Closing the gap on climate change

Last night, a couple of us went to hear Ed Miliband’s lecture at the LSE – The Road to Copenhagen. You can see the podcast here. Given the recent pessimism from many political leaders and commentators, including Obama, it was refreshing to hear such optimism and commitment from someone who is clearly passionate about achieving a global deal on climate change. Although he did point out that it was probably only if and when the big guys showed up would any real progress be made…

Ed spoke about a prevailing sense of ‘distance’ in the politics of climate change, which has also been described by Anthony Giddens. This ‘distance’ exists on three levels:

Temporal distance: There’s a significant time lag between action and consequences. Changes 30 or 40 years from now are already inevitable because of our actions over the last few decades. That’s not to say it’s too late to do anything, but it certainly poses the question of how protect the rights of future generations.

Geographical distance: The people most affected by climate change are those least responsible for causing it to happen in the first place. Ed told a moving story about the Nomadic people in North Kenya, who have seen frequency of drought increase from every 12 years, to 8 then 6, then 4 and now every 2 years. The carbon footprint of an average Kenyan is 0.3 tonnes. Compare that with the 20 tonne footprint of the average American and you get the idea.

Causal distance: It’s hard to link individual actions with monumental impact. Small steps equals big change works both ways, but I guess there is a kind of cognitive dissonance at play when you’re making the decision about whether to take the car or walk. You convince yourself that something so small couldn’t actually make a difference. Especially when it’s raining.

So part of the challenge is closing the gap on climate change. And I think that in some small way, #thisplace09 achieves this through the messages we’ve captured on twitter. We’ve had tweets from every continent. Tweets about what’s already happening as well as what’s coming. Our hopes and fears for our children and our children’s children. Tweets from some of the poorest and richest parts of the world. From the North and South, East and West. And reading through them, I really get the feeling that we all recognise that it’s people power that will ultimately drive change. And it’s change for a better today and tomorrow that we want, one that could be achieved at Copenhagen.

I’ve already emailed Ed Miliband this morning to see if he’ll help us get the books into the hands of delegates at the conference. So come on Ed, help us out!