Sustainability Bites

Quentin Grafton responds to the question, what is your Theory of Change (TOC) in terms of shifting away from the current business-as-usual trajectory of ever rising greenhouse gas emissions? While acknowledging TOC has value at an individual or organizational level, he sees it as a distraction to the changes in how democracy is practiced if we are to effectively mitigate climate change.  

A key trend for those wanting to influence or shape the Earth’s future is to develop a ‘Theory of Change’(TOC). The idea is that by articulating what we as individuals or as community can change and/or influence we can then be systematic in, say, mitigating and adapting to accelerated warming or a host of other local and global crises (e.g. biodiversity loss, food insecurity, etc.).

Cheap TOC

TOC is a systematic process whereby we first identify key long-term future goals (eg, a planet that warms less than 2⁰ Celsius) and then work out what needs to be done (achieve Net Zero CO₂ emissions by 2050) to achieve it. That is, TOC is a mapping over time and across actions that links what we, and others, do to achieve the outcomes that, ultimately, deliver goals we want.

In its most recognised form, it is a series of causal, sequential and logical chains that map inputs (eg, resources committed) to activities or actions (eg, tasks completed) and outputs (eg, products) to deliver outcomes (eg, results) that achieve long-term goals.

In its current form, TOC is only a few decades old, but the practice has been around for millennia. Forward-looking people have always planned, evaluated and reviewed and acted to deliver a desired outcome with an associated goal(s). Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ and Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ are each a type of TOC—strategic planning and actions to deliver a desired goal (eg, complete victory over an opponent).

And lest we think strategic planning is unique to humans, predators such as lions, wolves, orcas, and other animals, communicate, plan and act (hunt) co-operatively to get an outcome (accessible food) to achieve a common goal (avoid hunger).

Circles of Control and Influence

Sitting alongside TOC are concentric circles of control (inner circle), influence (middle circle) and concern (outer circle) for individuals and organisations. These circles allow us to focus on what we can control, and possibly influence, rather than waste our time on what we cannot change. This type of thinking was popularised by Epictetus, who was born a slave but became one of the most famous Greek Stoic Philosophers. His idea was that we should not worry or concern ourselves with what we cannot change because it may be detrimental to our well-being. According to Epictetus, we should concern ourselves with how we respond to the world (eg, our own choices about how we live) and not about what we cannot be change (eg, when and where we were born).

While this may be valuable advice about how we should live our lives, it’s not helpful when we actually want to change the world, with all its suffering and conflicts. It begs the question, what do we do if our circles of control and influence cannot bring the change that we collectively need?

Circles of control and influence differ greatly between people. A billionaire can, if they wish, spend large amounts of money supporting a particular election outcome with the quid pro quo that they get power and influence from the grateful, (re)elected leader. CEOs of large companies, as business leaders, also have control over what gets prioritised and on what investments get made, when and where. This control and influence go well beyond their own companies. For example, business leaders can exert a lot of influence to slow-down or stop legislation or regulations that may adversely affect their interest. They can also lobby for beneficial treatment (eg, specific government grants and subsidies) paid for by taxpayers.

Revolving Doors Lobbying by former politicians and senior public servants support ‘cosy relationships’ between business interests and government. The results is decision-making that favours particular interest over the public interest. This is a Democracy Deficit whereby a very small number of unelected people (eg, fossil fuel lobbyists), and organisations that they represent, have too much influence over public policy which makes it difficult to effectively respond to long-term environmental threats (eg, climate change).  

Putting aside what we can and cannot control, whether TOC results in desired goals is uncertain. It depends on us really understanding the causal links and is limited by our own misconceptions about the degree of control and influence that we have. Consequently, TOC will be likely be most effective at generating the changes we want when it focuses on short-term goals at an individual or small organisation level, within a relatively stable environment and when there is a relatively high degree of control and influence.

By contrast, the further into the future are the outcomes we want (eg, 2100), the larger is the scale (eg, global) of the change, and the greater is the complexity (eg, anthropogenic climate change) of the causal links, the less effective TOC is likely to be.

DACCS to TOC – It’s Complicated

To illustrate the challenges of TOC and circles of control, at a personal level we can reduce our carbon emissions by eating less meat or flying less. However, while millions of people have made numerous changes in their lives to reduce their own emissions, global emissions continue to rise because the world economy still runs mainly on fossil fuels.

Even when our change is directed to a global goal, such as carbon capture and storage, the causal links are not always clear and there are frequently unintended consequences. For example, Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS) is a set of emerging and developed technologies that use chemical and/or physical processes to extract carbon dioxide directly from the air and then sequester it in long-term storage.

DACCS is highly energy intensive meaning that, depending on the carbon emissions of the energy source to power DACCS units, these plants could generate more overall carbon emissions than they capture. Further, to really make a difference at a global scale to achieve Net Zero by 2050, more than 200,000 giant DACCS plants would need to be operational in 25 years. Currently there is only a single large-scale operational plant in Iceland.

Collectively, these DACCS plants would require total energy supplies equal to about the current global electricity energy production to deliver Net Zero by 2050. Pretending that DACCS give us a ‘get out of jail card’ for global warming also encourages governments to avoid imposing stringent greenhouse gas emissions reductions today in the unsupported belief that it can simply be ‘vacuumed up’ later.

