Category: Policy

Climate change is a systemic and structural problem. Individual actions are important, but not enough. We need governmental action to solve the climate crisis.

Corona and the Climate: The Opportunity to Write a New Story! 

As I am heading into the fifth week of quarantine, I am sitting down to complete this mini-series on the Corona crisis with a look into the future.  

Our current narrative is broken 

Over the last few weeks, I have been grappling with the enormity of the pandemic and its effect on our modern society. In the midst of a crisis, I find it challenging to take a helicopter view and put things in perspective. Newspapers seem to have decided already though, telling me that this is a historical moment: We are leaving the pre-Corona era behind and enter the post-Corona era. During the first weeks of the lockdown, I could not help wondering if it was all going to be that significant. Once we find a vaccine, won’t we return to ‘business as usual’ rather quickly?  

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Corona and the Climate: a Tale of two Global Crises

In my last article, I kicked off this mini-series on the relationship between the Corona pandemic and the fight against climate change. Today, I am taking a closer look at the differences and parallels between these two global crises.

A time lag of ten days or ten years

As the YouTube channel Our Changing Climate wittingly points out, one of the big differences between climate change and the current pandemic is their relation to time. When comparing cause and effect, we observe a delay of about five to ten days between getting infected with the new Corona virus and disease symptoms to emerge; this is the incubation period. Give it another three weeks and most human immune systems have fought it off .

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It’s time to fix democracy

I am writing this blog post at the end of election day in Belgium, May 26th 2019. I headed out to the polling station early this morning to cast not one, but four votes: for Europe, Belgium, Brussels, and the Brussels representation in the Dutch-speaking Community (if you don’t know what that is, don’t bother, it’s complicated). Holding my convocation letter ready, I entered the voting station feeling a tad nervous.

Nervous, you ask? Yes. Nervous, because in the democracy of 2019, voting day is still the only day I truly participate in it. The only day in five years’ time. These two minutes in the voting booth are precious democratic time. During 120 seconds, I finally hold (a tiny bit of) democratic power: the power to give away my power. That’s what representative democracy looks like. I better get my vote right, I thought.

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The Planetary Accounting Dilemma

Ever since I published my blog post ‘System Change not Climate Change’, I have felt slightly unsatisfied. Sure, I dare say my analysis of the failures of the current economic system was pretty accurate. But I fell short on the solution side of the story. After 21 paragraphs on what is wrong with free market capitalism, I did not get farther than 2 paragraphs on a possible way out. Because I didn’t see one.

The absence of a feasible alternative at hand should not withhold me – or anyone else – from criticising the shortcomings of society. But truth be told, this blog is all about finding a sensible answer to the climate challenge and I would very much like to succeed at that.

Therefore, I am revisiting my conclusion of the article I – somewhat hesitantly – threw at the world nearly three months ago. Finding my way in the web of interdependencies between science, economics, politics, and human psychology is by no means an easy task. But we are not here for a PhD defence, as a close friend pointed out recently. So, we’ll take it in manageable bites. Paso a paso, as my Spanish teacher used to tell me when I lived in Barcelona.

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System Change not Climate Change – my protest sign explained

Sunday the 27th of January, 11 am. I am preparing myself to leave the house, putting on an extra sweater before I get into my warmest winter jacket. I am about to navigate myself through the rainy streets to the North Station of Brussels, where soon another climate protest will start to demand action from the Belgian governments. It’s the second march this week, the 5th in the last two months. The last thing I pick up before I head off is my protest sign. It reads: ‘System Change not Climate Change’.

Rained out but full of energy after walking with more than 70 000 through the streets of Brussels to demand system change over climate change (own photo)

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My climate action wish list for 2019

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a great holiday break and are ready to make the world a better place this year.

2018 was a pretty amazing year for me on a personal level. I got settled into a new job and a new city, started a campaign against single-use plastics with a group of friends, and started giving guided tours in Brussels to showcase citizen initiatives that are making the Belgian capital more sustainable. Although these two projects kept me from writing blog posts as much as I would have wanted, they were very rewarding and brought me in contact with a lot of inspiring people.

The satisfaction I got out of my work was somewhat overshadowed by the fact that humankind did a pretty bad job preparing for a low-carbon society. Over and over again, I was disappointed in the lack of urgency in the business world and among policy makers. Not the least when the climate conference COP24 in Poland ended with meagre results and barely increased commitments from member states. All this after a number of unambiguous scientific reports laid out clearly that time is running out.

In short, they come down to the following: to limit catastrophic climate change, we need to keep global warming under 1,5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. How to make that happen? Cut carbon emissions by half by 2030 (12 years from now!) and be carbon neutral by 2050. Footnote: worldwide emissions are currently still on the rise.

What better way to wash away that somewhat bitter aftertaste of 2018, with some optimistic dreams for what the future could bring? I sat down with a cup of cinnamon tea and drafted up a list of climate action wishes for 2019. By no means exhaustive, but hey, if we can move forward on all these fronts this year I will be a happy man!

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