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Climate Change:
A Call to Action from Madrid
GLOBAL SQUARE
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Climate Change: A Call to Action from Madrid
EN ESTE ESPECIAL abordamos la creciente preocupación mundial sobre el cambio climático, haciendo un repaso de la pasada Cumbre del Clima COP25 celebrada en Madrid y extrayendo sus principales conclusiones desde la perspectiva de los Gobiernos chileno y español. Tras ello, nos sumergimos en un artículo apasionante de la prestigiosa escuela SciencesPo sobre la nueva Geopolítica de la Gobernanza Climática y cómo afectará a los años futuros. Por último, en el artículo estrella de este especial, el Dr. Loembe nos abre un nuevo campo apenas conocido entre el Cáncer y el Cambio Climático, intrínsecamente relacionados. Y ahora os invitamos a profundizar en él para enriquecer la concienciación sobre la importancia del Cambio Climático y sus efectos.
IN THIS SPECIAL issue we address the global concern regarding climate change, revisiting the last COP25 Climate Summit that took place in Madrid and drawing its main conclusions from the perspective of the Chilean and Spanish Governments. After that, we immerse ourselves in an exciting essay from the prestigious SciencesPo school about the new Geopolitics of Climate Governance and how it will affect the years to come. Finally, as the highlight of this special issue we offer our readers an essay by Dr. Loembe about the often forgotten link between cancer and Climate Change. And now we invite you to take a deeper look at Climate Change and its effects. 3
PRESS NOTE
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CLIMATE AMBITION ALLIANCE: NATIONS RENEW THEIR PUSH TO UPSCALE ACTION BY 2020 AND ACHIEVE NET ZERO CO2 EMISSIONS BY 2050 11 DECEMBER 2019
In Madrid today, the President COP25, Minister Carolina Schmidt, presented a renewed alliance of countries and Non-State Actors who determined to follow the recommendations of science as regards climate change. Chile has led this alliance after a request of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antรณnio Guterres, in the context of the 2019 Climate Summit. Minister Schmidt announced that 103 nations have signaled their intention to submit an enhanced climate action plan (or Nationally Determined Contribution), and she acknowledged those 11 nations who have started an internal process to boost ambition and have this reflected in their national plans by 2020, asestablished in the Paris Agreement. This group represents 114 nations in total . She also stated that 120 countries plus the EU (121 total), alongside 15 regions, 398 cities, 786 businesses and 16 investors are working towards achieving netzero CO2 emissions by 2050. This
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Climate Change: A Call to Action from Madrid
demonstrates clearly that both State and non-State actors recognize the urgent need to take ambitious action to address the climate change emergency. Minister Schmidt expressed that “Today we are strengthening our global push for more ambition. More and more leaders are joining this effort to demonstrate that boosting NDC ambition is both necessary and possible. We are here to listen to what our people are demanding its leaders to do”. Minister Schmidt also indicated that Chile and the United Kingdom will join efforts to mobilize additional actors to join the alliance on the road towards COP26. The Alliance will also strengthen its work on adaptation and the involvement of the private sector. All efforts will aim to accelerate the transformation needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and ultimately stabilize global temperature rise at 1.5C. “Led by Chile, the Climate Ambition Alliance was launched at the Climate Action Summit in New York”, the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, said at COP25. “I am deeply encouraged by the growth [in the Ambition Alliance]. The shift from the grey to the green economy is on, and it is gathering pace. As we look ahead to 2020, there is much to be done.” UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, Patricia Espinosa said, “Joining the Chile-driven Climate Ambition Alliance is a concrete way to demonstrate that the world is united behind the imperative to boost ambition. Under this Alliance, nations can publicly commit to enhancing their national climate plans by 2020.” As we urgently increase our efforts to reduce emissions, we must also give equal and increased urgency to adapt to climate impacts and build resilience for the future. Communities that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change face anexistential threat. The IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C states that both urgent and transformational adaptation action is needed to reduce climate-related risk. The scale of expected impacts is such that business as usual is no longer an option for any country, community, business or financial institution. The Call for Action on Adaptation and Resilience was launched at the UN Climate Action Summit and has been signed by 118 countries. The call marks the beginning of a paradigm shift in the way we all build adaptation and resilience. “The UK is hugely determined and committed to work together with our global partners to tackle the climate crisis. Every country must come forward as soon as possible in 2020 with