8
undertake energy transitions and meet the climate challenge at the United
Nations High Level Political Forum 2018 in New York, Alex Steffen
pointed out to the world that in this case, winning slowly is the same as
losing (also see McKibben 2017), and underscored a predatory delay by
powerful actors with entrenched interests, both commercial and political.
Greta Thunberg addressed an audience of the rich in Davos stating that it
is now time to panic. The IPCC released a special report on keeping global
warming below 1.5 °C, showing that we have our work cut out and must
make critical advances by 2030. The exponential climate action roadmap
2018 highlighted proven technological solutions that already exist and can
cut our emissions by half every decade till 2050, pointing out policy, political will and other blocks as the chief barriers to overcome (Falk et al.
2018). But, how can dramatic action proportionate to current drastic circumstances be enabled, when those in corridors of power do not feel the
same heat, when the privileged maintain the illusion of time while the
poor burn in wildfires and suffer climate risk and uncertainty over already
vulnerable livelihoods? The energy sector has long been regarded as technical, is often run bureaucratically and technocratically, and is financed in
deeply entrenched ways that remain far from transparent (Szulecki
2018)—is the first step towards decarbonising this sector (for decarbonise
it we must) to bring it into public discourse as something that concerns us
all, as a sector that we all have a stake in steering together?
These questions have answers. They have long been discussed by environmental governance scholars as a matter of accountability in various
cognate sectors and a range of academic disciplines. Who makes decisions
about resource use and allocation, and how are they held to account (Kraft
and Wolf 2018) and by whom? This is partly a question of formal institutional authority—in whom society has vested the power to decide. But the
world is rarely limited to formal structures alone. Authority is often contested, raw power sometimes prevails and, sometimes, the powerful are
simply too powerful to be held to account by the standards that might
appease a moral philosopher (Sareen 2016). And yet, powerful actors and
organisations always seek ways to legitimate their power to wider publics
to create a new moral economy in which they can take on the roles of new
institutional authorities (de Sardan 1999; Sareen 2017). This is not simply
attributable to some assumed innate desire in these actors to be recognised
as authoritative; the explanation is simpler. Authority makes it easier for
power to endure without constantly battling resistance (Scott 1998;
Sivaramakrishnan 2005).
S. SAREEN
undertake energy transitions and meet the climate challenge at the United
Nations High Level Political Forum 2018 in New York, Alex Steffen
pointed out to the world that in this case, winning slowly is the same as
losing (also see McKibben 2017), and underscored a predatory delay by
powerful actors with entrenched interests, both commercial and political.
Greta Thunberg addressed an audience of the rich in Davos stating that it
is now time to panic. The IPCC released a special report on keeping global
warming below 1.5 °C, showing that we have our work cut out and must
make critical advances by 2030. The exponential climate action roadmap
2018 highlighted proven technological solutions that already exist and can
cut our emissions by half every decade till 2050, pointing out policy, political will and other blocks as the chief barriers to overcome (Falk et al.
2018). But, how can dramatic action proportionate to current drastic circumstances be enabled, when those in corridors of power do not feel the
same heat, when the privileged maintain the illusion of time while the
poor burn in wildfires and suffer climate risk and uncertainty over already
vulnerable livelihoods? The energy sector has long been regarded as technical, is often run bureaucratically and technocratically, and is financed in
deeply entrenched ways that remain far from transparent (Szulecki
2018)—is the first step towards decarbonising this sector (for decarbonise
it we must) to bring it into public discourse as something that concerns us
all, as a sector that we all have a stake in steering together?
These questions have answers. They have long been discussed by environmental governance scholars as a matter of accountability in various
cognate sectors and a range of academic disciplines. Who makes decisions
about resource use and allocation, and how are they held to account (Kraft
and Wolf 2018) and by whom? This is partly a question of formal institutional authority—in whom society has vested the power to decide. But the
world is rarely limited to formal structures alone. Authority is often contested, raw power sometimes prevails and, sometimes, the powerful are
simply too powerful to be held to account by the standards that might
appease a moral philosopher (Sareen 2016). And yet, powerful actors and
organisations always seek ways to legitimate their power to wider publics
to create a new moral economy in which they can take on the roles of new
institutional authorities (de Sardan 1999; Sareen 2017). This is not simply
attributable to some assumed innate desire in these actors to be recognised
as authoritative; the explanation is simpler. Authority makes it easier for
power to endure without constantly battling resistance (Scott 1998;
Sivaramakrishnan 2005).
S. SAREEN