I’ve been reading some of the press coverage over the weekend on the outcome of the Copenhagen climate talks.
I’m not really surprised no binding deal has been struck. To my mind there were too many NGOs in attendance, too many “celebrities” distracting the officials, too much expected from the discussions by everyone.
Reading about the summit it appears to me that we still haven’t progressed the “us versus them” debate. We still don’t realise we live in one big ecosystem and that what we doe and the way we live in one part of the planet affects people living in other parts.
We are still ‘nationalistic’ in these types of discussions. We only think, “what’s in this for us?” based on what group we represent: Scotland, UK, Europe. We don’t think, “what’s best for all of us” when these discussions take place.
China for example is building coal fuelled power stations. Are they using the latest technology in them? Do they think about carbon capture systems? Could they take the lead in this technology? This stuff is still in its infancy in the minority world but do we want to transfer the technical know-how or wait until after we’ve exploited it first.
Technology transfer is the one thing that has to happen to make any global agreement on dealing with carbon emissions happen. It means we in the minority world stop thinking about where can we make profits via ‘our’ technical expertise and start thinking about how we can help people improve their lives in the majority world.
