A strategy paper for the Australian Climate Summit 2009

Philip Sutton, v2 15/01/2009

(This version has fixed a number of typos and made the text a little easier to read.)

Contents

The science background.................................................................................................1

The ethics.......................................................................................................................2
Safe climate (a homeostatic model)...............................................................................2
Climate and technology goals........................................................................................2
The politics background.................................................................................................4
Political goals and mode of action.................................................................................4
Movement / capability building.....................................................................................6
Action focuses................................................................................................................8
Key phrases..................................................................................................................10
Method for the Summit................................................................................................10

The science background

There are multiple changes occurring on the planet due to human interference in the
earth's climate system - but one of the highest impact changes that could usefully
drive our policy is what is happening in the Arctic. There are good grounds for
believing that the Arctic sea ice could be entirely absent from the Arctic Ocean in
summers as early as 2013. This will cause a jump in temperatures in the Arctic and
sub-Arctic that will commit the Greenland ice sheet to full melting, eventually
causing a 7m sea rise and that will most likely set off the melting of most of the
permafrost causing, over time, the release of perhaps 12 times the amount of CO2 that
has been injected into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels up to now.

The knock-on environmental impacts from this permafrost melting could conceivably
cause, over time, the deaths of vast numbers of people, the collapse of human
civilisation and the extinction of more than half the species on the planet. This impact
would be much worse than the impacts of World War 1 and World War 2 and would
be comparable to the impact of a major nuclear war. This conclusion sounds rather
alarmist but it is a reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from published scientific
work on climate change and from sober analyses of the likely impacts.

Once the melting of the permafrost has taken hold it is possible (likely) that it will
keep going to even if the Arctic/sub-Arctic is cooled down. This is because the
biological breakdown of the permafrost releases energy that can keep conditions right
for more breakdown - even when the external environment returns to a temperature
that would normally keep the permafrost frozen.

Because of the long lags in the climate/environment system and in the human
economy and society, we have very little time to get the climate issue under control
physically.
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The ethics

Science by itself cannot tell us what we should do about this situation. We need to
consider our ethical stance as well. A useful 'universal' ethical stance is to "care for
all people, all species and all generations".

Safe climate (a homeostatic model)

Most official talk about the climate focuses on the question of "how much
perturbation can the earth system take before it is sure to break down?” - and there
seems to be an assumption that human civilisation should aim for the maximum
tolerable perturbation (tolerable to the well off/influential?).
A better model is the one that all complex living organisms have evolved and that is
the homeostatic model where organisms have multiple ingrained strategies for pulling
back from risky situations to restore a state of health.

So in the case of the climate system we could say that the aim is to recognise when we
are on a trajectory to leave the “safe zone” or have already left it and then take steps
to get the earth conditions back into the safe zone and on trajectories that not longer
risk going beyond the “safe zone”. To not be in the safe zone means that there is
always a real risk of major damage or even catastrophic breakdown.

Climate and technology goals

Let's assume that we will aim to get back to the safe zone fast enough to be sure that
we can reach this goal before too much damage is done to people and other species
and fast enough to avoid uncontrollable movements in the wrong direction (ie.
runaway warming).

The idea of a safe climate should not be confused with safe weather. Even with a
safe climate there will still be extreme weather events that could be dangerous for
individual people (cyclones, floods, droughts, etc.). But a safe climate is safe for
most people, most of the time, is always safe for civilisation and for all species.

Because it appears that the Arctic sea ice is already committed to being lost with the
current greenhouse gas levels in the air and with the knock on effects of the current
temperature, we can say that we are already outside the safe zone and indeed we are
in the early stages of the dangerous zone.

So we can say that the world is too hot already and there is too much CO2 and other
greenhouse gases in the air already.

So to achieve a safe climate we need to cool the earth - most likely by at least 1/3 of
a degree C - in order to "refreeze the Arctic" - to restore the sea ice cover and
volume to at least the 1970 level and to refreeze the land and Arctic ocean permafrost.
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To cool the earth by 1/3 degree C, we need to:

