A Bumpy Road to Copenhagen… does it matter?
There’s an awful lot of expectation on the COP15 climate change talks at Copenhagen in December. The big carbon emitters have been circling each other like suspicious dogs, sniffing the air and waiting for who is going to move first.
Yet, when it comes to national action, China, India, France, the UK and President Obama (if not the US Senate) have all declared they are ready to act. Germany and the Nordic countries are well ahead of the game. So, going back to the views of Hermann Scheer, do we really need an international agreement? Or should we not just get on with it.
Well, yes it would help, but it wouldn’t be a disaster if it failed or was only half successful. So maybe we should lower our expectations and the hype. There is a Plan B.
I preach to my clients. “Don’t procrastinate, act!” You can do all the baseline and strategy work in parallel, but what is important is that you get moving, start building momentum and demonstrating results. We could do the same at a national level – individual action in parallel with international negotiation. It doesn’t need to be an ‘or’, it can be an ‘and’.