But at the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, Obama has joined the chorus of doubters that say that a global deal on cutting emissions won’t be reached at a key summit next month in Copenhagen. The 19 leaders agreed that the gap between rich and poor nations over what to do about global warming was too big to bridge in the next three weeks. The December meeting in Denmark would be an interim step to any final agreement.
World Leaders Put Off a Climate Change Treaty
in Copenhagen, diplomats will aim to reach a less aggressive — and much less specific — "politically binding" agreement, with the hope that hard numbers and legal obligations to reduce climate change would be added soon, in a two-step approach. "There was an assessment by the leaders that it was unrealistic to expect a full internationally legally binding agreement to be negotiated between now and when Copenhagen starts in 22 days," said Mike Froman, Obama's deputy national security adviser.
A lot of this can be explained using economics (powerful lobbies, coordination challenges) but thats an excuse. The governance systems are so broken that it will take a major shock to the system . At that point we may act constructively or follow societies of the past and collapse .
At the core is the failure of leadership and imagination. You dont need leadership when the problems are obvious. Post-katrina required an immediate response. Thats not a demonstration of leadership. It was too obvious. Leadership is required when there is uncertainty and leaders see problems as they are emerging. They take to the bully pulpit and sell both the problem and solution.
The response to the banking crisis is an indicator of leadership or the lack of it. There is no non-trivial problem for which there are only winners. There will always be winners and losers. The challenge for any leader is to be able to compel the losers to go along with the new order. It is done using whatever means available - buying, helping and punishing.
Leadership doesnt exist in vacuum. Citizens get the leadership they ask for - directly and indirectly.
It is easy to not act. The imperfectness of knowledge can be easily questioned. We can call environment policies standards (which people support) or regulations (which people oppose). No big deal. Too many smart people are in the business of selling ideas - however bad they may be. They package status quo well, use the right language, and visuals to encourage inaction. We see all the time how misaligned incentives can have major consequences.
Societies collapse for a reason. Societies collapse because we cant have the right conversations at the right time - the people are not ready, the medium doesnt exist, or the challenges unclear. We dont know if this moment is perfectly timed, but it definitely sounds like that from all that I have read until now. Yes, we have to act in the presence of imperfect understanding and information.
Where is the leadership? Where are the citizens?
2 comments:
Well written and thought provoking. I think its only a matter of time before the naysayers and the lobbyists are crushed by the obviousness of the problem. You can only sell your bad ideas so much. Rising awareness and rising costs of inaction will eventually set the wheels in motion. The question is ... Will it be too late?
Its just fascinating how irrational and foolish the Human creature really is. With all the centuries of wisdom available to us, we still cannot (or dont want to) see the right way forward. Our myopic goals and gains always triumph.
There are issues at two levels - the incentive structures and human psychology.
A CEO has only one responsibility - make money. He is not paid to do anything else. Shareholders infact react negatively if capital is deployed for any other reason. The role of an individual as a shareholder trumps his/her role as a citizen and human being. Until recently climate change was not even on the agenda. It is now - in 2008/2009. Thats a turning point. I talk about INCR's role here.
Human psychology discounts future costs. We have not completely moved away from our hunter-gatherer world view in which we lived one day at a time. Some places such as Europe have a much more robust conversations and institutions than others. US's discourse and politics is stuck in neutral.
Post a Comment