• stop adding to the heating (so we need zero greenhouse gas emissions), and
• to allow the temperature to fall we need to take excess CO2 out of the air
(drawdown) ie. removing at least 200 billion tonnes of carbon till we reach
300 ppm CO2 or under.
(In the "Target atmospheric CO2" paper, James Hansen and coauthors say that
to get the Arctic sea ice back CO2 levels in the air might need to be between
~300 ppm - 325 ppm. To be sure of achieving the sea ice restoration goal,
given the scientific uncertainty, we need to aim for below that range as a
precautionary measure.
Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, P. Kharecha, D. Beerling, R. Berner, V. Masson-Delmotte, M. Pagani,
M. Raymo, D.L. Royer, and J.C. Zachos, 2008: Target atmospheric CO2: Where should
humanity aim? Open Atmos. Sci. J., 2, 217-231, doi:10.2174/1874282300802010217.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2008/Hansen_etal.html
By the way, for a detailed explanation of why an atmospheric CO2 target of 350 ppm is no
good, see: http://www.target300.org/350_ppm.html
• It is not yet clear whether or how much it will be necessary to actively cool
the earth (by boosting its reflectivity) for some years until the zero emissions
and draw down strategy do their work and make a third of a degree cooling
possible. The active cooling strategy needs very careful scientific assessment.
A key reason why this active cooling might be necessary, is that as polluting
fossil fuel use is turned off the production of aerosol (particulates) pollution
drops dramatically and the past aerosol pollution is rained out of the air within
days. The historical emissions of CO2 however remain for a long time in the
air. So the net cooling effect of the aerosols is lost and the full, previously
partially masked heating effect of the CO2 is revealed. Thus, until the excess
CO2 is removed from the air the earth could fairly quickly heat up to 2.6 ºC
over preindustrial just because the old polluting fossil-fuelled technology is no
longer in use.

How fast should we rebuild the economy to get to zero emissions and to create a
massive capacity for CO2 drawdown?

Al Gore has challenged the US to rebuild its electricity sector to depend on clean
energy (renewables and geothermal) within 10 years (like the Kennedy challenge to
get people on the moon within 10 years). Gore’s argument is that the US won't treat
the goal as serious and won't keep its mind on-the-job if the time frame is longer.

Arguably we are already way out of the safe zone and we run the risk of warming the
permafrost so much, when the Arctic sea ice is fully gone, that we won't be able to
turn off the melting and CO2/methane release from the permafrost. So we need to act
at emergency speed. It is hard to imagine people being more motivated than they
were during World War 2 - so maybe the speed of economic mobilisation at that time
is a good indication of how fast humans can make economic change. Once again we
are probably looking at about a decade or a bit less to make the physical changes.

Until we know better, it is probably a good idea to aim for no more than 10 years for
the physical transformation.
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The politics background

Australia: We now know, from the way that the Howard Government behaved for a
decade and the way that the Rudd Government (and even Ross Garnaut) behaved, that
mainstream politicians are not currently able to withstand the pressure of the industry
'greenhouse mafia'. This has been a bitter lesson. But we can now frame our actions
with this reality in mind.

International: Bali-Poznan-Copenhagen: The movement was very disappointed by

the lack of results from the Poznan Conference. But hope springs eternal with respect
to Copenhagen. Perhaps Barak Obama will rescue us?

But before raising our expectations too much we need to go back to the Bali
conference. As a footnote to the Bali agreement there was a reference (not a
commitment) to reductions in CO2 equivalent of between 25% to 40% by 2020 for
the rich counties. Reductions of 25% - 40% by 2020 now look almost utopian when
observing the response of governments and the powers behind the scenes, the
corporations. So we need to recognise that even the 'best' possible result from
Copenhagen will be nowhere near good enough.

Inevitably, something dramatic will have to happen after Copenhagen to put the world
on the right (fast) track.

Emergency: We face an emergency situation. Business-As-Usual will not rescue us

and even the usual ways of dealing with Business-Not-As-Usual have not been/will
not be enough. We need to shake the mainstream onto an entirely new track of action.

Political goals and mode of action

Our need is to rebuild the economy in say 10 years so that it can rapidly deliver a safe
climate and sustainability. But politics is showing no sign of delivering even
encouraging compromises in most countries, and certainly not in Australia.

So we face a yawning, overwhelming chasm between what is needed and what seems
to be deliverable through straightforward change processes. Our task seems
impossible but given what is at stake we cannot afford to fail.

So, what to do?

We have good evidence that a wartime scale and pace of economic mobilisation could
deliver the physical change we need. But normal politics won't deliver that sort of
change.

But a wartime scale and speed of mobilisation might be possible if society went into
emergency mode with active and willing engagement and participation of the
community at large. The emergency mode would allow us to leapfrog over past
commitments that are getting in the way of rescuing the situation.
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But there has to be some sort of political crisis or discontinuity to drive us into a
constructive emergency mode.

