This year's UN Climate Change conference, COP23, took place from 6th November to 17th November. Reading the media coverage, something really struck me: developed countries are not doing enough and are failing to meet their pre-2020 commitments. With current climate commitments, emissions are predicted to reach 55 gigatonnes CO2/year by 2030; the world would consequently fail to meet the Paris Agreement of keeping warming below 2C - what does this mean for individuals?
According to Fijian schoolboy Timoci Naulusala, who preceded speakers at COP23, individuals can make a difference, helping countries meet their targets:
Reviewing my journey and the research I've conducted, Timoci's statement just doesn't fit well with me...
Over the past months, I've focused on the barriers to individual action and found that for many, climate change isn't a top priority. Addressing this is hard because education may not result in behavioural change; many structural and institutional systems in place may prevent individuals to engage in green behaviour. Fundamentally, how environmental can one be when the society we live in does not make it easy to do so?
Environmental NGOs acknowledge this difficulty and that's what they lack efforts in encouraging green behaviour. As we know, however, reductions generated from individual action must happen on a very large scale for them to truly make a difference; climate change mitigation cannot be left to those individuals who do participate in green behaviour because it simply won't produce the change needed. Ultimately, for the carbon reductions required to prevent disastrous warming, large-scale, industry-wide reductions need to happen.
Other strategies offer an alternative answer to climate change mitigation. Some promote radical approaches, demonstrated by the alarmingly growth in the interest of geoengineering (Figure 1) to deal ad hoc with climate change. Technologies vary from soft to hard. Both have generated criticisms.
Naomi Klein argues that it's policies and and schemes (i.e. nudging!) that cause low-carbon options to be convenient and accessible for everyone, helping banish those societal obstacles and generate acceptable change: make it easier for people to be green! Ultimately, the most reliable green business is one legally required to be green... Policies and regulations that help not only individuals but also the industrial sector to be less carbon intensive would be the optimum solution in my opinion.
What does this mean for my search for green? Is there no point after all? I'll explain in my final post!
According to Fijian schoolboy Timoci Naulusala, who preceded speakers at COP23, individuals can make a difference, helping countries meet their targets:
Reviewing my journey and the research I've conducted, Timoci's statement just doesn't fit well with me...
Over the past months, I've focused on the barriers to individual action and found that for many, climate change isn't a top priority. Addressing this is hard because education may not result in behavioural change; many structural and institutional systems in place may prevent individuals to engage in green behaviour. Fundamentally, how environmental can one be when the society we live in does not make it easy to do so?
Environmental NGOs acknowledge this difficulty and that's what they lack efforts in encouraging green behaviour. As we know, however, reductions generated from individual action must happen on a very large scale for them to truly make a difference; climate change mitigation cannot be left to those individuals who do participate in green behaviour because it simply won't produce the change needed. Ultimately, for the carbon reductions required to prevent disastrous warming, large-scale, industry-wide reductions need to happen.
Other strategies offer an alternative answer to climate change mitigation. Some promote radical approaches, demonstrated by the alarmingly growth in the interest of geoengineering (Figure 1) to deal ad hoc with climate change. Technologies vary from soft to hard. Both have generated criticisms.
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| Figure 1: Various proposed geoengineering methods |
Naomi Klein argues that it's policies and and schemes (i.e. nudging!) that cause low-carbon options to be convenient and accessible for everyone, helping banish those societal obstacles and generate acceptable change: make it easier for people to be green! Ultimately, the most reliable green business is one legally required to be green... Policies and regulations that help not only individuals but also the industrial sector to be less carbon intensive would be the optimum solution in my opinion.
What does this mean for my search for green? Is there no point after all? I'll explain in my final post!
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