Today’s Guest writer is Chris Tobias, Celsias  Editor-at-Large and Lead Strategist at Forward.  He has been creating a positive future for our planet in the sustainable development/CSR space for five years.

The upcoming climate negotiations in Copenhagen have highlighted an interesting dilemma.  Nations worldwide are trying to shirk their responsibilities around emissions and their economies.

So called “developed” nations like the U.S., U.K., and Australia are having a difficult political time getting industries to swallow the fact that big changes need to happen.  Industry needs to clean up its act.  Of course, then the political dance begins:

• “But what about xyz country?  Are they going to do it too?”  Yes, yes, always point the finger somewhere else.  Someone else should be the leader, start things off, too risky for us.
• “Developing countries should do their bit!”  Undoubtedly the case, but perhaps those who have been polluting in droves since the start of the industrial revolution should take the first step.
• “But it will RUIN industry!  It will be a calamity!  Jobs destroyed!  Lives ruined!  We simply cannot afford to change!”  Unfortunately, the same logic was used at one point to justify slavery, and many other sad practices.  It is a classic technique used to frighten and scare people away from the real issue at hand.  In this case, the cost of climate change will pale all other costs by comparison.  Can we really take that risk? 

Of course for “developing” nations like India and China, the “Hey, it’s OUR turn guys!” excuse gets some pretty significant tread.  And it is pretty hard to object to trying to raise the living standard of people, especially those living in abject poverty.  However, by what means they are raised from poverty… that deserves some scrutiny.

What developing nations have in their favor is the presence of technologies, techniques, and abilities that simply did not exist at the beginning of the industrial revolution.  There are many ways to leapfrog past the dirty, polluting industries we need to avoid, and still give people a chance at a better life.  Development this time need not follow the same dirty learning curve.  With some investment and ingenuity, it shouldn’t have to.

A case in point: rather than laying scores of telephone lines, countries including India have improved communication by having people go directly to mobile phones.  In essence, that’s the logic we’re after. 

So how do you move both developing and developed countries forward and end this stalemate?

Perhaps give them something to aspire to.  Rather than a two tier, there vs. here approach, why not a third choice?  Why not an “evolved” nation status, a better way?

Criteria could be set around all manner of what it means to be an advanced society: economic, environmental, social, and cultural traits would be looked at holistically.  These criteria might include points for:

• Investment in renewable energy infrastructure (a country like Scotland would win points)
• Advanced public healthcare and preventative care (Sweden would do well)
• Low political corruption (Singapore has done a great job)
• Progress with organic, low-impact agriculture (Cuba is a fantastic case study)
• Attention to general public well-being and progress (Such as in the case of Bhutan’s “Gross National Happiness”)
• Strong banking and financial regulation (New Zealand would do well)

… and the list could go on and on.  The point is that each country would inherently have some points in their favor, and with a chart set on advancement, could have a solid direction to move in.  An “evolved” nation would have reached a minimum threshold of criteria, and a timeline for implementing the rest.  It would be an aspiration to genuine progress and a departure from old mindsets.

The catch of course would be to make sure that these are robust, and that nations stay on track.  It would likely take some external review and oversight by a third party to determine genuine progress. 

But of course, if you could say on a worldwide stage that your nation had “evolved” past the many historic problems facing other countries, there would be some strong political interest in supporting these initiatives.  Humans simply like being competitive.

So rather than frame the climate negotiations in the developing/developed nations stalemate, perhaps the time has arrived for a third, more enlightened option—one that actually offers the opportunity for progress, and something for people to aspire to.

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No doubt too, that in due course, we will somehow crawl our way out of this.

Another tsunami of mammoth proportions is in the making, and this is due to excesses of a different kind, excesses caused by consumption of natural resources in a manner that is way beyond Nature’s ability to replace itself. Some excesses are already catching up, with global warming, melting of polar ice caps and rise of sea levels, collapse of fisheries, extinction of species, creation of dead zones in water bodies and desertification of rainforests. It would be really heartening to see governments the world over responding with similar speed and alacrity to the environmental crisis that has been unfolding over the last 20 years or so.   Can we bring back species and cultures which have been lost for ever, even if we pumped in billions of dollars, if it is too late? Do we really have to wait till the “11th hour”, before we take significant global action, before “bailing out” the environment? Can we really crawl our way out of some of the permanent and irreversible damages to the environment?  The time to take more concerted and co-ordinated environmental action by governments is NOW, way before things spiral out of control.

Harvard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist Edward O. Wilson said poignantly, way back in the 1980s (and it is still relevant today):
“The worst thing that can happen during the 1980s is not energy depletion, economic collapses, limited nuclear war, or conquest by a totalitarian government. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations. The one process ongoing in the 1980s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly that our descendants are least likely to forgive us for.”

EcoWALK suggestion for governments:

- Have a sense of urgency about an environmental bailout.

- Out of the financial crisis, encourage a new economy which grows on environmentally viable energy technologies, and sustainable development concepts.

As Van Jones, president of Green for All, and author of the forthcoming “The Green Collar Economy” says,

“It’s time to stop borrowing and start building. America’s No. 1 resource is not oil or mortgages. Our No. 1 resource is our people. Let’s put people back to work — retrofitting and repowering America. … You can’t base a national economy on credit cards. But you can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart biofuels and a massive program to weatherize every building and home in America.”

Now, that makes a lot of EcoWALK sense.

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