Putting the climate emergency into perspective: from breakdown to breakthrough — a short primer on embracing regeneration (part 2)
Exploring Economics and Governance in a New World (10)
As part of a discussion panel at COP27 in Egypt on ‘regenerative innovation’ with a view of nudging actors to break out of the silos and consider the climate crisis — and its solutions — from a broader perspective, I prepared a short discussion brief for BMW Foundation’s RESPOND program. The brief was published in November 2022 and can be found online, while being replicated here in two parts, this being part 2. Part 1 can be accessed here.
Bringing it full circle — what this means for climate action
Taking a regenerative view on climate mitigation and adaptation
Although humanity’s impact on the planet has resulted in degeneration for many decades, it is mostly recent generations which have started to become more and more confronted with the results of our collective actions. Now that we are at a crucial point in history as a civilization, we are beginning to learn the hard lesson that on a densely populated planet and faced with multiple converging crises, even those who seem to win in the short term will lose in the mid to long term if we do not regenerate vital ecosystem functions and create conditions where all of life can thrive.
In its sixth assessment report, released in April 2022, the IPCC for the first time made specific reference to how “historical and ongoing patterns of inequity such as colonialism” are a driver of vulnerability to climate change for both ecosystems and people. And indeed, many of the attitudes and ideas that have dominated much of the Global North for the past few hundred years are still woven into the very fabric of our globalised world.
This means that climate action itself becomes vulnerable to being designed from a viewpoint strongly informed by the dominant although increasingly outdated paradigms and worldviews in place in industrialised countries today. Climate policies have as such been criticised by some for being predominantly technical and free market focused, without also addressing the underlying patterns that led to and sustain environmental degradation in the first place.
By narrowing the focus of climate action to one mainly revolving around carbon emission reductions — versus broader systems change — , the question of the commons becomes subordinated, as there is a risk that the development and deployment of commercially viable carbon reduction technologies at the same time helps facilitate wealthy nations and consumers to maintain ‘Business as Usual’ levels of (linear) make-take-waste consumption. This calls to mind the “rebound effect”, referring to how resource efficient technologies can lead to an actual increase in consumption due to behavioural responses. The inequality in consumption patterns and the lack of differentiation between lifestyle and lifeline use of resource therewith poses a considerable obstacle for tackling the climate crisis.
Truly acknowledging the need for equitable transition in the climate debate, including equitable consumption patterns, can help change the conversation from one predominantly focused on emission reductions (with a secondary role for adaptation, as well as loss and damage) to one that places regenerative practices to serve basic local needs such as food, clothing and housing at its heart.
This entails looking well beyond a goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 and setting eyes on nurturing a positive relationship with our planetary ecosystems. A regenerative worldview thus views the goal of net-zero carbon emissions as one stop-off on the longer journey to co-evolve and create the conditions for life to flourish, thrive and renew into perpetuity.
Why we need regenerative co-evolution in climate action
Within the field of climate action, there are two main established strands of work, being climate mitigation, which is essentially a global issue, and climate adaptation, which is largely a local issue. In addition, loss and damage is emerging, thereby acknowledging the inevitable nature of some of the climate impacts we’re facing.
An increasing number of climate experts are coming to the conclusion that neither mitigation at current levels, nor ‘passive’ adaptation, which refers to trying to ‘fit into’ predetermined conditions as they will present themselves to us, will suffice to prevent some of the most dire environmental and human catastrophes in the coming decades.
What is needed is that we learn to co-evolve with our changing climate, using regenerative practices to co-create, experiment, and respond in a dynamic and part unpredictable process of co-evolutionary (community) development, in which progress and well-being is very much a two-way street.
Cultivating our inner and outer game to become regenerative trail blazers
For millennia, humans have evolved at a relatively slow and steady pace; a pace increasingly out of sync with the rapid changes we’re currently grappling with. To meaningfully address climate change, we need to upgrade the way we lead, govern and collaborate. Solving society’s pressing challenges will require unprecedented levels of collaboration and co-creation across divides, borders, sectors and communities, including with those who view the world very differently.
“We and all living beings thrive by being actors in the planet’s regeneration. We practiced degeneration as a species and it brought us to the threshold of an unimaginable crisis. To reverse global warming, we need to reverse global degeneration.”
— Paul Hawken, “Regeneration: Ending the climate crisis in one generation.”
This calls for an ability of current and future leaders to navigate such differences, but equally be comfortable with great uncertainty while holding a strong compass. We will have to adopt radically new mindsets, and nurture our capabilities to effectively respond to sudden changes and shifts. That also means being ‘ready to be ready’ to act on windows of opportunity as they swiftly emerge — windows that have been occurring in rapid order in recent years, whether it’s pandemics, war, (energy) supply challenges, or extreme weather events which demand a response from society and its leaders.
This is no easy feat: the decision makers of today and tomorrow will have to evolve their regenerative and responsible leadership muscle fast. As with exercise however, this muscle will grow with each change or action. Even then, it’s crucial to be aware that we both play an inner and an outer game. Our ‘outer game’ — our knowledge, skills and technical expertise is a dimension that we spend much of our lives honing to keep up with this fast-changing world and its demands. It’s also the one that we typically focus on when it comes to transforming our countries and companies to a net zero emission future.
