One Last Chance
Copenhagen Climate Council
Today, at the Climate Community, Dr. Steve Chu, one of the world's leading climate researchers, issued the most serious warning against global warming yet offered by the scientific community. Copenhagen Climate Council Founder Erik Rasmussen says we ignore Chu's clarion call to action at our peril.
The world is heading straight towards a financial catastrophe of incalculable proportions. This is not a consequence of the current crisis in the world's finance markets, but the inevitable result of climate change. This is the main conclusion in the hitherto most serious warning against global warming sent out by the scientific community.
It is to be put forward today at the Climate Community, by one of the world's leading energy and climate researchers, Nobel Prize-winner and Copenhagen Climate Councillor Steve Chu. In his opinion, an average global increase in temperature of more than 4°C is unavoidable. This, in turn, will lead to a series of dramatic consequences which, according to Professor Chu, will precipitate worldwide economic collapse.
If the leaders of the world community fail to respond quickly and palpably to such an alarming prediction, be they politicians or business people, they will carry a huge burden of responsibility. And these findings are merely the latest in an ever-increasing series of still-more-convincing indications that climate change is accelerating. We are about to pass the turning point beyond which we will not be able to prevent catastrophic climatic damage.
Averting the meltdown
The fact is that we are further away from real solutions to climate changes than ever before. They continue to accelerate out of control, while there is still no sign that the world community is capable of reaching consensus on what is indisputably the largest and most pressing threat mankind has ever faced.
But it is not too late to avoid a total meltdown of the world economy. This is the conclusion reached not only by Professor Chu, but also many other leading climate and finance experts, including Sir Nicholas Stern, who are also inspired by an unprecedented level of global initiatives, including comprehensive, large-scale investments in energy efficiency, new technology, new sources of energy, and better infrastructure.
The Copenhagen Climate Council heads up a global partnership with a shared ambition: to demonstrate that solutions are indeed possible, that initiatives can be implemented, and that the business community is prepared to take upon itself a collective leadership in the battle against global warming. The partnership numbers six international organisations, all of which have climate change as a primary focus area. These organisations are UN Global Compact, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, World Economic Forum Climate Change Initiative, Combat Climate Change (3C), The Climate Group, and Copenhagen Climate Council.
The business community must lead the way
The task at hand is straightforward, imperative, and formidable: By May 2009 the partners, on behalf of global commerce, must put forward a shared proposal for tackling the world's climate problems. This proposal is to be presented for the hosts of the UN summit to be held in Copenhagen in December 2009 – the Danish government. The government has requested that international business presents itself concisely, precisely, and with one voice.
This proposal will be completed and presented at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen from 24-26 May 2009 – the most important event for the business community prior to the UN summit. Nothing can be more important than businesses joining ranks to propose how the world should avoid a financial implosion.
Work is already under way on the proposal. From now until May 2009 the six partners will be catalysts in an international dialogue on how to solve the climate issues we are facing. Among many other initiatives, this will occur via the Climate Community, the interactive website you are currently visiting.
An asteroid on the horizon
This is just one of many schemes that need to be implemented and which must succeed during the months ahead. We are fast running out of time in the fight against irreversible climatic change. The criterion for success is that the warning put forward today by Professor Chu, and supported by an ever-growing number of leading scientists, is listened to, understood, taken seriously, and then leads to a coordinated and ambitious series of actions.
The greatest hindrance to rapid action is that the current financial crisis has diverted focus from climate change. This only increases the risk of a crash of an unprecedented order. The financial and climate crises are combining to create a self-reinforcing negative spiral. They need to be viewed and understood as being connected – and therefore also solved together.
If an asteroid was heading towards Earth and scientists could document that it would, without doubt, collide with the planet within the space of 12 years and threaten life as we know it, the subsequent reaction would be massive, to say the least. The world community would come together in an all-embracing joint effort to prevent the asteroid from destroying us. But an asteroid – a climate asteroid – is heading our way, accelerating with every passing day. And we are already beginning to suffer the consequences.
Despite this, a joint global initiative remains a distant hope. The first joint political rescue plan can be effectuated no earlier than in December 2009 – and there are serious reservations as to whether even this will be effective.
Global cooperation
The mission of the new 'Climate Community,' launched 3 November 2008 by the Copenhagen Climate Council, is to motivate and head up the efforts required to prevent this climate asteroid from destroying our civilisation, and with it the future for our children. The countdown for ever-increasing climate change must be matched by an equally dramatic countdown to a new industrial revolution that can transform the threat of climatic change into a unique opportunity for growth. Never before have the stakes been so high and the time to act so short.
Global cooperation is a prerequisite if the Copenhagen Climate Council is to be a success. Companies across the world must recognise our common enemy – and the many opportunities that will arise from combating it – and take a direct, shared responsibility for the future of our planet.
For, as Steven Chu says, "There's nowhere else to go."
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Comments feedAs you are talking, near my office site, there is an ongoing huge engineering project to build a new town ..Tons of Co2, I am sure is being sent to the Air,.. there are various similar projects in the Middle East. hundred of them .. Projects and more projects.. I sometimes wonder what is the big issue here. You guys must make your voice more heard.
