ingredients in successful conflict
resolution whether in personal life or
in politics time does heal wounds and
offers the space for solutions to emerge
unfortunately in dealing with climate
change which would actually be called
global heating time is not on our side
time is against us we are running out of
time
also normal conflicts can be resolved
through dialogue and compromise not so
global heating nature does not negotiate
nature also does not compromise I have
spent the past several months learning
about global heating and have come to
the conclusion that apart from nuclear
war it is the most critical challenge
facing humanity what is the problem a
good way to approach the question is to
take a step back and to look at the
issue from a distance please accompany
me on a thought experiment let us assume
that a curious and benevolent
extraterrestrial visitor I will call him
lux will come to earth every century or
so in the eight thousand years of human
civilization Lux did not see any change
for ninety seven percent of the time
everything was steady suddenly about two
hundred or so years ago an explosive
transformation took place until the late
18th century energy sources were human
an animal muscle power water wind and
wood to burn then came coal it powered
the Industrial Revolution and then mass
transport across oceans and continents
until the 1950s coal was the world’s
foremost fuel then came oral it made
possible individual mobility airplanes
urban as well as suburban development
and modern industry energy fossil fuels
to be precise shaped the modern world
extraterrestrial Luck’s when coming back
to Earth in the 20th century thought he
had landed on the wrong planet he could
not recognize it anymore
science had flourished industries had
emerged agriculture had become
mechanized cities had expanded and the
world population had grown phenomenally
economic productivity had exploded all
in a matter of decades although the
human species has emerged about a
hundred and fifty thousand years ago
most of the growth and change that has
ever happened as you can see was in the
last 60 years it took several millennia
to reach the first billion humans around
the Year 1800 you took another hundred
years for the second billion after World
War one 1920 it took 40 years for the
third billion around 1960 then fourteen
years to the fourth billion thirteen to
the fifth 12 to the sixth eight years to
the seventh billion and today we are 7.6
and we will be it’s not even on the
chart we will be 11 billion by the end
of this century also in the last six
years many people have not all to be
sure have become beneficiaries of the
rise in productivity have become healthy
and materially well-off to an extent
previously unthinkable humans now have
extraordinary levels of power at their
disposal ‘he’s a small car uses the
muscle strength of well over a hundred
horses the heating and lighting of our
houses often palaces by previous
standards in times of in terms of size
and comfort our washing machines
dishwashers fridges freezers electronic
gadgets use the equivalent of the energy
output of many dozens of people
yet the wealth and energy consumption of
the West is staggering not so in Africa
Asia Latin America but as the saying
goes there is no free lunch and there is
because nature is finite there is also
no planet B interestingly in the 1960s
people were getting concerned about
pollution and the reckless exploitation
of non-renewable resources that they
feared would inevitably lead to a
Malthusian nightmare of famine they were
right pollution was tackled very
successfully the air the rivers the
lakes cars and the cities and the
industries became much much cleaner but
on the second point depleting Natural
Resources something interesting happened
modern technology opened up previously
inaccessible deposits and created
synthetic substitutes so that supply was
assured and prices even dropped it
emerged surprisingly that the problem of
humanity’s interaction with nature is
less the depletion of raw materials and
more the consequences of using the raw
materials today there is a glut not a
shortage of fossil fuels and the
formidable challenge is to leave them
where they are namely in the earth
burning fossil fuels coal oil and
natural gas generates carbon dioxide
which is an odorless invisible
heat-trapping gas in a nicely
descriptive manner it is called a
greenhouse gas a greenhouse is warm even
in winter because it lets the Sun Shine
in and traps the warmth it has been
understood for decades that a warming
climate
knocks nature of its balance and changes
the environment melting ice in Greenland
and the Arctic causes sea levels to rise
deserts are spreading water shortages
become common you have heard the story
of Cape Town running dry the weather
generally becomes more extreme
hotter drier wetter and stormy air
warming in gray middle Europe might
sound quite attractive but that is an
illusion think of it more like body
temperature around 37 degrees Celsius is
normal 38 degrees is a fever and after
that alarm bells ring same for nature
higher average temperatures change
possibly destroy nature’s equilibrium a
warmer earth will be horrific quite like
a feverish human body
many life-forms will be endangered and
there is evidence that warming is a
major driver of the terrifying events of
the past year such as the floods in
Bangladesh droughts in Africa and Asia
hurricanes in the Caribbean as well as
in the southern United States and the
horrible wildfires in California and
Canada the damage attributable to
natural disasters last year in the US
alone was over 300 billion dollars
obviously the costs and the disaster of
the disasters will rise unless warming
is halted and reversed many people ask
if it is proven that carbon dioxide
causes warming in the scientific
community there is absolutely no doubt
about it there is consensus just as
there is consensus about the connection
between a high calorie diet and obesity
or between exposure to noise and
deafness or between the availability of
guns and gun related deaths I’m using
these examples because there are still a
few people who dispute these connections
but there are also people who think that
the Sun revolves around the earth or
that the earth is flat well the earth is
not flat is the ball surrounded by the
atmosphere a hundred kilometer high
layer of gases of which carbon dioxide
is the most prominent carbon dioxide is
like a blanket that lets infrared
radiation pass through but prevents like
in the greenhouse
the warmth of the earth to escape back
into outer space the dynamic admitting
the sun’s rays but trapping the warmth
leads to a higher global surface
temperature a vicious feedback loop
results higher atmospheric levels of
carbon lead to ever higher temperatures
and like say steam which evaporates
carbon dioxide accumulates and it
lingers in the atmosphere for centuries
present-day levels of carbon dioxide
therefore other result of both
cumulative emissions since the
Industrial Revolution and current ones
picture a bathtub with water gushing in
and the drain blocked the water level
rises unless the faucet is turned off or
unless water is scooped out with a
bucket the connection between co2
emissions and warming has been known in
the scientific community since the time
of Napoleon but it was the u.s.
