Global economic justice as the key to emergency climate mobilization
This past spring, 57 countries met in Santa Marta, Colombia to begin planning a global phaseout of fossil fuels. What are their chances? First published in Foreign Policy in Focus It’s no secret that the climate negotiations are failing. The simple fact is that the carbon concentration of the atmosphere continues to rise, rapidly and Continue reading "A Fossil Fuel Phaseout?"
I usually hate watching myself talk, but the folks at FacingFuture.TV made me sound good, if a bit excitable. Watch this is you want a short version of the EcoEquity stump speech, or if you need a quick intro to the Santa Marta conference The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels Continue reading "The Rich Have Taken Everything! "
Just a few days ago, John Fetter of the Institute for Policy Studies interviewed me, at some length, to get my views on Climate Debt. This video, in which I tried to diplomatically suggest that there might be better frames, is the result. Normally, I can t stand to look at videos of myself, but this Continue reading "Climate Debt? Or should we ask Who Pays?"
Not failure, not yet, but we can see it from here 2015’s Paris Agreement could have been a turning point. It posited a world in which all countries – the wealthy and the rest – would do their proper parts, as they saw them, to stabilize the climate system. Paris wasn’t ideal — there was Continue reading "Ten Years After Paris"
The arts of international coalition-building are daunting . . . Originally published in Earth Island Journal, here Let s be honest. Many activists have long insisted that the international climate negotiations are bullshit, greenwashing, Kabuki. Or, more charitably, that they are simply doomed. For those in this camp, the negotiations have primarily been occasions for protest Continue reading "Not…
Robin Hahnel, U.S. left libertarian economist and stalwart of participatory economics, has long been a friend of EcoEquity, and of the Climate Equity Framework that defines much of its work. In this guest essay, he argues that a fair shares climate transition can most effectively be financed by a global emissions trading system. Such an Continue reading "Guest Essay: A New Idea as COP30…
This essay was first published in Foreign Policy in Focus I have for decades been assuring both colleagues and comrades that the climate negotiations are not a sick joke, that “COP” is not short for “Conference of Polluters,” that the negotiations matter. The argument has become easier to make as more people have come to Continue reading "After COP29: The Climate Negotiations Reach Their Crisis"
A number of things are now obvious. The shape of the future is not among them. We know, for example, that Donald J. Trump is likely to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement (and maybe even the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), and this despite the terrifying, and rising, instability of the Continue reading "Fair Shares, Finance, Transformation"
This essay was originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus Just before the recent climate summit in Dubai, COP28 president Sultan Al-Jaber, with some exasperation, came out with the following rather amazing statement: “Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phase out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless Continue reading "After Dubai Towards a…
It’s important to note that by the most unforgiving measure – the ever-rising atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration – the international climate negotiations have utterly failed. It’s equally important to note that the climate negotiations are not alone in this failure. Domestic legislation has had many victories, but these have been local, and partial, and contingent. Technological Continue…