Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

Ukraine is having a tougher-than-usual time at the moment. On the frontlines, the battle of Pokrovsk is raging, and it does not look like Ukraine is winning it.

Nor do things look good for the country’s energy resilience after months of an intensive Russian air campaign targeting key infrastructure. According to the UN, this could trigger another major humanitarian crisis in the already war-ravaged country.

The geopolitical picture looks equally grim. The delivery of long-range Tomahawk missiles, sought by Kyiv for months now, has again been ruled out by the US president, Donald Trump. What’s more, after his meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in South Korea on October 30, Trump said that the US and China would work together to end the war in Ukraine.

The possibility of a productive collaboration between Trump and Xi on peace in Ukraine, let alone its successful conclusion, is remote. And even if there was a Washington-Beijing sponsored deal, it would not be in Ukraine’s favour as became clear a few days later.

During a high-profile, two-day visit of the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, to China on November 3 and 4, Beijing showed no signs of backing out of its partnership with Russia, which is key to sustaining the Kremlin’s war machine.

Nor does the continuing delay in approving an EU loan to Ukraine worth €60 billion (£53 billion) and backed by frozen Russian assets bode well for Kyiv.

Given all this bad news, it was therefore no surprise that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, leapt at what looked, on the surface, like good news in the European commission’s latest assessment of Kyiv’s progress towards EU membership. The European commission notes in its report that Ukraine has made progress in all of the 33 different chapters of the accession negotiations. This is as remarkable as it is commendable given that the country has done so in the shadow of Russia’s aggression since February 2022.

Yet, in many areas, progress is modest at best. A more careful analysis of the 2025 commission report suggests that positive news, if any, is in the presentation, not the underlying facts.

For example, in relation to the fight against corruption the commission reports that recent developments “cast doubts on Ukraine’s commitment to its anti-corruption agenda”. This is primarily a reference to attempts by Zelensky’s government to limit the independence of the country’s anti-corruption institutions. The issue triggered massive public protests in the summer and forced a partial government climb-down.

Worryingly, the commission also notes “political pressure on anti-corruption activists” and “harassment and intimidation of journalists”. This includes “cases of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) related to journalistic investigations”.

Meanwhile, in the fight against serious and organised crime, the commission report states: “The freezing and confiscation of criminal assets remain very limited.” Other shortcomings concern limited progress on decentralisation, lack of transparency in recruitment to civil service positions, the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, and the persistence of torture and ill treatment in the prison and detention system.

On the one hand, it is not surprising that these shortcomings exist. Ukraine has been fighting an existential war for almost four years. The country has only been a candidate country for EU membership since June 2022, four months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Accession negotiations didn’t start until December 2023.

Yet it is the persistence of these highly visible, easily exploitable problems related to fundamental values of the EU that are causing concern. Almost identical issues were raised in the European commission’s opinion on Ukraine’s membership application in 2022. It was raised again in the 2023 report and again in last year’s progress report on accession negotiations.

It may be an exaggeration to claim that Ukraine is experiencing a turn towards a more autocratic style of presidential government under Zelensky. But there clearly are signs that war-time politics in Kyiv has a darker side that does little to bolster the country’s credentials for EU membership.

Discord within

This provides easy ammunition for Ukraine’s detractors inside the EU. Chief among them is Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, whose obstruction tactics have frustrated European commission efforts on Ukraine’s accession.

Poland and Slovakia have joined Hungary in defying the EU’s effforts to complete an updated trade deal with Ukraine. Opposition to Ukraine from within the EU has now been further strengthened by the formation of a eurosceptic, hard-right populist government coalition in the Czech republic.

The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, continues to insist that membership for Ukraine by 2030 “is a realistic goal”.

But the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, is more guarded. She has noted that “future accession treaties will need to contain stronger safeguards” to “reassure our citizens in the Member States that the integrity of our Union and democratic values are ensured, also after the accession”.

In an interview with the Financial Times, she said that she did not “want to go down as the commissioner bringing in the Trojan horses”.

Given the detail in Ukraine’s 2025 progress report on areas where Kyiv clearly needs to make urgent improvements, this suggests that the tough times for Ukraine are likely to continue, and not just in its war with Russia.

Though the future of the EU and Ukraine have become ever more closely entwined since February 2022, there remains a bigger question for the EU. Its dilemma is how to balance holding the line on its membership standards and enabling Ukraine to hold the line against Russia.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

Tetyana Malyarenko receives funding from Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University.

