Climate Change - We CAN Make a Difference!

   Today it is, I think, safe to say that no one doubts that the process of climate change now underway is the greatest challenge since tens of thousands of years to the planet, and more precisely to humanity.  However, perhaps like you, I have often felt that the little adaptations we try to make to our lifestyle are really a drop in the bucket compared to the need for massive transformation of our entire economic and industrial machine. In face of the urgency to stop the use of fossil fuels in industry, the military and transportation systems, it seemed futile to hope that turning off my computer when not in use, or lowing the temperature in the house a couple of degrees would make much difference. And while it is true that the cumulative effect of all these efforts can be quite monumental, it is certainly not enough. Governments have to step in and regulate.

   And my frustration grew when major international gatherings like Rio, Kyoto, Copenhagen, Durban and Rio+20 seem, at least according to press accounts, resulted in no significant agreement.   In face of this urgent need I feel vulnerable and impotent -- also angry!

   Thus my surprise to discover Jean Desrocher’s interesting book, The Challenge of Climate Change, published by the Center for Social Justice in Bangalore, India (2012). John is the founder of the centre and its guiding light. He has published numerous serious studies over the last 20 or 30 years and has acted, for some time now, as a consultant to the Catholic Bishops Conference of India on issues relating to social justice. John’s forte is the summary of an extraordinarily broad array of relevant documents, carefully laid out and analyzed in order to provide a thorough review of the issues and options involved in whatever study he undertakes.

   For me there are two important discoveries in this book.  The first, and it is very important, is that all the efforts of the last 20 years have not been in vain. Enormous progress has been made and enormous changes have taken place, not only in the awareness of billions of people across the world, but also in government and business. The growth of a “green consciousness” with all sorts of inventive initiatives to explore alternatives has advanced by leaps and bounds. We are in a much better position to make the transition to clean energy than we were a couple of decades ago. There are hold-outs of course and they stand out remarkable. But, they are also more and more encircled by a wave of pressure for change.

   The second issue that came to the fore for me, and that I had not paid enough attention to in the past, is that there has been an enormous growth in the organization of the countries of the Global South to provide a clear path to the transformation required in a way that would be both feasible and fair. It has not been easy and there are still splits among the various countries. But a broad path has become clear. The countries of the Global South realize that the greatest impact of climate change will fall on their peoples. Moreover, they also realize that they do not have the means to make the transition without help from the industrialized world. They also believe strongly that their peoples should not be expected to set aside their aspirations to rise out of poverty but that the industrialized world that has been at the origin of the crisis over the past 100 or even 200 years, should take responsibility for what they have done. Thus they demand of the industrialized world that it cut back on its production of greenhouse gases and, at the same time, help the countries of the Global South to learn the new technologies and have the resources to support the transition even as they develop the productive structures that will allow their people to eliminate poverty.

   They have, in making various proposals over the years, found themselves facing a solid wall of resistance particularly from countries like the USA, China and Australia who demand that everyone make an “equal effort” -- even though the responsibility for causing the crisis and the means to deal with it are not at all equal!

   What has particularly surprising for me is that the economic burden for dealing effectively with climate change over the next 30-40 years is not, actually, all that great. It requires a program that would, in some ways, represent a global “Marshal Plan” and that could cost trillions of dollars each year. However, in the global context, given the global economy, given the current priorities, particularly military, a few trillion set aside each year by a consortium of all the industrialized nations would not necessarily have a major negative impact on the general standard of living of people in industrialised nations and would allow for a rise in the standard of living of people in the Global South. It is this realization that the fight against global change is not a herculean one, that is can be reasonably budgeted for and carried forward within the parameters of the current global economic process that leads to hope.
 
   In other words, the hitch is not technological, is not economic.  It is political and we can name the actors and then begin to mobilize around that. The actors are the industrialized nations, particularly the USA (with Canada), China, Australia and a few others. The political change that has to happen is one of moving the political culture out of the stance of self-interest for one’s own limited bailiwick (nation, region) and a move toward a governance that looks to the common good of all. There was some indication of this sort of politics after the Second World War with the establishment of the United Nations and all its satellite programs. It can be done, if…  if people will just mobilize on a grand scale to demand it of their leaders. And what is marvellous is that, today, we have precisely the means to mobilize those hundreds of millions of people through contemporary means of communication. Here I am not talking about the major media. They are clearly in the hands of those who have very narrow economic self-interest. Rather, I refer to that massive channel of alternative means of communication that have already mobilized people around the world on a vast array of issues. There needs to be a massive, unmistakable, unavoidable public outcry from hundreds of millions of people in every part of the world. When that happens, over and over again, politicians tend to get the message. They don’t like it. But, history moves forward. It is really up to us.