The Gated Climate Community
The 10th edition of Climate Week NYC came to an end on September 30th. For its organisers, it was “the time and place where the world gathers to showcase amazing climate action and discusses how to do more.” By “world” they actually mean “government ministers, investors, governors, CEOs and mayors [who shape] markets and [set] policy to make climate action a reality.” Climate week NYC and other climate-related global events — such as the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS), Global Business Forum and One Planet Summit — act as highly prized meeting places for a small group of individuals that have come to dominate and shape the climate debate over recent years. Regular headliners include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Gore, Jerry Brown, Christiana Figueres, Paul Polman, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Johan Rockstrom, Anne Hidalgo, Catherine McKenna, Manuel Pulgar Vidal, Patricia Espinosa… This select group of mayors, governors, corporate executives, venture capitalists, thought leaders, tech gurus, climate scientists, philanthropists, ministers, heads of State, NGO leaders, is regularly invited to spread the climate gospel in Davos, at the Aspen Ideas festival, at TED talks, the Skoll World Forum, and Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meetings. Inspired by these “ideas festivals”, this travelling circus of self-proclaimed global climate leaders, or, in the case of Emmanuel Macron, “champions of the Earth”, has established its own circuit of high-profile, highly mediatised and carefully choreographed climate events.
Paris, mon amour
Far from lying at the margins, these gatherings are an integral part of the post-Paris climate regime of “incantatory governance”; a regime, if current temperature estimates are anything to go by, where words definitely speak louder than actions. The achievement of the long-term temperature goal laid out in the Paris agreement rests on countries’ voluntary fulfilment of the targets contained in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the ramping up of ambition and actions over time. For this to happen, and given the absence of legal provisions and instruments to force countries to act, the international climate community must foster an environment that is conducive to change and send “positive signals” to States, investors and businesses about the combined benefits of climate action and the inevitability of the low-carbon transition.
This is where high-level global events like GCAS, the One Planet Summit, the Global Business Forum, or Climate Week NYC come in. By focusing global media attention and gathering high-profile climate champions, they will (it is hoped) “[put] the agreement in motion” and “keep up that reinforcing momentum that builds confidence amongst our leaders, investors and business.” These events fit into a carefully choreographed sequence of global moments (COPs, UN summits, G7 and G20 meetings, IPCC reports) leading up to 2020, when States will have to revisit their engagements concerning CO2 emissions to stay in line with the 2° Celsius target.
On the face of it, this all seems rather admirable. Surely, all efforts to combat climate change should be welcomed. We are all on the same boat after all, are we not?
We, the elites
The fact is that such events disserve the climate struggle. They nurture a “win-win” and elite-centred approach that pays lip service to the systemic roots of the ongoing social, economic and environmental crisis — not least the shocking and deepening wealth disparities between rich and poor — and give a free pass to those who are most to blame for it. Rather than being singled out or publicly held to account, corporate and financial elites are wholeheartedly applauded for their efforts and presented as the solution. As Joan Macnaughton of the Climate Group (convenor of Climate Week) explains: “business is not the problem. It is the solution. Only they have the scale to a low and eventually zero carbon emission economy.” Unlike election-obsessed politicians and their unreliable electorates, big business, venture capitalists and billionaire philanthropists, it is claimed, know what they are doing and what is best for the planet. The rest of us should just go with the flow or get out of the way. Heads of State and leaders of international organisations (such as the UN and UNFCCC) are assigned an accompanying role as travelling salesmen or missionaries to spread the good word.
Shamelessly reappropriating the language of social movements, climate elites talk of “changing the world”. They are, as the Chairman of Mars explained at the Climate Week NYC opening ceremony, “disruptors”. The fact that Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg — whose combined wealth, when added to that of seven other top billionaires, is equal to that of the bottom half of humanity –, that a corporation like Mars — whose products fuel a global obesity epidemic and drive deforestation through their use of palm oil –, or that governor Jerry Brown — who called fracking, in 2014, a “fabulous economic opportunity” — should be treated as climate champions is revealing of global climate events’ legitimating function.
For the world’s elites, these events are as much about saving the climate as saving themselves. It is about controlling the message, congratulating one another, and depoliticizing the climate debate by promoting “win-win” solutions and, to borrow from Anad Giridharadas’s recently published and stimulating book, “[making] the people an afterthought, to be helped but not truly heard.” It is also about legitimising and reinforcing assumptions and preconceived ideas about the climate crisis and how best to address it. Through their tight control of the narrative and list of participants, these events also act like cocoons, insulating elites from alternative views and approaches, as well as from their own contradictions. To borrow once again from Giridharadas,
Enemies at the gate
Despite all the money and effort, things do not always go according to plan. Organised in San Francisco on the 12–14 September (the Bay area is home to a number of prominent “climate leaders”), the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) was an important moment on the global climate agenda. In the lead-up to the UN General Assembly in New York and the UN Katowice Climate conference (COP24) in Poland, it was supposed to keep the “Paris Climate Prophecy” alive.
But what it also offered was a taste of what these and other events are truly about. At a press conference and in response to a journalist’s question on the climate justice protests taking place outside, Michael Bloomberg ironically retorted: “America is a wonderful country. Here we have environmentalists protesting at an environmental conference. It reminds me of people who want to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep people out from a country that we go to for vacation. Something’s crazy here.” Needless to say that this was not a scripted response. Neither, for that matter, was Bloomberg’s reaction when, a little later, a group of climate justice activists suddenly rose to their feet just as Bloomberg was about to speak at the opening plenary. As they unfurled a banner at the front of the hall, they chanted, “Mother Earth is not for sale! Our land is not for sale! The air is not for sale! Our water is not for sale! Our people, our communities are not for sale!”
Beyond the foolishness of his remarks on Mexico — which were hardly mentioned in the media –, the most disturbing part was the applause that broke out once the activists were out of the room. Now that they were safely outside, Bloomberg could repeat, before a relieved and grinning audience, his earlier remarks on environmentalists protesting at an environmental conference.
For one brief instance, approximately 96 seconds, the wall that separates climate elites from the rest of the climate movement was breached. For 96 long seconds, self-proclaimed climate heroes were exposed to climate justice activists who challenge their “win-win” strategy (globally emissions rose by over 2% in 2017), and their claim to speak on behalf of the world. They were exposed to climate activists who view them as part of the problem rather than the solution, and who know that truly solving the climate crisis will require a lot more than just “heroes and storytelling” (to borrow the words from a promoter of this strategy). Let’s follow their lead and not wait for the next “global climate moment” to call these events and those who attend them for what they really are.
