a few cartoons for the weekend

Hot air from Rudd

Nobody puts it better than a past lecturer of mine from University of Melbourne.  Professor Robyn Eckersley was an inspiration during my time undertaking a Masters of Environment in 2004/05. 

Below, in full, is her response to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s announcement of a 5% reduction in emissions by 2020, that appeared in yesterday’s The Age newspaper here in Melbourne. 

Like so many others, I feel this policy response is nothing short of disgraceful.  After just one year in office, to pander to the wants and needs of the elite few, those powerful primary industry leaders with vested interests in ‘business as usual’, at the opportunity cost of society, perhaps of all humanity was a callous act.  To my mind, he has lost the limited integrity and respect he had built up these last 18 months or so, with one woefully weak response.  Robyn is right in arguing that the issue needs real leadership.  I fear we need new leadership already.  This is not the man on who’s promises so many Australians’ hopes and dreams were placed last November.  We voted for something better.  Sadly, we got the same.  Kevin, your social and political capital have just been reduced dramatically.  It is a shame the same won’t be said of our emissions.

Please read on.

Real leaders would set real targets.  Robyn Eckersley, December 16, 2008.  The Age Newspaper.

Climate change was one of a handful of policies on which the Labor Party distinguished itself from the Coalition during the 2007 election campaign. Following Kevin Rudd’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol immediately after his election, the international community hoped that Australia would shift from a climate laggard to a climate leader.

Twelve months later, the long-awaited white paper on a carbon pollution reduction scheme, the centre-piece of the Rudd Government’s response to climate change, suggests this hope has been misplaced.

The success of any national carbon trading scheme depends on the comprehensiveness of its coverage of greenhouse gas emissions, the fairness of its distribution of the burden of mitigation, the effectiveness of assistance and other compensatory mechanisms provided to disadvantaged members of the community and, above all, the robustness of the emissions reduction trajectory or targets.

An Australian cap-and-trade scheme that is impeccably fair from the perspective of domestic stakeholders may be still considered a travesty by the international community, particularly the most vulnerable nations, if its emissions reduction targets are weak.

It is the medium-term 2020 target that really matters most. This is not simply because today’s cabinet will no longer have to take responsibility for meeting this target from their retirement homes or graves in 2050. It is because the best available climate science tells us that deep and early cuts in emissions in the next decade will be most effective in reducing the risk of dangerous climate change.

Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommended — and Australia supported — emissions cuts of 25 to 40 per cent by 2020 for developed countries to reduce the risk of warming beyond 2 degrees, which still carries significant risks of coral bleaching, species extinction, water scarcity, extreme weather, coastal damage, mass migration and increased incidence of tropical diseases.

Instead, the Rudd Government has committed to a minimum, unconditional cut of 5 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020, rising to 15 per cent if “all major economies commit to substantially restrain emissions and all developed countries take on comparable reductions to that of Australia”. “All major economies” includes developing countries such as China and India.

The white paper’s version of “comparable reductions” is interpreted in a self-serving way to adjust for Australia’s fossil-fuel dependence and rising population. So, for example, Australia’s target is considered “comparable” to the European Union’s 20 per cent cut, rising to 30 per cent if other developed countries accept strong commitments.

Against this background, the Rudd Government’s preferred target of a 5 per cent reduction falls desperately short of what is required of an affluent nation such as Australia, which is among the world’s top per capita carbon emitters and in the top 20 per cent of aggregate emitters.

The targets are weak not only in terms of well-understood scientific requirements but also the moral and legal requirements of leadership under the climate regime. The Government accepts the pessimism of the Garnaut Climate Change Review Final Report that an international agreement to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at about 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent, while desirable, is unlikely, and that Australia must adjust its own emissions reduction trajectory accordingly so as not to penalise domestic industry.

The white paper acknowledges that “leadership from the developed world encourages other countries to join the global fight”.

Leadership surely means showing the way by going first, inspiring others and, as an affluent country, observing the burden-sharing principles of the climate change regime by performing relatively more of the heavy lifting. It does not mean waiting to see what others will do before taking concerted action. Nor does it mean postponing concerted action until substantial commitments are made from countries in which millions of people live below the poverty line.

An unconditional minimum commitment to a 5 per cent reduction by 2020 is unlikely to unleash the depth of technological innovation and collective commitment that is necessary to shift towards a low carbon economy and inspire countries such as China and India to leap-frog over the fossil-fuel development path.

The core burden-sharing principle of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change requires developed countries to take the lead in combating climate change on the basis of their greater historical responsibility for emissions and their greater technological and financial capacity to pursue mitigation.

This is summarised as “equity and common but differentiated responsibility”. The preamble to the convention also explicitly declares “that the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries, that per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low and that the share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet their social and development needs”.

While it is widely recognised that most of the future growth in emissions will come from rapidly developing countries, the best way of addressing this problem is through exemplary leadership, the demonstration effect and massive technological and financial assistance, rather than through the subversion of the burden-sharing principles of the climate regime.

Regrettably, most of the debate in Australia over the Garnaut Review, and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme green and white papers, has focused on who should bear the burden of adjustment within Australia. From the standpoint of protecting the planet, these questions are secondary to the relative burden Australia should accept as a developed nation.

