Back Issue - May 2002
60% IN 50 YEARS
by means of C&C
Here is a catch-phrase and slogan. The idea is to spread
it like wildfire, in order to achieve critical mass that everybody
knows about - and before the World Summit this coming August.
It could be on badges, stickers or anything else you can think
of. Something to be remembered for a long time - like 'Small
is beautiful' or 'Think globally, act locally' etc. Only this
is focussed on a very specific demand.
It stands for:
'MORE THAN 60% REDUCTIONS IN GREENHOUSE GASES IN UNDER 50
YEARS, BY MEANS OF THE CONTRACTION AND CONVERGENCE FRAMEWORK'.
It is a demand to the countries of the World to commit themselves
collectively, at the Summit, to achieve the reductions that
have to be made (according to the best scientific advice available)
if there is to be a chance of stabilising the climate and
thus the preservation of the human race and most other species.
Why
the Contraction and Convergence Framework? Because it is the
only equitable means so far devised, that has a chance of
being acceptable to all the countries of the World. It calls
for the countries of the developed world to contract their
greenhouse gas emissions to a point at which all countries
can then converge them to reach a stabilised level of greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere, on a per capita basis.
In order to achieve this convergence, developed countries
can trade their excess emissions with corresponding developing
ones, which are below their per capita allocation of gases.
These
three elements supply the best to date: what? when? and how?
of averting climate catastrophe.
It
needs to spread like wildfire because the governments simply
are not 'getting it', and so it is up to mass popular demand
that they cut their endless prevarications and excuses.
Enough
has been said, not least in previous Boiling Points, about
the professed need for 'political realism', 'economic realism',
denial and 'scientific reasonableness'. It is time to call:
Enough is enough, it is time for action!
One can understand fears of political unpopularity of governments
which have failed to deliver the message to their populations
of the changes in lifestyles that radical reductions in greenhouse
gases entail, their conflicts of interest through their dependency
on party donations from those who are wedded to the status
quo; the ignorance of the fossil-fuel industries that refuse
to accept the economic gains as well as losses of changes
to renewable sources of energy; and the lobbying power of
corporations that do not want climate change mentioned at
this coming World Summit at all!!! But it is all dross, and
does not help the one thing that really matters: the preservation
of the human race and most other species.
Why
come to this conclusion now? Because this coming World Summit
on Sustainable Development provides a unique opportunity,
ten years after the one in Rio, following the Kyoto Agreement
on the principle of greenhouse gas reductions (despite the
suicidal and potentially genocidal exceptions of the USA and
Australia), the promise of at least the UK Prime Minister
to be there, and the steadily increasingly steep 'mountain-to-climb'
the longer the delay lasts. Climate change is a time-bomb
that only the insurance industry so far seems to recognise
- and even parts of that are in denial.
A
further reason for 'now' is that all the regular channels
have been tried, but are making too slow progress, if any
at all. A number of countries support or are seriously considering
the Contraction and Convergence framework method but are overshadowed
by the truants who will have nothing to do with greenhouse
gas reductions at all. Without a commitment to a minimum level
of reductions within a particular time-scale and made at a
particular time, countries can go on talking C&C without
taking any action, indefinitely.
There
is another, quite ominous reason for immediate action. It
is evidence of attempts at undermining the scientific case
for urgent greenhouse gas reductions. We have already devoted
an issue of Boiling Point to the mischievous arguments advanced
in The Skeptical Environmentalist (now in Back Issues under
the title of 'Denial, Justification and Deception about the
Climate Crisis').
Well,
the warning we expressed there has turned out to be prophetically
true! - that those arguments 'could all too easily be adopted
as a further pretext for continued or increased resistance
against taking action on the prospects of global warming and
climate change' We went on to say: 'This would suit the interests
of the fossil-fuel based industries and their lobbyists perfectly'.
And so, Surprise! Surprise! This book has been commended by
The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal,
and The Economist in the USA.
