A GREEN ECONOMY FOR AN ERA OF FINANCIAL AND CLIMATE DISRUPTIONS
by John Rowley
The world is hotting up , and so is public concern about climate change—despite the distracting financial crash and its economic aftermath. Indeed, the lack of foresight over the credit crunch is only echoed by the failure of governments to act earlier on the far more dangerous eco-crunch. Articles, books and films now reflect the mounting chorus of concern. Even right-leaning commentators such as the three-time Pulitzer prize winning Thomas Friedman are now preaching the need for a transformational green economy, led in his vision by the United States.
His latest book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, paints a picture of a planet beset by rising temperatures, petro-dictatorships, crowded humanity, with new ‘Americas’ of spawning middle-class consumers, all busy destroying the Earth’s biodiversity. The answer, he says, lies in a transformed renewable energy economy, led in the United States by government incentives and taxes, but harnessing the power of the market and entrepreneurial forces. This, he believes, will lead China onto a similar green path, while restoring the moral and economic leadership of the U.S. in a reformed world.
Allowing for the US audience he is trying to reach (and he is immensely influential) his basic message is badly needed. It indicates the rapidly shifting nature of public awareness of our global environmental crisis. And it mirrors what is beginning to happen in the energy business itself, irrespective of the cumbersome negotiations over CO2 targets and international climate change agreements. Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, spells out the surprising progress already being made in the United States to develop a new energy economy. Texas alone will soon have 45,000 megawatts of wind generating capacity "more than enough to satisfy the residential needs of the state’s 24 million people." And, within the next three years, the United States is likely to go from 420 megawatts of solar thermal generating capacity to close to 3,500 megawatts—an eightfold jump. [See: New energy economy is emerging in the United States by Lester Brown on page .]
Elsewhere there are also signs of rapid change. The United Kingdom is now top of the world in offshore wind power, and though at present, the UK is low on Europe’s overall wind power league, the government says there is potential to generate enough wind power electricity for every home in the country. In addition, it has now signed up to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, while the European Union teeters on setting a target of 20% of energy from renewables by 2020.
None of this is anywhere near enough to meet the scale and speed of the changing climate, the continuing destruction of the Earth’s soils, oceans and species, or the pressures of population growth in many poor countries in Africa and Asia. Or the pressures of rising consumption in the U.S., China and India. But it does hold out a tantalizing glimpse of what a greener, less polluting, though still hot, flat and crowded world might look like.
Footnote:
Hot, Flat and Crowded: why we need a green revolution – and how it can renew America by Thomas L. Friedman is published in the United States by Farar, Strauss & Giroux.
John Rowley has been writing about population and environment issues since he moved from mainstream journalism to launch the award-winning People magazine for the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in 1973. This spawned Earthwatch, in 1980, produced in collaboration with IPPF, IUCN and UNFPA and was followed by People & the Planet magazine in 1992. Launched at the Earth Summit in Rio, this full color quarterly was published by an independent NGO, Planet 21, with sponsorship from the UNFPA, WWF, IUCN, IPPF and the Swedish development agency, Sida. In 2000 the magazine was transformed into a fully illustrated website www.peopleandplanet.net which provides a global information resource into 16 population and environment topics. This is widely used by students and teachers in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. John edited world conference newspapers on population and development issues in Bucharest, Copenhagen, Vancouver and Cairo and has contributed widely to many other publications.
