Leading Sociologists And Natural Scientists Reiterate Global Climate Policy Has Been A Debacle

Der Spiegel focuses again on failed international climate policy, and explores alternative policy paths being proposed by German sociologist Nico Stehr, and 13 other international authors of the Hartwell Paper, among them Roger A. Pielke Jr.

The Hartwell Paper is nothing new. It was first released in 2010 by the London School of Economics in cooperation with the University of Oxford. It was authored by 14 natural and social scientists from all over the world, among them Mike Hulme and Roger A. Pielke Jr.

But the fact that the paper is being brought up once again shows just how much everything is in disarray for the climate activists. When media outlets like Der Spiegel start having doubts, then you know the movement is in deep trouble. Spiegel begins with:

The UN climate conference in Berlin was a flop. Now there has to be a completely new start in international climate policy, says sociologist Nico Stehr.”

The UN, governments and activists have spent literally hundreds of billions of dollars on the senseless endeavor of trying to regulate the Earth’s temperature and taming storms by limiting emissions of a single trace gas. Not surprisingly, these attempts have failed completely, and never mind that temperatures have not risen in 15 years anyhow.

Spiegel writes:

The debacle is an immense chance for a climate policy to finally unfold. The main motivation of the Hartwell Paper:

1. Energy access for everyone;
2. Decarbonization, development of clean energy so that it is cheaper than fossil fuels;
3. Equip society so that it can cope with the risks and dangers associated with changing climate, whatever their cause may be.”

Clearly the Hartwell Paper authors propose a shift to more adaptation and less on mitigation. The Hartwell Paper supports decarbonization by promoting effective investment in other sources of energy so that they become cheaper than fossil fuels. There’s less focus on punishing environmental sinners.

What’s new here is that experts are once again asking: “When are you climate activists going to wake up and realize you’ve failed big time and that your plan has no chance of ever working in the future – no matter how hard you try?”

Nico Stehr is the owner of the Karl-Mannheim-Professur for cultural sciences at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen. He is among Germany’s most renowned sociologists.