Year 2, Month 12, Day 8: There’s A Rhinoceros In The Living Room

The Jerusalem Post has a good analysis of the situation:

The main aim of the United Nations Climate Change Conference at Durban, which began on November 28 and finishes on December 9, is to produce an agreement about target emissions levels by developed countries and longer-term targets from developing countries. But, with sudden switches in energy policies, environmental regulations, increasing financial fragility and accidents such as Fukushima, national governments are increasingly aware how policy in these areas impacts on everyone’s lives as well as the economy.

Decision-makers have a great responsibility and a very difficult task to pursue long-term objectives at the same time as short-term solutions, especially when it comes to climate change. The key question is how best to do this and whether this involve only national, regional and city-level policies, or are binding global agreements also necessary?
Governments have become more cautious about signing up to new long-lasting and tightly-defined transnational agreements that might affect their flexibility to respond to changing circumstances. Moreover, a global deal on climate change may be less effective than regional, national and city level initiatives because global treaties are sometimes perceived as insensitive to the different technologies and time scales for emission reduction in varying countries.

But nobody really wants to face up to the deadly impact of the multinationals, do they? Sent December 4:

Climate change is a planetary threat which manifests in unpredictable ways in different regions and localities. As such, it makes sense that efforts to reduce the impact of a runaway greenhouse effect should take different forms depending on the economic and environmental requirements of different areas. Approaches to the problem must operate at multiple levels of scale, from the individual to the global.

It is up to ordinary men and women to maintain pressure on their politicians to bring about the needed policy changes — but an engaged citizenry’s efforts may still be fruitless if their governments are dominated by interests which rank profits above people. Humanity’s struggle against climate change is gravely hindered by the political and economic influence of multinational corporations which are reluctant to relinquish even a scintilla of their revenue stream — even to ensure the long-term survival of their customers. Extinction is bad for business.

Warren Senders