The tragic and barbaric terror attacks in Paris have case a deep shadow on the upcoming climate talks and, in a new twist, the French government has banned marches and protests that a number of organizations were planning to hold to urge delegates to do more on a number of issues. If at this point someone is not clear on what the conference is all about I recommend the guide to the conference kindly provided by The Guardian.
Safety First
Reuters reports that the ban is to avoid “additional risks” and that only events in closed, easily protected spaces would go ahead. After the attacks in Beirut and Paris and the subsequent occupation of the Raddison Blu hotel in Mali, it is understandable that French security officials are nervous as 196 countries send Delegates to COP 21 and tens of thousands of journalists, activists, and other interested people descend upon the city.
One of those people, Canadian author and journalist Naomi Klein wrote an interesting piece in The Guardian in which she blasts the French decision and feels it is blocking out the people who need to use the street to get their voices heard by the officials and delegates at the conference. The first challenge therefore will be to make sure to listen to civil society and make sure its disparate parts feel heard.
Unreliable Data
Another problem which has surfaced in the last few months, and was discussed at length in this space a few weeks ago, is the unreliability of some of the data. One news item was the disclosure that China has under reported its coal consumption by about 17%. The other was that Volkswagen, one of Europe’s most trusted companies, had deliberately misreported its emissions data on both Diesel and gasoline engines.
As delegates discuss targets and goals, the second challenge will be to determine policy despite problems with the data.
Unclear costs
The third problem area for the delegates is the uncertain costs of mitigating climate change. At the Asian economic summit last week, Barak Obama made a moving speech about the enormous cost reductions that renewable energy sources such as wind and solar have achieved and argues cogently that a switch to a lower carbon economy can be done without sacrificing prosperity.
The same week, Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus, published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal essentially making the same argument that he made in the book and the film Cool It. For Lomborg, the economic cost of mitigating climate change is too high and even if it was done, his reading of the data is that it will only buy the world a few years grace period. He made the same points when he came to IESE a couple of years ago to speak at our students’ Doing Good Doing Well Conference.
The challenge for the delegates will therefore be to make the most realistic cost estimates and then balance economic growth with necessary climate goals.
Who gets to grow ?
The biggest challenge is, in my view, how to balance the legitimate desire of emerging markets to grow their economies with the also legitimate aim to first slow down and then halt the increasing contribution of carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere. Economic growth means an increase in energy usage and without massive funding, as discussed a few weeks ago, or a technological breakthrough, that means higher carbon emissions. The challenge thus will be how to make significant cuts in carbon while fostering prosperity in the developing world.
A friend in New York asked if I was going to Paris for the conference and/or the side events such as the Sustainable Innovation Forum. I, like many others, will be watching on tv and on line because my teaching schedule does not allow it, all the hotel rooms are long gone and there will be more than 40,000 pretty smart people trying to figure all of this out.
I wish them all the best!