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Olaf Corry Profile picture
Olaf Corry
@TOClimates
Teach and research international politics, climate change, science in societies. City of Cambridge, University of Leeds, State of Denmark - not all rotten.
Jan 11 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
Man skal være en meget stor retoriker - og det er Krasnik bestemt normalt - for a slippe afsted med denne leder om Gaza og retssagen. Men det mislykkes. En tråd 🧵 Vi skal forstå: at anklage Israel for folkemord skubber freden længere væk fordi det "vækker historiske traumer og stærke følelser" - hos Israelere. Det er deres følelser Krasnik kærere sig om, forstås. De skal ikke konfronteres i retten, det er bare 'spektakulært' - et stunt.
Sep 21, 2020 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
By coincidence, I read this piece on #geoengineering as 'the only solution' to climate injustice, just after picking up James C. Scott's 'Seeing Like a State' which analyses why some well-intentioned megaprojects have turned really effing lethal. /Thread. wired.com/story/geoengin… Scott's classic asks why some well-intentioned schemes to improve the human condition have historically failed badly, killing or ruining countless lives ("fiasco" is too lighthearted a word he says). He identifies 4 necessary elements for worthy-but-deadly megaprojects. Here goes
Sep 11, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
What do 'pandemic politics' suggest about the political environment solar geoengineering might face?

A new comment in Communications Earth and Environment by @hollyjeanbuck @Oliver_Geden Masa Sugayama and myself offers 5 lessons. See Holly's thread 👇
+ here's my summary: /1 We posit "If the concept of stratospheric aerosol injection leaves the realm of modeling, it will be thrust into a multi-societal science–media-policy interface that operates in ways not currently anticipated—at least not in idealized model simulations/ governance scenarios". /2
Aug 19, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I agree that techno determinism is silly. On the other hand, total fungibility re the societal effects of a technology is also non-credible. The Q is what social and technical futures arise/are likely to be created by a particular tech in a particular social configuration. A global solar manipulation system with single point delivery (if it were possible) is unlikely to facilitate a more decentralised set of power relations globally. In my view it's also not likely to be created without a concomitant concentration of geopower.
Jun 18, 2020 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Thread/ 1 One of the risks of game theoretic models of policy dilemmas is translation back to real world. Firstly, model set-ups claim to be 'simplification' of a target system but this assumes we know the system's basic form already. Catch-22... 2/ This model of #climate negotiations with #geoengineering it is claimed 'simplifies to the basic form' of climate diplomacy. But how climate diplomacy works is precisely what is in question in this new simulation by @GernotWagner and @adrien_fabre . nature.com/articles/s4159…
May 15, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
There is plenty of racism in Western society and academia in general. More's the pity that a poorly crafted article singling out of Securitization Theory as 'avowedly conservative' (WTF?), anti-black and in the service of white supremacy was published in SD. Bad error. From Buzan & Wæver's short reply in SD: "if one is interested in ..racism in relation to the formation of securitization theory, the obvious source to examine would be Wæver et al. (1993).(..) This is all about the risks involved in European security turning towards security..
Apr 24, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
I think my main points are:
1) Deterrence of mitigation has been very successful over the years. Hence deep shit we are in and all of us are interested in geoengineering in some way.
2) Not all mitigation deterring is done intentionally or with ill motives. Far from it. 3) But certain countries have..a bad track record. Saudi Arabia is not only captured by fossil interests (like US) it IS a fossil fuel state and has more reasons than most to fear decarbonization. It has blocked progress systematically on mitigation. Depledge has written on this.
Apr 21, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1.Just read a new article on the co-evolution of climate targets (e.g. 'emissions cuts', 'carbon budgets', 'temp. targets'), promises and policies (e.g. CCS, BECCS) and climate modeling tools.

Do believe it deserves to become a modern classic of the Climate Policy Studies field 2. It sums up the shifting problem-solution configurations in international climate policy debates since 1992 and links these to logics of delay and 'prevarication' in emissions cuts, which renders such tech unavoidable, even as it fails to materialise. No conspiracies required! Image
Apr 4, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1. Good luck @Keir_Starmer. I voted for you and agree
anti-Semitism (ie. discrimination/hatred of Jews for being Jewish) should be "torn out" wherever it exists.

