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| C&C Support Rising - Guardian | |
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"Many, now including the UK parliament's all-party climate group, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, David King, Ross Garnaut and his equivalent here Nicholas Stern, Angela Merkel, Nicholas Sarkozy, Crispin Tickell and many others support this [C&C] argument". http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/17/climatechange.geology ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) achieved a "balance of terror" during the cold war. It was frightening but it was "symmetric" on an east-west axis, and it was ultimately "rational" that neither side pushed the button. Since then, and despite the efforts of the UN, the near deadlock on restraining the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate to change is now 20 years old. This has created an international political climate of Mutually Assured Suicide (MAS). This time, on a north-south axis, both sides have got their feet flat on the accelerator pedals, and it is now more terrifying because it's patent. Also, unlike MAD, while imminent climate disaster may become symmetric in effect, it is not symmetric in its causes, and the rationality that caused us to stop last time now needs to be adjusted to reflect this asymmetry. The objective of the UN climate treaty is framed as an upper limit to greenhouse gas accumulation in the global atmosphere on which we all depend for a stable climate. Emissions are proportional to wealth so both of these, as a tension between rich and poor within the over-consumption causing climate change, are problems. That is why the UN itself has said that an overall contraction of emissions within which a convergence to equal shares per capita is "inevitably required" to achieve the treaty's objective. Many, now including the UK parliament's all-party climate group, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, David King, Ross Garnaut and his equivalent here Nicholas Stern, Angela Merkel, Nicholas Sarkozy, Crispin Tickell and many others support this argument. We must make the transition Lynas rightly argues for, and we must redress both the over-consumption and the asymmetry within it." Aubrey Meyer The Global Commons Institute |