Atelier WeekNotes w/c 21 and 28 Oct 2024
INITIATIVES. Influential Trajectories: invitation to test. RUNNING THE ATELIER. Supporters Group. 0/DETECTING. White privilege. Growth vs Degrowth narrative wars. ReadingNotes: UNEP Emissions Gap.
I am writing newsletter of #weeknotes of starting the Atelier of What’s Next (a studio for initiatives at the frontier of generating a better future). For my rationale for starting the Atelier see here.
Apologies for the missing a week, and then being late. The family challenge, that started earlier in the year, had a revival. This week covers:
INITIATIVES
-Influential Trajectories: invitation to test a user's guide
RUNNING THE ATELIER
-Testing an idea: Contact or Supporters Group.
0/DETECTING
-A moment of realising my invisible knapsack of white privilege
-The Growth vs Degrowth narrative war continues
#ReadingNotes
-Short: CarbonBrief on UNEP Emissions Gap Report
How can the Atelier of What's Next be of service to you, and your purposes? We'd love to hear from you. Perhaps you have a challenge or idea to put in the studio. Maybe one of our existing topics appeals to you. What if you love to make new things happen by being part of the studio? Or if you have feedback or comments that would improve this deck. Either click the button below or email davidbent@atelierwhatsnext.org.
INITIATIVES
Influential Trajectories: invitation to test a user's guide
A couple of weeks ago I put out a invitation for folks to test the forthcoming Influential Trajectories users guide (which will be an output of the work with the Sustainable Shipping Initiative). I had two positive responses (thank you Kegan and Martin).
If you or your organisation would want to test the guide, get in touch (davidbent@atelierwhatsnext.org).
As a reminder, Influential Trajectories is a way to create shared commitment to investments and initiatives that drive towards transformative outcomes. It does this by getting many actors across a situation to imagine different trajectories from today to a future goal together (informed by latest systems transition theories). They come up with tests for each trajectory to see if the pre-conditions for exist. Then they use the evidence to create a portfolio of investments and initiatives.
The key thesis is that people are more willing to commit to investments and initiatives where they have devised the test of whether to proceed themselves. ('Oh, I had thought everything was ready for Trajectory A, but it isn't. We'll just watch that. I was sceptical of Trajectory B, but it jumped my high hurdle. Let's put effort into that.')
Acknowledgement: I am very grateful for the opportunity to create the Influential Trajectories approach that was provided by Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI), and funding from Lloyd's Register Foundation.
Although developed with one specific industry in mind, my intention is to create a method which is applicable to many different 'systems', whether sectors, regions, organisations, communities and so on. (Here I'm being inspired by the Three Horizons method, for those who know it.)
WHAT NEXT. If you'd like to try Influential Trajectories out -- help me write the user's guide and yourself to stir for systemic change -- then get in touch.
Hard Art
Hard Art is a "cultural collective standing in solidarity in the face of climate and democratic collapse". I joined part of their long-range planning.
Unfortunately, the content of those discussions is confidential. But I can tell you that I think some very exciting things are happening already and also being planned.
WHAT NEXT. All I can say is watch this space. (Sorry to be so cryptic.)
RUNNING THE ATELIER
Testing an idea: Contact or Supporters Group.
Also a couple of weeks ago I put out a test of the an idea for a Contact or Supports Group to the Atelier. As of this moment I've had one positive response (thank you Nina).
The full explanation is here., In short, the aim is to support the Atelier (short-term: learning-by-trying) and generate value for the supporters because they too are learning, getting connections and/or having fun.
The kinds of activities I could imagine were: being a sounding-board; joining in challenge clinics; spotting initiatives that might come intot he Atelier; and, joining in with paid work on specific initiatives.
Do let me know what reactions you have to that, from 'terrible idea' through 'these things need to be in place' to 'sign me up now'.
0/DETECTING
A moment of realising my invisible knapsack of white privilege
Last week I went to 'The Circle Presents An Evening With Bernardine Evaristo', hosted by The Conduit (available on YouTube here).
The Circle is a "global feminist organisation, founded by Annie Lennox and other leading women, supporting women and girls confronting gender-based violence and economic inequality across the world."
Bernadine Everisto won the Booker Prize 2019 for Girl, Woman, Other. "She was the first black woman and black British person to win it in its fifty year history."
The Conduit, a purpose-driven community for changemakers, where I am a member.
I was there opportunistically. I've never read any of her books, and didn't know any of her life story. (More fool me.)
One key quote: "As an artist, being an activist underpins all that I do which is about creating a more egalitarian society, being a force in society for voices which aren't usually heard, and understanding the complexity of humankind." (Here on the video, slightly edited for sense.)
What became clear is that she had to create organisations from scratch that could be vehicles for her art, starting with a theatre company for black women. Why? Because the existing organisations were against having black women there are equals.
My reflection was to compare with my early career. All the institutions I benefited from (university, accounting) were set up in ways that were accepting of me (white, male). I didn't need to be a serial social entrepreneur in order to get a look in.
Which then took me to Peggy McIntosh's essay on the invisible knapsack of white privilege (Wikipedia entry, the essay itself as pdf, which is well worth reading). She lists counts out feature of her life that her African America friends don't have, but she hadn't realised they didn't -- and so hadn't realised was her own white privilege. Her first seven include:
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
WHAT NEXT.
Be more aware of my invisible knapsack.
Read Girl, Woman, Other.
The Growth vs Degrowth narrative war continues
Beware confirmation bias
In recent WeekNotes I have argued that focusing on degrowth or postgrowth is a serious mistake (how will it outcompete the status quo; how would degrowth deal with bad actors; are there permanently fixed limits to humanity in nature, or is it really about our capacity to change; how build alliances with the Global South).
So, it is amusing that I found myself defending degrowth in UCL, or, more accurately, arguing that we cannot dismiss it on the basis of flawed paper that appeals to our confirmation bias.
A senior professor had emailed the entire institute with Savin, I. and van den Bergh, J., 2024. 'Reviewing studies of degrowth: Are claims matched by data, methods and policy analysis?' Ecological Economics, 226 (here). The paper concludes that most degrowth work is flawed for, among other reasons: using opinion, rather than analysis; relying on case studies; and, has a Global North bias. They felt it vindicated their critique of degrowth.
As it happens, this paper had flared up when published in September. A lot of economists on Twitter had posted saying pretty much the same: 'Look! This study shows I was right all along.'
But it turns out that the paper is very flawed. The problems are well summarised by Timothy Parrique here. Most importantly: "Its sampling protocol is too restrictive and excludes most of the studies covering the very topic and methods that the authors are looking for (ie, environmental policies and quantitative studies)."
As an example, over on Twitter Prof Julia Steinberger (formerly of Leeds, now at Lausanne) says she "led a large project on degrowth, "Living Well Within Limits", which published 33 papers, roughly half of which were data analysis and modelling, only 1 would have qualified for the parameters of the study cited”.
It's like judging if a school is any good by randomly selecting 1% of the pupils.
I had to write back to the senior professor saying: "I’m no fan of degrowth. But I don’t think the method in the Savin and van den Bergh paper is not strong enough to carry any weighty conclusions."
Degrowth / Post-growth: a poor label for ‘beyond the status quo'.
One of my reflections has been that the labels of 'degrowth' and 'postgrowth' are poor. They describe what something is undoing or what it is after. But they don't describe what it is. These are poor labels because the future system is still framed by the past. It doesn’t open up new fields to be generative within.
The polarisation of the debate means there are only two options: growth or not-growth, which is then flattened to 'degrowth' or 'post-growth'.