a more ambitious NDC. Sixty-six Parties joined the Climate Ambition Alliance at UNCAS through commitments to going net zero. I commend the leadership of Chile in launching the Alliance. We only have this planet, and we all have a duty to do everything we can to leave it a better place than we found it.”, said Claire O’Neill, COP26 President Designate of UK. For mitigation, the Climate Ambition Alliance will focus on the submission of enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions; reaching new commitments to achieve Net Zero by 2050; and the implementation of measures to strengthen the protection of forests and oceans. For adaptation, the Climate Ambition Alliance, will focus on strong actions to improve the management of water, resilience in infrastructure and the sustainability of cities. It’s time for action. n
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THE NEW GEOPOLITICS OF CLIMATE GOVERNANCE: DISTRIBUTING LEADERSHIP FOR ENHANCED AMBITION A think tanks statement Conclusion statements by Elcano Royal Institute (RIE) and IDDRI, co-organisers of the think tanks workshop “Geopolitics of increasing climate ambition�, held at Elcano Royal Institute on December 11th, 2019. The workshop gathered senior researchers from RIE (Madrid), IDDRI (Paris), SEI (Stockholm), ODI (London), Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE (London), Fundacion Torcuato Di Tella (Buenos Aires), Transforma (Bogota), E3G (Europe), South Centre (Developing countries, based in Geneva), Energy Foundation China (Beijing). Foreign policy and climate think tanks from Europe, Latin America, China, Africa have gathered to identify the most important strategic conditions for increasing climate ambition in a conflictual geopolitical context. Their main conclusions and proposals for enhanced ambition are provided below. Climate change at the centre of geopolitical disruptions 1. Climate change is becoming a maker of geopolitics rather than a taker, because of the impacts of climate change on our economies, but also because of the necessary transformations of all our economies for a rapid increase in climate ambition. The pace and scale of transformations for a carbon neutral world will require profound and rapid changes impacting the relations between the different regional economic blocks, as well as the structural transformation of economies within these blocks and their social consequences. 2. The climate emergency is clearly geopolitical, as illustrated by deforestation and fossil fuel supply, two major issues. If they are uncontrolled, their consequences for climate are so significant that they come with significant geopolitical risks: these two issues shrink the space for action, forcing bigger emissions reductions more quickly; the impacts of climate change will also be greater, bringing human and ecological security
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Climate Change: A Call to Action from Madrid
to the fore. Both issues are also at the core of sovereignty claims by governments and conflicts over scarce resources. 3. The geopolitical disruption goes beyond climate and is structural, not dependent only on specific leaders who attract attention: increases in inequalities, fragmentation and polarization between countries and regional blocks, weakening of the multilateral system. This could lead to a scenario of pure competition and conflicts between nations, ignoring any benefits of cooperation. 4. Ensuring proper political space for cooperation is absolutely critical, while also acknowledging the competition, divergences and disagreements between countries. Transforming our economies for increased climate ambition and to adapt to climate risks will be a matter of competition between countries, but it also needs to be negotiated jointly. The resilience to climate shocks, for instance in our globalised food system, needs cooperation for a rules-based open system. Showcasing the benefits of cooperation could help counteract a confrontational and zero-sum game narrative that weakens ambition. Further analysis, outreach and dissemination could help foster cooperation. 5. Within countries, there is an increasing citizen demand for social justice and for environmental protection. A new social contract and a new licence to operate is clearly emerging. The social mobilisations for these demands, rather converging than competing with one another, are also asking for more cooperation across borders. 6. Because of the rapid technological, economic, social and environmental changes in all countries, the political demand is also for more security and protection, more sovereignty over people’s own future. This demand for security does not have to lead to securitization, closing borders, and entrenching path-dependencies on carbon intensive economies: protection and resilience to shocks and changes is better ensured through cooperation between countries, although some countries where climate action is complex to come by are leaning on securitization strategies. Human security and ecological security approaches are more conducive to lasting security and social wellbeing, addressing the root causes of climate change. Building on these narratives and providing further academic analysis on the indirect pathways from climate to socially contingent outcomes (e.g. migrations and conflict) could help counteract securitization of climate change.
