Washing One's Hands Off A Decision

Climate change action is all about negotiations - hard negotiations. There's a lot of give-and-take, horse-trading, and as Australians say "argy-bargy".

The whole point of negotiations is to achieve a compromise position, by definition. It is somewhat hard to achieve a consensus and a constructive outcome, if one party is steadfast in its position, to the point of being stubborn, bigoted and blind to reason.

Here's a trick, that I have, admittedly, not quite worked out how to implement. It so happens that people who wash their hands are more predisposed to being open to changing their minds (read story with link to Science paper here). Yup, you read me right. It appears that washing one's hands is akin to washing one's mind.

So, how might one put this to use. In line with my blog title, I will think-e-loud:
- Perhaps one can select or veto the membership of one's negotiating counterparts based on voyeuristic observations of their bathroom habits
- Perhaps we can attempt to surreptitiously influence their decisions with gifts of fragrant hand-soap (Bath & Body Works has some pretty nifty fragrances catering to a variety of preferences)

A bit light on actionable ideas...maybe, I need to go wash my hands to clear my head.

Why we need to leapfrog to Climate Change 2.0

Climate Change 2.0 may sound a bit premature, and rightly so. We haven't even gotten the basics of climate change action yet. The world on average is maybe at CC 0.5 (if I may create that unit of measurement), with the Europeans having the hard-earned privilege of hovering around CC 0.9. 


So what on Earth is CC 2.0. Here's the idea, and it's just an idea... by no means reality yet... but worth aspiring towards:
+ The world needs concerted action on climate change. 
+ While the politicians need to get their acts together at Mexico and beyond, these are but necessary but woefully insufficient conditions.
+ The citizens of the world need to embrace any climate change policies developed by governments worldwide. 
+ What better way to give impetus to this embracement than to enable global citizens to feed into the policies in the first place... or in consultant-speak, leveraging ownership to create stakeholder support.
+ What better way to democratise policy-development than to use the power of web 2.0 concepts and technologies - using the collaborative power of the web to create policies of the people, by the people, for the people. 


So there it is, Climate Change 2.0: Driving towards collective climate change action by enabling the masses via web 2.0 technologies. 


But even this will fall short of the finish line. Global citizens need to ACT on the policies that they may now have embraced. Their fundamental behaviours and lifestyles must change (e.g., drive fuel-efficient cars, use fluorescent bulbs, consume less/recycle more... the list is endless).


Easier said than done! But, done easier when said so oneself?


More about Climate Change 2.0 at http://www.climate-change-two.net/stern-review/
More on web 2.0:
- Clay Shirky: http://www.shirky.com/
- Jonathan Greenblatt: http://www.worldchanging.com/bios/jonathan.html

China - Complicating Climate Change Action (as if it wasn't complex enough already)

China is a complex beast, now with the growing political and economic power to influence game-changing proceedings both internally and globally.

China is almost paradoxically pursuing an emissions-intensive but renewable economy. While from a climate change perspective this scenario is not as detrimental as a stubborn and growing coal-based economy, it enables China to progress unshackled in "traditional" manufacturing industries as well as gain a firm foothold in the nascent renewable energy economy in preparation for the future.

For other countries, this places significant challenges for the global fight against climate change in the near-term. Additionally, in the medium- to long-term, it engenders considerable hurdles for "fair shares" in the emerging clean-energy economy: especially as China's protectionist tactics fence out international companies from capitalizing on China's large and growing demand; and more generally China's currency "manipulation" favors a trade surplus (although changing a bit now). Some related articles and highlights:

China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/energy-environment/31renew.html

+ Solar, wind, biomass - to make up 8% of generations capacity by 2020

+ Intrinsic, subsidy-driven and policy-driven demand is fueling the growth of the industry

+ Large local demand enables economies-of-scale advantages for exports

+ Renewable energy doing more for the Chinese economy than the environment (e.g.,100,000 new jobs/year)

+ While there are (internal) industrial issues arising from perceived subsidy inequities, steadily decreasing prices of renewable energy may iron some of these out

China Builds High Wall to Guard Energy Industry

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/business/energy-environment/14energy.html

+ Chinese protectionist tactics favors local manufacturing to imports

--- Against the principle of WTO, but China has not yet signed WTO for the Government sector (which owns most manufacturing)

Geithner To Visit China Amid Currency Dispute

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125658282

+ Artificial currency undervaluation keeps imports weak and exports strong

With China now the largest emitter of GHGs (over 6 billion tons of GHG eq.) it is clearly imperative to get China at the table, and talking the "right" talk. But, China has its arguments, unpalatable to the rest of the world, and unfortunately for it with the economic power and political canniness to force their way. China has demonstrated this at Copenhagen, while its actions at Mexico remain to be seen.

Thankfully, it is also in China's interest to become more green, to reduce reliance on foreign oil and to aid with mitigation of local climate change impacts like desertification, increased flooding in the north, the dangers of rising sea levels to its coastal cities and pollution.

China remains a keystone for any robust Climate Change agreement. However, hewing China into that keystone remains challenging. Some related info and comments:

China and Climate Change 101 (courtesy: Standard Chartered)

+ Some facts and figures

+ China's arguments against climate change mitigation actions by it

--- Climate change is not our fault: China accounted for only 8% of all GGEs from 1990-2006, compared to a 30% share for the US (see Table). By 2030, based on current trends, China will only have contributed 16% of all GGEs, compared to 25% from the US and 18% from the EU. These cumulative emissions matter because CO2 and other greenhouse gases linger and cause global warming for a long time.

--- China’s per-capita GGEs are very low: at only 4t of CO2 per year. This compares to 21t for Americans and 10t for Europeans and Japanese.

--- China needs to develop further before we can throw large amounts of resources at climate change. The industrialised world, in contrast, can afford to spend money on curbing emissions.

--- A large portion of China’s GGEs is generated in the production of exports to the rich world – as much as one-third, by one estimate (although other research puts the number lower).

--- Apart from the Europeans, we do not see developed countries walking the walk. The US did not ratify Kyoto, and does not yet have a climate bill passed, we will not know if it has the ability to ratify any agreement. Japan is not going to meet its Kyoto target, while Australia withdrew from Kyoto and then re-joined.

Finally, an example of China's obstructionist tactics and power-play at work:

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room

(possibly somewhat biased, but an interesting read)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas