Guest blog: Copenhagen -- The Showdown After the Showdown

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-- By Dr. John Stanley, editor for A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency and website director at Ecological Buddhism [2].

In late-2008, the Dalai Lama sent us at Ecobuddhism.org [3] his letter endorsing a safe climate target for atmospheric carbon dioxide: 350 parts per million [4]. This target has since been accepted as sound by Al Gore, Rajendra Pachauri and Nicholas Stern. At Copenhagen, it was promoted by the Association of Small Island States and the African nations.

The 350 target asks us to phase out carbon gas emissions on a strict timetable and also remove a great quantity of CO2 already present in the atmosphere. It signals a heroic long-term effort by defining the upper limit of a safe-climate zone for human civilization. It rules out the risk of a “civilizational collapse” through runaway global warming. Just how much do we care about our children and grandchildren, the great ecosystems, and the many species with whom we share our biological home?

The choice at Copenhagen has been described as one between heroism and collective suicide [5]. And this choice has become increasingly pointed after Copenhagen. Across the world, majority public opinion wants a real climate protection treaty. We first need the U.S. Senate to pass a climate and energy bill for a binding international climate treaty to become a reality.

We are at a social tipping point. When governments fail to act in the face of both science and public opinion, they have been “institutionally captured” by fossil-fuel corporations, through social engineering (PR, advertising, control of televised and print media) and direct political manipulation. Institutional capture was behind the global rescue of large banking corporations, whereby their huge debts were transferred onto the backs of the public. Less than half of that “welfare check for capitalism” would have established us on a worldwide fast-track to clean, efficiently delivered renewable energy, while saving our forest and ocean ecosystems from their current pathway to collapse.

I feel it is our obligation as a global community to act with increasing coherence against the corporate interests that are 'externalizing' the true cost of their endless carbon pollution by destroying our climate. Corporations must be held accountable for their negligent actions in order to protect the livelihoods of the 6.8 billion people inhabiting the Earth.

A sustainable global economy will require a swift transition to renewable energy and away from fossil fuels that are limiting our capacity to thrive and prosper, and are putting the lives of future generations at risk. This means working even harder in the New Year to achieve our goals of significantly limiting the impact of fossil fuel corporations on our lives, reducing carbon pollution to below 350 parts per million, and creating a binding international climate treaty that reflects the need to protect all of Earth’s inhabitants from the dangerous grasp of institutional greed.