Narrative for a better future – art as inspiration

Spent last evening at ”Elverket”, a theater for new Swedish and European productions, discussing climate change and global resource issues. (interesting that a place that is meant for new ideas exclude pretty much the whole world).

It is fascinating/worrying that so few plays are dealing with what is seen as most experts as one of the biggest challenges of our time. It is hardly because the climate issue/the state of the environment is too depressing (just look at Shakespeare...), so why? Will we be able to change our destructive relation to nature (and each other) if the narratives are so complex that the “cultural discourse“ can not incorporate it?

Since Aniara (1956) I don’t think Sweden has been able to produce anything interesting on the theme. Maybe it is time now more than 50 years later for a new generation to engage in discussions that are beyond the direct human interactions?

Supporting a low carbon development in China - the role of CCICED

Over the weekend I participated in the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) Low-carbon Task Force Scoping Meeting. Over two days we discussed how a roadmap for a low carbon development could look like.

Some key areas that I think would be worth considering are:

1. Balance between incremental and transformative change in key sectors (most of the work now focus on low-hanging fruits that can be delivered by incremental improvements. These are important, but not enough if we are to reach the deep reductions needed, then transformative change with new innovative way of providing the services are needed)

2. How China can move up the value chain in a low carbon way (ensuring that a low carbon economy is part of the overall economic development, instead of creating a high-carbon lock-in where CO2 reductions are applied ad-hoc) This would mean that China will approach a low carbon development very different from OECD countries that still try to reduce CO2 emissions in an ad-hoc way in a system that promote a high-carbon development.

3. Low carbon export from China (how can China support a world with cost effective low carbon solutions).

4. Accelerating well-off low carbon lifestyles (it is easy to forget that about a billion people in China still have a low carbon life style due to poverty. How people can have a well-off life combined with small carbon emissions is the key challenge)

The case of Baoding in China could be used as one case study (of many) for all of the above.

Germany as a leader towards a high-tech low carbon society?

Germany will lose its no. 1 position as the world’s export nation to China this year. 2008 is also the year when, for the first time in human history, more people will live in urban areas than rural. It is time for some re-thinking.

At a conference in Berlin today arranged by BITKOM the theme was climate change and resource efficiency. Instead of the usual focus on their own products the focus (for most of the time) was new services. Germany could play an important role in the shift from a “problem” to an “opportunity” perspective when it comes to climate change and business. BITKOM could play a key role in this. I know I’m an optimist, but I think it would be easy to get things going in Germany.

Hopefully CEBIT could follow the example of BITKOM and also focus on the services that the ICT sector can provide (not only the products)… If all goes well I might be there virtually (as I will be in India at the time for CEBIT).

Still working on a pledge that I will ask conference organizers to sign in order for me to go there. The pledge would be to follow-up and measure concrete progress after events. I think events like this one by BITKOM in Berlin is ready for this...

Trade and Climate with UNEP and others

Just spent two interesting days in Geneva (day 1 and day 2) where the links between trade and climate was discussed. Too much of the discussion focused on formal discussions and those from WTO defending the current trade system. Surprisingly little time was spent discussion what we need to do in order to deliver the necessary emission reductions.

Good to see that Benjamin Simmons is the lead on the trade/climate link at UNEP and that Ulrich Hoffman from UNCTAD is working hard to ensure that focus is on real results. Few if any people from China and India at the meeting though. So 30% of the global population and economies with a key role to play in the climate and trade was not represented, even if I did my best to bring an “emerging economy agenda” to the meeting.

The five areas of work that I presented was:

1. EGS: Developing and implementing a project based approach (tech trans/IPR/innovation)

2. Embedded CO2 in imported products: Turning an excuse for protectionism to an opportunity for innovative reform.

3. Dynamic effects of export: Exploring ways to estimate indirect and systemic effects of different products (outward investment)

4. Labels for sustainability (not reduced problems): Work with key label schemes to move from a product based approach to a service based approach

5. Supporting Sustainable export from China: Joint project with MOFCOM in China to explore support for sustainable trade

That the link between trade and climate is starting to reach mainstream discussions is very welcomed and hopefully we will see intensified discussions

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Trying to be provocative is not very interesting, but as Taleb actually has something very interesting to say it is easy to ignore his teenage way of writing.

Anyone who knows me understand that I would read a book where one of the first pages contains this gem: “Why do we keep focusing on the minutiae, not the possible significant large events, in spite of the obvious evidence of their huge influence? And, if you follow my argument, why does reading newspaper actually decrease your knowledge of the world?”

The theme of the book is how we deal with the things that never have happened before. How do we prepare for what we cannot know, especially if these are really massive events? But it is not done in a very structured way and it is one of these books that seems to focus more on sales on airports than actually contribute to some new thinking. It is entertainment, not education.

However, the use of models (by social scientists and economists) are dealt with in a brilliant way from time to time, and the book provides a lot of material for inspiration. It is inspiration of the best kind (i.e. when the author writes about an important issue, but you disagree with much of what is written…)

One of my favorites is on page 280 “Economists often invoke a strange argument by Milton Friedman that states that models do not have to have realistic assumptions to be acceptable – giving them license to produce severely defective mathematical representations of reality. The problem is of course that these Gaussianizantions do not have realistic assumptions and do not produce reliable results. They are neither realistic nor predictive.” This might be the only thing future students will learn about much of the national/political economy from the end of the 20^th Century… ;)

The issue on how we deal with things we have never seen before is very real in the case of climate change, we need to act before we have seen the consequences and with an issue that society was not made to deal with. Usually we create rules and regulations after the problem appears, but this is not possible this time as we might only have one chance.

PS
The cover of the book I bought in India is really nice, no text at all just the white and black swan, very simple...