Our ‘inner game’ on the other hand determines what really drives us, how we identify, and what we believe. It’s basically our compass to make sense of the world around us, informing how we view and act. Yet our inner game runs our outer game. And it’s those ‘inner game’ qualities that we need to nurture and scale if we are going to step up to the challenges humanity is facing. After all, to center regeneration at the heart of our efforts to transform, an immense shift in mindset is needed such that we do not continue to repeat the same mistakes and failures of the past.
Winston Churchill famously said “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. And history tells us that moving to a new paradigm has always represented a formidable challenge for incumbent civilizations finding themselves at a similar breaking point as we do today. Throughout time, civilizations have tended to look backwards when threatened with collapse, attempting to recapture the good old days by patching up and doubling down on their existing systems rather than reinventing them.
“Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
— Milton Friedman, Neoliberal economist
The solution is clearly not to fantasize about turning back the clock, seeking comfort in certainty and craving the status quo. Nonetheless, the resistance to fundamental change is strong as our current organizing system is deeply entrenched and the idea that the core concepts underpinning it could radically change seems inconceivable to many. Looking back in time however tells us that organizing systems are variables, rather than constants; and as the civilizations underpinning them crumble, these systems can and will change rapidly and fundamentally. Transform we will; the main question now is how.
A truly regenerative economy as such will require us to move from rigid to flexible; from prescriptive to inquisitive; from exclusive and extractive to inclusive and replenishing; and from command and control to involving and empowering. And above all, an economy that is attuned with the dynamics of living systems and which in its actions is constantly life affirming. Only then may we transmute from a species highly adept at surviving to one that embodies thriving.
Preparing the ground for a regenerative future
Transformation happens as the emergent result of everything that’s going on in the world, whether through conscious intent or unintentional consequence. Just as we won’t be able to solve the climate crisis in isolation, no one actor has the power let alone ability to bring about a regenerative economy. The manifold challenges we face are so intertwined and complex that they require not merely systemic solutions but equally deeply collective efforts. Innovative entrepreneurs such as those supported by RESPOND aren’t lonely north stars to look up to for guidance. Rather they should be considered embedded ecosystem actors — similar to ambitious policy makers, corporate CEOs, and activist youth exploring regeneration — who each offer important early blueprints for moving our economy, and with it our society, towards a regenerative, just, and resilient future.
One that will only come about through a transformative process of re-imagination, innovation, and experimentation, which will allow us to move from the established patterns of our ‘first horizon’ (industrial era) to the emergence of fundamentally new patterns in the third horizon (regenerative paradigm). This is not a pipe dream — evidence of this future exists right now, and can be amplified by each of us. In this section we set out five practical recommendations, which every actor, regardless of their position, the role, and sector they’re in, can start practicing. After all, “future consciousness will not bring the future under control, but allows us to develop our capacity for transformational response to its possibilities.”[1]
1. The Earth Charter clearly states[2]: “when basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about being more, not having more”. Consciously cultivate a change of mind and heart, adopting and embracing a regenerative and future-fit worldview because once we alter and evolve our inner ‘being’, this will be expressed in our outer ‘doing’, or in other words in our actions;
2. Hone your ability to see interconnections and handle complexity. This means we need to reject siloed approaches aiming to serve narrow, topic-specific objectives and instead open our eyes to the interconnected nature of the issues we face and subsequently design solutions that efficiently help solve multiple challenges;
3. Put experimentation and re-imagination at the centre of your approach to creating uptake and impact. If we aim to turn the implausible into plausible, we will have to embrace experimentation and innovation — and above all: an open mind! — to explore, build trust, and generate evidence regarding the design and implementation of novel approaches. Systems change after all is not linear, it’s a messy process and one that’s deeply explorative;
4. Evidence alone cannot change the world. The best way to achieve change is not by merely evidencing it. Instead, we should “seek to actively close [..] the ‘salience deficit’, where the public or power-holders do not think the issue is important or see it through a different frame, and the ‘power deficit’, where the people wanting change are not in positions of power or have limited influence on those who are”[3];
5. Deliberately identify ‘acupressure’ or leverage points in the system you’re looking to influence. Leverage points[4] are interventions, which are perceived as key to foster a change in paradigm and to propagate new ways of thinking and doing, unlocking a cascade of self-reinforcing changes. Just as neoliberalism didn’t just come out of nowhere, but on the contrary was the product of a carefully cultivated and well-funded 30 year effort, bringing about a regenerative paradigm requires us to strategically intervene in the current system.
[1] Quote by Bill Sharpe, pioneer of the Three Horizons approach
[2] Refer to the Earth Charter website: https://earthcharter.org/
[3] Read more in the IPPR report on movement building “Making Change, What Works”, at https://www.ippr.org/research/publications/making-change-what-works
[4] Refer to Donella Meadows’ work on “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System”, at https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/