– ref. Lack of progress on joining EU caps another bad month for Ukraine – https://theconversation.com/lack-of-progress-on-joining-eu-caps-another-bad-month-for-ukraine-268921

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Daniel Hutton Ferris, Lecturer in Political Theory and Philosophy, Newcastle University

Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, has been elected as New York City’s mayor. He became the first New York mayoral candidate to win more than 1 million votes since 1969, and looks set to secure over 50% of the total vote.

With almost all of the votes counted, independent candidate Andrew Cuomo seems to have been backed by 41.6% of voters. Republican Curtis Sliwa has secured just 7%.

Mamdani, who has become New York City’s first Muslim mayor, swept to victory on what was characterised as a radical left-wing platform. He has promised to tax millionaires more in order to fund free buses and childcare for all.

He has also vowed to honour an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over alleged war crimes in Gaza if he visits New York. The Israeli foreign ministry has previously called Mamdani a “mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda”.

How did a figure on the far left of American politics, who is also a staunch critic of Israel, win in a city that is full of millionaires and home to a sizeable Jewish population?

The corruption and sexual harassment scandals affecting his main rival certainly helped, as did the focus of his campaign on making life more affordable for New Yorkers. Mamdani’s presence on social media raised his profile and attracted voters, too.

He posted slick videos on TikTok and Instagram throughout his campaign, including one where he criticised the rent increases seen under outgoing mayor Eric Adams while running the New York City marathon.

But journalists and commentators have noticed something else that has helped boost Mamdani’s appeal among New Yorkers. He has what the New York Times called in July “a rare talent for listening”.

Mamdani is unusually reflective in interviews, often thinking silently for more than 20 seconds before responding to questions. And after his successful primary earlier in 2025, Mamdani contacted every business and cultural leader in the city he could get hold of to hear about why they opposed him.

The viral campaign videos that made his name also see him walking the streets of New York, asking voters questions and listening to their answers at length without interruption. Mamdani may be a radical, but he really listens.

Talking to voters

Democratic theorists are likely to celebrate Mamdani’s approach. Many philosophers embrace what is known as the “deliberative theory of democracy”, which argues that talking – as opposed to voting – is the central democratic institution.

These people suggest that politicians should talk to a diverse range of voters respectfully about their decisions. Listening to diverse perspectives improves policy because it requires leaders to consider a range of ideas and arguments, relying less on their own gut intuitions.

As a respectful and inclusive political style, it can also help citizens feel heard and challenge the idea that politicians are interested only in power and will say whatever it takes to win. A more deliberative kind of responsiveness to voters can therefore increase political legitimacy and trust.

Political scientists are likely to point out that Mamdani has an important strategic reason for his deliberative political style. New York City uses a system of ranked choice voting, or “the alternative vote”, which asks voters to rank candidates in order of their preference rather than choosing just one.

This encourages politicians to find policy proposals that are supported by large majorities, such as taxing millionaires to pay for free childcare, and to communicate respectfully with people of all political persuasions in the hope they might win their second-preference votes.

Larry Diamond, a leading American democracy expert, has called ranked choice voting the “Archimedean lever of change” for solving the deep polarisation currently affecting US politics. This is because it penalises candidates who rely on divisive rhetoric to appeal to a passionate base of supporters.

They are unlikely to win second-preference votes from people whose first preference is for one of their rivals. Conversely, ranked choice voting rewards politicians who try to bridge political divides with respectful and inclusive campaigning.

Depolarising US politics

There are many lessons that the political left in the US and beyond can learn from Mamdani’s victory. Most obviously, it shows that a socialist and pro-Palestine candidate can win in a major US electoral contest by combining a lively digital campaign with a strong focus on the cost of living.

It also suggests that candidates perceived as being radical are more likely to succeed in elections when they are visibly willing to listen to and deliberate with voters from all sorts of backgrounds.

Mamdani’s rise should also encourage a wider embrace of ranked choice voting. The system has been used to elect members of Australia’s House of Representatives for more than a century and it is now used in the US states of Maine and Alaska, as well as in the San Francisco Bay Area.

It should be adopted elsewhere too, as an antidote to political polarisation. The UK held a referendum on changing the electoral system to the alternative vote in 2011. However, UK voters unfortunately rejected the proposal.

Finally, Mamdani’s victory shows that radicalism and reflectiveness can come together, especially when the electoral system promotes it. Ranked choice voting is so good at encouraging a politics of respect and listening that it is sometimes accused of creating boring centrist candidates.

