Is the world ready for a climate treaty? Not really, not yet. But we are getting closer. I just did a podcast on the UN Climate Summit (you can find the podcast here) and though UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon was putting on an optimistic act at the end of the day, there was no strong movement toward an agreement. Nearly 100 world leaders gave positive speeches full of determination and they seem to all know what needs to be done, but only a couple of countries seemed willing and able to take bold steps in the right direction. One of those countries was Japan, who pledged a 25% reduction in emissions from 1990 by 2020. The other was the Maldives, who pledged to go completely carbon neutral by 2050. Yes, they are both island nations no doubt very worried about sea level rise. The United States isn’t so worried about that, so we talk the talk and continue to wait for other countries to act. It’s frustrating that we can’t be the world leader on climate change action, when we fancy ourselves being world leaders in matters of democracy, etc.
We have another chance to be leaders in matters of climate change economics at the G20 in Pittsburgh. At least one environmental group feels the world is ready for a strong climate treaty.
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images -- Protests have already begun ahead of the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh. Environmental activists unfurled a banner from the West End Bridge near downtown Pittsburgh on Wednesday.
Yes, those are people hanging off the end of that bridge.
So a treaty is what we want, but as we all know, a strong treaty is one thing. Actually living up to the treaty and convincing entire populations of countries to sacrifice and do their part for a world-wide priority is another. How will that happen, without governments (especially the U.S.) being able to use patriotism and manipulate public opinion with an “Us versus Them” mentality? We will all have to find a way. Whether people like it or not, climate change is a unifying, world-wide problem that will affect poor people across the globe more than anyone else, so we will have to change the way we view land masses with borders known as “countries” and start seeing the people instead. Otherwise, we might lose a billion or two in the next 20-30 years.
The G20, however, is a celebration of profit and capitalism. It’s taking place in one of America’s supposedly greenest cities (despite bad air quality) — Pittsburgh — so that should inspire everyone attending the conference, even the protesters. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh has not welcomed green group action to the G20 and has even denied permits to marchers. And of course, there will be hundreds of National Guard there. Some Unions are working with environmental groups though.
Leo W. Gerard, president of the steelworkers union, said he and several leaders of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. had organized joint events this week with the Sierra Club and the Alliance for Climate Protection. Mr. Ranick said that the shared goal would be to push for more vigorous regulation of financial and credit markets, more stringent environmental standards and stronger commitments to human rights and the rights of workers to organize.
Let’s hope they are successful!
My worry is that climate conferences, economic conferences, and all these endless meetings continue to happen and yet no real action is taken. I don’t mean setting goals, I mean the hard work of actually reducing emissions, which we are not yet doing. Our emissions are, instead, going up.
My suggestion is that Hollywood come up with a wham-bang action movie that has the world fighting climate change in the way that movies like War of the World fought aliens. Make the characters into heroes so people can identify fighting climate change with heroic action. Get actors like Ryan Reynolds, Angelina Jolie, Will Smith to be kick-ass scientists, oceanographers, physicists, or whatever it takes. We need some heroic climate action heroes and we need them fast. The Age of Stupid was a wonderful movie, but it was poignant and kind of sad, and there were no real heroes, just people like us.
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