History Offers Hope that We Can Reduce the Risk of Global Warming

by Jan Kunnas

Mr. Kunnas defended his doctoral thesis “Fire and Fuels: CO2 and SO2 Emissions in the Finnish Economy, 1800-2005” at the European University Institute, Department of History & Civilization, in Florence Italy.

While still writing on my doctoral thesis, I received as a comment on an early version from a professor in my university, “that few people today believe in history as the vita magistra.” At first this statement shocked me, but later on it turned into a great inspiration for further thought. The first question arising was, that if we do not believe that we can learn from history, then what is the justification of the whole academic discipline history. If it is just for our own fun, is it then legitimate to finance our hobby with taxpayer’s money? If it is just for the enjoyment of our readers, why don´t we simply invent hilarious stories?

I do not mean that I think that all historical research should have an immediate practical use. But I think that giving up the notion that we can learn from history would be a huge loss. Great errors of the past are very useful in many ways. We can perhaps find useful lessons from past mistakes, and hopeful also insights from past success stories. To achieve this goal it is, however, necessary to go beyond a mere reconstruction of past events to an understanding of the underlying processes.

As a fresh doctor in history, I still have a sincere belief is that we can learn something from history. The subject of my doctoral thesis was the environmental effects of Finland’s energy consumption. One of the main questions was the divergent paths of carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide emissions. Why did the emissions of sulphur dioxide start to decline in the 1970s in Finland and other industrialized countries, but emissions of carbon dioxide not? Could we perhaps learn something from the decline of sulphur dioxide emissions that could be useful in the case of global climate change? I believe that we can, but the lessons from history are seldom unambiguous.

I argued that the initial decline of sulphur dioxide emissions in the 1970s was mainly a side-effect of changes in industrial processes rather than an outcome of a deliberate policy. Furthermore, anxiety about large and widespread damage to the forests was a major reason for active measures to decrease sulphur dioxide emissions since the mid-1980s. Thus the emissions themselves provoked their downturn. Although the risks facing Finland’s forests might have been overestimated, without active measures the emissions would eventually have reached a level in which the forests would have been seriously damaged. This again would have caused serious injury to the Finnish economy.

From an environmental point of view it does not matter whether an emission decline is a result of environmental considerations or a by-product of economically dictated technological change, or whether the engine of change is increased wealth or public unease with pollution. However, there is a big difference in the policy implications. For future development of carbon dioxide emissions, the story of declining sulphur dioxide emissions in the 1970s inspires hope that reduction of emissions could be part of normal technological development. By speeding up this kind of development, environmental concerns and policy measures can accelerate the development creating at best a win-win situation according to the Porter Hypothesis, which claims that environmental protection can benefit competitiveness.

If again the environmental damage has to become severe enough to create pressure to reduce the emissions, then in the case of carbon dioxide the prospects are grim indeed. At that point, when the negative consequences are revealing enough to convince all skeptics, it is already too late. Another option is that, as in the case of sulphur dioxide, the anxiety about possible serious damage in the future can be enough to create a downturn in emissions.

It have been estimated that we need an 80 percent emission cut in the developed countries by 2050 to achieve a global emission cut of 50 percent. This would enable us to stay below a 2 Celsius degree global warming, which is most likely enough to prohibit the direst prognoses related to climate change. The goal sounds staggering, but the international success story of dealing with acid rain is inspiring. When a consensus about the need to deal with emissions of sulphur dioxide and other emissions causing acidification was finally achieved, the emissions fell rapidly. For example in Finland the emissions of sulphur dioxide declined by 87 percent from 1980 to 2001.

Another inspiring example of a successful limit on global pollutants, which follows a similar development path as sulphur dioxide emissions, is the story of ozone-depleting chemicals. In both cases a few countries first made unilateral cuts. Their example together with active lobbying eventually led to successful international treaties. In the end the actual costs for dealing with the emissions were also much lower than at first anticipated, which made it easier for less eager countries to follow.