iii] Sotos, M. 2015. ‘GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance – An
Amendment to the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard’. World Resources Institute,
Washington D.C., USA.
https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Scope_2_Guidance_Final.pdf.
[iv] European Parliament and European Council. 2001.
Directive 2001/77/EC. http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/energy/renewable_energy/l27035_en.htm.
[v] Lauber, V., and E. Schenner. 2011. ‘The Struggle over
Support Schemes for Renewable Electricity in the European Union: A Discursive
Institutionalist Analysis’. Environmental Politics 20 (4): 508–27., Nilsson,
M., L. J. Nilsson, and K. Ericsson. 2009. ‘The Rise and Fall of GO Trading in
European Renewable Energy Policy: The Role of Advocacy and Policy Framing’.
Energy Policy 37 (11): 4454–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2009.05.065.
[vi] Wüstenhagen, R., and M. Bilharz. 2006. ‘Green Energy
Market Development in Germany: Effective Public Policy and Emerging Customer
Demand’. Energy Policy 34 (13): 1681–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2004.07.013.
Markard, J., and B. Truffer. 2006. ‘The Promotional
Impacts of Green Power Products on Renewable
Energy Sources: Direct and Indirect Eco-Effects’.
Renewable Energy Policies in the European
Hast, A., S. Syri, J. Jokiniemi, M. Huuskonen, and S.
Cross. 2015. ‘Review of Green Electricity Products in the United Kingdom,
Germany and Finland’. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42:
1370–84.
Hufen, J.A.M. 2017. ‘Cheat Electricity? The Political
Economy of Green Electricity Delivery on the Dutch
Market for Households and Small Business’.
Sustainability (Switzerland) 9 (16).
doi:10.3390/su9010016
Mulder, M., and S.P.E. Zomer. 2016. ‘Contribution of
Green Labels in Electricity Retail Markets to
Fostering Renewable Energy’. Energy Policy 99
(December): 100–109.
Dagoumas, A.S., and N.E. Koltsaklis. 2017. ‘Price
Signal of Tradable Guarantees of Origin for Hedging Risk of Renewable Energy
Sources Investments’. International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy 7
(4): 59–67.
Hamburger, A., and G. Harangoz. 2018. ‘Factors
Affecting the Evolution of Renewable Electricity Generating Capacities: A Panel
Data Analysis of European Countries’. International Journal of Energy Economics
and Policy 8 (5): 161–72.
Hamburger, Á. 2019. ‘Is Guarantee of Origin Really an
Effective Energy Policy Tool in Europe? A Critical Approach’. Society and
Economy 41 (4): 487–507. https://doi.org/10.1556/204.2019.41.4.6.
Jansen, J. 2017. ‘Does the EU Renewable Energy Sector
Still Need a Guarantees of Origin Market?’ No
2017-27. CEPS Policy Insights. CEPS – Energy Climate
House.
———. 2018. ‘Should All Producers of Renewable Energy
Automatically Receive GOs?’ Centre for
European Policy Studies. 12 March 2018. https://www.ceps.eu/publications/should-all-producersrenewable-energy-automatically-receive-gos.
[vii]Gillenwater. 2013 ‘Probabilistic decision model of
wind power investment and influence of green power market’, Energy Policy, 63, pp. 1111–1125.
doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2013.09.049.
Gillenwater, M., X. Lu, and M. Fischlein. 2014
‘Additionality of wind energy investments in the U.S. voluntary green power
market’, Renewable Energy, 63, pp. 452–457. doi: 0.1016/j.renene.2013.10.003.
[viii] Brander, M., M. Gillenwater, and F. Ascui. 2018.
‘Creative Accounting: A Critical Perspective on the Market-Based Method for
Reporting Purchased Electricity (Scope 2) Emissions’. Energy Policy 112
(January): 29–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.09.051.
[ix] I
also investigated low-carbon
electricity contractual instruments, specifically GO certificating the
production of electricity from high-efficiency Combined Heat and Power plants.
[x] What businesses said about their motivation was taken
at face value as to assess these statements was beyond the scope of this
research.