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ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH ✒ Dr. Arsène Bienvenu Loembe Health, good health of course, is the necessary and imperceptibly prior condition for our stability and our physical and emotional well-being. Our quality of life, and that of our loved ones, relates in many ways to the degree of strength of our health. That´s the reason why we fight all the endogenous and exogenous actions that disturb it or that deteriorate its normal healthy and balanced state. The quality of air, water, food, sanitation services and health care at different territorial and outpatient levels, allows us to measure the general physical health around us and the healthy or perverse effects of these matters over people and the social community where their lives unfold. The fight against climate change integrates many elements of health defense and protection, as well as against diseases associated with the lack of care for the natural environment. Doctor Loembé is an experienced and well recognized Medical Doctor and Scientist, graduated from the “Free University Medical Center” in Amsterdam, with more than eighteen years of experience in clinical oncology and cancer drugs research and development, and a growing interest in the impact that climate change has on the incidence and prevention of cancer. All this work, research and experience, will be reflected, and be part, of a book of imminent publication. Dr. Vicente López-Ibor Mayor
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Climate Change: A Call to Action from Madrid
A
s a true and firm believer of science but also of equal opportunities for all – all men are created equal-, I admire Abraham Lincoln, son of a farmer and carpenter and unanimously considered as one of the greatest presidents of the United States of America. Thanks to his courage and, convinced that a divided house could not stand, he saved the Union. Doris Kearns Goodwin masterfully describes Abraham Lincoln’s political talents and strengths in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Team of Rivals” where she brilliantly wrote how Lincoln, unexpectedly and against all odds, won the presidential election in 1860 above three accomplished candidates. Unfortunately, five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, officially ending the American Civil War, on the evening of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. When I lately get to know more about Lincoln’s life and legacy, among all other statements and quotes, there is one that I considered as the most inspiring and which has guided me along my professional and personal life. In the conclusion on his first political announcement on March 9, 1832, Abraham Lincoln, while seeking his first seat in the Illinois General Assembly, mentioned: “Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition, is yet to be developed.” I have decided to render myself worthy by modestly attempting to raise awareness on the impact of climate change on health. I hope that by the end of this chapter, I will unpresumptuously succeed to convince you and myself to take preventive actions to reduce the impact of climate change on health and particularly on cancer- a fourthousand-year-old disease-, which is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. I am attempted to think and probably to admit that the crisis, if we can talk about crisis, about the global warming is not (yet) desperate, as “despair serves no purpose when reality still offer hopes”, had taught us Al Gore in Our Choice [1]. Undoubtedly there is hope, there are always been hopes and hopes had always given our humanity a hand when we had to face difficulties. Is not the young preacher from Georgia who was dreaming that one day, “We will hew up from a mountain of despair a stone of hope” in that sweltering August in 1963 in Washington DC? Is not the former legendary prisoner of Robben Island, who exhorted us that “there were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. “Our faith is humanity is commonly tested now, I believe.
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Climate Change: A Call to Action from Madrid
Climate change is a fact! It is urgent to act! In light of provided evidences and witnessed and acknowledged threats, we can no longer ignore climate change and his impact on health. Who should be blamed? The time to incessantly search for scapegoats is over. The culprit is in our daily actions. The solution should be in our daily thinking and action. We are all responsible and we should all together find the solutions. Hans Rosling in Factfulness [105] - which Bill Gates consider as “one of the important books he has ever read” introduced 10 instincts which distressingly biases our views on the world and on those with whom we interact daily: he notably named: The gap instinct, the negativity instinct, the straight line instinct, the fear instinct, the size instinct, the generalization instinct, the destiny instinct, the single perspective instinct , the blame instinct and the urgency instinct. Among all these multifarious instincts, the blame instinct would be mostly applicable to all of us in relation to the worldwide destroying situation and his distorted perception. According to Hans Rosling: “The instinct to find guilty party derails our ability to develop a true, fact based understanding of the world: it steals our focus as we obsess about someone to blame, then blocks our leaning because once we have decided who to punch in the face we stop looking for explanations elsewhere (…) To understand most of the world’s significant problems we have to look beyond a guilty individual and to the system” [106]. It is only with tenacious courage and urgency instinct we will be able to relinquish a clean earth to the next generation. It is only with a herculean courage that we could realize our dream of eradicating cancer by reducing the impact of climate change. Hans Rosling again comes to our help by emphasizing that solving climate change challenges “requires some sense of global solidarity towards the needs of different people on different income levels.” [107] There are several personalities in the history of the mankind who had showed his courage, whose action had had impact on billion of people. Owing to her courage and firmness, her pugnacity and intelligence, her brightness and perseverance, her perspicacity and essentially her self-abnegation and humility; her discovery had had impact on the lives of billion people. Her history will impactfully fascinate me lifelong: Marie Sklodowska Curie, first women to win a Nobel prize, first women to win two Nobel prizes. I could not finish this humble work without a deep and respectful thought for her. “We cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individual. Toward this end, each of us must work for his own highest development, accepting at the same time his share of responsibility in the general life of humanity—our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.“ [108]
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