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My CSR perspective of the COP 17 talks in Durban

December 8, 20114:52 pm

Some of you will know that the COP 17 in Durban will finish tomorrow. The summit started on the 28th of November and so far, judging from some of the blogs and articles I have seen, not much will be achieved in Durban by the end of tomorrow.

Here are some recent useful links to articles:

My CSR perspective

Taking a look at the interim results of the COP 17 from a CSR perspective, I must say that this is a disappointing result so far. I can hardly describe how disappointing actually. It seems to me that Organizations and governments from across the globe have lost the will and interest to change our destiny when it comes to tackling climate change.

It is very clear that they have quickly turned away from this uncomfortable climate reality only to focus on the single most important topic they always have: Business and economic growth. In a way the economic downturn and EU debt crisis have come at the right time for them to change the topic back to economic growth and prosperity.

Don’t get me wrong. Economic growth and prosperity are essential for our economy and local / global businesses. I know what I am talking about. I also run my own business and I need to find ways to bring in “fresh money” in order to pay my employees and the current bills. But I do not need to always grow my business in order to keep my business in the black. If I am not making enough money I need to find ways to grow AND cut back on the costs I have. But if I would be as ignorant towards such substantial treats to my way of doing business as the global organizations and governments are at the moment when we look at the dangers of climate change, I would be out of business very quickly.

We all need to change in order to avoid the damming effects of climate change. Everyone has to play their part. But the frameworks for our coordinated actions need to be set by our governments with the help of global organizations. And from what I am seeing at the COP17, are we actually much further away from this result than ever before.

Has the recent 10:10 campaign video gone to far?

October 1, 201011:14 am

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I am not whether anyone has seen this campaign video by “The 1010 Campaign“. It was launched yesterday as far as I can see.

If not take a look (warning – very disturbing – and this is no joke!)

My view on this campaign video:

I was stunned to see this kind of graphic video. For me this is way over the top. Yes it is different and yes it brings a clear point across. But I am not sure that is the correct point. We need constructive campaigns and not yet another shocker campaign video such as the Greenpeace KitKat video or now this one here. These kind of over the top campaigns actually harms and undermines our cause to raise awareness of the threat of climate change in my view instead of helping it.

What do you think about this campaign video? Please either comment the post or vote in the poll below:

UPDATE:
The video has been taken down. It seems that the negative response was to strong for them!

Update II: This is a link to a reuploaded video if you still care to watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx4yr0FFhMQ

Should we care about what Bjorn Lomborg is saying? No, not really!

September 1, 20101:53 pm

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Do you remember the Danish professor Bjorn Lomborg? He rose to questionable stardom in the Climate Change world as a Climate Change skeptic with his book “The skeptical environmentalist” and has been a prolific person in this field ever since.

This week he announced a u-turn in his opinion whether Climate Change is happening or not.

Headline: Bjørn Lomborg: $100bn a year needed to fight climate change
‘Sceptical environmentalist’ and critic of climate scientists to declare global warming a chief concern facing world.

This is the article in the Guardian.

The reaction so far
The reaction so far to his change in point of view has been mostly negative. What is he intending to tell us? From what I can see of the articles I read about this recent announcement people are just surprised about his change of mind.

My view
I have been amazed how much attention this story has received over the past days. Far too much attention for my taste.

So should we care about this at all?

My suggestion is: Absolutely not. Let him do his thing. What this is, is nothing more than marketing of an individual that does not have the science in mind just the publicity. All of this can be very damaging for anyone advocating action to tackle Climate Change and everyone working in the Sustainability field.

In a way I always liked his viewpoint as a Climate Change skeptic. It brought some new ways of looking at the issue of Climate Change to the table. Something refreshing. But this latest publicity stunt is is too much for me. Let’s forget about his latest book and move on to tackle the problems of Climate Change by not focusing on publicity and profiling but the issues we need to solve today.

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/buggolo/311128680

Will we ever convince the climate change deniers?

August 2, 20101:28 pm

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The post title pretty much says it all. Will we ever convince the climate change deniers? What do you think? Have you had experiences with people or groups that categorically did not want to accept that climate change is happening?
I have and I find it extremely frustrating to see, hear and read that someone does not believe that climate change is happening. It seems that we will for the foreseeable future always have these two opposing fronts. The climate change advocates and the deniers.

temperatures Will we ever convince the climate change deniers?

I am seeing myself as you can imagine, as a climate change advocate but here are some examples from recent environmental discussion forums that are discussing this day and day out with utter determination:

The EnvironmentSite.org and its monster long thread called: The Sky is falling. The thread already has over 1000+ pages and the debate is raging on. I love the visualizations and every now and then a sceptic reinvigorates the discussion by posing daring accusations and arguments.
Topix Forum on Global Warning has an equally long thread on this: Who still takes global warming seriously? This is a long discussion thread again where the advocates and deniers are just not getting anywhere in my opinion. What is the purpose of the discussion then I am questioning myself.

After the failure of the COP15 in Copenhagen, the world in economic slowdown and the PR disaster of ClimateGate what are the options for climate change advocates? Business as usual?

I am sure about what I will do. Spread the word about the horrible effects of climate change and provide platforms for advocates to do so as well. I believe we have no choice but to press on with our advocacy work on climate change. No matter what problems we face across the globe and what climate change deniers are throwing at us.

But that is what I am and will continue to do.

Where do you stand and what do you do?

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/themadlolscientist/2538226906/

A difficult topic: Nuclear Disarmament and Climate Change

April 23, 201012:17 pm

4 Comments

Todays post addresses a very difficult topic. Nuclear disarmament and Climate Change. This topic has been swirling in my head for a while now and this post is the result of these thoughts. So what do these two topics have in common?