But Mamdani has reminded us that this does not have to be the case. Reforming US election systems could encourage deliberative responsiveness and depolarise American politics, without taking radical options off the menu.

Daniel Hutton Ferris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How Zohran Mamdani’s ‘talent for listening’ spurred him to victory in the New York mayoral election – https://theconversation.com/how-zohran-mamdanis-talent-for-listening-spurred-him-to-victory-in-the-new-york-mayoral-election-268950

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Gawthorpe, Lecturer in History and International Studies, Leiden University

Americans voted in elections on November 4 in the first major test of whether Republicans can hold together the coalition of voters that propelled Donald Trump to the White House in November 2024. The result was a Democratic party triumph.

Trump was not directly on the ballot in any of these elections, the most high-profile of which were to decide who would become the mayor of New York City and the governors of Virginia and New Jersey. But each race has been seen to varying degrees as a referendum on the president and the direction he has taken his party.

American politics is highly nationalised. This means that results in local and state elections are often heavily influenced by how voters feel about the national political situation. This is often frustrating to local politicians.

In New Jersey, for example, the Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli frequently complained that his Democratic opponent Mikie Sherrill was trying to make their recent race a referendum on the president rather than basing the campaign on the relative merits of their own proposals.

“If you get a flat tire on the way home tonight, she’s going to blame it on President Trump”, Ciattarelli said to voters at numerous campaign rallies. In the end, Sherrill won by 13%.

Republicans’ fraying coalition

None of the major races decided on November 4 were in the states usually regarded as the “swing states” – the ones that could reasonably be won either by the Democrats or Republicans and usually decide the outcome of presidential elections. But this doesn’t mean we cannot learn anything from them.

The nationalisation of US politics means that voters with similar demographic characteristics – for instance, what race they identify as or whether they live in the suburbs or rural areas – tend to vote in similar ways across state lines. If a party is improving its performance in the suburbs of New Jersey, the same is likely to be the case in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

In this respect, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City was the least surprising news of the night. For New York to have its first Muslim mayor is a historic milestone, and Mamdani’s achievement has electrified many. But Democrats usually dominate in urban areas, and he was no exception.

Republicans will be much more worried about what happened elsewhere. In both Virginia and New Jersey, Democrats won by double-digit margins – and they did so by winning back the groups that deserted them in the 2024 presidential election.

In 2024, Republicans were thrilled to make big inroads with Hispanic voters. Many saw it as proof that their party was extending its appeal beyond the white voters who make up its core supporter base. But in the recent elections, those inroads seemed to vanish.

Sherrill, a moderate Democrat who hasn’t generated nearly as much excitement as Mamdani, made her biggest gains in Passaic and Hudson counties, two of New Jersey’s most heavily Hispanic areas. Abigail Spanberger made the same inroads in Virginia.

Suburban voters, who often prove crucial to winning presidential elections, also deserted the Republicans in large numbers. Spanberger won Virginia’s Henrico County, a swathe of the suburbs of Richmond, by 40%. This was the Democrats’ biggest margin of victory in the county ever.

Some caveats

These results are great news for Democrats, and they exceeded the expectations of most observers before election night. Taken together, they seem to suggest that the coalition that won victory for the Republicans in 2024 is collapsing.

But it’s also not time for possible 2028 Democratic presidential candidates to start measuring the White House drapes quite yet. These results reflect a recent trend in US politics in which Republicans have struggled to win so-called off year elections – ones in which the presidency is not on the ballot.

In his ten years on the political scene, Trump has transformed the Republican party by expanding its appeal among less-educated white voters, younger voters and, to some extent, voters of colour.

But these are also groups that are less likely to vote than the average American. As a result, getting them to turn out when Trump is not on the ballot is a goal that Republicans have found elusive. So, we have to be careful about the conclusions we draw from these results.

At a minimum, we can safely say that the results of the recent elections suggest Democrats can expect to perform well in the midterms in 2026. That gives them the opportunity to win back one or two houses of Congress and act as a check on Trump’s agenda.

For their part, Republicans have some soul-searching to do. Trump is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in 2028. Unless some other Republican can reproduce Trump’s appeal to infrequent voters, the signs are that his party will struggle even in presidential election years.

Much also depends on Trump’s policies in the years to come. Voters are clearly fed up with the lack of progress on reducing the cost of living, the brutality of immigration raids, and the corruption and chaos that many perceive to exist under this administration.

