The climate change debate in 2010
Published: 30 December 2009
Author: Felicia Jackson
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[ 3 ] Comments
Each of us needs to take action to curb our consumption and carbon footprint in 2010
Addressing climate change is about collective security in a fragile and increasingly interdependent world. The human and financial cost, as well as access to valuable resources, are set to become key variables in economic development, as well as civil and national aggression during the 21st century. Yet we have seen in 2009 is that without political support, little can be achieved.
There was great hope for action in 2009. The US shifted its stance dramatically upon election of Barack Obama. China announced plans for reductions in carbon and it seemed as if we might agree a post-Kyoto treaty.
Beyond climate scepticism
Climate change is on the international political agenda. Yet there's also a trending belief that global warming is not as bad as feared, despite research suggesting that conditions are worse than the most extreme of IPCC’s 2007 projections. The UK’s East Anglia email scandal only added fuel to that fire.
If we decide that coming generations have the right to access resources, then the cost of safeguarding those resources must be factored into the cost of economic behaviour
The year of the individual
What we need to see in 2010 is the triumph of effective communications combined with political will. Given the fragility of support for global action, 2010 should be the year of the individual. The need to transform our lifestyles sufficiently to cut waste and recycle resources is now a given for many. In a few short years we have shifted from a view that eco-warriors operate on the fringes to an awareness that each of us must contribute action.
The question is will the world be able to provide sufficient food, clean water and power to the global population, and what will that mean for our children? It's as individual consumers, executives and investors that we can shape the political and economic debate.
Ecosystems and economics
November 2009 saw the latest publication from The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) which analyses the extent to which human economic activity is dependent on existing natural ecosystems. While many environmentalists decry the idea of putting a price on ‘natural capital’, in a global framework dominated by free market capitalism, it may prove that putting a price on human activities is the only way to prevent the exhaustion of resources.
With luck, 2010 will prove to the year that climate change and its consequences becomes understood by the mainstream, that it's a negotiation about how we manage to co-exist within a limited resource base. If we're going to be effective in achieving this, we need to find a new metric to measure growth and success; a new means of quantifying effective governance of countries and companies. 2009 saw France’s President Sarkozy put together a commission of economists to explore different ways of judging the performance of countries, outside the traditional metric of GDP. 2010 should be the year that how we perceive economic growth becomes central to the debate.
The key questions to ask ourselves
What we need to see is an awareness of the collective responsibility we have as individuals to engage with the issues. Who owns these finite resources of fuel, fertile land and clean water – who do they belong to and what rights do they have? We must ask whether these rights belong to the government, the landowner or the indigenous people that were displaced for their use. Do the rights to resources belong to those who exploit them, or those who can afford to pay for them? Do they primarily belong to this generation or the next? If we decide that coming generations have the right to access resources, then the cost of safeguarding those resources must be factored into the cost of economic behaviour.
Mobilisation towards a global society
Rapid economic and industrial framework change (the fastest and most effective way to cut emissions) is only likely if driven by legislation. If the recent Copenhagen negotiations have shown anything it’s that we can’t rely on a 192 strong committee debate to agree on effective legislation. Commentators have claimed that the failure to achieve accord proves that the UN process is too flawed to use. However the real issue is not the UN process, based on the idea that every affected party should have its say, but the failure of negotiators/nations to accept that there will be pain in achieving emissions.
Take action
- Small actions towards more sustainable living
- Join the debate: Is man responsible for climate change?
- Buy Felicia Jackson's book, Conquering Carbon
- 21st century challenges: more on climate change
What we require if we are to take action on climate change is global economic and industrial mobilisation on a scale never seen before. Understanding and engaging with how this should be achieved is a fundamental requirement of being part of global society and it's to be hoped 2010 will see that recognition seep through into wider society.
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Comments
The major problem here is that the genuine problems - deforestation, increasing competition for limited resources, a fairer and more just distribution of these resources, a focus on sustainability - are all in danger of being sidelined by the perverse religious obsession with a phenomenon that is demonstrably not occurring. Rational environmentally aware individuals like me who can read charts and data as opposed to accepting orthodoxy unquestioningly, and who realise that the climate problems that are man-made are essentially local in origin and in solution - irrigation and damming of rivers, over production of crops, use of scarce water resources for industrialisation to name a few - are marginalised. We are lumped with extremist free marketeers and kept on the outside in increasing frustration. As a matter of urgency all parties need to end carbon trading - it is ineffective, nmorally disgusting and impoverishes the poorest leaving their carbon resources to be traded for cash by the failed leaders who destroyed their countries in the first place. I fear for the future - not Global warming- the data shows unequivocally that man-made activity has minimal effects on Global temoperstures - any educated 14 year old with access to the data can see that. - but the political consequences of the collapse of this movement in the face of the reality of a cooling planet and its replacement by a resurgent unchallenged free market of corporate interests who were proved right on this key issue.
I think "climate change" have to do with weather and not with warming of the earths surface temperature, or the earths rising temperature. I have seen that volcanoes eject gases in the upper atmosphere end the effect is cooling, so I there a way to control a volcano ? or stop the magnetic north pole moving 40 KLM a year north east. YES there are other types of energy than oil or cool we have to learne to use who is going to pay to invent and utilize. you and me!
No one is saying that there are no problems. The fact is that the doom and gloom outlook is getting to people that do not see CO2 as a climate driver. Making people pay money to (WHO?) for their carbon consumption is not the way to go. This is all perpetuated by global gov't (UN) and benefits the wealthy, not the people who are already struggling to heat their houses. There is a lot more to this than just pollution and climate change, we are talking about stripping the developed world of it's sovernty and freedoms. Open your eyes to what is going on behind the scenes and then maybe we can come up with a real solution instead of the farce that is happening now.