Our only chance? –  A Global Citizens’ Climate Movement

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Everyone in the world worried about Climate Change now needs to get involved.

Summary

Every one of us needs to realise that our personal CO2 emissions already kill people, in total thousands of people around the world every year. Eventually our CO2 emissions are likely to contribute to Armageddon on earth, the suffering and death of billions of people, and possibly to the destruction of civilisation altogether. To stop this from happening we need a concept on how to change to a CO2 free style of living on earth now and we need majorities or, ideally, a consensus to support the concept. To generate such majorities or the required consensus, we need an effective global climate information and motivation system. Where our governments fail to lead humanity effectively on these matters of existential relevance for humanity, we, the citizens around the world concerned over Climate Change must now take the initiative. We must create a “Global Citizens’ Climate Movement” with chapters in each nation which ensures that our governments are willing and capable to implement effective global climate policies and that the necessary steps for stopping Climate Change are taken around the world. Instead of us waiting for our governments, the solution of the Climate Crisis depends on us, the citizens of the world, reaching out to each other and taking joint action.

Our situation

  1. The global climate situation appears increasingly devastating and desperate. Climate change in the form of extreme weather events enhanced by our personal CO2 emissions, are already now destroying the livelihoods of millions of people and are already at present killing thousands of people around the world. (Mostly in the industrialised nations with higher per capita CO2 emissions, peoples’ emissions also contribute to the destruction of their own properties, to their own suffering and premature death.) Further warming to perhaps three degrees above preindustrial times by the end of the century, the path on which we seem to be, is likely to compromise the conditions of living on earth substantially, it threatens to kill billions of people and to destroy civilisation altogether.
  2. It seems we need to stop global warming now to avoid Armageddon on earth. To avert these threats we, humanity, need to change our way of living on earth to a CO2 free way of existence now (at least to a net-zero CO2 style of existence, taking potential technologies for the removal of CO2 out of the atmosphere into account).

The fundamental factors required to stop Global Warming

  1. To reach these aims we first of all need a concept, we need to figure out, whether and how we, each and every one of us and humanity as a whole can change to a CO2 free style of living as soon as possible, ideally now.
  2. To stop global warming, we then need majorities or, best, a consensus among all people in support of the concept.
  3. To create these majorities, we need a highly effective climate information and motivation system which informs people why we need to take action and what exactly we need to do.
  4. To implement the necessary climate policies, we need highly effective and efficient governments and international institutions.

Two further critical elements in our problem situation

  1. A further crucial element of our reality is that so far our governments are failing to handle a problem of such existential relevance for humanity effectively and efficiently. They fail to inform people about the nature of the problem and the existential risks arising from it, they fail to develop or at least to communicate a concept for the solution of the problem, they fail to implement it. In an essay in 2016 the world-renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking already declared bluntly and succinctly: “The world’s leaders need to acknowledge that they have failed and are failing the many.”[1]His assessment concerned not only Climate Change, but the handling of other huge problems which our world is facing as well, such as poverty and inequality, hunger, overpopulation, migration, and the decimation of other species. 
  2. At the same time, so far Climate NGOs, scientists demanding effective climate policies, and other climate activists are also failing. We must realise and accept this aspect of reality as well. The actions of NGOs and scientists over years and decades have not led to effective climate measures. As an ultimate yardstick, they have not ensured that policies are implemented which keep us safely below the internationally agreed goal of 1.5 degrees warming. The strategies they have used were and are not effective. Some reasons for this failure appear to be: The strategies do not recognise the need for the four fundamental factors for a solution mentioned, they do not offer a concept, are not linked effectively, they often focus on small scale solutions only and do not take into account that Climate Change is a global problem and that we need to initiate effective international efforts to stop Climate Change. Also individual efforts by concerned citizens to limit their CO2 emissions, as necessary and important as they are, do by no means suffice to solve the problem. We need to work towards a globally coordinated approach to stop Climate Change. NGOs, concerned scientists and scientific institutions, other climate activists, all concerned citizens now need to engage in a joint and effective strategy forward.

Creating an effective strategy forward

How can we shape such an effective strategy forward for NGOs, concerned scientists, climate activists, and generally all citizens in our nations and the world concerned about Climate Change?

  1. The starting point: Democracy ultimately is government by us, the citizens, ourselves. Moreover, the world has been given to all of us in trust. Where governments fail to generate the fundamental elements required for the Climate Crisis (Concept, Information and Motivation System, Majorities or Consensus), we, the concerned citizens in our nations and all over the world must come in and take the initiative. Together with experts we must create the concept on how to change to a CO2-free style of existence on earth, we must create the required climate information and motivation system, we ourselves must create the majorities and ideally the consensus supporting the required measures, and we must ensure that our governments are both, utterly capable and willing to handle the most complex and critical problem of our time, the Climate Crisis.
  2. To create those four elements (Concept, Information and Motivation System, Majorities, Willing and Highly Capable Governments) we need to join our efforts, resources, and power.  
  3. We need to create a “Citizens’ Climate Movement”.
  4. Since Climate Change is a global problem and people all over the world experience the reluctance and inability of their governments to lead effectively on stopping Climate Change, we, all people in the world distressed about Climate Change now need to cooperate to end the Climate Crisis, we need to create a “Global Citizens’ Climate Movement” with Chapters in each nation on earth.
  5. Creating the Movement means that, we, the people concerned over the Climate Crisis all over the world, reach out to each other to create and implement a joint global solution. 