Voter sentiment on these issues is unlikely to change unless Trump changes course. The question, given his political style and his personality, is whether he can – or whether he even wants to.

Andrew Gawthorpe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. US election results suggest Trump’s coalition of voters is collapsing – https://theconversation.com/us-election-results-suggest-trumps-coalition-of-voters-is-collapsing-268967

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Peter Urwin, Director, Centre for Employment Research, University of Westminster

The number of 16 to 24-year-olds in England who are not in education, employment or training (Neet) currently stands at nearly one million.

In a recent document of proposed policy, the government has set out a range of initiatives to help them. These include new qualifications designed for young people who achieve grade two or below in maths and English GCSEs, and guaranteed access to education, training or work. But will these initiatives be successful?

There are a multitude of contributing factors that lead to young people becoming Neet. These include if they have caring responsibilities, special educational needs or disabilities, and mental health challenges. Essentially, though, there are two cross-cutting challenges that must be addressed.

First, too many young people in England reach age 16 with poor qualifications, having become disillusioned with education. England’s further education system faces an enormous challenge to help them achieve results that will enhance their employment prospects.

Second, this leaves them unprepared for employment in a labour market with diminishing opportunities for young, low skilled workers.

Each August, when GCSE results are released, statistics set out what proportion of 16-year-olds achieved a “pass” – a grade four or above – in their exams. Far less attention is paid to the approximately 30,000 young people who do not achieve a grade 1, the lowest grade, in GCSE English and maths.

Most of these young people have complex special educational needs and disabilities or are severely absent from school. Many are not entered for GCSEs at all.

More generally, in research with colleagues, we estimate that there are up to 80,000 lower attaining young people each year aged 16, who for instance, achieve grade two or below in maths and English. Despite a raising of the compulsory age for education and training to 18, many students still do not engage with post-16 learning after their GCSE year.

A key new initiative from the government to address this – detailed further in the recently published independent review into curriculum and assessment – is a reconsideration of the post-16 policy that requires GCSE resits in English and maths for those who do not achieve at least grade four.

For the lowest attaining young people, the pass rate for these resists is currently very low. The proposed introduction of new post-16 qualifications in these subjects at level one, one level below GCSE (level two), for the lowest attaining is therefore encouraging.

More generally, there is a refreshing recognition that not all young people will achieve level three – A-levels, T-levels or equivalent qualifications – by the age of 19 and get a job at this level. This includes a suggestion that good quality vocational education pathways will now “prepare students to progress directly into level two occupations” – jobs that require skill levels equivalent to GCSE.

Unfortunately, the new 16 to 19 level one maths and English qualifications that these students will need to take, are envisaged to support them “progressing onto GCSE” in these subjects. Acceptance that many low attainers struggle to achieve this does not seem to fit with a continued drive for them to get GCSE maths and English. Many level two occupations, such as bricklaying and plastering, do not require level two maths and English, so this seems unnecessary.

The job market

The “supply” of approximately 80,000 low skilled young people to the labour market each year is a long-standing problem in the UK as they are much more likely to be Neet.

Many of the government’s proposed policies are relevant to this challenge. The main approach is to provide “guarantees”.

The “youth guarantee” promises young people “access to education, training and/or help to get into work”, including a guaranteed job for those unemployed for over 18 months. The proposed “pathways to work guarantee” will “provide training, work experience and a guaranteed job interview”. There will also be a “guaranteed college place in reserve for all 16-year olds”.

However, the government’s proposals contain little practical consideration of the capacity needed to meet these commitments. Much of the focus on job guarantees (for instance, “payments of up to £3,000 per apprentice” for employers) will simply offset recent national minimum wage and national insurance contribution increases that likely reduce young people’s job opportunities. Local authorities already have similar duties regarding post-16 education guarantees.

The government has set out an ambitious plan for change. However, the lack of practical detail on challenges such as capacity, as well as limitations to any new spending, may constrain the achievement of this ambition.

The government’s commitment to a data-driven approach that joins up skills and employment is very encouraging. Working with colleagues, I am trying to inform this data-driven approach. I would suggest that reversing unintended consequences of previous policies, can be achieved at low cost.

Reintroducing partnership approaches between schools and further education providers, for occupational programmes that spanned the ages of 14 to 18, would better engage those who have become disillusioned with education and provide education and training that prepares them for a variety of level two occupations. Sectors such as construction, health and social care, for instance, are struggling to fill roles.