Robyn Eckersley is a professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.

change is good

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”[1]

 

Many of us are afraid of change.  We establish habits and norms that we become accustomed to and consequently, increasingly comfortable with.  To change is to take a risk, to give up a current state in a quest to potentially reach a more desirable one.  We therefore tend to resist change.  As individuals we fear failure or feel uncomfortable with the uncertainty surrounding that change.  Organisations are no different.  Familiar processes become embedded within organisations and people’s comfort as players within their chosen or given environment increases. 

 

For business, this presents increasing challenges.  The latest IBM CEO study asserts that the gap between the expected rate of change facing business today and its capacity to meet that change has tripled in just two years.[2]  Further, the three external factors that have gained increasing weight through each consecutive survey period are environmental considerations, social implications and employee relations; namely staff attraction and retention.  That is, those key factors most closely related to corporate sustainability.

 

Adding fuel to the fire are the pre-existing and growing levels of uncertainty in the global economy.  Those linked with the current credit crunch, increased talk of a global recession and long-term escalating fuel prices associated with the imminent peak in our traditional sources of energy.  Although we have been given a short-term reprieve with respect to this last point due to shrinking demand, increased levels of uncertainty make instigating positive change all the harder.  After all, greater uncertainty typically engenders heightened resistance to change within an individual or an organisation. 

 

Is it surprising then that the overwhelming business response to an economic slowdown is to batten down the hatches, identifying cost-cutting measures to see them through the slower times?  Talking to a number of businesses today with regard to corporate sustainability, the majority response has been ‘now is not the time,’ or words similar to that effect.  The irony is that a strategic approach to sustainability is necessarily a cost-cutting exercise in the first instance.  Identifying the ‘quick wins’ at the operations and processes level in terms of reduction and efficiency measures is one of the first very definite outcomes. 

 

So what is the right approach?  The associated issues of sustainability and in particular climate change appear highly complex, indeed alien to us.  One might argue that we have never been here before.  Indeed we haven’t.  The context and goalposts are shifting so fast it is hard to keep up.  The short answer is that it requires a robust, comprehensive, rapid and transformative approach.  That is, one not dissimilar to that taken by an organisation in a time of crisis.  It essentially requires a fundamental shift in a company’s functioning with its desired goal being to significantly improve the current and future performance of the organisation, better preparing for and aligning itself to the prevailing and changing market conditions and demands. 

 

The typical pitfalls organisations must avoid are being responsive, short-termist or tactical or worse still, some combination of the three.  That is, being reactive to a specific market condition or trend.   Whether it is an issue of compliance, finances via cost-cutting, organisational culture, product or service development, business strategy or systems processes and procedures, such approaches tend to prove piecemeal at best.  Responding to one specific issue often leads to unearthing the root causes of other problems.  In essence, it only serves to uncover inter-related aspects of the different processes and functions within an organisation.  It restricts business from making optimal use of the natural synergies, the subtle interplays inherent in complex systems such as business.  This process can thus prove to be both lengthy and tactical as each of the forces of change serves only to expose other problems that require due attention.  Ironically, the complete cycle of internal change can then take much longer than the external challenges an organisation faces.  The result?  It becomes both more difficult and a lot less likely that business can remain ahead of the curve.  At a time when the myriad of challenges and the requisite degrees of change needed are likely to both increase and accelerate, now is not the time to be reactive.  On the contrary, business needs to be proactive, be thinking both short- and long-term and take a more holistic perspective in developing an integrated, whole-of-organisation, strategic approach. 

 

So it is necessarily all-encompassing.  An approach that considers every aspect of the business from the ‘inside out’, but also constructs a detailed analysis of the external environment, the existing and emerging trends and the associated implications for the business and its sector – looking ‘outside in’.  Organisations must leave no stone unturned whilst thinking scenarically about the future.  And it needs to be done at a pace.  All aspects need to be analysed in parallel if an organisation is to realise optimal value from the real synergies that likely exist.  Creating this sense of urgency necessarily achieves broader recognition of the need for change and subsequently gains greater organisational buy-in.  Building a powerful cross-functional steering group and supporting teams at the outset and engaging whole of organisation in the process early, necessarily affords greater commitment.  Subsequently, realising those short-term ‘quick wins’ and the communication of them internally, will serve to further fuel positive momentum for change.

 

So where do you start the process of commitment to change?  It starts with leadership.  Leadership that is hungry for change.  The first very necessary step is for leaders to gain a very clear understanding of the global issues of sustainability and climate change, the likely impacts both globally and on Australia and to consider the relevance to their specific business and industry sector.  If the CEO or the project leader – who must have the CEO’s full and committed support – does not fully understand the long-term implications of these issues and the requisite challenges and opportunities that they afford, then it is unlikely to achieve either desirable or optimal outcomes.  Never has the old adage of the man who does not plan ahead may find trouble right at his door, been either more relevant or pressing. [3]

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[1] Lao Tzu, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_tzu>  

[2] IBM Global CEO Study, The Enterprise of the Future, May 2008, < http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/html/ceostudy2008.html>

[3] Confucius, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius>