ICS Seminar - Adam Lucas

Presenter: Adam Lucas

Discussant: Daniele Fulvi

Chair: Michelle Whitmore

Abstract

The phrase 'technofix' has become a dirty word among climate activists and researchers over the last two decades. The term exemplifies the disillusion many feel about the tendency of national governments and transnational corporations to use technological rhetoric to simulate action on climate change, while delivering little of substance. Given the role of the most polluting nations in the design, funding and oversight of the two international bodies responsible for coordinating global research and action on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the UnitedNations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), it is perhaps unsurprising that both organisations similarly suffer from these deficiencies.The IPCC’s research is dominated by natural scientists and economists who arguably possess little understanding of sociotechnical development or how political power operates, while the UNFCCC is dominated by political functionaries whose prime directive appears to be to accommodate the interests of polluting industries. Both bodies’ default position has been to rely on technofixes as guides for climate action and as technological 'solutions' to the climate crisis. In this talk I will summarise why such a position is deeply flawed and is almost certainly doomed to fail.