That's a bit like saying all the only options are A and not-A. But there are lots of ways of being 'not-A' which are completely different from 'de-A' or 'post-A'. Why not a letter from a different alphabet, like ب (Arabic) or ꨆ (Cham). An emoji like 😊 is completely different from A, de-A and post-A.
Also, is the growth the central unsustainable feature, or that the society is extractive of nature and people?
It reminds me of a book called Flatland. It is set in a 2-dimensional space, with characters that are 2D shapes. In one sequence, the main character, Square, is visited by Sphere, which tries to convince him that there is a third dimension. But the Square cannot imagine that extra dimension.
Growth vs Not-growth isn't even two dimensions. How many possibilities are we missing by defining all that can be thought about on sustainable economics in terms of just one line?
Try a trilemma?
Noted economist Dani Rodik has at least expanded the debate to a trilemma: it may be impossible simultaneously to (1) combat climate change, (2) boost the middle class in advanced economies, and (3) reduce global poverty.
His argument is that US and European policymakers have been attempting to rebuild their middle classes and address climate change through pro-green industrial strategies and re-shoring manufacturing jobs. But that looks, to poor countries, like an assault on their development prospects. (You can also imagine financial and technology transfer to the Global South, for their success and to address climate change. But that would undermine reshoring of manufacturing jobs to rich countries.)
I am intrigued by this framing, as it acknowledges that we need to address climate change and also brings in one of the anti-degrowth arguments: it is politically impossible because the rich-world middle classes will vote to give up on material riches they have now.
Rodik cuts the Gordian knot by saying that middle class jobs of the future will be in service sectors, like care, retail and education, which are not traded any way.
While I hope that is a way forward, I wonder whether there will be good wages in service industries when there is fully-deployed AI and the Baumol effect (the lower productivity growth of services has a disproportionately large drag on the whole economy, meaning economies with a larger services sector has proportionately less cake to distribute as salaries or returns).
WHAT NEXT.
Watch out for my own confirmation biases.
Perhaps try to be less obsessed myself with this polarity.
Develop ways to express the 'Deep Transformation', a zone of practice which is more than Strong Reform, uses the insights of Radical Resistance (like degrowth) but without retreating to Make Good Ruins.
#ReadingNotes
Key points from Carbon Brief's explainer of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024.
CarbonBrief’s explainer of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024.
The good news: the world away from some of the darkest climate futures that seemed plausible before the Paris Agreement.
The bad news: current policies put the world on track for 2.9C of warming by 2100.
Emissions are increased in the year but are expected to peak in the next few years (especially when rapid growth in clean energy is faster then growth in demand in power sector).
The 2030 emissions gaps to unconditional NDCs: : ~14GtCO2e to 2C warming, or ~22GtCO2e to 1.5C warming. The total emissions in 2023 were ~57.1GtCO2e. So the gap in 2030 to 2C is about a quarter of current emissions, and to 1.5C about a third.
"While substantial increases in investments and finance are required to accelerate mitigation across all of these sectors, the report shows that deep decarbonisation is achievable in the next decade at a reasonable cost."
"Ultimately, the report highlights that the growing emissions gap reflects a lack of political will by countries to address emissions, rather than any fundamental constraint on the world’s ability to rapidly mitigate."
Reflections
Well, overall, that's not good news.
Reinforces my view that the Paris Agreement's teeth are national, not international. The real action is about creating political pressure on national governments for more ambitious policies. The most important emitters (China, US, EU) cannot realistically be subjected to external pressure. So, people in each jurisdiction will need to create political movements that match with the local needs.
The results of the US Presidential election are to come. But the fundamental polarisation will in place whoever wins. Hard to see the US becoming significantly more internationalist, even with a Harris presidency.
The assessment of 2.9C warming in 2100 is based on there being no major tipping points. Fingers crossed on that.
Speaking of which, the latest work on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation ('AMOC') implies that it may tip in the coming decades, which would be devastating for Europe (even if global average stays on track for 2.9C warming in 2100).