COP 27 – Surviving the Apocalypse: From ‘me’ to ‘we’.

Ultimately, it comes down to political will, when confronting the climate crisis. Instead of indulging in Elon Musk’s fantasies about life on Mars, we need to focus on solutions in the here and now on earth, argued Alan Simpson in his final TED talk on how to confront the climate crisis. What is required is a visionary space for nature and the necessary political will to enact it. Money is not the issue.

 

There are plenty of examples in the past and today of how transformative steps can be accomplished. In 1831, engineer Thomas Hawksley established the first safe public water supply in Nottingham, which in turn improved public health significantly. Today in Norway, a new scheme of tax incentives and deposit/return facilities ensures that 97 per cent of all plastic bottles are being recycled. It is this kind of achievements we have to aspire to, if we want to avoid that humanity is falling over the precipice.

This talk concluded a series of talks all focused on what people can do locally in view of the climate crisis.

 

COP27 – Avoiding the Apocalypse

 

In the first talk, Alan Simpson focused on the damaging impact of the aviation, the automobile and fossil fuel industries. If we want to confront the climate crisis successfully, everything has to change radically including our way of thinking. The radical is the only reasonable! Importantly, it is not the poor who have to pay for climate change adjustments. It is the rich with their much larger carbon footprints, who will have to provide the required finance and change their behaviour.

 

 

COP27 – Feeding the Future

 

The way we produce food is crucial when confronting the climate crisis. Instead of a global system based on fossil fuel fertilizers and dominated by a few large corporations, we need to find novel ways of how to produce food. The problem is not growing enough food, the problem is how to ensure that food is produced sustainably and locally.

 

 

COP 27 – Energy: Back to the Future, local democracy, public ownership and social inclusion.

 

If we want to avoid climate catastrophe, we need to shift from fossil fuels to green, renewable energy sources. This is not simply a technological issue. What is required is a fundamental change in social relations of the production and distribution of energy. There are plenty of successful examples, which demonstrate how this can be done. Whether it is hot water from a disused, flooded coal mine in the Netherlands or local energy cooperatives in Germany, alternatives are available.

 

 

‘COP27 – ‘The 15-minute city’: connectivity as driver of carbon reduction.

 

Changing the way we move is key to transformative change, shifting from cars to sustainable and collective forms of transport. Paris shows the way of how it is possible to work towards a 15-minute city, in which all the necessary shops and services are reachable within a distance of no more than 15 minutes of sustainable forms of transport. Reducing carpark spaces, adding cycle lanes and improving public transport all have an important role to play in this transformation.

 

 

COP 27 – Greening Everything: Putting back more than we take out. 

 

Transforming local transport and the way we produce and distribute energy is only one part of the story of how we need to restructure our cities. To ensure that CO2 emissions are absorbed and to facilitate general well-being, greening our cities is absolutely essential. The planting of trees including fruit trees, rooftop gardens and forest belts around cities such as it is currently planned in Madrid/Spain are all crucial steps in making our cities more habitable, more enjoyable.

 

 

In order to achieve this transformation, we need to move from individualism to collectivism. Mutual security implies security against the climate crisis. We need to put back into earth more than we take out. With a call for widespread collective, grassroots initiatives Alan Simpson concluded his series of TED talks. Change is still possible, but it requires the necessary will to do so, and it is here that the power of mobilisations from below will be crucial.

Andreas Bieler

Professor of Political Economy

University of Nottingham/UK

Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk

16 December 2022