Cleaner Greener China

It has been nearly a month since the 15000 (or so) people descended upon Copenhagen to hammer through what was to be “the biggest moment” of our lives, to address the BIGGEST ISSUE FACING MANKIND. Right?

No shortage of commentary on who was at fault, my first lecture for the second semester gave me the reason and opportunity to sit down and think about what really went wrong. I did so party because I have been bothered by what I saw at Copenhagen, not to mention the endless abuse of media publications by politicians trying to deflect their own responsibility, but primarily because my students are about to kick off 35 of their own projects that will in many ways mimic the process that Copenhagen was SUPPOSED to be as they identify critical issues, bring stakeholders together, plan programs, and work with the various groups to take the next steps.

In short. Because Copenhagen was a massive failure of epic proportions, I thought that I should take the time to break it down for my students and show them how they (through their next semester) need to act very differently.

It is a lecture whose slides are above, and in the below I will work through some of the key issues that I feel lead to this failure of EPIC proportions.

So, what happened?

To answer the question “What happened”, I think it is important that we look at the structure of the Copenhagen meeting: a look at the goals of the conference,the people who were there, and the process that was the Copenhagen 15 conference, be given a closer look. Because, like carbon, the failure of Copenhagen is nothing more than the byproduct of a process. A process that had many flaws.

What was the goal of the Copenhagen conference?

This may sound like a dumb question, but what was the goal of all those people who were in Copenhagen? Why were they there? what did they hope to achieve? It is a question that first must have answers to several other questions like: (1) What are the problems we really face?, (2) What are the causes and effects of the problems we face?, and (3) What needs to be done to alter the current path we are on?

Why I need to answer these is a simple fact that if not everyone is on board with what the prlbems are, then how can we realistically expect that there will be a single goal? That while the goal may be a legally binding agreement, perhaps not everyone thinks that a legally binding agreement will really translate into something tangible for them.

It is under this context then that Carbon needs to come into the picture as it was the single focal point, but sadly, it was not a fixed point. That, because carbon is an intangible and is a byproduct of many problems that we face, its allowed for much of the debates to become clouded and tied to other issues that were completely unrelated at times.

Who was there?

Behind determining goals, knowing who was there (and what they looked to achieve) is equally important, and it is perhaps through this layer of the cake that things begin to really get messy.

At the highest level you have two groups, the believers and non-believers, that provided the basic splice for splitting the conference attendees down. Next, you have the developed nations (lead largely by the U.S.), developing nations (lead largely by China), and then you had everyone else, who for the context of this discussion were countries who had no independent voice at the conference. they were nations who many would argue were going to be the first to feel the effects, but regardless, had to stand in line behind either the developed or developing nation blocs. And functionally we wind up the profiling with functional differences between politicians, business leaders, scientists, tree huggers, and students. With tree huggers and students pushing the hardest for change, and politicians and business leaders who have vested interests in staying in power, but operate in environments that do not necessarily guarantee that power too long (an interesting dynamic that essentially determines the motivations of maintaining the “Status quo”)

Which, when you put all of these together in the same room, creates a very interesting dynamic that initially would lead to the opening of minds in some cases, but ultimately leads to the creation of camps based on common goals (economic growth vs. environmental sustainability). goals that are based on common needs (maintaining power vs. maintaining shorelines ), and then results in very different stances (Everyone Change/ Action vs. West change/ We follow).. which leads to a condition of where two people are put into a room to work through the “sticky” points.

Almost important, if not more so, than who was there was how did these groups work together. First question, WHERE WAS THE TEAMWORK? For me there was no greater sign of problems than the fact that there was no teamwork in this entire process. That, with the exception of being a joint statement in Singapore pre-Copenhagen was , there was little teamwork in the entire process. 15,000 people showed up and entered into a mass ping pong tournament, from which a few (Wen Jiabao and Obama took their paddles to the main stage for one-on-one).

It was a process (dare I say there was an actually process) that was NOT defined by cooperation, but only defined by self interests (be it economic, political, or environmental). Self interests, that aligned along a single “goal” of reducing carbon, created two potential outcomes.

Binding agreement, or no binding agreement.

The Process

Any time there are more than 2 inputs to anything, there is a natural process that takes place, and in the case of the Copenhagen conference where you have 15,000 people, 200 countries, 10 types of stakeholders, and one big problem… you need a process that effectively manages all these competiting interests.

Copenhagen, and more widely the UN itself, has no process.

It was a conference where everyone showed up with proposals in hand. Proposals were being developed by parties where there were offensive and defensive positions, and (getting back to my original point of having a single goal) rather than breaking Carbon down into the 55 or so structural issues and tackling those one at a time… Copenhagen became the biggest game of roulette to ever be played. It was an all or nothing bet.

Where this failure of process is all the more sad is that if the two biggest blocks had sat down to break down carbon into its components (transportation, buildings, energy production, waste, etc) progress could have been made in each of these area where common interests aligned naturally, and then set aside other issues that required more time, or at the minimum developed some basic KPIs and steps for next time.

Instead. It was China and US representing 40% of the world’s carbon emissions who HAD to agree first, and then the remaining 60% would fall in line… a HUGE sign of a failed process.

The False Argument

Outside of my slides, there is one more aspect of Copenhagen that lead to failure. Everyone’s argument was built on a false floor (again, a byproduct of having no goal), and while the world leaders would love to point fingers, the fact is that the cardinal rules of the environment never entered the discussion.

That regardless of what the Earth’s carrying capacity for environmental degradation (getting beyond carbon), members were still arguing points on economic development, their right to it, and little real recognition that there are laws in nature that cannot be broken without seeing massive failures.

Which leads me to my last point. Climate change is not something that is going to occur as a result of carbon emissions. It is something that is already here. It is deforestation areas turning to deserts. It is dead water lines, and coral reefs. It is air pollution and increases in lung cancers/ asthma… and it is here where the conference ultimately failed to translate into action.

The fact that natural disasters are increasing in size, frequency, and scope. that large swatches of land are no longer farmable, and water sources are undrinkable is the problem that everyone should have been focused on. Because, while they may not realize it, they too are by products of the same systems that spew carbon, and they are problems that we all face in a very TANGIBLE way.

It may not be as emotionally compelling as a polar bear or a sinking island nation. But, without real goals, and based only on emotions, it becomes far to easy for politicians to use jobs as a KPI for success of greening the economy (vs. reduced cancer

Conclusions:

So, let’s recap. 15000 people allocated 2 weeks to solve humanity’s biggest issue ever, in a structure that:

1) There was no clear goal. Focus on “Carbon” allowed parties to maneuver and deflect, and the opportunity to develop common understandings and programs around real issues was lost.

2) There was a complete failure to work as a team. Everyone brought their own proposals, and looked out for their own interests (as a country or as a block). Factions formed. People lost face.

3) No one was willing to make a real sacrifice. The Discovery channel slogan “live a sustainable life without sacrificing luxury” pretty much says it all for how we as humanity have come to look at balancing the environment in our lives, and sadly little progress has been made since Bush Sr’s comment at Rio that the “American way is not up for negotiation”.

4) Everyone forgot the golden rule. Mother nature will not negotiate.

That for all the efforts of those people who attended, it was not about Obama and Wen Jiabao signing a binding agreement. It was about humanity accepting the laws of nature, and respect the fact that (carbon aside) we are red lining many of the systems that support our existence on their earth. That, without drastic changes (and I am not talking about cleantech deployments), our biospheres will become so polluted that major changes will be FORCED upon us.

People will move. Crops will die. air will become un-breathable.