Waiting for climate change disasters to force effective action is not going to work
because by the time disasters come that even blind Freddy can see are driven by
climate change, the climate system will be decades into catastrophic change and
effective reversal will not be possible.

Is there no way through then?

A political crisis can arise from not only climate disasters but also from within
society. If people realise that their current leaders are like modern day Jim Joneses
leading us into collective suicide then we can revolt against this future and choose
another one.

But we don't need just any old revolt. We need a revolt that, once it succeeds, rapidly
opens the way for everyone, including those we have been bluing with moments
before, to be able to work together cooperatively to rebuild the economy at emergency
speed (emergency speed is only possible with profound cooperation).
The change model of the Indian independence movement under Gandhi is
undoubtedly a better model than 1917 Russian revolution. But are no exact parallels.
We are going to have to invent something new, on the fly, that meets our current
needs.

If we are going to rebuild the physical economy in a decade, we have to get to 'yes', to
the state of constructive emergency in which society commits to this goal in just a few
years - realistically perhaps as few as 2!

To get to 'yes' in 2 years clearly calls for a social change process the like of which we
have never seen before. What is needed? Perhaps a massive social mobilisation or a
constructive revolt - or 'mutiny' as it has been described by Ian Lowe in recent days.

For decades the focus of our community education and lobbying has been directly or
indirectly the politicians. Because we believed in the compromise model of political
progress, we watered down our demands to make the demands on politicians more
believable or palatable. and in crafting politically saleable demands we have
miseducated the public for decades about the seriousness of the situation.

But when life itself is at stake compromise is not the right mode. At least for a
substantial part of the next 2 years (as we work on getting to 'yes' on the emergency)
the major focus of our campaigning needs to be focused on the community (grass
roots and elites) and not primarily on the pollies at all and we need to make our chief
aim to communicate the unwatered down message - of both the feasibility of fast
large-scale action that can rescue the planet, and the appalling nature of the threat that
humans and other living things face. Somehow out of this hope and horror can come
the necessary community outrage and commitment to make the necessary changes,
that can enable us all to sweep past the obstacles no matter how huge they might be.
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Movement / capability building

Safe Climate science program

No one should expect any sensible person to support the massive and rapid rebuilding
of the economy if the need is not well demonstrated and the destination of the safe
climate program is not well justified and specified. Climate activists need to take a
more proactive role in encouraging the rapid development of a new safe climate
science program.

Some scientists have the personality to take sides and speak out, but most limit
themselves to the intellectual aspects of their work. So, most likely, most scientists
are best engaged, not as advocates, but as technical specialists answering questions
(with deep scientific integrity) that we need to get answers for. What are the
uncensored dimensions and dynamics of the threats and risks we face if we remain out
of the climate 'safe zone'? (the horror) What needs to be done to get back rapidly,
with least human and ecological loss, to the safe climate zone? (the hope) There are a
very large number of scientific questions that we need answers for - that will not be
provided if the climate movement doesn't engage with the scientific community.

The science of climate change and of the restoration of a safe climate matters
profoundly. Not just as a source of convenient propaganda arguments, but to guide
our goal setting and the choice and sequencing of our actions and campaigns. There
will be key campaign issues that we should not settle definitively until we have access
to the very best, well-targeted scientific advice. Which means the movement will
have to become widely skilled in climate science. (Politics and will is not everything.)

Target 300 ppm and below (and not 350 ppm)

see: http://target300.org/350_ppm.html

The seduction of the expert and the herd leader: The 350.org campaign owes its
existence to mistakes made by two admirable people - Jim Hansen, one of the world's
best and most courageous climate scientists and Bill McKibben, one of the world's
best climate campaigners.

In 2008 Jim Hansen and his coauthors published a paper that contained valuable new
science and also an unsupported political recommendation that the world should adopt
a 'initial target' for atmospheric CO2 of 350 ppm. Because Jim Hansen was a
(justifiably) world renowned scientist, Bill McKibben, the activist, made the error of
taking Jim Hansen's initial target of 350 ppm seriously. McKibben then crafted a
massively successful but uncritical and simplistic promotional campaign around the
target. The result is that now hundreds of thousands of people around the world think
that climate safety can be achieved through the achievement of an atmospheric CO2
level of 350 ppm - when in fact this cannot restore the Arctic sea ice and therefore
cannot protect the world from the mobilisation of large amounts of the permafrost
carbon and the loss of much of the Greenland ice sheet. This case study illustrates the
climate movement's need to develop a more scientifically rigorous relationship to
climate science itself.

