100% by 2020!!

Add a Comment

Comment by Andrew Mudie on February 6, 2010 at 10:16pm

I watched an interview with President Mohamed Nasheed before Copenhagen. His words made so much sense and he was clearly as emotionally committed to making a difference as he was intellectually. He was inspiring.
I even urged K-Rudd to take a leaf from the President's book in one of the increasingly angry letters I wrote to him as I watched Australia adopt a set of policies that could be described as "wait and see" and "5% should fool 'em" (all while shoveling money into coal export development).
That I live in a country whose politicians show such short-sightedness makes me very uncomfortable. I wasn't waving a flag this Australia Day - I found myself unable to show support for any official symbol of a country that would condemn the citizens of others, like President Nasheed's Maldives, to their demise, because of our indifference and economic greed.

Comment by Jessie Wells on February 5, 2010 at 11:23am

The World Resources Institute presentation is great,
and you can find an assessment of the commitments from each country at Climate Action Tracker:
http://www.climateactiontracker.org/country.php?id=1263

and assessments of the global outcomes, though ClimateInteractive's 'scoreboard' - even though this doesn't include all of the most recent science on feedback loops, it still gives a very strong message that the commitments so far are brilliant from a few countries (Costa Rica, Maldives), but far, far from what we need from the largest emitters
http://climateinteractive.org/scoreboard

Comment by Cara on February 5, 2010 at 10:45am

Actually the WRI World Resources Institute are already onto the business of adding up countries emission reduction targets and trying to figure out what it will mean: http://www.wri.org/stories/2010/02/adding-countries-emission-reduction-targets

Comment by Cara on February 5, 2010 at 10:23am

Thanks for the comments - I think sharing these stories of leadership and positive action are essential :)
@ Luc, while this doesn't look at warming, the US Climate Action Network have put together a table showing who's on board with the Copenhagen Accord and what they have pledged to do: http://www.usclimatenetwork.org/policy/copenhagen-accord-commitments#Note1
I am sure that once more data is in they will number crunch it to look at how much warming we are setting ourselves up for..... which we all know wont be in line with what our dear planet needs.

Comment by Jessie Wells on February 3, 2010 at 11:55am

Thanks for highlighting this, Cara!
President Nasheed has given incredibly clear and compelling speeches over this last year, and once again reveals the short-sighted and narrow thinking of so many larger nations in stark relief.

"If we don’t act now, we will lose the rainforests, lose the coral reefs and, potentially, lose human civilization itself,”
- can anyone in Australia say that they would not care about these things too?

Our government seems to have an incredibly short-sighted view of the future, at the same time as a deep and unmoveable commitment to the past and its systems of energy and extraction of natural resources.

I hope the world's leaders listen to Nasheed, and I hope that people around the world take heart from Nasheed's example of leadership, and come to expect this clarity and commitment from all our leaders.

Comment by Ronnie Wright on February 3, 2010 at 11:38am

I’ve already given up hope that the governments of the wealthy nations will take action to prevent catastrophic climate change. I also have very little faith that the citizens of the wealthy nations will push their governments into action because so many of them are such selfish greedy people.

I’m still committed to the struggle to bring about change but at the same time I’m preparing myself for the coming collapse of our industrial civilization. I think collapse is inevitable with or without climate change but I believe that climate change will hasten it along.

Having said that I must add that I do believe in the highly improbable (black swans) so who knows. Maybe we will get the paradigm shift in people’s views of the world and nature that is needed to bring about the change we need.

In the meantime I’m reading the book listed below. I must confess that it’s brought tears to my eyes several times this week.

Cheers,

Ronnie Wright
World Change Café

----------

Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse

The collapse of industrial civilization is rapidly unfolding and offers us an opportunity far beyond mere survival, even as it renders absurd any attempts to "fix" or prevent the end of the world as we have known it. Sacred Demise is about the transformation of human consciousness and the emergence of a new paradigm as a result discovering our purpose in the collapse process, thereby coming home to our ultimate place in the universe. Our willingness to consciously embark on the journey with openness and uncertainty may be advantageous for engendering a quantum evolutionary leap for our species and for the earth community.

You can read reviews about this book on Amazon.com here.