 The tasks of the Global Citizens’ Climate Movement

The tasks of the “Global Citizens’ Climate Movement” derive from what we have said above. They are:

  1. Verify the situation and confirm the necessary goals of action.
  2. Develop a concept on how to change to a CO2 free style of existence (or net-zero style of existence) on earth.
  3. Create the required majorities (ideally consensus) in support of the concept.
  4. Establish the required information and motivation system.
  5. Design and implement measures to ensure the willingness and utmost capacity of governments to, in cooperation with the Citizens’ Movement, lead global society effectively on the implementation of the policies required to create a CO2 free style of existence on earth.

The necessary steps for the Creation of the Global Citizens’ Climate Movement

To create the Movement the following steps appear required:

  1. We need to create a project driver (project working group).
  2. We need to create a charity (depending on national laws).
  3. For a charity we need volunteers as trustees.
  4. We need to collect funds so the Movement can fulfil its tasks.
  5. All people concerned about the Climate Crisis should join in the project of creating a Global Citizens’ Climate Movement.
  6. Climate NGOs, scientists and science institutions, and other activists need to acknowledge that their strategies are not producing what we need to achieve, stopping global warming at 1.5 degrees. They should join in and support the project.
  7. Every citizen concerned over Climate Change and its destructive effects for humanity must support the Movement, at least by contributing to the resources required for its tasks.

Discussion

All in all, the idea that all humans in the world would work together to stop Climate Change might appear absolutely mad, looking also at the present state of our world and the nonsensical wars which are being fought. The obstacles appear near to unsurmountable.

Moreover, we ultimately still don’t know yet, whether changing to a CO2 free existence on earth is possible at all within the time frame required to stick to the 1.5-degree goal and how this might be possible. Our governments might have some understanding on our possibilities to change to a CO2 free style of existence but have not communicated their insights to us. We need to find out what our options are. Clearly, we have lost far too much time, decades, since humanity received the first warnings about the dangers of Climate Change.

If it is possible to change our existence on earth to a CO2 free style of living, then this change in how we live on earth will cost huge amount of resources and cause enormous burdens of adaptation for all citizens on earth. There is only one possibility for humanity to stem these burdens. As Stephen Hawking puts it: “With resources increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present.” [2] Fulfilling this requirement demands a far-reaching change in our philosophy on property and merit, it requires overcoming human greed and egotism and seeing nations and humanity as joint organisms rather than as individuals and states primarily fending for themselves.

Effective global co-operation on stopping the Climate Crisis, moreover, requires overcoming the competition between nations for economic, military and political power and replacing it with a spirit of co-operation, clearly another seemingly near to unsurmountable obstacle. Creating the willingness and capacity of governments to lead on the implementation of effective climate policies appears particularly difficult in nations with authoritarian forms of government. We can start our efforts to create a CO2-free world, however, in the democratic industrial nations of the earth as the main emitters of greenhouse gases and then see where developments and our efforts take us.

In the light of these impediments many people who consider themselves “realists” or “pragmatists” hold the opinion that the problem of Climate Change is not solvable at all. They suggest that there are too many people on the planet anyway, and that the species simply needs to be “reduced drastically” in number for it to survive, a supposedly common and “natural” fate for many species who have grown and are over-exploiting the resources available to them. Such an attitude stands in contrast to any standard ethics about the value of human life and in contrast to principles and laws protecting it. Putting such a low value of human life would itself be highly destructive to civilisation and humanity.

For humanity to solve the many problems our world is facing including the Climate Crisis, Stephen Hawking declares: “More than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together”.[3] Ultimately, co-operation on a new level appears the only chance for us to avert the destruction of the planet as we know it, the killing of billions of people, and complete Armageddon on earth. It appears our only chance to maintain a humane world. We all need to recognise that we are entering a new, critical epoch in the development of human history in which such a novel level of co-operation and sharing is indispensable for the survival of mankind. History has shown that humans can overcome previous hindrances and co-operate when the necessity arises.

If it is possible at all, stopping further Climate Change is hugely difficult anyway. But without us as citizens around the world acknowledging our responsibility, taking action, and engaging in the creation of a Global Citizens’ Climate Movement there evidently is no solution. Such a movement would ultimately lay the foundation for further global citizens’ cooperation in many aspects concerning the protection of the environment and the planet, and also in the areas of creating peace and generally a better, more equal world without poverty and hunger.

P.S.: Anybody interested in helping to establish the proposed Global Citizens’ Climate Movement, to be a charity trustee, or to form a chapter in their nation should write to me at gccm@btinternet.com .

[1] Stephen Hawking, This is the most dangerous time for our planet, The Guardian, 1 December 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/stephen-hawking-dangerous-time-planet-inequality

[2] Hawking, The Guardian, 2016

[3] Ibid.

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