by Laughlin
Artz
Editor,
Context News
Having spent the last two years covering exclusively the
situation of climate change and for the last year the COP21 climate change
negotiations, I find myself in a world that is shockingly surreal, given the
gravity of the situation.
As I listen to the endless parade of heads of state,
national delegates, humanitarians, artists, billionaires, scientists, and the
occasional obligatory movie star, one thing strikes me above all else: No one
is having the conversation that from my perspective is the only one that
matters. That is, “What is it actually going to take to end the climate change
crisis in time?” For my money, I think that’s all that really matters. And that
conversation is glaringly absent.
What is the language here, since it’s not the language of
what it’s going to take really to end
the crisis in time? It is the language of generalization and rationalization,
conversations based in best efforts, hope, “progress”, and optimism. The
conversation here is not one of ending global warming, a conversation that
would include hard data, specific actions, real strategies and plans, and
straight talk about the gap between where the COP21 agreement leaves us and
what is needed to resolve the crisis in time.
Yes, there is the occasional “we realize that this agreement
is not enough.” However, the person saying that never follows it up with
exactly how “not enough” it is, or
what the actual plan is to bridge the gap of that specific “not enough.”
Instead, the speaker of the moment meanders into an eloquent story about the
deprived child she/he met on the way to the conference who is counting on “all
of us” to save her future. And by gosh, somehow since we’re all just such great
folks with such big hearts and such noble intentions, why of course, we’re
gonna do just that. Translation: “I have no real grasp of the situation, no
idea exactly where we are, how much time we have until it all really hits the
fan, and which actions need to be taken to produce what results by then, such
that we have a realistic shot at keeping the climate’s temperature increase to
a maximum of 2 degrees C above pre-industrial level.”
And so with that as the case, with no real confronting of
the specific state of affairs, no true facing of the predictable future and
what it will really take to end the crisis in time, we are expected to sit back
and simply enjoy the endless litany of empty platitudes, political doubletalk,
and optimistic propaganda.
But why? Why has the UNFCCC convened the heads of over 160
nations and—instead of doing the real work of ending the crisis, or at least
using this incredible assemblage of power to ring the alarm and tell the world
the reality of the situation—chosen to put on what is essentially a two-week
public relations extravaganza, complete with U2, a green Eiffel tower, and Al
Gore?
Examining who’s in charge gives some insight into the
answer. Who, after all is running COP21? Politicians, academics and diplomats. These are
people who are not usually called on to actually make something happen,
particularly something unreasonable. Their expertise is not in producing
results; it is in politics, knowlege and diplomacy.
They study things, they meet about things, they create
sub-committees to further study and meet about things. They negotiate, they
debate, they express their views, they collect data, they argue, they convene,
they caucus, they orate, they compromise, they compare one set of data with
another set of data and write reports on their findings. They write and publish
papers, they give talks, they sit on panels, they write policies, they learn
things, they teach things, they vote on motions, they set agendas, they write
and deliver speeches. Yes, they do many things, and there is a place in the
world for all of that they do.
Unfortunately, the climate change crisis is not something
that is going to be ended by any of these activities. This crisis will be ended
only by people with a completely dispassionate assessment of exactly where we
are, a full grasp of the predictable future we are headed into, a clear understanding
of what needs to happen and by when (such that the necessary hard results are
accomplished within the ever-shrinking window of opportunity), a full
confronting of the gap between where we are headed and what needs to happen and
by when, and a real plan with specific strategies to bridge that gap within the
requisite time-frame.
The people you want in charge in this situation are people
who can address those fundamental elements and address them with real
specifics...and the people in charge of COP21 are simply not those people. They
are clearly well-intentioned, very brilliant, wonderfully educated, and at the
same time, ineffective and ill-equipped to tackle the real job of ending global
warming and ending it in time.
Regarding the UN and the UNFCCC, I have gone out of my way
throughout my investigation not to be critical of these organizations, to
respect and honor the tireless efforts of these utterly dedicated individuals.
Many of these people, after all, have spent the better part of their lives tackling
this beast.
So it is understandable that after decades of seeing little to no
progress they would see cause for celebration now that things have started to
move a bit, and would have a desire to promote the progress being made, both
for what it represents in the world and for their own sense of accomplishment.