[xi] See also section 12.3.1 (page 439) of my thesis.
[xii] Sotos, M. 2015. ‘GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance – An
Amendment to the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard’. World Resources Institute,
Washington D.C., USA.
https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Scope_2_Guidance_Final.pdf.
[xiii] See also concerns raised by Monyei and Jenkins (2018)
about the wider implications of PPAs.
Andy’s discussion of the ‘myth of control’ at the heart of Modernity, that is being overturned by this pandemic, has crucial implications for the restructuring of energy systems: from supply-driven to demand-led, from hierarchical to interactive and from centralised to distributed.
With so many self-appointed pundits (like me!) currently locked down with their laptops, the present rush of commentary on how to pivot to the coronavirus crisis is hardly surprising. Beyond the general news and commentary, scores of articles are exploding across the media, diagnosing what this global catastrophe means, and prescribing how it can be turned to variously-held positive ends.
But there is another point that also emerges. In many cases, the changes that authors assertively prescribe specifically in response to the coronavirus pandemic, look very similar to those they would have advocated beforehand. In this particular sense, for all the transformational language and ambition, it is ‘business as usual’.
So, if some of this effort is not to risk being seen later as opportunistic – or inadvertently (in its familiarity) potentially reinforcing of lock-in – then maybe there’s a need for as much dislocation, surprise and reorientation inside the commentaries, as many rightly call for in the outside world?
After all, the main significance of this pandemic lies not in lofty platforms for pre-entitled, indulgently-curated identities. The issues are instead about many very real further devastations of already-vulnerable lives and livelihoods, of those without the same chances to air their views. If this is ignored, then even where motives are laudable, this colossal juncture risks becoming captive to just another campaigning message, media trope, academic vanity, or expediently manipulated ‘policy storyline’. The implications are far too important to be reduced to these baubles in the usual salons.
In fact, there really seems only one clear truth so far, amidst the ever-present – now brutally-revealed – uncertainties. Incongruously neglected in the many confident pronouncements and predictions, this truth is that nobody knows the historic implications of this moment. A radical diversity of futures are possible. In each of these futures, a plurality of views will likely clash as much as they do now.
There is of course no shortage of apparently effective instruments available to seemingly controlling ‘cockpits’: dispassionately assured experts; precise scientific metrics; rigorous technical models; massive hierarchical agencies; apparently all-seeing monitoring; seductively informative graphics; compellingly captivating dashboards; reassuringly evidence-based plans; commanding policy levers; invisibly nudging techniques; formidable military capacities; all presided over by our ‘natural leaders’ in the same old ‘seats of power’. But in reality, what the pandemic already seems to show is not only that there is no pilot… but that the ‘cockpit’ itself has been built largely in our imaginations.
So, if this unruly open-ended indeterminacy of the world cannot be acknowledged at a time like now – when the gyres of history are turning most tumultuously – then when can it ever be recognised? And the salience of all this bites doubly hard, not because of some further confident projection of what this all will mean, but in light of what can (from many sides) already be seen to be unravelling.
However things pan out – and whatever modesty-preserving fig-leaves are later hastily installed – at least one global hegemonic casualty has already surely been revealed. This involves not just a single specific certainty of how the world is – or should be. What is now becoming devastatingly undermined, is the general credibility of any confident performance of predictive control.
Take, for example, the repeated mantras of ‘evidence-based policy’ – and ‘science-based decisions’. Evidence is of course crucial – but it is necessary, not sufficient. Actions cannot be purely ‘based on’ data or analysis, only illuminated by it. That these well-worn claims are so ironically false, is about as informative as evidence gets. ‘Control by science’ is an expedient fiction in service of power.
What the pandemic shows, then – in short – is that in the wider, long-run ‘real world’ of human affairs, control does not exist. And this is not a criticism. It is simply a fact. To criticise for lack of control is to be as misguided as to claim it.
But doesn’t this fly in the face of common sense? Control seems undeniably important. It is a potent experience, for instance, in our relations with machines. Where these work, people around the world have become very familiar with what it can mean (at least before gremlins, rust or wear take their toll) to control something – like a light switch, a water-pump, a bicycle, a mobile phone or a laptop.
