I've just finished the latest #IPCCReport. It's written in the usual barely comprehensible climate wonk speak. But behind the jargon there's a blueprint that seems as revolutionary now as Das Kapital must have in 1867... 
The climate scientists don't do anything like call for the overthrow of the capitalist classes. But they use science to point to how society has to be re-ordered from top to bottom.
e.g. If we want to keep warming below 1.5 global emissions will need to peak in 2025 – three years
e.g. If we want to keep warming below 1.5 global emissions will need to peak in 2025 – three years
And if you want to do that then they say you must also reduce coal consumption by 95%, oil by 60% and gas by 45% by 2050.
And because we will need some fossil fuels for feedstocks etc this means electricity must transform to 100% renewable ... starting immediately.
And because we will need some fossil fuels for feedstocks etc this means electricity must transform to 100% renewable ... starting immediately.
For almost 200 years developed economies wealth have been based on carbon. This report says to all intents and purposes that has to be unravelled effectively immediately, and we have to re-order everything.
And here's the mad bit ... 195 governments signed it.
And here's the mad bit ... 195 governments signed it.
And it get's even more mad ...
They agree that there is sufficient liquid wealth in the world to do what needs to be done. Global capital needs to mobilise behind climate action. Funds need to be transferred from Global North to Global South wholesale.
They agree that there is sufficient liquid wealth in the world to do what needs to be done. Global capital needs to mobilise behind climate action. Funds need to be transferred from Global North to Global South wholesale.
Really seditiously they call out Carbon Capture and Sequestration as a tech-bro fantasy, noting that it "faces technological, economic, institutional, ecological -environmental and socio - cultural barriers" ie If it hasn't happened by now, it won't in time.
They say all industrial activity has to be reorganised so that it happens near places where there is abundant renewable energy, not near ports, or the source of the raw material as we do now.
All of our cities are going to have to be rebuilt to allow people to live near their work and become essentially "non-motorised".
Reality check - that's western governments saying on principle that there shouldn't be private cars in cities.
Reality check - that's western governments saying on principle that there shouldn't be private cars in cities.
And there's stuff in there that even Karl Marx would probably have felt was a little over-ambitious.
Like everything we eat and wear will have to have a low environmental impact.
Like everything we eat and wear will have to have a low environmental impact.
The ideas in this document are non-binding. So there's no skin off anyone's nose for signing. Some will have signed because they know next to none of us will read it. Others because its all good in principle but beyond their means.
But hopefully many richer nations will have assented to this report because they feel that what is needed now, in the wake of an underwhelming COP 26, is a set of waymarks along a timeline that we can strive for and measure each other by.
I may feel differently in the morning but having just finished reading it right now this document feels like a good news climate story.
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