Faculty of Law University of Toronto

Law, Governance and Global environmental Change Workshop series

presents

Professor Edward Parson

University of Michigan

The Long Haul: 

Managing the Energy Transition to Limit Climate Change

Friday, January 23, 2009

12:30 – 2:00

Solarium (Room FA2) – Falconer Hall

Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

84 Queen’s Park

Debate over responses to climate change has primarily considered immediate measures, and long-term climate-stabilization goals. The space between these questions - the transition between near-term actions and long-term stabilization - is crucial for an effective response, but neglected.  Examining this transition is essential because the emission cuts and associated transformation of world energy systems needed to limit climate change are so large.  Near-term actions cannot achieve the required changes, for reasons of both political and practical feasibility.  Nor can near-term action fully specify how to navigate the transition: we know emissions must decline by a lot, but the specifics of how much by when, achieved through what technologies, and motivated by what policies, are all uncertain.  Delaying action in hope of resolving these uncertainties would risk losing the chance to make the required changes in time, due to climate and energy-system inertia.  Rather, we must navigate the required transition under uncertainty - choosing initial steps not for their near-term effects, but for how they promote and inform the larger steps needed later; and learning, experimenting, and adjusting policies and decisions as we proceed.  This represents an enormous and novel challenge.

Examination of the transition can usefully be parsed into one set of technical and analytical questions about the transition pathway; and a second set of political, institutional, and legal questions about processes to achieve it.  Abstracting from political and legal reality, the first set supposes some expert body holds full authority over emissions policies - a steering wheel to guide the transition - and asks how hard they should steer, now and over time, and what observable information they should use in making and updating these decisions as the transition proceeds.  Given that no one has such a steering wheel, the second set then asks what means to influence long-term decisions and societal trends are available, how effective and manageable they are, with what costs and risks.  More  specifically, what means are available to manage the tension between our dual goals for future decision-makers: binding them to the long-term goal of shifting to climate-safe energy at low cost, yet empowering them to adjust specific decisions in pursuit of this goal, based on knowledge they will have but we do not?

Professor Edward A. Parson is Professor of Law and Professor of Natural Resources & Environment at the University of Michigan

A light lunch will be provided.

This workshop series is co-sponsored by the Centre for International Studies (Global Environmental Politics Program), University of Toronto.

For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca