Opinion – Candido Bracher: The future that nobody wants

Giant cannons aimed at the sky project tons of sulfur into the stratosphere, seeking to replicate the cooling effects of the earth that occurred after the eruption of the Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines.

Scientists are trying to suck up the water that accumulates under the glaciers of the South Pole, to slow its slide towards the sea, and to dye the Arctic Ocean yellow, to prevent the absorption of solar rays. Eco-terrorists armed with drones shoot down so many planes that people stop flying, and the world is seriously considering the need for a radical change in the way of life, to avoid extinction.

The situations above take place in a distant future just a few decades away, in a world bewildered by the climate calamity caused by human action. They are described in two recent science fiction books by renowned American authors of the genre: “Termination Shock”, by Nial Stephenson, and “Ministry for the Future”, by Kim Stanley Robinson.

It was a leading conservative scholar at Stanford University who mentioned the first book, after surprising me with a lax stance on global warming. He stated that the severe restrictions that the European Union imposes on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions will end up seriously compromising the competitiveness of his industry and that he does not believe in a global understanding to contain emissions, since the effects of the climate crisis are unevenly distributed among nations. So, I read the book trying to understand what those who don’t believe in CO₂ emission control believe.

The second book was recommended by the founder of a fund specializing in companies that develop technologies for carbon sequestration and that only invests in business plans in which the demand for capture is determined by legal requirements, as opposed to voluntary commitments.

Through these books, I came into contact with the concept of geoengineering, which Bill Gates, in his work on the climate crisis, calls an extreme emergency solution, to be used only when all else has failed. Indeed, the premise of both books is the failure of worldwide efforts to contain CO₂ emissions.

Judging by the evolution of global negotiations so far, it is quite possible that the premise will turn out to be correct.

Global warming requires a global solution. The Covid crisis, which has also affected the entire world, has even allowed island countries such as New Zealand to manage the problem through complete isolation. Such a solution is not possible for the climate, since the atmosphere has no islands or borders. The world emits 50 billion tons of CO₂ annually, and scientists unequivocally point to the need to reduce emissions to zero by the middle of this century, to prevent warming from going beyond 2ºC, considered the tolerable limit.

The fundamental requirement for achieving this reduction is to ensure that the prices of all goods and services adequately reflect the cost of the CO₂ emitted for their production and distribution. With a universal price for the CO₂ emitted, the necessary economic stimuli are created for the preservation of forests, changes in habits and technological innovations necessary to contain global warming.

But the objective that is so easily expressed is very difficult to achieve. An emissions tax is the most intuitive solution, but it presents such difficulties that it has been little used in practice. The legislation that appears to be the most efficient so far is the European system of “cap and trade”, through which companies that reduce less than the sector’s target are obliged to buy credits from those that exceed the target. The price per ton of carbon under this mechanism reached €95.

Europe, however, is isolated in the effort to establish climate legislation. There are practically no other examples with a representative volume of emissions reductions by force of law, and the commitments assumed by the countries under the Paris Agreement have not been followed by concrete measures for their fulfillment.

In global forums such as COP26, much emphasis has been placed on private sector participation and on voluntary commitments made by companies around the world. While desirable and may contribute to the broader objective, voluntary participation will necessarily have only a marginal effect relative to the required reduction. The main reason is that CO₂ emissions avoided by companies that have public commitments, in the absence of strict legislation, automatically migrate to those that do not.

A report published on May 10 by the Environmental Defense Fund (edf.org) shows that in 2021 alone, transactions worth US$ 192 billion were carried out, through which companies with public commitments sold CO₂-emitting assets to more opaque companies, making appear that sellers cut emissions, when they were just transferred. In turn, the voluntary carbon credit market, which has experienced strong growth, is now approaching 100 million tons a year, just 0.2% of the total amount of reduction sought.

Among the ideas that I was able to get to know, there is one that, due to its clarity and simplicity of formulation, seems to me to be the most effective. It is championed by Raghuram Rajan, whose résumé includes stints at the presidency of India’s central bank and the position of chief economist at the IMF. The proposed solution is a “Global Carbon Incentive” (GCI) system, whereby all countries with emissions above the world average (currently seven tonnes per capita/year) would annually pay a global fund a value equivalent to the product of multiplying its population by the above-average per capita emission and the price per ton to be arbitrated.

Likewise, the fund would pay countries with below-average emissions an amount calculated using the same criteria. The ingenuity of the proposal lies in the fact that all countries would be equally encouraged to reduce their emissions, either to reduce the amount payable or to increase the amount to be received, but each would retain sovereignty to legislate on how to distribute the onus and bonuses among its economic agents.

Brazil is one of the most interested in establishing a global governance for CO₂ emissions, as it is one of the countries with the best conditions to quickly reduce its emissions and generate carbon credits that could be sold on the world market.

It is regrettable that our diplomatic corps of recognized competence, instead of concentrating its efforts to support the implementation of ideas like the GCI, has to spend its time trying to explain the unjustifiable 75% increase in the area deforested annually in the Amazon between 2018 and 2021 .