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CLIMATE CHANGE: The Challenge of the Century?

Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Apr 6 2007 (IPS) - Climate change is already altering the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, small islands and Asia’s river deltas, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported Friday in Brussels.

And these observed impacts will only increase and widen in the years to come, along with some nasty surprises as the human race’s global climate-altering experiment rapidly gains momentum.

Scientists and environmental activists say the overarching question – and the challenge of the century – is what will we do about it?

“The irritating thing is that we have all the tools at hand to limit climate change and save the world from the worst impacts,” said Lara Hansen, chief scientist of the World Wildlife Fund’s Global Climate Change Programme.

“The IPCC makes it clear that there is a window of opportunity, but that it’s closing fast. The world needs to use its collective brains to think ahead for the next 10 years and work together to prevent this crisis,” Hansen said in a statement.

“Our societies are dependent upon nature, yet we have undermined it for centuries. Now, with climate change, we are attacking the very basis of the natural world – putting us all at risk,” she said.

John Seed, an environmental writer and lecturer, and founder of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia, agrees. “We don’t need more knowledge, what is missing is passion,” he said.

More than 93 percent of Australians said in a recent poll that they are worried about climate change, Seed told IPS, adding that, “Australians have never had that kind of consensus about anything.”

But very, very few Australians are doing anything about the problem, he says.

Around the world, people are moving from denial to awareness to despair because they feel the problem is too big and too complicated. As a result, many people, including government officials, are all too eager to seek “false solutions” such as continuing business as usual by buying and selling “carbon credits” or relying on new technologies like carbon sequestration and biofuels, Seed says.

“The culture of continual economic growth is over. Business and politics as usual can’t continue,” he noted.

What is missing and needed to address climate change is the human psychological dimension, says Seed, who is conducting a series of workshops in North America on just this subject.

The first step is to acknowledge personal feelings about climate change, which turn out to be very universal based on the dozens of workshops Seed has given around the world. Once openly acknowledged, those feelings of sadness, hopelessness, anger or despair can be transformed into empowerment. That empowerment can take the form of organising small groups to demand action on climate change, he says.

“Democratic grassroots action is the only solution. Governments and politicians will not provide the necessary leadership,” Seed told IPS.

He also warns that political and business leaders in developed countries are falsely blaming the lifestyles of the public for climate change.

“Less than 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions result from our personal choices,” he pointed out.

The main drivers of global climate change are structural and political. On top of their extraordinary profits, oil and coal companies around the world receive billions in public subsidies. In the United States, fossil fuel companies received 20 billion dollars a year, while Australians pay 300 dollars per person each year in similar subsidies, he said. The same is true in Canada.

People can’t choose to walk instead of drive if there are no sidewalks in their neighbourhoods, he said. Nor can they decide to leave their cars at home when there is no public transit, or just a token bus system that might take twice as long.

That is the kind of knowledge citizens need along with the passion to take action, he said.

“Today’s IPCC report underlines what we already know – that nature is forcing us to do something,” said Seed.

Many groups are already engaged in tackling climate change but there is an enormous range in viewpoints about how to address the issue.

“This (climate change) is a core equity issue that must be addressed in the international negotiations,” said John Drexhage, director of climate change and energy at the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is supposed to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Under Kyoto, 35 industrialised nations must reduce their emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

However, the United States – by far the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases – has refused to ratify the treaty, arguing that it is too costly to implement, and many other industrialised nations are lagging behind in their commitments.

“It becomes an economic as much as an ethical priority to defend what remains of nature on this planet – mangroves and coral reefs protect coasts, forests protect watersheds,” said WWF’s Hansen.

“Read our lips – we need mandatory climate policy in the United States,” said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change.

Seed agreed: “We can either bury our heads in the sand, or we can experience the time of our lives by embracing this challenge.”