Then
there are supporters of organisations that purport to be disinterested
but in fact take the environmentally skeptical (I think the
ironical spelling rather suits them) position, for fairly
obviously 'business-as-usual' ideological reasons. One such
organisation calls itself 'Scientific Alliance', which featured
twice on 21 May. Once was on the BBC World-at-One programme,
trying to make out falsely that environmentalists are against
science, echoing Tony Blair's ill-advised words in The Times
on the previous day (see our letter 'GM protests are anti-scientific?'
via our Links page and then our Yahoo Group). The other example
was, laughably, suggesting sound science supports concerns
about litter in the streets over 'climate change or the destruction
of rainforests' because the former is the 'biggest concern
for people in the inner cities' - never mind whether they
are deluded in their concern or not (The Guardian, Letters)!
Most
disturbing, however, is the recent campaign by the oil company
Exxon prevailing upon the Bush Administration, to secure the
replacement of the chairman of the key global scientific panel
on climate change (IPCC) with their nominee. Our concern is
not with the identity or the integrity of the nominee, but
simply the fact that he owes his position to Exxon and the
Bush Administration, which are doing all they can to disrupt
efforts for global agreement on reductions in greenhouse gases.
Owing his position in itself makes him vulnerable to their
persuasion when it suits them, just like all political parties
that accept donations from rich individuals and companies,
however much they fool themselves (primarily) that they are
exonerated by the 'transparency' of the donation.
This
direct interference is a sign of the steady undermining of
scientific integrity in universities through corporate chairs
and donations, as cited in David Korten's 'When Corporations
Rule the World'; George Monbiot's 'Captive State: the Corporate
Takeover of Britain'; and, most recently, David Cromwell's
'Private Planet'. When it begins to affect the most fundamental
research to affect the survival of human life and most other
species, however, the danger signal is at bright red. Only
last week I heard a presentation at an international climate
conference, which proposed a form of almost mediaeval guesswork
in place of sound scientific theory construction. If the integrity
of the IPCC were to become tarnished over the next few years,
we may find the opportunity lost for ever to take decisive
co-operative world-wide action to avert climate change on
the basis of sound evidence.
Denial
of climate change appears to have pervaded the latest preparatory
conference (PrepCom III) for the World Summit (WSSD), to quite
a large extent. The reference, in reports back from it, to
'significant concern that focusing on the issue of climate
change could hijack not only the WSSD process but also lead
to Kyoto itself having to be renegotiated' - appears to be
conceding defeat to the US position not to mention Kyoto on
the global environmental agenda at the Summit.
I
therefore find it shameful that: 'this concern was strongly
endorsed by the UK delegation who were keen to build consensus
on this approach', and that formal recommendations for limiting
greenhouse gases have had to be expressed in terms of energy
and not directly, in the preparatory documents for PrepComIV.
This insistence has immediately eliminated the need for specific
time-scale or targets for either energy or greenhouse gas
reductions, at the Summit.
Finally,
our own letter to the UK government, proposing the presentation
of the more than 60% in under 50 years by C&C formula
to the World Summit, supported initially by 30 individuals
and organisations (see our Challenge page) but which has now
grown to over 90, has received neither acknowledgement nor
reply after 12 weeks. Despite weekly phone calls to the Minister
of State for the Environment's personal secretary, revealing
that one draft was presented but rejected by the Minister,
and the published interest in The Guardian's environmental
correspondent in the outcome - zilch has transpired so far.
And this Minister is our best ally in the UK government!
I
suspect that the Minister and his team know that the need
for such a commitment at the Summit is overwhelming but dare
not say so, for fear for rocking too many political boats.
What a kettle of fish! How prophetic was the Titanic US movie
blockbuster as a icon for the planet under threat from global
warming and drifting icebergs the size of Tasmania!
Speaking
of which, another device for undermining serious 'debate'
about climate change is the presumption, in formal debates,
in TV and radio programmes (like that mentioned above in World-at-One)
- that the evidence for and against its reality is evenly
balanced. I have previously suggested replacing the overused
metaphor of :'level playing field' with the potentially 'tilted
deck of a ship'. A further extension of this idea is to liken
climate change skepticism to raising doubts whether a ship
that is headed straight for an iceberg will actually hit it!
Enough
said! Time to act! Time to apply '60% IN 50 YEARS BY C&C'
as a critical mass message to the participating countries
at this World Summit - and fast!
(c)
Jim Scott May 2002
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