scientist Charles Keeling in Hawaii in
an observatory called mon aloha who in
the 1960s alerted the world to the
man-made contribution of the greenhouse
effect he stipulated that higher
emissions lead to higher concentration
of co2 in the atmosphere and this is
measured in parts per million you see
this in the vertical axis for hundreds
of thousands of years atmospheric levels
of co2 have been between 180 and 280
parts per million they are now over 400
and they keep rising the earth has
warmed about 1 degree Celsius and keeps
getting warmer this is as if the human
body temperature had gone from a normal
37 to 38 and being on track being higher
still 2016 set a record of co2 emissions
it was the first year that
atmospheric levels exceeded consistently
400 parts per million it was also the
hottest year ever recorded following on
the record-breaking year 2015 which in
turn came after the so far hottest year
2014 and 2017 is right up there the
aggregate emissions of the past two
centuries to put it in context from 1750
1 to 1950 were less than those of the
past 7 years extraterrestrial Lux danced
in amazement humanity is heading
straight for a catastrophe and lest the
flow into the bathtub is stopped and
event is reduced and eventually stopped
or if a way is found to remove carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere scientists
are working frantically on carbon
removal techniques or carbon capture and
storage but to date no effective
scalable solution has been discovered
reducing carbon emissions not just
slowing them down is extremely hard not
scientifically but politically and
economically decades of diplomacy
preceded the Paris conference of
December 2015 at which all countries of
the world solemnly committed to holding
the increase in global average
temperature below two degrees Celsius or
even 1.5 degrees Celsius above
pre-industrial levels Chancellor Angela
Merkel last November at a conference in
Bonn called climate change the central
challenge for Humanity she was right the
Paris agreement is a major achievement
in defining the problems and India and
in outlining the tasks ahead
unfortunately mapping the journey is not
the same as actually moving forward as
matters stand what was agreed in Paris
has
probability of more than 90% to exceed
two degrees and a very likely chance of
exceeding creasing the temperature
that’s three degrees Celsius which is
deeply worrying global warming is the
side effect of a stunning success which
it now turns out also has a colossal
downside because it collides with the
physics of a finite world the challenge
will be for Humanity to show the same
creativity going forward as the one that
brought us here climate policy is not
rocket science it is actually much
harder it is harder because the status
quo works for many countries that export
oil and gas companies that produce cars
with internal combustion engines cities
that enjoy tax revenues people who have
jobs and the convenience of mobility and
comfort and 50 euro flights to Majorca
and so on our lifestyle is considered
normal and acquired right and it is
uncomfortable to acknowledge that the
earth cannot support everyone living
like we do but it clearly cannot
especially not with a world population
rising by another 50% a big obstacle to
climate neutrality is that the
atmosphere has no ownership polluting it
costs nothing energy prices reflect the
scarcity as well as the supply and
demand of energy but not environmental
costs if there were a real price on
carbon emissions industries and
consumers would react and shift to less
carbon intensive goods
it is like the shopping carts at
supermarkets if you charge 50 cent they
all come back if you don’t charge you
can pick them up all over the place but
change obviously is unpopular and this
helps those who benefit from the status
quo the politics of staying the course
wins votes at least in the short run
advocating change does not also politics
is local
and in the present where’s global
heating transcends borders and ranges
far into the past and the future those
who will suffer the poor in the global
South future generations and those other
species cannot vote the costs of doing
something against global heating are
direct and immediate while the benefits
accrue in the future and also to those
who do not contribute to the reduction
of carbon emissions and those who take a
free ride the politics is further
complicated by the fact that the
interests of countries are not aligned
and everyone thinks that the other
should go first or do more or that it’s
not yet the time is not right and maybe
the science is unsettled so the huge the
obstacles are huge but they need to be
overcome on the other hand global
heating is also an opportunity for the
emergence of modern clean industries
fulfilling jobs and social inclusiveness
but it will not happen automatically
think once the telephone was invented
the Morse code was obsolete and oneself
dialing was possible phone operators
jobs were doomed same today attempts to
defend the coal industry or the internal
combustion engine will end badly endless
growth in a finite world is a fantasy
foundering on the shoals of nature and
fairness the science exists the
resources are there and the way forward
is more or less clear open is if
humanity can organize itself to do what
it must before time runs out what are
the solutions well there are political
psychological technical economic all
must work in tandem citizen scientists
politicians industrialists climate
change is an issue beyond politics it is
not a green project it’s not a
conservative project a left-wing and
American German European Chinese or
whatever project but an endeavor to
preserve humanity as we know it either
the whole world wins or no won the next
decades will be time of discovery
innovation and in
assessment politically and economically
the most important step is to put a high
price on carbon massive investments will
have to be made in research and
technology also in energy-saving housing
production transportation and food chain
renewable energy sources could and
hopefully will we in the world of its
addiction to fossil fuels taking co2 out
of the atmosphere must be developed and
introduced at scale of course it would
help if less meat were eaten and more
locally and sustainably grown plant
products in short what needs to be done
is no mystery and most of us feel it in
our bones even if we struggle with
admitting it the challenge needs to be
tackled head-on expeditiously
audaciously and tenaciously for the
benefit of this beautiful world and for
all of us who come all of those who come
after us
so Extra Terrestrial Lux is undoubtedly
looking forward with great interest to
his next visit and with any luck he will
discover that humanity has developed the
scientific and political smarts to save
life as we know it thank you [Applause]