Peak Emissions Now
The climate clock is ticking, but civil society is still missing in action. With only nine months to go before the Copenhagen climate summit, the world’s NGOs are far from having a compelling set of demands to campaign on.
Perhaps it is already too late. Many governments are already ramping back their expectations of what can be delivered. The deal-makers among them now desperately need civil society to change the terms of debate and boost all countries’ level of ambition.
I’d give campaigners until April’s London Summit to get their act together. After that, they have zero chance of retaking the high ground and starting to shape the pre-Copenhagen agenda.
So what should their demands be? What makes a good headline ‘ask’?
- First, it has to fit with the science – that means stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at 450ppm CO2e (nothing lower is now possible).
- Then, it needs to make sense to insiders – people who are making the major policy or investment decisions a clear sense of what they need to do now.
- Third, it must communicate to a wider public – which means a goal that the average 12 year-old (or journalist) can understand and remember.
- And finally, it needs to build climate into a wider post-meltdown narrative, offering an integrated vision for global recovery.
I think one clear, crisp demand fulfils all these criteria, providing a starting point from which all key elements of a global deal logically flow. Global greenhouse gas emissions exploded during the boom years, pumped up by debt-fuelled overconsumption. Now oil demand is declining – and we can expect global emissions see a modest fall too.
This provides civil society with a real opportunity. They should declare 2009 the year of peak emissions and challenge the world’s governments to develop a concrete plan to ensure they are never allowed to rise again. (more…)