A new rallying cry for the climate solutions movement: “A carbon neutral future for ourselves and our children!”
When it comes to fighting global warming, there tends to be a lot of different percentages and years thrown around: California is planning to reduce global warming pollution 25% by 2020; Oregon’s legislature adopted 10% below 1990 levels as the state’s 2020 objective; bills floating around Congress push targets ranging from a mere return to 1990 pollution levels by 2020 to a cut of 80% by 2050.
Lost amidst all of these percentages and years, those of us committed to building a movement for solutions to the climate crisis have struggled to find a rallying cry.
In an effort to ‘mainstream’ the currently-most-aggressive legislation in Congress, the nationwide Step it UP day of action rallied behind a call for Congress to ‘Step it UP!’ and cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050. Step it UP was arguably quite successful in this goal: co-sponsorship and support for the Boxer-Sanders and Waxman climate change bills, which call for an 80% reduction, has been building and all of the major Democratic 2008 presidential candidates have now adopted the 80% by 2050 target as part of their platform (with some upping the ante with a call for a 90% reduction).
Step it UP 2, scheduled for November 3rd, plans to reiterate the 80% by 2050 target while adding a few new planks to the call for action.
But amidst all this talk of percentages, is the ‘80% by 2050′ target that has become the de facto rallying cry for our movement the ‘right’ target? Will it be enough to get the job done and solve the climate crisis? Will it be an adequate rallying cry to inspire a popular movement?
Now that the 80% by 2050 call has become mainstream, it’s time for a serious discussion about whether or not its’ time for a new, more inspiring, more aggressive rallying cry.
Carlos Rymer recently posted an excellent discussion on what the ‘right’ target is, scientifically speaking.
There’s a strong argument to be made that even an 80% reduction by 2050 will be too little, too late, to give us better-than-even odds of avoiding catastrophic consequences of climate change. I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to bet the future of the world, to bet my future and my children’s future on coin flip odds!
Carlos concludes that a 95% reduction by 2030 is probably necessary in the developed world, in order to do our part to reduce per-capita emissions to an appropriate level.
I think Carlos is right on in calling for a more aggressive target, and as he concludes at the end of his post, a call for 95% reductions is, practically speaking, the same as a call for 100% reductions, or complete carbon neutrality.
David Roberts over at GristMill agrees, and proposes a replacement rallying cry:
“Children born today should live to see a U.S. that produces no climate pollution.“
Scientifically speaking, a call for complete carbon neutrality - no more human caused global warming pollution than human efforts to absorb and sequester global warming pollution can remove from the atmosphere - is a much more sound target than an 80% reduction by 2050. We ultimately need to model our energy and industrial systems on natural systems: what we put in the atmosphere must not exceed what we can safely remove from the atmosphere - through reforestation efforts, for example.
A call for complete carbon neutrality is also a more inspiring and aggressive rallying point than the ‘wonky’ call for 80% reduction in global warming pollution by 2050.
Jefferson Smith of the Oregon Bus Project, the MC for the April 14th Step it UP! rally in downtown Portland, Oregon, got plenty of laughs out of the mouthful that slogan presents:
“What do we want?” he shouted, to which the crowd, at his jocular coaching, responded: “An 80% reduction in global warming pollution!”
“When do we want it?” “By the year 2050 or preferably sooner!”
This was followed by plenty of laughs at the inadequacy of such a lengthy and wonky ‘rallying cry.’
But self-effacing jokes aside, this dilemma isn’t something we should laugh off lightly.
Building the strength and momentum of a powerful climate solutions movement will require an inspiring and aggressive rallying cry, something people can latch on to, something with emotional (not merely intellectual) appeal, something that will help redefine what is politically possible. Unfortunately, I don’t think the ‘80% by 2050′ call for action fits those criteria (at least not any longer).
So let’s put aside the percentages and the target years. Let’s put aside the wonky mathematics. We can leave the targets and the years to the policy wonks who will attempt to translate our powerful call for a climate neutral future into concrete policy proposals.
Instead, let’s pick up a rallying cry that appeals to the heart, a rallying cry that inspires, that motivates and that shifts the discussion of what is politically possible!
As David Roberts says, “I want my kids to live in a country that does not pollute the atmosphere with [greenhouse gases]. You don’t need to know any math to understand that.“
[Photo Credit - Step it UP!/John Quigley/Spectral Q]
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Whohooo!!! Rock on! I totally agree that we need to call for a climate neutral U.S. ASAP. Once we do all the right things, like shifting the massive subsidies to renewables, putting a heavy tax on carbon dioxide, cutting the costs of renewables and other necessary technologies within 5 years, and making a climate neutral call mainstream, we will become climate neutral, hopefully in less time than we currently think we can. If we go in imposing an annual cap, sectors will try to achieve annual targets, and sometimes fail. But if we start a revolution that calls for an aggressive, quick transition to a clean energy and energy efficient economy, we will make this transition fast! Carbon/climate neutrality shows the urgency of the problem, and urgency is what we need to make this transition quickly, hopefully within 20 years (of course, let’s keep the dates out).
I think Step It Up needs to change 1 Sky’s call. We suggested it earlier, and we should keep pushing for it. They need to make a major announcement that says that climate neutrality is what we want. We want to finish our contribution to global warming once and for all, and ASAP.
