Brittle Places

In the firestorm of hot-COP-takes, I’ve been fumbling to arrange my thoughts. It’s been all reaction so far. Mostly negative. Also possibly the brain fog of COP-contracted-covid.

I’m sure you’re all delighted to know that the fog has lifted and another pithy despatch has coalesced (cue self-deprecating side smile and skeptical eye-brow raise).

It concerns brittleness.

This was my first trip to Dubai and the overwhelming thing that struck me about the city (aside from the obvious bling-ey shininess and general huge-ness) was its astonishing brittleness, this place built with its foundation of fossil capital.

Dubai is systemically brittle, with its reliance on immense concrete motorways of V8 SUVs to move, desalination for every drop of water to drink and air-conditioning of every corner of the city to be liveable. In a sense, an engineering marvel; but it is so hot, so dry, so un-walkable, and with so little public space - no squares, piazzas or shaded lanes, that the whole edifice is entirely reliant on cheap fossil energy, and even changing the grid won’t solve all that. It has countless points of critical failure.

It is also socially brittle… the place relies on two classes of itinerant immigrant: a professional class to keep the buildings being built and finance being financed, and a service class to drive the cabs, care for the young and clean for, cook for, and serve, the wealthy. These folks have little attachment to the place, they are residents of circumstance held by the gravity well of fossil capital. If the pull weakens, it threatens the entire social order of this young city.

Dubai might be the epitome, but our society has built brittleness into so many of our places: reliance on cars, cheap fuel, private land, unsustainable water resources and air-conditioning; reliance on an insecure service workforce, on fossil capital and its entire house of cards.

This COP named the beast. Everyone agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. The timeframes, while unwritten, are clear, and a battle for future COPs… but it is imminent. Well within the investment horizons of the places we build on the backs of the ancient molecules.

Investment is a confidence game - not what has happened before or is happening now, but confidence that the show can go on. This COP said that the fossil show won’t go on much longer.

The question for brittle fossil-founded cities is whether they can reimagine themselves fast enough, whether there is enough capital to rebuild and whether it can be wisely enough spent, to make a place tough and durable in the face of the coming transition.

We must all choose wisely now, what we do, with what we have.