ABSTRACT
It is the year 2050, two years into the presidency of a newly elected US President. Asian and European leaders are meeting with their North American counterparts at the 56th Conference of the Parties to discuss anew adaptation aid for developing nations. Tensions run high as monetary aid is much needed in the poorest nations of the world to deal with the consequences of climate change, yet developed nations are hardly in a position to assist their less developed neighbours. With global greenhouse gas emissions reduced more than 80% below 2000 levels and carbon markets generating only small revenues now to maintain the Adaptation Fund, the hardest hit nations are demanding new funding mechanisms to support their adaptation and coping needs. Developed nations in turn have trouble financing their own adaptation projects, as cities have to be protected from rapidly rising seas, water supplies are limited and food production is declining. Research cannot keep pace with the newly emerging public health challenges. The remarkable transformation of the energy and transportation sectors has stimulated enormous economic growth, but the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services require massive compensatory programmes and interventions. The world that has made good on its policy promises in the early years of the 21st century has indeed averted more catastrophic increases in greenhouse gas concentrations and temperatures, yet adaptation is a persistent and expensive ‘industry’. This fictitious snapshot of the politics in the world of 2050 presents,
alarming as that may be, an optimistic image. In a January 2009 hearing in the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Chairman, Senator John Kerry, made that abundantly clear in his opening remarks. He stated:
MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology], and the Heinz Center recently aggregated the impact of all the domestic policy proposals that every country currently talking about doing something [about their greenhouse gas emissions] has laid out, including President Obama’s aggressive goal of 80% reductions by 2050. What they found was sobering. If every nation were to make good on its existing promises – if they were able to; there is no indication yet that we are – we would still see atmospheric carbon dioxide levels well above 600 parts per million, 50% above where we are today. This translates into global average temperatures at least 4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and no one in the scientific community disputes that this would be catastrophic. That is why we need more than just a policy shift. We need a transformation in public policy thinking to embrace the reality of what science is telling us. We must accept its implications and then act in accordance to the full scope and urgency of the problem.