As an example of control: a car steering wheel turned lightly to the left determines this single aimed-for effect and no other. The windscreen wipers don’t come on. The wheels don’t fall off. Nobody by the wayside faints. We know very well what control feels like: fully achieving the particular intended result, and only this. This is how control is imagined in the core cherished paradigm of Modernity.
But whatever instruments of control are directed at it, this is manifestly not how this pandemic is playing out. In country after country, initial reactions – whether of authoritarian suppression or complacent exceptionalism – have proven either highly ineffective or problematic in other ways.
And the story is still far from over. Unintended side-effects of control are, to some, already looking potentially even more serious than the disease. What will be the economic impacts on health? What other presently-unknown factors may yet become evident? How will the virus itself bite back? With so much already going wrong, falling short, happening by mistake, or yet to emerge, we’re very far from the familiar experiences of ‘control’ that current failing efforts are claimed to emulate.
But despite these lessons (not only from the present crisis, but from a multitude of earlier ones), the idea of control still shapes the globalising imaginations of Modernity. Just as a hammer can condition its holder to see every problem as a nail, so unfolding Modernities around the world are ironically enslaved by their perennial aspirations to control.
Indeed, once you start looking for them, imaginations of control drive every aspect variously recognised to define ‘Modernity’ itself: control by individuals of their lives; control by governments of nations; control by ‘the people’ of politics; control by bureaucracy of organisations; control by science of reason; control by industry of production; control by capital of labour; control by colonialism of empires; control in ‘the Anthropocene’ of an entire world. This is why the resonance chimes of ‘taking back control’!
And it is in each of these spheres that control has also not only failed to live up to expectations, but yielded so many perverse kinds of backlash as to often be seriously counterproductive. So what is distinctive about this global pandemic is not its novelty, but its intensity. A familiar cycle of disappointment has unfolded over weeks rather than centuries. The spectacle is too acute to ignore.
Starling murmurations / Chris Lovelock / cc by 2.0
So what conclusions to draw from this diagnosis? Is it a counsel of despair? Does the coronavirus pandemic simply herald a new intensification of already-overgrown fatalism, cynicism and nihilism?
Or are the signs exactly the opposite? Is the present cacophony of over-confident prescriptions more important for its vigour and diversity than for any specific strand of content (including this)? Perhaps each of this multiplicity of energetic visions constitutes a ‘necessary fiction’, provoking into life dormant political hopes and critical faculties that have been lulled into complacent acquiescence by burgeoning electoral oligarchies?
Perhaps this collectively-enacted murmuration is more important than any individually-stated aim? (Indeed, is this why ‘murmurations’ have always linked distributed dissent with exuberant flocking?) Perhaps this is why the word ‘moment’ has always quietly signalled an axis of possible movement?
Again, the answer has to be that no-one really knows. What the coronavirus pandemic might mean is not a matter to be diagnosed in advance, but to be struggled for in its aftermath – and beyond!
My main concern, then, about some of the current commentaries with which I began, lies not in any particularity of the changes they variously call for. It is that so much of this apparently critical discourse reproduces such a similar style to the incumbent interests that are ostensibly challenged.
In ways that also clash starkly with the little that we do know so far about the coronavirus crisis, many of the critics are as single-mindedly certain, as confidently predictive, as assertively prescriptive and as aspirationally controlling as any incumbent technocrat, autocrat or demagogue. And it is through such tacit support for the underlying mythology of control, that progressive intentions can nonetheless inadvertently reinforce the regressive status quo.
Either way, whatever futures may struggle into being, the present pandemic suggests these will likely turn out better if shaped in opposite ways to this failing reflex of control. This recasts ‘democracy’ not as a codified intermittent managerial procedure, but as multiple continual struggles for ‘access by the least powerful to capacities for challenging power’. So (also inevitably grounded in its own pre-existing enthusiasms!), it is in this spirit that another voice can join the clamour– directly challenging the pervasive control culture of Modernity.
