Tomorrow I’m speaking at an event at the school of business at the University of Gothemburg. The organization for Nordic cooperation is hosting the event and the topic is what the Nordic countries can do together and what role we can play in the global climate negotiations. I haven’t thought much about it before but I’m now quite excited about the idea of having the five Nordic countries pushing a common agenda. We are quite similar as people with quite similar ideals and aspirations as to what role we want to play on the global playing field. I’m optimistic about the possibilities to shape and push common ideas and proposals, not least within mechanisms for financing mitigation efforts as well as technology transfer and technological development. Perhaps there are also possibilities to take on the trade and climate change issue together, and why not foreign investments and environmental impacts.
These technologies [disruptive zero-carbon tech] still have to prove that they are reliable, durable and scalable — and if you Google both, you will find studies saying they are and studies that are skeptical. All I know is this: If we put a simple price on carbon, these new technologies would have a chance to blossom and thousands more would come out of innovators’ garages. America still has the best innovation culture in the world. But we need better policies to nurture it, better infrastructure to enable it and more open doors to bring others here to try it.
The story of how a couple of minor mistakes turned into a global discrediting campaign of the main international body for information on climate change science can be found here.
“To those familiar with the science and the IPCC’s work, the current media discussion is in large part simply absurd and surreal. Journalists who have never even peeked into the IPCC report are now outraged that one wrong number appears on page 493 of Volume 2. We’ve met TV teams coming to film a report on the IPCC reports’ errors, who were astonished when they held one of the heavy volumes in hand, having never even seen it. They told us frankly that they had no way to make their own judgment; they could only report what they were being told about it. And there are well-organized lobby forces with proper PR skills that make sure these journalists are being told the “right” story. That explains why some media stories about what is supposedly said in the IPCC reports can easily be falsified simply by opening the report and reading. Unfortunately, as a broad-based volunteer effort with only minimal organizational structure the IPCC is not in a good position to rapidly counter misinformation.
One near-universal meme of the media stories on the Himalaya mistake was that this was “one of the most central predictions of the IPCC” – apparently in order to make the error look more serious than it was. However, this prediction does not appear in any of the IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers, nor in the Synthesis Report (which at least partly explains why it went unnoticed for years). None of the media reports that we saw properly explained that Volume 1 (which is where projections of physical climate changes belong) has an extensive and entirely valid discussion of glacier loss.”
Also: NASA scientists unveil their latest findings on our warming world: 2009 is tied as the second warmest year since modern recordkeeping began, and 2000-2009 is the hottest decade ever, read more.
A cold few months in parts of the world, combined with a campaign by the carbon lobby to discredit climate change science, perhaps doesn’t mean the world isn’t warming…
A new journal on global policy has been lunched off London School of Economics and the first issue (and hopefully future issues as well) is available online!
Global Policy is an innovative and interdisciplinary journal bringing together world class academics and leading practitioners to analyse both public and private solutions to global problems and issues. It focuses on understanding globally relevant risks and collective action problems; policy challenges that have global impact; and competing and converging discourses about global risks and policy responses. It also includes case studies of policy with clear lessons for other countries and regions; how policy responses, politics and institutions interrelate at the global level; and the conceptual, theoretical and methodological innovations needed to explain and develop policy in these areas.
In a TED speech that I really like Bill Gates offers a sober and rational approach to the climate challenge, kind of what you would expect a businessman of his caliber to do. In his presentation Bill first paints a picture of the challenge with a global perspective at it’s core; where are we? where are we going? where should we be going? and what do we have to do to change direction?
The population of our planet will increase, the services provided will increase (a small part of the earth’s population can reduce their consumption but population growth and poverty alleviation will lead to a big net increase), the amount of energy used to deliver each unit of service might go down a bit, but not enough to really turn the tide. What’s left is reducing to almost zero the greenhouse gases needed to produce each unit of energy, be it fuel for transportation or electricity for homes. In Bill’s words we need “Energy miracles”.
To create these energy miracles we need technological breakthroughs of historical proportions. It can definitely be done, but the question is if we can do it fast enough. We need to, and this is something I’ve been advocating for a long time, focus perhaps a bit less on limits and more on possibilities. More on how to enable the changes that’s needed than trying to force them through in the current framework. The truth is that making the transition to a zero-carbon global economy will be impossible without the technological breakthroughs that can alleviate poverty and sustain comfortable livelihoods in developed countries without emissions of greenhouse gases. We need to put the inventor, innovator and entrepreneur at center stage and put in place policies that propel them forward.
Funding RD&D is obviously important here, catalyzing private investments as well and not least making sure that the economical framework supports low-emission innovation, e.g. by introducing cap™ programs. Our approach must be based on the politics of possibilities rather than the politics of limits.
Today the international negotiations under the IPCC perhaps has a bit too much of the European “limits” perspective and too less of the American “possibilities” perspective, and absolutely too little of the global perspective which is rarely found anywhere.
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One energy miracle that’s been in the pipe for a looong time and which might finally be edging towards getting realized is fusion power. Read more (eng), (swe)
Given recent doubts amongst some people (not least reporters at FOX News) about global warming, fueled by the fact that this winter is really cold in some places (not in Canada though…), it’s obvious that elementary schools and the media should do a better job in educating people in basic scientific concepts. It’s not good enough if only university educated people can tell the difference between short term variation and long term trends. Here is a video on the weather issue and some science below.
Who, Where, Why? I'm a 27 years old swede political economist and entrepreneur trying to make things more sustainable. Here I write about stuff I do and think.
