A crime as an opportunity. That is the premise from which the economist and environmental advisor David Lizoain, born in Toronto 41 years ago and trained at the prestigious universities of Harvard and the London School of Economics, starts. Lizoain denounces as genocide the continued and deliberate use, being aware of the consequences, of fossil energies to the point that the international community will demand criminal liability for it in the near future.
But from the panorama of environmental destruction in which we are still immersed, Lizoain, former advisor to the cabinet of the presidency of the Spanish Government and current Coordinator of Analysis and Prospective of the Municipal Management of Barcelona City Council, sees an opportunity to build a new solar version and renewable welfare state. He talks about the arguments to support his accusations of ecocide and the foundations of a new planetary social justice in the book Climate Crime (Debate), in which he articulates a message that many world leaders already subscribe to at the summit that is being held these days. in Dubai.
In his book, starting with the title, he launches forceful accusations.
It may be surprising that he talks about climate crime or genocide, but last year the President of the Spanish Government came out and said that climate change kills. The UN Secretary General went so far as to declare this summer that we have opened the gates of hell. And the Pope appeals to science and affirms that there is a homicidal logic behind climate change. If senior representatives like them say that this is a process that kills and the deaths are massive, the question is how we deal with it. If we consider that climate change is the result of the actions of human beings, how can we not understand this result as the result of human activities.
And who are the culprits?
This is an unprecedented process, it is structural, diffuse violence, and the causes and consequences are deferred over time. There is not necessarily explicit contact between those responsible and the main victims. But intentions can be measured by consequences. The oil companies, the fossil companies, which would be the main responsible together with the financial sector that is behind them, and a series of public powers that allow or cooperate, are responsible. Their intention is not to cause damage, it is to make money, but if along the way they are causing damage and they are aware of it, then they have a responsibility and we can ask them for explanations.
And is there any mitigating factor?
The issue is becoming more and more judicialized, we have the lawsuit of the young people of Montana, that of the young Portuguese against 33 European states… And now the oil companies are trying to defend themselves with the argument that everything was already known. We have gone from denial, that climate change was not happening, to the fact that we all already knew it and since we all knew it, there is no one to blame.
All accomplices?
Yes, in that excuse we would all be complicit, it would be no one’s fault and it would not be possible to assign responsibilities. And it is not like that. Just as in climate negotiations between countries, there is talk of a common but differentiated responsibility, at the level of actors and individuals as well. I’m talking about people in positions of power who make decisions about resource extraction, people with great control of our economy. You and I, for not having recycled one day or for eating more meat than the global average, may be participating in the same logic, but our degree of guilt is much lower than the people who are really holding power.
Different responsibilities?
We know that the concept of carbon footprint is popularized by a campaign by the fossil energy sector to shift blame and make people feel guilty, and that leads to frustration and resignation instead of what we need, which is a collective action to reverse the situation. Logically, we must change consumption habits and our economic and energy model, but there are actors whose decisions are clearly harmful to the people who inhabit the planet. At this point we already know what the consequences are of the extraction of new fossil energy sources and this continues to be authorized.
Is it irreversible? We are on time?
I would say yes, we can, through collective action, minimize the damage and improve the situation and everything we do will be good. The more we accelerate decarbonization, the better off we will be in many ways. For a decade we have been ruling out the worst scenarios of global warming, although that does not mean that we are doing enough or that we can rest assured. But if every tenth of a degree more in the planet’s temperature alters the lives of 100 million people, just the fact that we can limit that seems to me to be reason enough not to throw in the towel and do everything in our power.
You talk about an eco-apartheid due to inequality among the victims of climate change
Climate change interacts with inequalities, accelerates them, and this can be seen at all levels, between countries, since those who suffer the most are the most vulnerable and those with the fewest resources, and it is also seen within countries. It goes through neighborhoods, to understand it.
The one who can’t afford air conditioning, for example?