Very good question. This is how I draw the connection.

The connection between these two is that both topics are incredibly important for the future of our civilization and the wellbeing of upcoming generations. The big threat with nuclear weapons is that, if worse comes to worse, nuclear weapons could destroy our world within hours. Climate Change in my opinion is even more dangerous as it is destroying our world in the same way, but not just in hours but years in way that we do not pick up when we go on with our daily life’s. This is the similarity between these two topics but also the big problem.

The problem is that currently I feel that the nuclear weapons threat is even being seen as far more important then the threat of climate change.

The recent Nuclear Security Summit
I see evidence of that mind set in the latest commitment of the US president Obama by hosting the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington not so long ago. Here is the link for more information: Nuclear Security Summit

The result was an encouraging one in terms of nuclear disarmament . This is what the conclusion paper starts with:

“Obama administration national security officials say the April 12–13 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington succeeded not only in increasing international recognition of the shared threat from nuclear terrorism, but also resulted in concrete actions and decisions from the participants, ranging from increasing the security of nuclear materials and expertise to reducing the availability of highly enriched uranium and plutonium.”

It is a good result do not get me wrong. I am not implying in any way that nuclear weapons are not highly dangerous to our future and that disarmament is extremely important. But when you are working in the Sustainability/ CSR field and you are passionate about seeing change in the world with regards to Climate Change this situation is so frustrating.

The two day Nuclear Security Summit has ended with concrete and well worked-through commitments and the same nations and same leaders can not work with the rest of the world to formulate and commit to tackle Climate Change when they met at the Copenhagen Summit back in December 2009?

The big disconnect
I see a big disconnect and lack of proper judgment by our leaders in this case and that we in the Sustainability / CSR movement still have a long way to go to convince our so called leaders that they need to do much more to address and help us tackle the threat of climate change. We need an absolute commitment and leaders working together, nothing more and nothing less.

Climate Change may not threaten each others future right away and in an way that nuclear weapons do but I believe both topics need to have the same priority when our leaders are trying to work towards a future that is worth handing over to our children.

Picture Credit: Jonas B

Help us to tackle poverty and climate change: Support the Robin Hood Tax

February 10, 201012:50 pm

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I am not really the big campaigner and I am highly critical of many campaigns that are supposed to help the poor and that aim to help to fight climate change but today a campaign was launched that I am strongly supporting and that I wanted you to know about. This campaign is intended to introduce a so called ‘Robin Hood Tax’.

This is how the idea is being described on the campaign website:
‘The Robin Hood Tax is a tiny tax on bankers that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, at home and abroad. By taking an average of 0.05% from speculative banking transactions, hundreds of billions of pounds would be raised every year. That’s easily enough to stop cuts in crucial public services in the UK, and to help fight global poverty and climate change.’

This video comes with the launch today. It makes it very clear what the logic behind the tax is.

Here are some recent articles about the launch:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/10/business/business-uk-britain-banktax.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8506718.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/10/robin-hood-tax-pressing-problems
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/02/10/celebs-charities-and-unions-call-for-robin-hood-tax-on-banks-to-help-the-poor-115875-22031754/
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-09/-robin-hood-tax-on-banks-would-aid-poor-u-k-non-profits-say.html

So please sign up to help us promote this possible tax to help the poor and fight climate change. Remember every good thing you do, no matter how small, will make our world a better place. None of us can change the world on our own but we can definitely change the world together.

After Copenhagen: Key Questions to Answer and the Possible Way Forward

December 22, 20097:21 pm

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I believe that most of us are disappointed that the Copenhagen Climate Change conference did not deliver more then the so called Copenhagen Accord.

This outcome in my opinion will have an effect on the Sustainability professional and movement as a whole.

Todays post is about the key questions everyone in the Sustainability movement now needs to be able to answer and what a possible way forward could be from my point of view. There are more questions to answer on a more detailed basis obviously but I believe everyone working or participating in the Sustainability sector will have to find answers to and draw consequences from these following questions.

Key Questions we now need to be able to answer
1) What credibility does the Sustainability movement have left now that the bare minimum consensus was reached in Copenhagen and not much to follow up on?
2) What are the next steps to tackle Climate Change? Should we just simply wait and trust in our leaders to come up with a solution? We are always saying that we have little time left to slow down Climate Change. If we will have reached the tipping point at around 2015 what will our time line be now?
3) How much do we want to rely on our politicians to get us out of this mess we are in?

The possible way forward
I am a practical and forward looking person. So what is our way forward realistically?

Lets put it this way. We have no other choice but to work constructively and with as many people as possible to find a way forward now.

Now you might say: ”Yes sure, we have done that before and it did not work.” My answer to that would be. that we have not tried hard enough. We need to do more, be louder and more professional to include as many people as possible to spread the word, make a difference and help others to be more confident to understand us better and support the Sustainability movement.

We simply have not been effective enough to work together across different professions and cultures to get through to the key decision makers that still have the last word.

Radical Activism will not help
Another aspect of our possible way forward is that radical activism will not help the progress of the Sustainability movement and the goal to slow down Climate Change. Many people I have talked to expects more radical activism now since in the the eyes of the radicals the result was an absolute disaster.

Working constructively is the only way to reach these key decision makers and nothing else. This is what we now need to figure out together over the course of the next months and then build up to the next key decision point in our quest to make the world a better place.

I am very positive about this and our future as a whole but we where unsuccessful once and we need to make sure that we are successful next time and all work together to promote Sustainability and slow down Climate Change.

Picture Credit: blue_quartz