2. "Consensus" on Climate Change Is "Fake," Scientists Say
A team of scientists has sent a letter to all U.S. senators warning that a claim there is "consensus" in the scientific community on the climate change issue is false.
The letter dated Oct. 29 reads in part: "You have recently received a letter from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), purporting to convey a 'consensus' of the scientific community that immediate and drastic action is needed to avert a climatic catastrophe. . .
"The claim of consensus is fake, designed to stampede you into actions that will cripple our economy, and which you will regret for many years. There is no consensus, and even if there were, consensus is not the test of scientific validity. Theories that disagree with the facts are wrong, consensus or no."
The five signees of the letter include professors from Princeton University, the University of Virginia and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The letter refers to an earlier open letter sent to Congress by those five signees and others declaring: "The sky is not falling. The earth has been cooling for 10 years, without help. The present cooling was NOT predicted by the alarmists' computer models, and has come as an embarrassment to them. . .
"We are flooded with claims that the evidence is clear, that the debate is closed, that we must act immediately, etc., but in fact there is no such evidence. It doesn't exist."
The Oct. 29 letter also notes that the American Physical Society, an organization of physicists, did not sign the AAAS letter and states the society is "at this moment reviewing its stance on so-called global warming, having received a petition from its membership to do so. That petition was signed by 160 distinguished members and fellows of the society, including one Nobelist and 12 members of the National Academies. Indeed a score of the signers are Members and Fellows of the AAAS, none of whom were consulted before the AAAS letter to you."
The petition reads in part: "Studies of a variety of natural processes, including ocean cycles and solar variability, indicate that they can account for variations in the Earth's climate on the time scale of decades and centuries. Current climate models appear insufficiently reliable to properly account for natural and anthropogenic contributions to past climate change, much less project future climate.
"The APS supports an objective scientific effort to understand the effects of all processes — natural and human — on the Earth's climate."
The 160 signees of the petition range alphabetically from Harold M. Agnew, former White House science councilor and former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, to Martin V. Zombeck, a physicist formerly with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and include Ivar Giaever, who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1973.
Help us mobilize a new voice of business in the U.S. and globally that will advocate for bold national public policy on climate change and making the vastly accelerated transition to the clean renewable energy economy and future.
The "business-as-usual" crowd, the fossil fuel industry, wields enormous clout in the U.S. Congress.
We are working to mobilize millions of business PEOPLE – from CEOs of small, mid-size and large companies to MBAs, business professionals, business professors, business writers, etc. in order demonstrate that there is a vast divide in the business community and that the U.S. Chamber, NAM etc. do not speak for all business people. Business is the only sector that can FORCE politicians to change their ways. We must demand full and wise collaboration among business, government and civil society. No time to lose. Join us. www.newvoiceofbusiness.org.
It is time for the private sector to assume its place as a major player in environmental change. For way too long people in it and in key government positions have viewed protecting the environment as a no-win business, like Bush said on the Kyoto Protocol some years ago... "This is the American position because its right for America" and just to make the point clear he added, "We will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first, and first are the people who live in America"; how ironic.
Today's growing market for environmental technology can get us where we need to be and the industry alone cannot get there. We need to work together with governments and environmental groups to promote and really reward true leadership. Governments can lead by clarifying policy, committing to "market mechanisms," and promoting the use of diverse energy sources. Even with the technology at hand, breakthroughs of truly lasting value will only come if governments, the industry and advocates create certainty on the way forward and commit financial capital needed to support solutions.
We cannot wait any longer – tomorrow is now. We are in a carbon-constrained world where the emited amount of carbon dioxide must be reduced, andi t must be done NOW. There are two ways we can face reality, driven by innovation, or forced by regulation. The industry's responsibility is to lead the way, and we must be aggressive by setting meaningful goals, which raises the stakes and brings out our very best as citicens of this world we share. We need a proactive business policy or we can be sure we will get a reactive government policy. Goals supported by market incentives, drive results. We must drive for fuel and enrgy source diversity.
Enrique Loera CEO, GM Clean Energy
With hindsight we know we have been dominated by an abundance of large illusions. Foresight gives us an opportunity to do things differently from here on. The technology and financing to create the "next great technological era" exist. We can make economies smarter and more efficient. We can bring to market goods and services without collateral damage. We can generate real wealth and protect prosperity. Whether we achieve this in time and at sufficient scale demands boldness of business and government leaders. It is not enough to understand the real economic, security and humanitarian risks of climate change – we have to act now. We must no longer allow those who are greedy, ill-informed, blinkered, or corrupt to dictate the future. Short-term cost considerations must no longer be allowed to overwhelm fundamental value. We must protect the context for our commodities - especially food and water. We must learn to pay the proper price for fundamental value. The financial crisis should have shown us that artificially deflated or inflated prices, perverse subsidies, short-termism, and collateral damage need to be woven out of economies. It is time for a 'Global War Council' approach. Decisions taken in the next few months will determine if humanity is up to the task of our future. While financial markets will eventually stabilise. The insidious and cumulative nature of environmental degradation makes it by far the biggest economic and security threat.
Fiona Wain CEO, Environment Business Australia www.environmentbusiness.com.au