Have air conditioning or go to the second residence in the mountains or take a dip in the pool. We already experience these inequalities. But above all we are going to see the separation between countries. Eco-apartheid is that. As conditions become more climatically adverse and impact crops and political stability, there will be more possibilities of pandemics, more vulnerable areas. And we are already in a logic of tightening border controls, choosing both physical and administrative walls. The trend we are seeing in Europe and the United States is towards greater separation.
And solar socialism is the solution?
This change in the energetic substrate of the model can lead to other forms of social organization. The challenge is how we build social majorities to carry out these necessary transformations. And that is about offering hope and the possibility of a better future, that we can combine economic progress with social justice and ‘decarbonization’.
How would you summarize solar socialism?
It is a combination of an economy based 100% on renewable energy with universal and more robust social protections. I think they are two ideas that already have a very majority support within our society. Another thing is how we carry it out and in what terms.
How do you advance this idea in times of denialism?
The simple deniers are not very worrying because they are already a minority. The most worrying is people who take climate change for granted and then act like it’s not serious and are dismissive of its consequences. If we have realized that the planet will soon be much less habitable, very quickly if we do not move to a ‘decarbonized’ economy, we have to bet on a ‘decarbonization’ of everything in a very short time, if we take it seriously what science tells us.
Full ‘decarbonisation’
That affects the entire economy, literally, and all of what we have built. We are talking about the energy system, housing, mobility, industry, agriculture, everything, and it requires the involvement of all actors, administrations, public and private sectors, the third sector, we need unprecedented mobilization . The best proposal is to do it in a democratic and orderly way and not in an improvised, chaotic way and at the mercy of private factors without democratic powers being decisive.
What would be the most urgent?
End the extraction of fossil energy. What we are seeing is that investment in renewables needs to be accelerated more, but it is being successful beyond expectations. We are succeeding in creating the substitute, but we are not reducing the problem, which is fossil fuels, neither their use nor their subtraction. We are nowhere near implementing what would be necessary to comply with the [2015] Paris agreements. It is nonsense to open new wells.
In his book he talks about conflicts over climate change
There is a whole debate about whether the crisis in Syria was a product of climate change. I don’t have a definitive answer to that but I do know that it was preceded by a drought of a magnitude not seen in millennia. Political science seems to be reaching the conclusion that climate change is increasing conflicts in marginal territories, it is causing problems in the Sahel among farmers and ranchers… Something basic is that our systems are vulnerable and if you subject them to more pressure the seams will be noticeable sooner. If even the official documents of the World Bank are already talking about hundreds of millions of people who will have to migrate and these organizations are conservative, my intuition tells me that these movements of people can tense the situation or provoke conflicts in many parts of the world. If we do not take action and do not offer a sustainable and fair alternative both at home and between the north and the south, we will be opening the doors to the extreme right.
Could we one day see trials like those at Nuremberg in relation to climate change?
I think so, because the rule of law is slow but relentless, although on an international scale it has yet to be built. Simply the fact that certain actors may have doubts about whether these trials will come or not, can already serve to dissuade certain practices. In the Spanish case, if it had classified a crime of ecocide, we can ask ourselves what the policy would be like in the case of Doñana or the Mar Menor. Some would think twice, I think.
Now that you are an advisor to the Barcelona city council, what can be done from the cities?
Cities are going to be the main scenarios of the changes that we are going to experience, in mobility, housing… For example, when the mayor talks about taking a leap in the construction of governability of the metropolitan region it is a great success because the major problems and among them, in a transversal way, climate change, they must be addressed with a metropolitan vision. You are not going to consider mobility only in the Barcelona area without taking into account from Penedés to Maresme. We are going to need other elements of coordination, other alliances between urban and rural areas. Cities can be the driving force, but the fundamental thing is that no one is left behind and that everyone’s voices count. Here local politics is where you see the changes most directly and this climate change is a transformation of our concrete reality. And the administrators of the concrete are the city councils.