However, to not at the same time make certain that the world understands the immense gap between where that progress
has brought us and what is required to end the crisis is a grave disservice,
leaving us to live post-Paris in the illusion of being on the right track to
success.
Heads of state come out one by one to proclaim their
“aggressive” pledges addressing global warming, and to the untrained ear, they
do indeed sound like just that. For example, China declared that it will peak
emissions by 2030 and then begin a reduction. In a historical context, that
pledge could indeed be viewed as aggressive, but only as a function of China
having done so little for so long.
My question is, “Why when China announced its pledge was
there no one there to challenge it in the context of what commitment is
required of China if we are not to blast past the critical 2 degree limit?” Who
was there to peel away the rosy veil of historical progress and examine the
pledge against the future of what is actually needed? No one.
In that light, the light of what’s needed, China will need
to peak emissions by 2020 (10 years earlier than pledged) if we are to have a
viable shot at staying within the safety zone. In the world of reality (not
progress, optimism, politics, or diplomacy), China’s “aggressive” pledge to
address global warming is in fact drastically insufficient. How historically aggressive it is (or isn’t)
is immaterial. But you won’t hear that here.
The same could be said for the United States, India, and
several others. Different pledges, different stories of how great we are, how
far we’ve come, what challenges lie ahead but blah-blah-blah no worries we can
meet them, how creative we are, etc.—different in detail but shockingly similar
in the stark absence of any real language of substance regarding the sizeable
gap between what is being pledged and what is needed, and what the plan is to
close that gap.
That’s the con, that’s the global con (whether consciously
conspired or not) of COP21: Keep the world’s eyes focused on the shiny balls of
progress, progress based in the past, and pay no attention to the future behind
the curtain, the incredible, shrinking gap of time in which we still have the
chance to take the actions necessary to end the crisis before that window
closes.
It is amazing to
consider that all that has been accomplished (and without question much has
been accomplished), could actually be what sinks us, if we continue to insist
on seeing it through the past-based context of progress rather than through the
future-based context of what’s needed. This is a crisis that can only be
resolved by working from the future, not the past. Progress is of no
consequence, and will actually be a deterrent if it is not held in the
framework of what is needed and by when.
Whatever the logic, the call here has clearly been made to
leave people hopeful and optimistic, rather than give them the straight story.
Do they think we are that weak that we can’t take it? Or is it just a matter of
their own unwillingness or inability to confront reality and the impending
consequences?
I don’t fault the players at COP21. They are simply doing
their jobs. The job of a diplomat or a politician is not to tell the truth or
confront reality, not to give it to you straight, not to leave you with the way
that it actually is and with some real sense of what it’s going to take to get
us out of this mess. The job of a diplomat or a politician is to weave a
wonderful tale, to spin a beautiful tapestry of prose and historical quotes and
home-spun vignettes, tossing in a few easily digestible challenges, none too
overwhelming mind you, and in the end, to leave you feeling good about yourself
and the situation. Politicians live for votes and power, diplomats for
diplomacy.
When I dove into this situation two years ago, all I wanted
to get for myself was some reality of the gap. I’ve spent that time speaking
with scientists; studying reports; attending presentations; and questioning government
officials, UN representatives, NGO leaders, and anyone and everyone with any
hard data related to the core questions I think every citizen has the right to
know the answers to. I conducted this investigation with no agenda other than
to get the facts. I am confident I now have those facts.
We have five years in
which to sufficiently reverse the track we are on to still have a viable shot
at not surpassing the safety warming limit of 2 degrees C. And there is no real
plan being implemented to have that happen. That is the way it is. No hope, no
despair, no generalizations, no inspiring stories or tales of our demise:
simply the way it is.
The next five years
is our make-it-or-break-it window of opportunity.
No one at this conference is going to say that publicly
(although several high-ranking participants over the course of my inquiry have
expressed it privately). No one is going to break the green line and express to
the world that not only is the Paris agreement grossly insufficient to ending
the crisis; worse, it doesn’t even go into effect until 2020, when the window
of opportunity to impact the crisis will be closing. So to say that the
agreement is of limited value would actually be an understatement, since
whatever it is will already be too late to make any real difference.
What matters isn’t
progress or hope or pessimism or any of that. What matters is the gap between
where we’re headed and what’s necessary to resolve the crisis. Let’s get our
attention off the facade of the Paris conference and get it where it needs to
be—square on the gap, and what it’s going to take to close it in time.
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