Saturation mobilisation
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Reaching and engaging 'everyone' in a community is too hard for any group or
program if they work in isolation, but if groups collaborate and share the work of
outreach they should be able to achieve saturation engagement of whole communities.

An additional benefit of this saturation approach is that it should create a 'buzz' that
exceeds what any individual program can generate - convincing people that 'everyone'
is getting involved - an important feeling for a herd animal like humans!
This idea has been developed through the Sustainable Living Foundation but still
awaits a major trial.

Getting to yes in 2 - research program (focused on the 'constructive revolt')

Mobilising the community in as little as 2 years so that the grip of the greenhouse
mafia is broken and the society is ready and willing to take on a commitment to an
emergency program for physically rebuilding of the economy within the decade is an
unprecedented challenge. We have to acknowledge that that we don't know how to do
this - but that it must be done. This social change question, not the development of the
technology for a safe climate economy, is the thing that demands a 21st century
Manhattan Project.

Plan Z.E.D. - research program

http://climateemergencynetwork.org/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=85&Itemid=88
It helps morale and action when people know that it is in fact possible to rebuild the
economy at emergency speed to get to zero emissions (of CO2, methane, and black
carbon), 100% renewables, and massive CO2 drawdown. The Climate Emergency
Network, with the help of generous donors, is supporting member group Beyond Zero
Emissions to develop an Australia-wide plan for a zero emissions / drawdown
economy in 10 years - called Plan Z.E.D. (zero emissions decade). We hope this BZE
work will stimulate complementary ideas and even alternate plans that are equally or
more effective.
Plan Z.E.D. needs more partnerships with interested groups, institutions and people
around the country to ensure that the plans work technically, socially and
economically for the different regions and communities.

Imagining a democracy-enhancing emergency regime

The community will not see the practicality and the promise of a democracy-
enhancing climate or sustainability emergency if they cannot imagine how it might
work. A major piece of research and communication is needed on this.

Learning to divide campaigning into pre- and post-emergency declaration phases

People are overwhelmed by the scale and urgency of the work that needs to be done to
rebuild the economy and to engage the community in the change. But most are
unaware that the bulk of what needs to be done can be done efficiently, rapidly and
relatively painlessly once society recognises the need to go into emergency mode and
in fact makes the mode switch.

If emergency action is to move fast then of course we need to have an adequate idea
of what needs to be done once the emergency mode kicks in. But the biggest
challenge of all in the pre-emergency period is not trying to initiate everything to be
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done post-emergency declaration, but to trigger the society to go into emergency

mode as fast as possible.

We need to develop a skill for dividing tasks into the pre- and post- emergency
declaration phases and we need to develop the discipline to concentrate in the pre-
emergency declaration phase on those actions that really must be enacted to ensure
that society does indeed switch into emergency mode.

Closing down the fossil fuel industry in Australia

This task is about as simple as stopping oil production in Saudi Arabia or Iraq!

We need strategies for alternative export income, we need a plan for constructive
engagement with our customers (Japan, South Korea, China, etc.) so that they simply
do not need Australian fossil fuel exports, and we need a political strategy for
breaking the stranglehold of the Greenhouse mafia on the Lib/Nats and Labor, the rest
of the corporate sector and a strategy for dealing with the netherworld of Australian
and overseas government and corporate intelligence services/operations. This is not
an issue that can be tackled only by bigger and more imaginative demos. Very
imaginative and solid research is needed and a very creative program of engagement
with the mainstream is essential too. We also need to develop mechanisms - legal,
financial, veto campaigns, and programs for alternative supply of energy for the
domestic economy – that make the closure of the Australian fossil fuel industry
possible – technically, economically and politically.

Action focuses

World Safe Climate Covenant

http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/CCR.html#gscc

Even if the world climate movement is wildly successful at Copenhagen later this
year, there is no way that the world's governments will adopt targets that will prevent
climate catastrophe.

Even before the Copenhagen conference is held we need to be developing a dual

strategy of pushing for the best possible outcome at Copenhagen, and also knowing
that even before the ink is dry on the Copenhagen commitments, people will need to
be campaigning massively to have the Copenhagen protocol superseded 'immediately'
by commitments that will deliver a safe climate very fast.

