Copenhagen Failed, Mexico is Already Doomed – What’s Next? [Casaubon's Book]
An unsurprising but still deeply depressing article from the Guardian observes that not only was Copenhagen, billed as "the last, best hope for change" a dismal failure (duh) but that Mexico City is already a dismal failure.
Dozens of politicians, diplomats, economists, scientists and campaigners contacted by the Guardian agreed that while a global, legally binding treaty remains by far the best way to prevent global warming wreaking havoc on our civilisation, the chances of that treaty being achieved in 2010 are almost nil.
The energy has gone out of the negotiations, said some, with the momentum that drew well over 100 global leaders to the Danish capital in search of a deal now lost. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which runs the negotiations has drifted into a procedural vacuum and its head, Yvo de Boer, has lost all credibility, said others.
The list of problems cited was long: the US political machine is unlikely to pass the climate laws other countries want as proof of intent; the willingness of China and India, the new climate change superpowers, to compromise is unclear; the erstwhile climate change leader, the European Union is failing to lead. And all the while, what climate secretary Ed Miliband yesterday called the "siren voices" of climate sceptics sing more loudly, encouraged by leaked emails and dodgy details in important reports.
Simon Retallack, head of climate change at the Institute for Public Policy Research, reflected the thoughts of many: "We need to be honest and recognise that the national political conditions in the countries that matter most on climate change just weren't conducive to a deal in Copenhagen and if anything they have become worse since."
The truth is that short term national interest is primary in every nation's agenda. While all nations have an interest, in the long term, in preventing climate change, none of them have an interest in bearing the costs of dealing with climate change - and the fact is, those costs are substantial. And herein lies the problem - because most nations, and indeed, many people, recognize this to be true. The lie accepted by almost all climate thinkers has been that the shift to more renewable energies and green jobs will be a happy thing, fueling a new economic growth. This story has been told over and over again, but its falsity can be seen in the fact that no nation seems to want to take part in this remarkable new economic opportunity.
The truth is this - almost analysis that estimates that we can make money and not take an enormous hit by addressing climate change fudges the numbers - the begin from old political targets like 450ppm or even 550ppm, rather than the ones supported by contemporary science. They then postulate a world that is not enduring an economic crisis (counterfactual) and a whole lot of optimistic scenarios. Yale, for example, has a friendly program that will show you how we get richer the more emissions we regulate. The problem, of course, is that it isn't true - the assumptions that underly the program are just false. Given that the aggregate of the evidence is that climate change is proceeding more quickly, rather than less than expected, the odds are that the economic cost is higher even that we would expect if we did an honest analysis today.
Almost no one (James Hansen and George Monbiot are useful exceptions) wants to admit the blunt truth - that dealing with climate change will cost us, and cost us big time. It will require sacrifice on a tremendous scale. And IMHO, climate activists who refused to acknowledge this, who fudged the numbers to promise an economic benefit that no one really believes in did more harm than good. I understand the attraction of the politically palatable - I really do. But when the politically palatable solution is unviable, the only solution is to pave the way for the politically unpalatable. It was always tremendously unlikely that nations would work together when told they had to make tremendous sacrifices until some crisis was already present - but setting the stage for that reality couldn't have produced fewer results than this did.
For simple honesty's sake, it is time to abandon the unadulterated bullshit that we can get rich mitigating climate change - dramatic reductions in emissions, if ever undertaken, will hurt the economy. The only argument for making them is that it will hurt the economy vastly more to edure the realities of climate change - and odds are, that's what we're going to do.
Short of praying for volcanic activity to mitigate the harm of climate change, the best options are these. First, tell the truth, even when it sucks. Second, at least start paving the way for an ethic of sacrifice, so that people who are eventually forced by either events or the sudden arrival of new political realities - or most likely, both - actually have had a little time to prepare and are not wholly betrayed by the realization that this will cost us. Third, since the international political sphere has failed us, we've got to stop kidding ourselves. I find it desperately unlikely that grassroots response will transform our society - but it is demonstrably not much less effective than international response. At least get the fuck off the planes and go home, turn down the heat and plant the damned trees.
Sharon