On Saturday, after the first week of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Connie Hedegaard, president and chairwoman of COP 15 (and Denmark's minister of climate and energy), and Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), responded to questions on the relative progress of the climate negotiations.
During that Q & A, I popped the following question to Ms. Hedegaard and Mr. de Boer: "In your experience, do leaders comprehend the potential impact of popular despair on civil society should these negotiations fail to deliver a substantive climate agreement?"
Hedegaard responded immediately. "Almost certainly," she said. "That is why the price of political failure is so high."
As Wallace might say, "Cracking sound bite, Gromit."
Nevertheless, I felt dissatisfied.
Cut to last night. At a private gathering sponsored by Yale University, Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said, "Political leaders still do not grasp climate change." He questioned whether "the structure of nation states" would make it impossible to act at the required level of urgency. He advocated mass grassroots pressure from civil society to protect the lives of the vulnerable and the innocent.
If Pachauri is correct in stating that the basic threats of climate change aren't grasped by the political leaders of our day, then it's impossible that leaders, as Hedegaard suggested, "almost certainly" understand the impact that popular anger, despair, anxiety, and depression may have on the functioning of civil society in the years following COP 15.
In contrast, almost every Western intelligence agency has formed a consensus that around 2030 civil disobedience will impact democracies in developed countries, with middle-class uprisings prompted by food and employment insecurity. In part, that's because seeds for civil strife have been planted already as a result of two decades of inaction and posturing on the climate file.
Ole Mathismoen is the environmental correspondent at Aftenposten, Norway's newspaper of record. In a brief interview with The Tyee, Mathismoen said, "I've covered the climate issue since 1989 and the language they are using today is the same language they were using then."
Given this state of affairs, we can almost count on major disruptions of civil society, including mental and physical health and well being, as climate change impacts converge with structural vulnerabilities in our economies, and in our political and civil institutions.
To sum it up, the UN climate conference won't deliver the deal that wise leaders know is necessary not just to safeguard ecological health and bio-cultural diversity, but also to protect the well being of civil society.
Hang on to your hats, people. Something's rotten in the state of Denmark.
Sanjay Khanna is a climate-change writer and journalist. He is co-founder of the Resilient People + Climate Change Conference, the world's first conference to explore how climate change and ecological degradation are threatening people's mental health and well-being -- and how resilience can be encouraged as the pressures on humanity multiply.
5
Login or register to post comments
Adam M
3 years ago
Source?
"In contrast, almost every Western intelligence agency has formed a consensus that around 2030 civil disobedience will impact democracies in developed countries, with middle-class uprisings prompted by food and employment insecurity."
Which countries' intelligence agencies and can you please cite a couple compelling sources? I don't mean to nitpick, but I find this very interesting and would like more background on this apparent intelligence community consensus.
MoneyPenny
3 years ago
Rotten in Denmark
The reference to Shakespeare's Hamlet is more than just a neat pun on a place and situation. Hamlet is essentially the story of a decent human faced with horrific circumstances he is unable to escape or even (at first glance) name. Yet along with presenting an existential picture of life he shows that life is to be lived and that no matter what despair we feel and what craziness we see around us, that we must choose life.
The question is how can we protect the well-being of civil society when our very leaders aren't choosing life (what they know to be necessary for the continuation of humanity and all other species), but death?
Sanjay Khanna
3 years ago
Reply to Adam M. re: Source
Adam:
Here's a March 2009 link from the Guardian, which revolves around public comments by John Beddington, the U.K.'s chief scientific advisor. The info base he's referring to likely draws on data used by, and originated from, the United Nations, and U.S., U.K., (and other credible Western intelligence agencies). These insights have been reported in recent years in the Guardian and elsewhere.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/perfect-storm-john-beddington-energy-food-climate
Name
3 years ago
Single issue strategies
I don't mean to sound critical, because I think the gist of Sanjay's article is on track in many respects - in Canada it's very clear that our political leaders don't get it yet.
But this notion that failing to act will result in civil unrest and political crisis 20 years from now ignores that fact that many political leaders are dealing with very real and compelling political crises right here and now.
And while it may not be that evident to the hip young urbanites sipping $5 lattes in Vancouver or Oslo who are the vanguard of climate change activism, civil unrest and crisis right here and now is already the reality confronting hundreds of millions of citizens around the world - in most cases linked to pressing issues entirely distinct from climate change.
We will not solve climate change if we continue to approach it using single issue strategies. Civil unrest in 2030 doesn't matter to a mother who can't feed her child today, to someone whose loved one is a drug addict or to a small business owner about to lose everything he's worked for all his life. To imagine that politicians can or should overlook all this and instead focus more on climate change is to bury one's head in the sand.
Sanjay Khanna
3 years ago
Response to "Name" (comment above)
The seeds of the future lie in the present. Climate change, of all things, isn't a single issue. Rather, it's the cumulative result of human suffering and that's why it touches on every aspect of our lives. For some people, climate change will initially be felt as a growing lack of civility among people caused by economic, social, and environmental factors. For others, it will be felt as a kind of desperation caused by the degradation of land, air, and water--a process that's well underway in Canada, particularly among First Nations. We'll need to address the lack of kindness and compassion in every area of civil society in the time we have , the time before the conditions of our lives become driven more and more by the imperative of survival.