Miranda Green

Congratulations on your book. I found it incredibly fascinating. You say that it’s written as a guide to the future, that we need to think about what the world is going to look like and how it’s going to change. What drove you to write the book from this perspective, rather than a call to action—or this is how we’re going to fix the problem?

Arthur Snell

As a diplomat, one of the things that diplomacy requires you to do is to deal with the world as it is. Not as we wish it might be. One of the things that has become abundantly clear is that the 1.5 degrees centigrade target is not going to be met. And it’s not that we accept that readily and say, “Oh, that’s cool,” but we know that’s happening. So I think it’s important, as a writer, to allow people to understand what this might mean.

Miranda

I was particularly drawn to the way that you described climate change as this concept that defies geography. Not only is it physically changing landscapes, but there’s this idea you push that it doesn’t care about the drawn borders. Geography is no longer a fixed parameter. What’s a place where climate change is forcing countries to contend with the fact that their borders are more fluid and are changing their relationships with neighbors?

Arthur

There are elements of this story that are about collaboration, about countries recognizing that they have to work together. A great example is if we talk about the River Nile. It rises in Ethiopian mountainous territory and flows out through Sudan into Egypt: the world’s greatest river. There’s been a lot of talk of this huge dam—the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam—which has been built, and the possibility that it could create a war between Ethiopia and downstream countries. But there’s a degree to which what it actually does is force these huge countries, in which hundreds of millions of people live, to collaborate with Egypt; in particular, the Nile Delta. 

Miranda

You say that climate change is a catalyst for the impacts that we are seeing globally. But you don’t just mean extreme weather and carbon emissions. You also mean in the context of some of the political wrangling that we are seeing between some of these countries. You say climate change has been impacting some of these inter-country politics for some time. How so?

Arthur

Climate has played a role throughout human history, but I think what we’re seeing is intensification. Take India and China, which are two of the great powers of the modern era, and arguably may become the two great superpowers of the later 21st century. Between them, their dividing line is the Himalayas, which is a great store of fresh water. It is probably the most significant store of fresh water outside the polar regions. And the degree to which China decides to deal with rivers as they flow through Tibet versus what India might be doing in its own territories, that in itself could quite easily precipitate profound conflict between them.

Miranda

What about in terms of potentially mutually beneficial relationships between neighbors? I found the relationship dynamic between Russia and China that you described so fascinating—that both are essentially scrambling for food and looking to their neighbors to fix their situation. You describe China almost encroaching up north, taking over some of southern Russia’s territory, because as climate change is making that area thaw, it gives them planting opportunities. And then Russia—which is allowing China to do this—is now trying to encroach into Ukraine.

Arthur

Agribusiness is becoming less and less productive and this is an effect of the climate crisis. So we need more land to feed the same number of people. So all these things are causing this kind of rush for food security and for food productivity, and you see it with Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the world’s most significant agricultural producers. There are many aspects to the war in Ukraine, but one of the ones that’s less well known is the degree to which Russia stole prime agricultural land.  A very senior sort of Lieutenant of Vladimir Putin’s was awarded land, a bit like medieval kings might have awarded  a barren sort of a new estate in some country that they invaded. Putin did that, but they also stole the harvest.

Miranda

Your book came out just as the U.S. was waging war in Iran. You talk about the politics of oil, and how this has been such a driving factor for so many countries, and obviously still is. What is your view of what’s going on right now?

Arthur

This is a highly volatile moment in world history. I talk about the oil weapon, the degree to which countries that have a significant ability to manipulate the supply of oil can have an enormous impact on global politics. One could argue that Iran is a good example of that, because there’s no doubt that militarily, the U.S. and Israel together are way more powerful than Iran, and that they’ve got much more sophisticated weapon systems than all the rest of it. But Iran has been able to close the Strait of Hormuz—this narrow passage that controls access to the Persian Gulf—and as a result, the world supply of oil is in jeopardy, and natural gas as well.

There is the history of 1973 and what was known as the OPEC crisis. What’s interesting is that a lot of the renewable energy movement arose as a result of those events, and countries—including the United States—realized it was foolish to be overly dependent on hydrocarbon energy. One can argue that we haven’t really learned the lesson as much as we might have.

Miranda

Energy is also driving changing relationships between countries, and what we are seeing is that it’s not just fossil fuels, it’s also about clean energy. How is this playing out?

Arthur

What we’re seeing is that there is no country that isn’t focused on this in some way. Now, there will be winners and losers. Some countries have enormous reserves of critical minerals, and some of those countries are able to leverage that to increase their own power, influence, and significance. 

In Africa, you can see a country like Rwanda. Rwanda is a small but sort of geopolitically highly powerful country in Central Africa. Rwanda has managed to do a critical minerals deal with the European Union. Quite a lot of the minerals that it aims to supply are probably coming out of the Congo and are supplied by Rwandan-backed rebels. So you have these very complex relationships. And there are countries which, sadly, may be the source of enormous numbers of minerals, like the Congo, but they may see very little benefit to their own people.

Miranda

You make an argument in your book that we are globally moving away from hydrocarbons, but at the same time, the United States is really doubling down on it and almost moving backwards under President Trump. 

I wanted to ask you about the U.S.’s own recent political and geographical maneuvers, especially regarding Iran and Venezuela. How does this fit into the grand scheme of what you mentioned?

Arthur

There are two ways to look at this. One is that it’s a slightly quixotic last hurrah for the hydrocarbon era. For the Trump administration, there is definitely an urge, in an old-fashioned way, to a kind of imperial seizure, the way that the Brits might have tried, actually, with Iran in the 1940s. It doesn’t seem to me, though, that that’s very kind of future-proof. 

It is also that we are living in an unstable period, when countries feel much more inclined to act in a radical and more direct, imperialistic manner, in that if they feel that they need something, they might just seize it. 

Miranda

The United States is clearly doubling down on its own energy resources. Trump calls it energy dominance. We do have large resources of liquid natural gas and even still coal, despite the fact that, economically, it’s not as viable. 

But at the same time, we’re seeing countries like China, which also has major coal capacity, completely pivoting toward clean energy. Economically, how do you see that ultimately impacting the United States?

Arthur

The degree to which solar and wind energy is fabulously cheap and is getting cheaper all the time, that’s something that doesn’t appear to be appreciated by the current administration. And it seems there’s a risk that the U.S. kind of boxes itself into a corner where you end up sort of adopting, effectively, an obsolete technology.

If all of the technological superiority in battery technology sits in China, this isn’t just about EVs. Batteries are increasingly integral to military operations. There are all kinds of elements of the modern economy that depend on this technology. And I would have thought that it’s not in the U.S. interest to put that as a sort of second place behind, you know, traditional hydrocarbon energy.

Miranda

You talk about the rise of populism and kind of how it dovetails with climate denialism. You wrote, “Not all populists are climate deniers, but all climate deniers are populists.” And I found that really fascinating. Tell me about the political advantages of being pro-fossil fuels?

Arthur

Climate denialism lends itself perfectly to populism because the climate crisis is mediated by experts. People are aware of changes in climate in terms of their lived experience, but it’s quite hard to put your finger on it.

It might require us to change our behaviors in ways that, perhaps, some people object to. It is very easy for a populist to push back against that, and whether we’re talking about Donald Trump or Marjorie Taylor Green, the sorts of politicians that like to make a virtue of telling you that there’s a kind of elite group that’s taking advantage of you, that is perhaps taking advantage of what they would call a superior education, but is a kind of sort of cultish group that you’ve been excluded from. And this has proven very productive as a political platform.