The Convenient and Inconvenient Changes for Tackling Climate Change
Climate change. Global Warming. COP21 Paris. WEF Davos. #ActOnClimate. Sustainable Development Global Goals. Sustainability. Themes and terms that are (finally) receiving mainstream awareness and being wrapped with positive intentions by governments and corporations worldwide. The obvious questions: Will this awareness and intent turn into openly measurable action? And will that action include both convenient and inconvenient change?
The climate change discussion spearheaded by heads of state, corporate CEOs and high profile activists sounds like this: we need to keep global temperature rise below 2.0 degrees and ideally below 1.5 degrees to avoid climatic > economic > social catastrophe, by the year 2025. We need to do so by gradually eliminating the use of fossil fuels from energy production worldwide, ultimately moving to 100% clean and renewable energy between 2050 and 2100. An unequivocally important objective supported by over 200 countries — so it’s safe to say that this is now accepted as an all around convenient change. Wonderful.
Where are we today. Pledges received by governments and major corporations at the December Paris conference on climate change (COP21) place us on a temperature rise path of 2.7 degrees. Huge Red Flag. COP21, however, has also agreed on a (somewhat) measurable plan to continuously review those pledges and the progress against them — so a framework to get us below 2.0 does exist. Albeit non-enforceable.
Apply every possible layer of positive thinking so the above works out, and a few troubling questions still linger on. Does the move to clean and renewable energy mean problem solved? Is the use of fossil fuels truly, while undoubtedly crucial, the heart of the problem? What about the endless consumption and careless production cycles that are key to the current economic model? How can wasting massive amounts of clean energy, to protect that model, be sustainable?
Or is this the inconvenient change that’s being (conveniently) ignored.
Investors want to see their companies on a constant path of profit growth, at all costs. It’s how success and returns are measured in an irresponsible interpretation of capitalism — reduce cost, increase sales, no matter what. A clear demonstration comes from the fashion industry and its fast fashion cycles — where consumers are encouraged to continuously purchase cheap, non-durable garments, produced by people on low wages in awful working establishments, which in turn have little regard towards dumping waste and chemicals into air and water. Similar examples exist across every industry — just think of the obsolescence embedded by design in so many of our favourite tech products to fuel the next purchase. Or the tonnes of food, 89m in the EU alone, that’s wasted on a yearly basis — enough to feed everyone in need. So maybe, fossil fuel elimination, while absolutely necessary — isn't the heart of the problem.
Calling on Sustainable Capitalism. Where company success is measured both in terms of profit and purpose (they are totally compatible). Where purpose is about tackling poverty, climate change, injustice and inequality. And where people like you and I are holding corporations, cities and governments accountable for that purpose. The UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development depict it. “Millennials” get it. So do a few, courageous thought leaders that are starting to spearhead that meme. More, much more, is needed.
