China, trade and Climate

A new report is launched that is worth reading for those who are interested in global trade and how OECD countries can support a sustainable development in China. Instead of a simplistic perspective (trade as good or bad) it brings a solution oriented approach. Rasmus Reinvang has done a great job and hopefully this can trigger a discussion, at least in the Nordic countries.

It is interesting that the Nordic countries are so isolated from each other. Amazing things can happen in the small countries up North, but it is more likely that it is being picked up by press outside the Nordic countries than by the neighbors. The new trade report was nowhere in Swedish media, even if it was full page news in Norway and made it into Chinese news media. Sad as the “Nordic model” could be an important inspiration for emerging economies like China and India.

One good thing might be that we can develop ideas in steps and still launch them as “new”… For this trade work we started last summer in Sweden, now Norway and we could take the next steps in Denmark…

But a joint Nordic/Scandinavian approach is probably necessary if we are to be more than a marginal actor in China and India.

PS
(the earlier Swedish study can be found here)

Another year with double digit growth predicted in China

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) just released a report where they predict that China's economy will grow by more that 10% during 2008 and that is slight slowdown compared with 2007 (over 11%).

It is easy to agree with the following statement from t a recent report from the World Bank.

“China is now the world's fourth largest economy and growing very fast. India's economic salience is also on the rise. Together these two countries will profoundly influence the pace and nature of global economic change”

Dancing with Giants: China, India, and the Global Economy, World Bank, 2007

Hopefully 2008 will see two major shifts in OECD countries (governments and companies) relation to Chinas development:

1. That Chinas development will be seen and used as an opportunity to develop global solutions that can provide high quality of life with little use of natural resources.

2. That we drop GDP as a tool to assess welfare and how successful a country is and let it be what it can be (e.g. an indicator to help us address inflation/stagnation in the industrial part of the economy).

Launching the peoples car in India for Rs 1 lakh - a trigger for new thinking?

Today the 1 lakh (US$ 2,500) car was launched in India

Around the world the news was picked up.

But even if it is a small car, actually one of the better on the world market in terms of fuel consumption, it is a reminder of how sad the situation looks like, especially in the west. In Europe and US we are far from cars that fuel efficient. Still we can not live in a world where everyone drives around in this car, neither oil supplies not climate change allows it…

Maybe this very good car can help us to realize that we need to re-think urban planning and the way we travel/communicate?

ICT/IT moves to the centre of the climate discussion

From a focus on the industries own emissions (important but not the make or break for global emissions), it now looks as if 2008 will be the year when the more important use of ICT services moves into the centre of the debate.*

Not only are a number of leading ICT companies, like HP, Ericsson, Intel, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, Google, Tandberg, TeliaSonera, BT, China mobile, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, Nokia, TCS, etc (realize that there are quite a lot and these are only the big companies and those on top of my head that I know have interesting work) much more active. The change is that mainstream fora is now picking up ICT in a low carbon economy and that political processes seem to take the issue serious.

Over the next few weeks the issue will be discussed (and in some cases important decisions made) in three key fora.

The first is WEF in Davos 23-27 of January , where we hope for a good message coming out of the meeting

Second is EU Sustainable Energy Week, 28th of Janury

Third in Greening the Economy, European Business Forum, Brussels, 21-22 February

Maybe we can see some transformative change already during 2008?

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*e.g. A the key impact of a laptop is not the energy it consumes or even the energy embedded during production and transport of the laptop. The big question is how the laptop is used. If it allows the user to avoid travel to an office one-three days a week, increase online business that reduce transportation and can dematerialize building space it has a huge impact. Same thing for videoconference equipment, it is not the use/embedded energy that is the most important. Instead it is the possibility to reduce the need for flying that is the most important.

But, and this is a big BUT, ICT is a catalyst. It can also accelerate an unsustainable development. Laptops can be used to buy things from the other side of the world that might be available around the corner, it can used as a tool that make it easier for a shortsighted consumer society to dominate. Same thing with the videoconference it can be a driver for more travels unless business models and price incentives are not put in place.

a vision of a bright green future that is both bold and beautiful

Thank you Alex for this one... No need for me to add anything:
The whole text can be found here.

"Carbon-neutral prosperity is possible. We can design and build a sustainable society within the time we have remaining. The matter hinges entirely on having the will to build it. And that's what's going to be tested now, and big time: our will.

Beyond the political barriers, though, I think there are some habits of mind that impede the gathering of that will.

The first is, as we've said here frequently, the lack of compelling and credible visions of what that society would look like. Without those visions, it is very difficult for any of us to seriously imagine transformational change. As Bucky said, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." We need to cultivate a vision of a bright green future that is both bold and beautiful, that goes far enough and offers people better lives."