Europe needs a million supporters to ensure carbon reduction.
OK– let’s count our carbon with climate BUDGETS
Ten years after the Paris Climate Agreement was signed on 12 December 2015, we must now face the truth: only legal restrictions on greenhouse gas-emitting behaviour offer a chance to limit climate change to a tolerable level. This primarily affects the lifestyle of a small portion of the world’s population living in the prosperous regions of the planet. Germany, France and a large part of the European Union are among them.
Our per capita emissions are too high, they are correlated with our wealth, with immense abuse by the ultra-rich.
We recognise that reducing greenhouse gas emissions has been successful in some areas. However, communicating this good news should not obscure the fact that there is still a long way to go before we achieve climate neutrality and that purely technical solutions will not be enough. It should be borne in mind that the climate balances of the industrialised countries of the North present a rosy picture, because the CO2-intensive production of the goods and services we consume, rather than being avoided, is simply relocated to other parts of the world. These must be taken into account.
Ten years after the ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement, we believe it is necessary to introduce climate budgets (equal greenhouse gas emission budgets per person, also known as individual tradable carbon quotas, carbon accounts, or climate allocations). A simple gradual transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies is not enough to sufficiently limit global warming; it is too slow – IPCC reports are showing this more and more clearly!
If this implementation involves individuals, everyone, it is in order to elicit a response from businesses, which will have to adapt to consumer demands for lower-carbon products and services: it is carbon labelling that leads to lower-carbon choices.
For individual climate budgets to be accepted by the general public, they must be identical for everyone, country by country. This is essential to establish climate justice and resource justice and to enable social balance. Climate budgets can thus lay the foundations for social peace in times of global crisis. This applies both to relations between the North and the South and to our societies in the North, which are currently marked by growing inequalities.
We therefore call on our governments to focus on the issue of solidarity and effectiveness in climate protection and to set up expert commissions to develop acceptable procedures for the implementation of individual carbon allowances.
The sooner viable actions are developed to this end, the better. It is time to be OK.
The efforts made so far to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not enough to sufficiently limit global warming and achieve the goal of climate neutrality by the middle of the century. Our societies in industrialised countries, which bear the greatest current and historical responsibility, must therefore lead by example. Scientists’ calls for rapid emissions reductions must no longer go unheeded.
Global warming has accelerated since the ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement and will continue to accelerate, especially if political actors attempt to weaken climate protection efforts. Over the next two decades, we will face an increase in extreme weather events and disasters. Tipping points and points of no return are approaching or have already been reached, posing existential risks to the future of humanity.
We therefore call for all inhabitants of the planet to be allowed to lead a pleasant life, today and in the future. In a spirit of wise moderation, solidarity and love for future generations.
Take courage and dare to take the step towards carbon counting; a Franco-German campaign will stimulate the European Commission…
Initiators:
Miltiadis Oulios, journalist and author
Kurt Weidt, climate coach, lecturer on sustainable development
Armel Prieur, president of Escape-jobs.fr, the association for post-carbon employment