Even now we need to be laying the groundwork for this superseding process. The
idea of the World Safe Climate Covenant is to create a mechanism now to bring
together all parties that support the pursuit of a safe climate on a very short time frame
as a mechanism to foster highest common denominator action on climate change.
Having an alternative world mechanism in play before the likely disappointing
outcome at Copenhagen is known could be very important in maintaining morale at a
critical time and could be very important in fostering effective action of the next few
years.
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Engaging those countries/regions with the biggest leverage (as well as being
locally responsible)

Australian's need to play an active role not only in their immediate region (SE Asia /
Oceania) but also in engaging the countries and regions of the world with the biggest
past, present and emerging impacts (China, India, Japan, Russia, USA, Europe, etc.).

The hope and horror campaigns

There seems to be good reason to believe that if the public knows how 'within reach' a
full solution to the climate crisis is and also how terribly bad things will be if action is
ineffective then people will mobilise strongly and widely - to shake society out of a
suicidal pattern of inadequate action. (This assumption should be carefully tested)

Hope
Plan Z.E.D. campaign (CEN/BZE) / FOE 100% renewables by 2020 etc. / Al Gore 10
year energy transformation challenge

It would be very helpful to engage as many people as possible in learning about very
inspiring projects such as the Plan Z.E.D., the FOE 100% renewables by 2020
campaign and the Al Gore 10 year energy transformation challenge, the transition
town movement, etc..

CO2 drawdown:
The world needs to draw down at least 200 billion tonnes of excess carbon from the
air. Australia has to play it part. We have world class research being done in
Australia in biochar production and its use. We need a campaign to scale up the
carbon draw down industry and let the public know of the hugely valuable
contribution this technology can make to the creation of a safe climate.

Horror
Emergency awareness campaign: The real suicidal risks of climate change need to be
made known to the public at large so that people have a chance to wake up to the
threat and to challenge the greenhouse mafia and the forces of inertia that are locking
us into a continuation of current disastrous directions.

One key aim of such an awareness program is to flush out people who can and will
take leadership roles in the push for a safe climate. It is expected that the
demonstrable emergence of this leadership will more than offset the depressing effect
that fuller knowledge of the climate threat might cause in the community.
http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/Leadership.htm

Adopt Canberra
Members of the Federal bureaucracy play a crucial role in carrying out the Federal
Government's climate policies but they are often unaware of how disastrous these
policies are and how important it is that these policies are changed/challenged. A
more substantial change might be possible if members of the Federal bureaucracy
engage with the climate issue in the private sphere of their lives. Such an engagement
would be possible if the climate movement undertook a grass roots saturation
mobilisation of the Canberra community.
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Engaging the mainstream in the unwatered down message (love that sexy slogan!)
If the economy is to be rebuilt in 10 years then very large numbers of people currently
engaged in the mainstream will need to play a major, constructive role. And people
cannot do things that they haven't thought about. So there is a huge job ahead of us to
engage the mainstream with an unwatered down version of what needs and can be
done and what the consequences are of ineffective action.

In the past people have usually assumed that if they are talking to mainstream players
they need to compromise or moderate the message to increase their chance of being
taken seriously. Now though, we can't afford to fail to engage people with the full
story. Introducing mainstream people through a ‘scenario approach’ is one of several
useful strategies for this campaign.

No new fossil fuelled power stations

Movements in other countries, and remarkably in the US, seems to be much further
down the road to successfully blocking new coal fired power stations. And in
Australia we have a profound blind spot when it comes to new gas fired power
stations. Fossil-gas-fired power stations cannot fit into a fast transition to a zero
emissions economy. These new gas stations need to be blocked along with the
proposed new coal fired power stations.

Key phrases

Caring for - all people, all species, all generations.

Safe climate
Refreeze the Arctic
Under 300 ppm
Zero emissions
Excess CO2 drawdown
Climate (or sustainability) emergency
10 year transformation/transition // transition/transformation decade
Constructive revolt

Method for the Summit

Priorities: The summit work should take priority over skills workshops, direct action
and political lobbying over the weekend and even on Monday/Tuesday if there is
competition for mind space and resources.

Campaigns and movement building initiatives not the only important output:
The resolution of goals and high level policy and the determination of key non-
campaign actions should be seen as just as important outputs of the Summit as the
selection of campaigns and movement building.

Expect multiple paradigms: We should not aim for lowest common denominator
consensus - but rather should empower people to cluster around unifying visions
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(most likely there will be more that one) that help them frame their goals, their action
in the world and their actions to boost their effectiveness.

Keep the program flexible: The summit program should emphasise open space - so
that people can self-organise in ways that suit them. People could offer not only
individual sessions but programs of sessions. To keep the summit community
together a plenary at the start is needed and at the end of the program there needs to
be time for people to see how much their plans/proposals can be drawn together with
cooperation across as many vision streams as possible.