Any concern over the narrowing of a young person’s learning early in their school career can be mitigated by the government’s commitments to lifelong learning, and the recent national curriculum recommendations that these learners can still progress to level three “if that is the right option”.

Peter Urwin has received funding from UKRI, ESRC, Acas and the Nuffield Foundation,

– ref. England’s plans to get more young people working or studying don’t go far enough – employment expert – https://theconversation.com/englands-plans-to-get-more-young-people-working-or-studying-dont-go-far-enough-employment-expert-268606

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Cleave, Lecturer, Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology, University of Exeter

Growing up in rural Devon, I was introduced to its more remote villages, farmsteads and communities as a boy. In later life, I became interested in the food traditions of these places – finding out what was eaten, and how it was prepared and cooked. This became an important aspect of my research on the evolving relationship between food and tourism in Devon.

The food eaten in rural Devon up to the 1960s might appear frugal to us today, but it comprised of wholesome simple dishes. For example, Devonshire dumplings – apples wrapped in pastry and baked – were especially good when accompanied by a generous dollop of clotted cream.

Food was typically seasonal and sustaining, and fuelled hard work – especially through cold and often wet winters when a freshly baked “teddy cake”, prepared from mashed potatoes, flour, sugar, suet and dried fruit, made a welcome appearance at teatime.

I heard stories from family and friends of special food for Sundays – usually a roast dinner. And at teatime, perhaps something special like a “frawsy of junket” (milk set with rennet) or “thunder and lightning” – bread generously spread with clotted cream and anointed with treacle.

Before the introduction of coal- or wood-fired kitchen ranges and oil stoves, much cooking in Devon was done over an open hearth, with the bread oven fired up once a week for baking day.

Without refrigeration and mains water, preparing meals, baking and making clotted cream and butter was hard work. Clotted cream was a three-day process – milk was allowed to stand overnight in a cool dairy, then gently heated to form the thick crust of the cream the next day, which was carefully removed on day three.

Devonshire food and tourism

Devon’s farmhouse kitchens and food featured on postcards taken by enterprising early 20th-century photographers. With their humorous captions in Devonshire dialect, postcards were popular with visitors and now provide a visual record of what was eaten.

As transport by rail and road improved in the 19th and 20th centuries, more tourists were able to discover Devon’s resorts, moorland and countryside – as well as its food.

The John Keats poem Teignmouth, written in 1818, tells of how “you may have your cream all spread upon barley bread”. Devonshire teas evolved to become the now-ubiquitous cream tea, but its origins were the staple food stuffs of “splits”, sometimes known as Chudleighs – small buns made from a yeast dough, eaten with clotted cream and jam or honey.

The British author Douglas St Leger Gordon, writing in the 1950s, lamented the decline of Devon’s harvest teas, which involved rural rituals and ceremony. Traditionally, the farmer’s wife and daughters would host a feast for all who had helped with the harvest, usually comprising ham sandwiches, homemade cake, splits spread with cream and jam, and specially baked harvest buns – “all of which appeared as if by magic”. The food and tea was carried in baskets to the hay-field, and the sharing of labour was rewarded with farmhouse hospitality.

Devon’s larder of fine food was known out of the county, too. Devonshire butter was sold in Fortnum & Mason in London from the 18th century, and during the 1920s The Devonshire Dairy on Oxford Street traded butter and cream.

The word spread through cookery and travel books, too. In Alec Adair’s recipe book Dinners Long and Short (1928), salt cod fried for breakfast, apple-in-and-out (a baked pudding made with apples, suet, sugar and flour) and Devonshire fried potatoes appear alongside classic French cuisine.

Clovelly herrings, or “silver darlings”, feature in Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Devon and Cornwall (1859), which recommended visitors should stay in the cliffside village to “regale at breakfast on herrings which have been captured overnight”, and are at their best in autumn.

Some of the more intriguing Devon recipes, alas, were not recorded for posterity. We can only imagine the dish that in his journals, Reverend John Skinner called the “squab pie”. It was “four feet in circumference … composed of neck of mutton, apples and onions, and by no means a bad thing”.

Devon’s food tells an evolving story of tradition, and a culinary and cultural relationship with landscape, communities and seasons. It is a celebration of regional food heritage and history – a legacy I hope, through my research on Devonshire food and cookery, to share with future generations.

