"Equity is the price of survival"
22nd Oct 2004
Solution to climate change requires global equity, say experts at Green conference debate
At the Green Party autumn conference at Weston Super Mare today a panel of some of the UK's top climate change experts pointed out that the pursuit of unsustainable economic policies is leading to both human misery and climate instability.
The panel was chaired by Green Party trade and industry spokesperson Miriam Kennet, an economist and member of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute. She was joined by Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth, Global Commons Institute director Aubrey Meyer, and Nic Marks, head of wellbeing research at the New Economics Foundation.
"The Green Party, the only globally-based party, is calling for a 90% reduction in UK carbon emissions before 2050," Ms Kennet said in her opening remarks. She explained that the basis of the Green Party's approach to climate change lies in Contraction and Convergence (contracting global carbon emissions to a safe level, while rich and poor countries converge at a fair level of per capita carbon emissions). Under Contraction and Convergence, developed countries like Britain must reduce their emissions to a much greater extent than the global average in order to converge with poorer countries at a sustainable global level of emissions.
Aubrey Meyer, Global Commons Institute director, warned that we are facing a global survival crisis. He explained that climate damage is increasing at twice the rate of economic growth. He said:
"The people who are making the money are making the mess. Developed countries must reduce their per capita carbon emissions to converge with those of developing countries. Unless we do this, we guarantee our collective destruction. Equity is the price of human survival."
Nic Marks of the New Economics Foundation pointed out that the economic growth that had driven up emissions had not brought greater happiness: "The UK economy has doubled in size since the 1970s, but people's satisfaction with life has not improved."
Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth agreed. He said that "Climate change has become a global emergency. The traditional growth-based economic model is failing both people and planet."
He continued: "Reducing emissions while improving the lives of the poorest citizens of the world is the biggest challenge ever faced by humanity."
Mr Juniper called on the Green movement to "combine its efforts and create an inspiring vision of how we can develop our society based on the twin principles of social justice and ecological sustainability."
A party spokesperson said afterwards that the Green Party's Real Progress policy package provided just such a vision.
Notes
1. The first vote at the Green Party's autumn conference (21-24 October) was a resolution throwing down the gauntlet to the big three parties to take certain immediate actions to demonstrate they're really serious about climate change. Other motions included a tightening-up of the party's emission-reductions targets, and at the time of writing emergency resolutions were being prepared on topical issues relating to Contraction & Convergence and non-nuclear renewable energy. There was also a programme of workshops exploring climate and energy issues, and a major panel debate on sustainable economics, addressed by Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth; Aubrey Meyer, director of the Global Commons Institute; and Nic Marks of the New Economics Foundation. Climate change also featured in the keynote speeches by the party's Principal Speakers, Dr Caroline Lucas MEP and Cllr Keith Taylor. (The Principal Speakers are the party's figureheads who perform the public and media roles undertaken by the leaders of more conventional parties.)
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