Transition Bedford

Ban Ki Moon addressing the conference

This clip is essential viewing for anyone following Copenhagen

As Copenhagen fails do not despair!!! There will be an international treaty but it will be led by the people, it will probably be done in a couple of years and it will be much more ground breaking, deep routed, driven and worldshiftng than that being discussed at Copenhagen. I’ll explain myself below.

I put a lot of faith and hope in Copenhagen but taking a step back and viewing this conference as part of wider set of activities the timing was quite clearly not right.  We often hear the Einstein quote;

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”

Most world leaders are well and truly still using the same kind of thinking that caused the problem and given a mindset that is almost “mindset as usual” lets imagine that our leaders came up with what is from our current thinking an “ambitous, fair and legally binding treaty”. Do not underestimate two consequences;
1. just how much the faith of civil society, the charities, community groups and the people would have shifted towards political solutions.
2. just how weak this document or treaty would have been in real scientific terms and do not underestimate just how little of it’s “legally binding” targets would have been achieved.

With regard to the second point, this is not an abject lack of faith in the political process, we know that the best deal in Copenhagen was still tantamount to a suicide pact when placed against current science. Although “less than 2 degrees” was given as a headline target the actual nitty gritty emissions cuts were likely to commit us to something closer to 4 degrees. We also know that even domestic politics is laden with political promises and aspirations that have been historically and systematically watered down or just not delivered in any real form. This is true on a domestic scale let alone  on an international level. It is not bad people, we in the UK have a political system, which is probably one of the best in the world but its fundamentally short on finance to deliver all the promises made and many promises are made in the popularity contest that attempts to please the masses. Democracy, systematically, does not allow for decisive action on a national level, let alone international. More obvious proof that the promises made in Copenhagen wouldn’t be achieved is the Kyoto protocol, which for all its virtues, was a legally binding document ratified in nearly all UN member states and yet many “IGNORED” it or simply fell short of achieving agreed targets.

The point of this post is not to highlight the failings of the political system it is to point out the importance of the growth of a people lead movement. Copenhagen was the first time the world came together as a world community (on any issue) to recognise that we agree that climate change is a problem. We know on a local community level that this is part of the awareness raising phase and that action follows later in the cycle. There is most certainly a place for this internationally level action but I feel that if political leaders make a deal in 1 and even better 2 years time, they will do so at a time when the people lead “movement of the movements” is hitting it’s crechendo or reaching critical mass and a deal done at this time will be delivered. Moreover, a deal in Copenhagen may have stopped crechendo of people power.

The point of the this post is to highlight the importance of the people lead actions and solutions. A deal done when there is a critical mass in the peoples movement will not only be done at time of a new way of thinking, that new way of thinking will be people lead not leader led. Do not underestimate the power of the failings of these political processes to fuel the fire and put the onus back on the social movements and conversely how a “good deal” at Copenhagen would have prematurely been like a heroin shot in the arm of the people lead movements as we sit back sedated, aaahhh the government to the rescue! It’s similar to the international aid, top down, approach of giving away food and supplies to the worlds poorest, it creates dependency and limits the empowered and driven action of the people you are trying to help. We are so used to the “authorities” solving our problems but over the last few years we have collectively been coming to the realisation that we the people need to make the change that there is no night in shining armor  (in this case Obama and the USA) going to swing in and save the day. This realisation and the sense of actually taking you’re own future into your hands is amazingly empowering and scary at the same time. Civil society, people, community members, individuals, mothers, fathers and residents will have to believe even more in their role in solving the climate problem.

We have been “governed” for millenea, we have forgotten what self governance and empowerment feels like, looks like and tastes like. It is so natural for us to let be governed. First by emperors and and royals, then power decentralised slightly as it shifted towards governments and only recently the power decentralisd still further into the hands of corporations. This natural shift from the few to the many is very slow but when seen speeded up the next logical shift will be from the corporation to the civil society and finally the people.

Some would say that the people are two stupid or unruly to self govern and especially in the face of an emergency. I would say that climate change is a horrid burden for our generation and yet it provides us with a great opportunity for the people to work together to self govern and we can’t do much worse than the power structures of today that are leading us of a cliff of logic. I have no doubt that we will endure and rise to the challenge. I have no rose tinted glasses, there is already collapse and catastrophe happening caused by our misuse of the planet that sustains us. To a certain extent this will only rise as consequences are already built into the climate system.  We have difficult times ahead but those difficult times are forcing us to come together as a planet of peoples and to respect nature and her cycles.

COP logo

Even the COP logo depicts the web of people on the planet rather than centralised power strucute.

Get this right and we can harmonise both a socially as people and environmentally with nature. Conversely, how can we possibly harmonise as people, if a few people have all the power? and the nock on is clear that our social disharmony is at the route cuase of our environmental disharmony. With this in mind “power to the people” is not a luxury in the face of emergency it’s an essential part of the response.