By Emily Geminder
26 September 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Addressing heads of state and business leaders this week, former Vice President Al Gore said that despite the cries of scientists and the alarms sounded by world leaders, despite multi-million dollar ad campaigns and unprecedented levels of global awareness, the rate of climate change continues to accelerate. The world, he said, is worse off than it was a year ago.
To polite applause from the general audience punctuated by several riotous cheers (mostly from the press sidelines), the former vice president, who spoke like a man on fire, declared, “If I were a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now and not done, I believe we’ve reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.”
In fact, nonviolent, direct civil disobedience has already been deployed as part of the struggle against climate change. Just two weeks ago, six Greenpeace protesters were acquitted on charges of vandalizing a coal-firing plant in Britain after testimony by leading NASA climate scientist James Hansen. Hansen said the global consequences wrought by the coal-firing plant outweighed any damages to it. The trial was transformed into a debate on the repercussions of climate change and the responsibility of ordinary citizens in the wake of inaction by the government and private sector. Hansen concluded his testimony by saying, “Realization that the actions needed to protect life and property of the present and future generations were not being taken undoubtedly played a role in the decision of the defendants to act as they did.”
Five of the ‘Kingsnorth Six’ outside Kingsnorth coal power plant. (Photo: Greenpeace)
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the scientist who shared Gore’s 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, has spent years studying the impact of climate change on future generations. He paints an apocalyptic picture of the world to come. It is a world of choked rivers, drastically rising sea levels, food shortages, water insecurity, whirlwinds of natural disaster, and mass human migration of unparalleled magnitude. But the Nobel Prize recipient is also convinced this future can still be averted. When the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, headed by Dr. Pachauri, released its report last year, it became the most comprehensive – over a thousand of the world’s leading scientists contributed directly with thousands more reviewing it – and the most ominous assessment of the climate crisis to date. Dr. Pachauri told an audience at the United Nations this week, “The report had a massive impact on the way people perceive the risk of climate change.”
Particularly, he expressed hope about the potential of carbon pricing schemes. “We need to raise the price of carbon,” he told MediaGlobal. “The EU carbon market has successfully encouraged businesses to move towards new opportunities. Consequently, Europe has taken technological leadership.”
But many say recent attempts at carbon pricing have been tentative stabs in the tidal wave of climate change. Before businesses begin to move away from destructive forms of energy on a global scale, a new infrastructure of energy – one that integrates solar, wind, and geothermal power – will have to be constructed. According to the former vice president, the problem is not one of insufficient technology or uncertain solutions. “There is a myth that the technology is unavailable,” he said. “It is available.” The problem, he continued, is a lack of political will.
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri addresses United Nations delegates. (Photo: Emily Geminder for MediaGlobal)
Gore’s incitement to direct, nonviolent civil disobedience came as world leaders assembled in New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, where the primary debate centered around global commitments to the poorest countries. The recent food and energy crises illustrated to the world the profound degree to which poverty and climate change are inextricably interrelated. Yet aside from a shared record of dismally inadequate funding, the international approaches to each have been discordant and disconnected. In a particularly stark image of international dissonance, the World Bank continues to fund coal-fired plants in developing countries.
“Don’t depend on development aid,” economist and Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary General Jeffrey Sachs told a meeting of delegates Thursday. “I was in that business for 25 years. Let’s go after carbon dioxide.”
Though many fear that the current economic situation of the developed world may become a convenient excuse for political paralysis, Gore urged world leaders to see the shift in energy infrastructure as a potential source for economic stimulation. Prominent members of the business community are beginning to heed the call. This week, the India-based Suzlon Green Power, the largest wind energy company in Asia, announced a five billion dollar project that will bring 3,500 megawatts of energy to ten million people. It is estimated that the project will create 1,000 jobs directly and many more thousands indirectly. Tulsi Tanti, Suzlon’s founder, told reporters, “India is the fourth largest country for wind power in the world. We are working on the developing world so that it will not become a global burden.” The project will primarily address the burgeoning energy demands of both India and China.
Jesse Tolkan, Executive Director of the Energy Action Coalition, the largest youth organization addressing climate change, sees historic opportunity amidst a time of historic global challenges. The Energy Action Coalition is organizing thousands of young people to campaign in Washington and work with leaders to move towards substantive legislative steps to address climate change. “We need to re-engage the international community,” Tolkan told MediaGlobal. “We need to work with the international community to get a global agreement signed.”
In an increasingly interconnected world, it is clear that the crucial solutions to a global climate crisis will be equally broad and interconnected in scope. “Carbon dioxide anywhere is a threat to people everywhere,” as Gore puts it.
Al Gore addresses the Clinton Global Initiative. (Photo: Emily Geminder for MediaGlobal)
Darfur is seldom thought of as a conflict over scarce resources, though many researchers cite climate change as a key contributor to the fighting. Darfur is also seldom thought of as a place of light, though more direct sunlight hits the region each year than almost any other place in the world. In the global energy grid that Gore envisions, energy from solar panels in Darfur would reach North America, and wind turbines in Utah would send megawatts to China.
As world leaders teeter at a juncture between worlds – the coming future born of continued paralysis and the world in which that future may yet be averted – they weigh the cost of concerted global action and that of sustained inaction.