Internal wars

Thomas Edison famously said "opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work". Attending the Emissions Gap Report Launch some weeks ago, I felt this was the most prominent message. For countries that do not mine fossil fuels, a transition to a green economy and future would result in less fossil fuel imports, greater self-sufficiency and therefore be in their best interests. Norway's shift to sustainability is a great example of this and at the launch, Eric Solheim, former Norwegian politician and now executive director of UNEP said "Climate change is not a cost, it is a shift. There was no cost to fixing acid rain or ozone. Climate change is a business opportunity".  Norway, boasting the greatest number and tallest waterfalls in Europe, has a fantastic hydroelectric power potential. Perhaps it is this potential economic independence that sustainability offers that is one of the last remaining barriers to green economies. This blog is a continuation of last week’s discussion on the suppression of sustainability by economics within the greater context of three dominant barriers faced by the green movement in the past.

Are the days where harvesting energy left landscapes scarred, soon to be a thing of the past?  Recent projects are turning these renewable energy production houses in to landscape features, adding a tourism benefit to their green footprint, an ingenius idea! Pictured here is the Øvre Forsland Hydropower Station in Norway.

In developing countries, such as South Africa, (currently the 6th largest coal producer and 5th largest exporter, globally) who are highly dependant on their mining industry for export earnings, reducing the country’s negative trade balance and current account deficit, a loss in demand for this product would have serious implications on their economy. Over and above this, the efficiency and financial returns of fossil fuels over renewable energies still make them a better investment for countries attempting to escape debt. An ongoing Emmy Award winning series called Years of Living Dangerously on National Geographic Channel covers the topic of Climate Change in incredible detail from a journalistic perspective. Unfortunately there is no open access viewing but it is most affordably available for purchase on iTunes or Amazon and well worth the watch. Season 1, Episode 6 - "winds of change" particularly focuses on how lobbyist groups such as the Heartland Foundation in the US are working toward swaying politician vote in order to keep fossil fuels in demand. Their ties to the fossil fuel industry go far back and it is these arguments that allow them grounding in addition to fuelling misinformation. For example, the successful push toward natural gas. 

Whilst coal my be a dying industry, perceived alternative 'clean' fuel sources such as fracking are being encouraged, once again, building a reliance on a finite resource rather than renewables. 

Natural gas is a fairly recent fuel on the market and when burnt for electricity, releases approximately 60% less CO₂ than coal. It has been applauded in America as an alternative to coal and other much "dirtier" fuels however, it's existence is as finite as coal. Moreover, recent research suggests that methane leaks from natural gas drill sites and pipelines prove it to have a carbon footprint of at least 20% and as much as 200% greater than coal, making it an exceptional threat to climate change.

Our resistance to move away from these finite natural resources upon which many countries GDP's so greatly depend, begs the questions of whether or not GDP should be a measuring block for development. Schneider, Kallis & Martinez-Alier (2010) suggest that it should not, based on the fact that for a sustainable future, degrowth is required. This would lead to a decreased GDP, but notlead to a decrease in human progress. The review describes how GDP does not consider socio-environmental improvements nor the increased employment associated with sustainable degrowth. Instead it offers support to the concept of an environmentally sustainable national income (eSNI) defined as "the maximum attainable production level which allows vital environmental functions to remain available for future generations" as a national development measure. The mitigation and effectiveness would undoubtedly lie in the hands of politicians as have the transitions to clean energies and sustainable developments in the past. Next week's blog will attempt to reveal the role of politicsas a barrier to a green future. 

Then, US Secretary of State, John Kerry held his granddaughter during the signing of the 2016 Paris Agreement, sending an unyielding message to the world that climate change is about leaving a legacy behind us that we are proud of, for the equal benefit of future generations.