The global forces of science, of campaigning, of green business possibilities forced a move on the global stage that will have far-reaching ramifications.
On the streets of Paris on Saturday, as climate campaigners from around the world gathered, there was a buzz of excitement. It was a feeling that yes, finally, we were seeing genuine political commitment to match the leadership already being shown by campaigners and the public in calling for action on climate change.
The Paris deal is not perfect. Far more still needs to be done by the Western world to support emerging economies and poorer nations. Future work will have to ensure that action on climate change is delivered equitably across nations, genders, and cultures.
But what was generating that excitement, an excitement that all could appreciated, was the news that global leaders had understood and expressed the need to keep warming to 1.5 degrees – a figure better than anyone expected heading into the talks.
The leaders listened to environmental scientists, they assessed the possible impact of a 2 degrees rise, and they acted. Most importantly, they listened to the public who have long called for and demanded action. In Paris, those cries were heard.
The challenge of keeping to a 1.5 degrees rise gives us hope. It gives us hope that vulnerable small islands can yet be saved. It gives us hope that we can stabilise our warn-out, neglected planet.
Now we need to see the commitment put into action.
Globally, there’s not going to be – there can’t be – tolerance for foot-draggers, tolerance for countries failing to pull their weight, particularly tolerance for Britain, which has the highest historic emissions per head of any state.
After a year of disastrous environmental policy-making, on renewable energy and home energy efficiency, on transport and on green manufacturing, there’s going to be international pressure on the Cameron government to change its ways.
And that 1.5 degree warming limit puts a powerful new weapon in the hands of campaigners in Britain.
At a gathering of British climate campaigners on Saturday night organised by Friends of the Earth, the energy, commitment, and determination was evident.
The anti-fracking campaigners – now with more than 400 groups around the country, and bolstered by meetings in Paris with fellow campaigners from around the world (including those in Germany, France, Bulgaria and New York State who’ve won their battles) – are going to be pointing to that 1.5 degree global target and saying with even more power, “no fracking”.
The community energy campaigners who want their communities to power themselves, and keep the profits are going to be pointing to that 1.5-degree target and saying, “you need us”.
The anti-airport expansion campaigners who could already point out that expansion is not in line with our legally binding greenhouse gas emissions targets will be adding, “But what about 1.5 degrees?”
The campaigners fighting to preserve local bus services, essential for providing a real alternative to the individual motor car, will be saying, “these services are essential if we are to achieve the below 1.5 degrees target.”
Those fighting our disastrous factory farming system will be able to point to 1.5 degrees and say “this doesn’t add up”, while the growing pressure for investment in and support for agro-ecology approaches that work with nature, protect the soil and enhance biodiversity will be boosted.
Other institutions are going to be feeling the pressure too. University administrators are going to be faced with that indisputable, globally agreed figure of 1.5 degrees when they face divestment campaigners demanding they take their funds out of fossil fuel companies. Local council pension fund administrators when asked where their funds are placed will face the same pressure.
Usually, not much changes at international meetings. But in Paris, the global forces of science, of campaigning, of green business possibilities forced a move on the global stage that will have far-reaching ramifications.
Most international conferences are forgotten soon after the ink is dry on the communiques. Paris won’t be – and the British government and institutions will have to take note.
25 Responses to “COP21: The British government and institutions will have to take note”
wjfox
What scam? We’ve known about the heat-trapping effects of greenhouse gases since Tyndall performed his laboratory experiments in 1859.
JAMES MCGIBBON
Go forth Golightly and multiply.
madasafish
Anyone who supports reducing CO2 without addressing the cause – world population growth – is wasting their time… and our money.
Intolerant_Liberal
Politics has descended into soundbites sadly. The Greens and UKIP and other single issue parties will always be marginalised, no matter what policy they have. Who takes Farage, Bennett et al really seriously? And what British party is really aimed at making a fairer economy for the majority of people here? Only when Corbyn came to the fore has politics looked interesting, even though I don’t agree with everything he says. There is too much orthodoxy in politics, on the surface anyway, where particularly the Labour party have been having an internal war for decades, but then you have people like Tristram Hunt, Miliband and others who are not for ordinary people at all. The Tories keep saying that Corbyn wants to return Britain to the 1970s. How ironic that they are returning us to the 19th century!!! There is no real participatory democracy in this country anymore. Oh sure, there is vigorous debate, of sorts, outside the PC Reich, but nobody really listens to ordinary people anymore, and in the end the political elites have only been listening to those who agree with them.
And there is now the idea, slowly manifesting itself all over the post industrial world, that laissez faire free trade capitalism is the only system we have, with a right wing agenda attached to it. The Labour party until recently was going along with this, and although Miliband was personably a fairly nice bloke, he was wet, and didn’t nail his colours to the mast. He was playing to the middle England demographic, and most of us not in middle England or London and the SE are a little fed up playing second fiddle to those affluent folk there. The whole rotten system needs reform and people, I mean ordinary working class people, need to stand up and be counted for a genuinely fairer society. Because it sure as hell is not fair at all at this time!!!
TheLyniezian
Part of the cause. Malthusian types never get the *other* part of the cause – no-one ever does – which is overconsumption and unnecessarily high demand. This is the bit governments can’t entirely solve- it’s down to us.
But then I have much to do myself…