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Paul Cleave does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Rural Devon cuisine has a rich history – from the origins of cream teas to squab pie – https://theconversation.com/rural-devon-cuisine-has-a-rich-history-from-the-origins-of-cream-teas-to-squab-pie-266511

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rob Lawlor, Lecturer in Applied Ethics, University of Leeds

When Britain abolished slavery in its empire in 1833, it paid the equivalent of hundreds of billions today in compensation – not to the enslaved, but to the slave owners. It was an imperfect, morally uneasy compromise, but it helped achieve a historic transition that had seemed impossible.

Today, as the world struggles to phase out fossil fuels, many doubt
such a transformation is still possible. Emissions keep rising, the Paris agreement isn’t properly enforced and powerful corporations continue to mislead the public and lobby against meaningful change.

Yet slavery was once seen as immovable. It was an institution that was accepted for thousands of years – far longer than fossil fuel-powered capitalism. Slavery was a significant source of wealth for many, and the rich and powerful opposed abolition. Yet it was abolished.

As a thought experiment, let us imagine a future where effective climate action unfolds the way slavery abolition once did. What might that look like?

Leadership and ‘persuasion’

Future historians might not point to a single moment of global unity, with all nations coming together to act as one. Rather, they’ll point to one nation – or a coalition – that took the lead. These early leaders might combine diplomacy, bribery and perhaps even the threat of military force or economic sanctions to “persuade” other countries to follow suit.

That’s how Britain pushed for the end of the slave trade: with a mix of idealism and hard power, with naval patrols and trade sanctions. A global fossil fuel phase out may unfold in a similarly non-ideal way.

Bottom-up pressure, top-down resistance

In this thought experiment, change will not start with governments. Rather, the demand for action will come from the bottom up. Activists will demand change and there will be huge public support but, at the same time, the rich and the powerful will continue to defend the status quo, lobbying against the introduction of stricter legislation.

The slavery abolition movement followed that pattern, with broad public support yet fierce opposition from those with most to lose. In Britain, slave owners were even compensated with £20 million (equivalent to “40% of state expenditure in 1834”) to secure their agreement to the loss of “their” property.

Something similar could happen in the climate fight. Perhaps fossil fuel companies will one day receive financial compensation to ease the transition away from fossil fuels – not because it is deserved, but rather as a pragmatic compromise.

The law as a tool for change

Legal action would also play a pivotal role. Governments and corporations will be (and, indeed, are already being) taken to court.

Abolitionists used the law in much the same way. A good example is a famous case in which enslaved Africans revolted and seized control of the ship La Amistad. The Africans were ultimately freed after reformers highlighted the contradiction between the idea of natural rights for all humankind in the US Declaration of Independence, and laws that allowed people to be private property.

As the historian David Brion Davis noted: “It was this contradiction that helped the reformers to pass laws for very gradual slave emancipation.” The Paris agreement, often dismissed as toothless, could gain real power through litigation in a similar way.

Why this thought experiment matters

Of course, this is not a real prediction. It is a thought experiment. Imagining that climate action will mirror the history of the abolition of slavery doesn’t guarantee that this is what will happen. But the comparison is valuable for several reasons.

It shows that historical precedent matters. Looking at what worked in the past can help us imagine what might work now. Massive moral change really has happened before, even despite entrenched interests working against it. As such, the example of the abolition of slavery offers hope.

It’s also realistic. Global cooperation would be ideal, but history suggests that change will be messier, potentially with some unpalatable compromise or confrontation.

The comparison poses some hard ethical questions. Is it ever justifiable to compensate fossil fuel companies? What forms of international pressure are morally acceptable?

The thought experiment can also sharpen our strategy. If this imagined future is unpalatable – if we’re ultimately not willing to send hundreds of billions to BP, Exxon and co – then it may motivate people to work for better solutions.

Perhaps most importantly, comparing slavery with climate change shows us that individual action still matters. You may feel powerless and want to know what you can do now. The history we have looked at suggests two things: support climate action publicly and, if you can afford it, provide financial support to groups like environmental law charity ClientEarth.

Abolishing slavery was messy and the strategy taken left many uneasy. Perhaps, when the time comes, significant action to mitigate climate change will involve similar controversies. But flawed solutions may be better than none.

Rob Lawlor received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This funded a project and a number of events that allowed me to collaborate with researchers from other disciplines, including historians.

– ref. What if the path to ending fossil fuels looked like the fight to end slavery? – https://theconversation.com/what-if-the-path-to-ending-fossil-fuels-looked-like-the-fight-to-end-slavery-268162