“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein.
Every so often a generation of political leaders finds itself in office at a point of history which transcends the usual “spin cycle” of electoral calculation, national interest, and personal glory. Copenhagen is, or should be, such a moment.
The very worst outcome will be a feel-good photo op schmooze. The very least will be a market for carbon that puts a price on the damage being caused, and rewards the innovation essential to create new ways of doing things. Anything above 350 parts per million – as recently endorsed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Rajendra Pachauri – is likely to be too little, too late.
But hard targets without a clear route map for achieving them will be equally useless. And this requires a fundamental shift in approach and thinking. The whole debate has been framed by carbon – there is too much up there, let’s make do with a bit less.
We need to turn the argument on its head. The Age of Sustainability has begun, and our common future depends on building a post-carbon economy.
For many, the idea of a low-carbon economy remains an abstraction. To some, it implies sacrifice. Instead we need to make a dynamic and positive future come alive by using the visual arts and modern media to show what green buildings, transit systems and communities can achieve in 2020 and beyond.
Worryingly, however, many business leaders are disengaged and frustrated. From carbon capture and storage, to wind turbines and infrastructure projects, there is a belief that so much more could be done. To paraphrase Einstein, the institutions and governance frameworks which are a product of the current era are not fit for the challenge we now face.
Some call for a “wake up” moment, the equivalent of a Pearl Harbor, to mobilize action. The problem is that such moments are all around us – ice loss, methane release, food shortages – but we do not “see” them. And even if we could add them up into a coherent picture, so what? Humans need to be inspired. Fear is more likely to create paralysis at best – and poverty and wars at worst, as we hold on to what we have got.
Instead it’s a Manhattan Project we need, but one meeting the needs and taking the opportunities of the twenty-first century:
A multi-stakeholder response, which takes a systems view; A real-time “war room”, actual and virtual, bringing together the world’s leading scientists, sharing their findings through rapid review, in dialogue with non-scientists mapping solutions and potential outcomes; New green finance and market frameworks, which incentivize green innovation and recognize that we don’t know what is going to work, that we need to find out quickly, and that current structures are not fit for purpose for the new era we are now in; Stimulus packages that invest in building the new economy, not propping up the old; Driving green savings, by massively reducing the waste inherent in current patterns of production and consumption; New measures of success, which reflect on the balance sheet the financial costs of biodiversity loss, carbon and other “externalities”; Challenging the regulatory and planning frameworks of the old economy, and requiring whole-life costing models to design out carbon and other impacts; Phasing out brown/fossil fuel subsidies, to create a level playing field, and using discount rates that fully value future generations; Harnessing the power of the web to bring together communities of action and learning, to enable changes in behavior, and inform and create a new vision of how we can live and work.
It is a Manhattan Project which goes beyond a few brilliant minds sweating under the Nevada heat – it is one which liberates the capacity for innovation and shared interest we all have, across the world, to secure our common future.
* The Manhattan Project brought together leading scientists from across the world (during the Second World War) to develop the first atomic bomb. It eventually employed 130,000 people and cost over $22bn in today’s money, involving production and research at more than 30 sites across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Tony Manwaring is Chief Executive of Tomorrow’s Company, a London-based “think and do” tank working with leading businesses.