It’s absolutely clear that today’s climate impacts would have been less severe, and future risks far less scary, if we had found the political will earlier to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.
Political will was high during the 70s when scientists and politicians first began discussing the climate problem in international meetings, but it didn’t last long. A counter narrative quickly sprang up that characterised climate action as synonymous with extensive economic harm, and that this was too high a penalty given the ‘uncertain’ science was.
We now know both of these narratives are not true: The economic impacts of climate change will vastly outstrip the costs to prevent it, and the fundamental science has been rock solid.
Now, 50 years later, alternative sources of energy have reduced so quickly in price that it is now highly credible that we can meet society's growing demand for energy without having to rely on fossil fuels. If we’d had the will, this could have happened decades earlier, with manufacturing and deployment of clean technologies taking place in the most developed economies.
Instead we have seen China rise to dominate the clean energy supply chain. Why is this?
In China there has been less promotion of false narratives casting doubt on the science of climate change, and it has embraced the opportunities presented by investing in clean energy. Thanks to a lack of domestic oil and gas resources, there is no lobby protecting a lucrative incumbent industry.
My first episode of Cleaning Up was with Professor Naomi Oreskes who, with Erik Solway, has been instrumental in uncovering the network of actors who have seeded climate denialism and misinformation. She famously dubbed them the ‘Merchants of Doubt’ thanks to their extensive use of propaganda to cast doubt on science. This became the title of her best selling book, and the movie that followed.
At the end of that episode, I referred to a group of professional international marketers, united under the banner of Potential Energy Coalition, who are now in the business of selling action on climate change. I dubbed them the Merchants of Love.
John Marshall heads this international team and their research across the globe has identified a unifying motivating emotion that can be harnessed to change the politics of climate: the desire to protect what we love. Across the world, love is a strong enough emotion to counter fossil fuel misinformation, the neoliberal mantra that the market decides and the idea that individual freedoms trump governments’ responsibilities to protect the collective from harm.
In this week’s episode, I sat down with John to explore his insights in more detail. The good news is we know marketing works; the challenge is that the most effective tools and largest budgets have always been directed towards impeding climate action, moving beyond casting doubt on the science and playing up the economic costs to focus on slowing down the march of clean alternatives and presenting fossil fuels as essential for decades to come.
In the mid 2000s, I was involved in the UK’s first and sadly last, to date, public information campaign on climate change. That was over two decades ago. Had we sustained the effort to educate and inform the public about the causes and solutions of climate change, we would be in a much stronger position now as we are asking people to accept new cars and new ways of heating and cooling our homes.
In John’s words, we’re currently engaged in a narrative war — this is particularly true in the US, where much of the work of Potential Energy is focused. It’s reassuring that there are groups like John’s now fighting on the side of positive and rapid action. If John can deploy narratives that undermine those slowing action, my hunch is the politicians will move quickly to stand up to the incumbents, who are currently calling the shots and dictating what the electorate should believe.
The global climate, in its changed state, is now helping to write its own headlines and momentum for progress will become ever stronger. Building on this with well researched and well funded marketing campaigns can only help speed the transition. Here’s hoping the Merchants of Love can prevail.
To listen to the episode with John Marshall, click through to Cleaning Up on your podcast platform of choice, or watch the video on YouTube here.