So what's the next big climate change action? Has anyone heard?
I have been tweeting like mad for months now (and now diary-ing). I've been repetitively tweeting individual legislators and sending my "Daily Grovel" to the House and Senate, and feeling frustrated as hell that I am not doing action in the real world. The #ShellNo protests continue here in Seattle, and I've been allowing myself to not join because I'm on deadlines at work.
The climate march last September was the last concrete, real world ACTION that I took. It was amazing - incredible - miraculous, practically - and it seems to have nudged the dial, if we judge by the USA/China climate deal that followed on its heels. (This despite the incredibly poor media coverage. A-hem.)
But it feels like it's time for something else concrete. Something BIG. Something Occupy-ish. Something "in their face."
As citizens, we have the power of our vote (well, sort of... gerrymandering... voter suppression... you know the drill) and the power of our bodies, which we can and should be throwing in front of state houses and our legislators' office doors.
#Paris2015 is coming soon. The recent G7 Summit agreement is great news - but if Paris devolves into another toothless Copenhagen, then what?
The EU's "Climate Action" page says in part:
The new agreement will be adopted at the Paris climate conference in December 2015 and implemented from 2020. It will take the form of a protocol, another legal instrument or 'an agreed outcome with legal force', and will be applicable to all Parties. It is being negotiated through a process known as the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP).
Same page, the "EU Vision:"
The European Commission has set out the EU's vision for a new agreement that will, through collective commitments based on scientific evidence, put the world on track to reduce global emissions by at least 60% below 2010 levels by 2050.
The EU wants Paris to deliver a robust international agreement that fulfils the following key criteria. It must:
create a common legal framework that applies to all countries
include clear, fair and ambitious targets for all countries based on evolving global economic and national circumstances
regularly review and strengthen countries' targets in light of the below 2 degrees goal
hold all countries accountable – to each other and to the public – for meeting their targets
The EU's contribution to the new agreement will be a binding, economy-wide, domestic greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of at least 40% by 2030.
So... is that enough? It is soon enough? Is it enforceable? Does it have a chance in heck here in the good old US of A if we don't put a Democrat back in the White House in 2016? And doesn't that depend upon the Democrat?
As for that "we'll start in 2020" jazz... according to a report my husband heard last year on NPR, in 2014 some leading scientists were saying that 2020 is the LAST YEAR we humans can do anything to reverse the effects of climate change. At that point, everyone on the planet could stop driving cars and it WOULD NOT MATTER. We’d already be toast. Almost literally.
Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University’s climate change institute, says that if something is not done IN THE NEXT DECADE, climate change will reach a tipping point after which it will be impossible to reverse. So if we wait any longer, it doesn't matter what we do, because the die is cast and we are toast (to badly mix metaphors).
Given those dire predictions, my confidence in what happens in Paris this fall is quite.... muted. And I can't help thinking that the time has come for additional, concerted, real life action prior to Paris. I'm sure I'm not alone. What have you heard? What's being planned? What am I missing (other than the #ShellNo actions in my very own back yard)?