Putting aside the need to understand the systems nature of our planetary problems, TOC makes little sense if it goes beyond our circle of control and existing knowledge. To illustrate, suppose a non-profit charity has a TOC in relation to aid from the Global North to the Global South with the goal to reduce poverty. While its aid can be immediately beneficial to recipients, especially in a disaster zone, both the scale and the nature (eg, donation of unwanted used clothing) of how and to whom the transfers are made (eg, recipient government’s agencies) really matter. For example, donations of large volumes of unwanted and used clothing from the Global North to the Global South has imposed, in some places, very large environmental costs, especially on the poor. Thus, notwithstanding the well-intentioned goals of donors, TOC may do little, if anything, to effect real change. It’s even possible that some donor actions based on TOC may entrench existing power relationships and generate outcomes opposite to what was intended.

Stop Drinking the Kool Aid!

To get the change the world desperately needs, we must all push back on greenwashing and misinformation that has contributed to widespread delusion about where the world is heading. Despite the post-truth messaging to the contrary, these are the facts.

First, the world appears to be on an accelerated warming path with exceptionally warm years in 2023 and 2024. This means it’s getting hotter and faster such that the rate of recent warming (2010-2024) is now almost twice as fast as it was over the period 1970-2010 average warming of 0.18 °C/decade.

Second, despite long-standing predictions that global fossil fuel emissions are about to peak, they continue to increase (about 1% in 2024). Indeed, if the 2024 rate of increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ were to continue by 2060 the world will have twice the CO₂ concentrations that it had in pre-industrial times. Should these concentrations continue, it would very likely eventually result in an average surface warming of between 2.3 °C and 4.7 °C with a an estimated mean increase of 3.63⁰ Celsius.

Third, green growth, energy transition, carbon capture, carbon offsets, or whatever the flavour of the Kool Aid that we are being sold, are grossly inadequate to deliver Net Zero by 2050. This is because the Net Zero target requires global greenhouse gas (not just carbon dioxide) emissions to peak in 2025 and to then decline by about 10% per year by 2030 and on-going reductions to 2050.  

Future Truth

People change their behaviour and actions when they believe change is necessary and worthwhile for them and consider that such change is at, the very least, possible.

Much of the climate science communication over the past three decades have been about presenting a case for change. This messaging has had to compete with a series of false narratives such as climate change is not a problem that morphed into, yes, climate change is a problem but we need to solve and prioritise other bigger problems first (eg, hunger and malnutrition) to the current Kool Aid that while climate change is a big problem we have it sorted (eg, target of Net Zero by 2050).

In a post-truth climate change world ‘more and better science’ will not generate the change needed. Instead, all of us and wherever we live, must face the reality of climate change and collectively consider the possible, plausible and probable futures and judge them against business as usual. This is not a Theory of Change. Rather, it’s an evaluation of what we as individuals, and collectively in communities, nations, and globally, must do by employing real bottom-up and top-down decision-making.

Such dialogues and decision-making are not simply about what are the costs and benefits of any particular action (eg, carbon tax) and how it affects us personally. Instead, it’s about working through what combinations of different possible actions deliver the best collective future possible over time by learning, reflecting, acting and adapting. This does not happen by cheap TOC and top-down control but requires a series of nested and on-going deliberations whereby all voices are included from small communities all the way up to our parliaments.  

Government of the people, by the people, and for the people

So how does the change we need happen? The first step is to change how we practice democracy and to transform our societies to active democracies using both deliberative and participatory processes. This means redistributing power and influence towards citizens and away from privileged interests (eg, fossil fuel interests and lobbyists).

The conditions necessary for an active democracy include but are not limited to:
1) high-quality public education that allows most people to engage with complex problems and to avoid a ‘dumbing down’ of our collective intelligence—an increasing possibility as the use of AI becomes widespread within education;
2) effective and widely-available civic education so we all know what are the ‘rules of the game’ and how we can change them;
3) fact-checking of publicly available information to mitigate greenwashing and which could be facilitated by AI;
4) a diverse and free press so that powerful interests can’t simply buy themselves a megaphone and shutdown the voices of others;
5) participatory processes around decisions of key public interest that go far beyond simply voting for our representatives; and
6) transparent mechanisms that hold decision-makers fully accountable for their actions, such as an integrity commission with real power, and rules that create a ‘level playing field’ about who gets access to decision-makers.   

This is a big ‘to do’ list for a functioning democracy like Australia but is a much bigger ask in an illiberal democracy. It may be an insurmountable task in failed states. But whether we like it or not change is already happening and climate change is here. And no Theory of Change will fix it for us.

More of the same and business as usual is rapidly consuming our future. We have failed to keep global warming to 1.5⁰ Celsius. Nevertheless, we still have the opportunity, should we choose, to avoid catastrophic warming of 3⁰ Celsius or more—our current trajectory.

Whatever deficiencies we may we have in terms of own circle of control, we (the people) collectively have the power, if we choose to work together to exercise it, to change the future that’s coming. What we need is “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Without it, we will never get the change that all of us who share this planet desperately need. 

Quentin Grafton is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. He is the Convenor of the Water Justice Hub, and Executive Editor of the Global Water Forum.

Banner image: Whatever deficiencies we may we have in terms of own circle of control, we (the people) collectively have the power, if we choose to work together to exercise it, to change the future that’s coming. What we need is “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”. (Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)