Great post! Everybody: please pitch in on this excellent call for a climate neutral U.S. If someone is going to be this aggressive, it’s going to have to be us, youth, who have everything to lose from failure to avoid climate catastrophe. Forget what adults/policymakers think is feasible. We know we can make this nation climate neutral quickly because we’re doing it on our campuses, in our communities, and in our states. We know that the U.S. has done similar things in the past. We know that this is the only way we can provide ourselves of a safe future. This should be the rallying call at Powershift 2007!
I agree with Carlos that youth should be the first (and perhaps the loudest) to take up this call for carbon neutrality. We’ve got the most at stake and the least ‘inside-the-beltway’ positioning to lose. Youth have traditionally been at the vanguard of movements, calling for the most aggressive, most progressive action and the climate solutions movement should be no different.
I think we should make this message a central part of PowerShift 2007. PowerShift, or <a href=”http://focusthenation.orgFocus the Nation would both present an excellent opportunity for a Port Huron-type youth statement of principles on the climate crisis that makes the call for complete climate neutrality central to our platform.
It’s also a position youth delegates to the Bali international climate talks can take into the international discussion.
Youth climate activists: let’s take up the banner and lead the way to a carbon neutral, sustainable enery future!
If speed of transition is now the highest priority, does this mean that coal units backfitted with ammonia cooled CO2 collectors would be acceptable? These are being tested by utilities now. I am not thrilled with coal, but the question of how to effect a quick, effective, and relatively economic transition hangs over the carbon issue.
My guess is that most folks want cheap power and if they are convinced of global warming, then they want the cheapest solution. The case for a more expensive way to do the same thing (make carbon neutral electricity) would need to be made to the public.
If we can trap CO2 from coal plants AND stop strip mining around communities AND keep the price of coal-derived electricity lower than renewables, then that should be an option for this fast transition. Unfortunately, I don’t think any process that dissolves CO2 and does nothing with it will work. Coal is mainly carbon, and thus it releases mostly CO2. A coal plant will produce a massive amount of CO2. Where will it go?
Certainly carbon sequestration has the same issue as nuclear: who will accept a repository (especially since coal would need many large sites). Still, if the public accepts climate change and the need for carbon neutrality, then maybe political agreements are possible that could open up more options. Especially if those options can be shown as both effective and least cost.
even if trapping CO2 and stopping strip mining were possible, cost effective, and we could figure out something to do with the waste would this still be a good solution? I think not. It seems like every time coal is brought up the focus is on strip mining and then the CO2 from the plants. We forget that, though strip mining(especially MTR)are terrible actions, deep mining isn’t good either things like long wall mining and even traditional room and pillar mining have caused people to lose their homes, lively hoods and lives. We also seem to forget that when talking about coal plants that CO2 is not the only substance emitted there are many many others which have negative affects on people especially in the power plant communities. So though I agree that we need quick transition to solve the climate crisis I do not want us to go so quickly that we over look performing that transition in a JUST way. We need to have a unified vision of a better world with safe and clean energy sources, not the same unjust world that has a few retrofits and add ons.
Excellent post. I think this makes a great point about the public’s response to changing percentages (1) and provides the foundation to good political strategy (2)…
1. Wonkish numbers are hard rallying cries to unite the public around, whereas climate neutrality sounds and is awesome. This is probably why HSBC, Google, Yahoo! and many others are committing to neutrality rather than the some % reduction by 2050 goal. And I’m proud that our efforts on campuses have gotten 350+ campuses to commit to climate neutrality together (here’s to many more commitments and great progress toward emission reduction in the months ahead). We are currently discussing climate neutrality at Princeton and trying to figure out how we can make it happen, and it feels great.
2. For us in the climate movement to win 80% reductions by 2050, political negotiations will have to take place to compromise to that point. Thus, a huge percentage of the public calling for 80% by 2050 will probably result in less reduction due to the competition of the coal and oil companies lobby for status quo (resolution will be somewhere in-between). But if the youth and other great environmental sustainability advocates call for climate neutrality by 2050 then the compromise position could be ~80% reduction. Does this mean that we won’t try to achieve any goal we set? No, but understanding the importance of fallback positions that we could be OK with if we don’t accomplish all of our goals could be helpful.
This is definitely an interesting conversation that shows great progress in the last couple of years as we’ve discussed larger and larger emissions reduction targets. Should someone make the case that we should be a carbon sink to help stabilize global warming from its increasing inertia? (interesting future discussions will probably take on that subject…)
The other side of this story is the importance of feasibility studies and respect for the large costs of decarbonization. If we set an aspirational goal too high (like climate neutrality by 2015, then we will all be disappointed when we miss the goal and morale could fade). Hopefully, technology that brings more efficiency and renewables will continue to rapidly develop, and we can make lifestyle transitions that help make quick emission reductions possible from fostering walkable and bikable communities and telecommuting when that fits to less folks craving gigantic houses that are energy-intensive to heat and cool. The road of cultural and technological shift ahead will be a long one which will require us to maintain our youthful, adventurous, hopeful spirits strong.
Onwards to sustainability,
Dennis