Yet even if half the party were expelled, Labour will still be accused of AS/racism, unless its politics change. 2. Why?
Some accusations of Labour AS are premised on the idea that strong criticism of Israel/Zionist ideology=AS. These will only stop when Labour aligns with Zionism, which happens to be the main source of legitimation for systematic ethnic discrimination against Palestinians.
Mar 28, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
1. Is it me, or is the BBC a bit, shall we say "timid" in this front page article which asks how fast the Coronavirus is spreading in the UK compared to other countries? 1/ Image 2. Under heading 'How do things look in the UK?' The reader is told and shown twice that there is an "expected pattern" that the UK has so far followed: a doubling of cases every 3 days. OK fine? Image
Mar 17, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Some thoughts: a) I don't find this asymmetry necessarily 'curious' - in fact most natural science geo-researchers openly declare a presumption in favour of radical mitigation over geoengineering. It's at the heart of the Royal Society report. Is that curious too? b) is symmetry necessarily an ideal - should researchers randomly pick things to study, or study 'one of each' from some categories (and if so which categories)? Why do you focus on geoengineering yourself, and not radical mitigation strategies? Is that a problematic asymmetry?
Dec 18, 2019 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
1. My new article out this week "Nature and the International. Towards a materialist understanding of societal multiplicity" in @GlobalizationsJ argues IR needs to re-include nature, while global environmentalism needs a stronger grasp of the international tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… 2 I argue the modern discipline of IR as it formed ejected geography (geopolitics) and any strong notion of the natural world, becoming 'radically sociological': structures, institutions, norms, identities. Nature came back in the 80s but externally to IR as an issue: environment ImageImage
Dec 16, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
1. While some #GeoEngineering technologies may become viable one day & play a part, the challenge is surely to explore them without deterring GHG cuts (and without exacerbating technocratic carbon concentrations/global average temperature reductionism). 2. Mitigation Deterrence happens in several ways eg. facilitating political abuse by merchants of doubt aiming to confuse policy/prolong carbon society; by egging on wishful thinking among policy makers; or by letting idealised modelling spit out reassuring but riskier pathways.
Dec 10, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
1. This is a valid point: the boundary between 'natural' solutions and 'artificial' ones is drawn (partly) through social and political processes. And has implications for policy (people prefer natural). However.... (THREAD) 2. Should we in the name of expanding options consider 'natural/tech' distinction obsolete because we have affected nature?
"we recommend the meaning of ‘nature’ is expanded to capture the full range of climate solutions available to us—because we’ll need everything we can get."
Nov 28, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Rom Coles speaks on different political modes of responding to climate change. A “smart political energy grid” to interweave multiple modes of social energy production to effect transformation is needed. #PolFutureAnth Image Groups like XR seek to use "higher voltage" political impulses to jolt the system and overcoming unresponsiveness/disconnection of traditional climate politics. Generate renewable distributional energies triggering broader support and contagious political shifts.
Oct 12, 2019 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
Very brief thread:
1. Was on Danish @tv2newsdk yesterday with @TroelsMylenberg as Copenhagen hosted the #C40Summit and @antonioguterres and Danish PM @MettePrime spoke to the press. @c40cities

Here's what I can remember saying: Image 2. Since the international track is effectively stymied by the US (and other fossil-lobby captured states) city-level is limited but increasingly important.

Half the world lives in cities (set to rise to 70% by 2050) and 70% of energy consumed is consumed in cities.
Sep 30, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The Leave campaign really was 'Project Fantasy'. Here is Daniel Hannan's daydream from 2016 about what Brexit would look like (he's deleted it for some reason, but luckily this copy still exists) h/t @BenRosamond1 archive.ph/CDBFf#selectio… @BenRosamond1 2. "During the 12 months after the vote, Britain confirmed with the various countries that have trade deals with the EU that the same deals would continue..-"
Jun 26, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
“ in a referendum between staying in the EU and leaving on the terms that the government has negotiated, staying enjoys an 18-point lead: 59-41%” gu.com/p/a9v49/stw “in a “no Brexit” v “May’s deal” referendum, staying in the EU currently leads by 63-37%” gu.com/p/a9v49/stw
May 10, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Thread/
1. Cambridge University's idea for a centre for Climate Repair is great. But this BBC piece makes a number of common slip-ups in my view. In order of appearance:

BBC News - Climate change: Scientists test radical ways to fix Earth's climate bbc.com/news/science-e… 2. The headline: these ideas definitely won't 'fix' Earth's climate. They may ameliorate some bad effects of global warming but may also cause some new ones
- and must be combined with rapid emissions cuts. All the scientists I know working on it make this point repeatedly.
Apr 24, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
"The scheme we propose is designed to address opposition to solar geoengineering based on countries’
assessments that deployment will distribute benefits, costs, and risks, particularly ... risks like floods or droughts, in ways that will undermine their interests." 2. This is an interesting stab at problem-solving seen from the perspective of a would-be geoengineering state aiming to 'overcome opposition' from other rational self-interested states. Doesn't look at value-based opposition or mitigation-deterrence problems.
Mar 16, 2019 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
1/9 This by @JesseLReynolds got the interpretation ball rolling, and sees the collapse of negotiations at #UNEA4 on #geoengineering as primarily a result of under-informed states, green advocacy groups and limited political capital. I disagree on some points: 2/9 Firstly the knowledge-gap thesis is doubtful as the main protagonist countries were not, imo, at beginning of a steep learning curve. They knew their stuff. They did, however, have very different interpretations of the epistemic politics of geoengineering.