A Vision for Our Future

08 Dec 2010 – Frances Buckingham

Apocalyptic warnings of climate change and its devastating consequences have made us acutely aware of the need for governments, businesses and consumers to act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet there is a growing body of evidence that, while accurate, dire climate scenarios based on rising sea levels, extreme weather events, failing crops and chronic water shortages are not changing attitudes or behaviours nearly enough.

Futerra, a communications agency with many years’ experience in communicating climate change, state in a recent report [1] that “threats of climate hell haven’t seemed to hold us back from running headlong towards it”. Recent research from the University of California, Berkeley² has found that dire or emotionally-charged warnings about the consequences of global warming can backfire if presented too negatively.

Yet the UN set the context for the latest round of talks in Cancún by issuing a further gloomy warning that the world is firmly on the path for dangerous climate change in the coming century, with current emission pledges leaving the world far short of what is required to prevent the global average temperature rising beyond 2°C. At the same time, expectations for progress at Cancún are low, with many commentators and participants left hoping that the talks don’t completely break down.

Where is the hope?

When John F Kennedy announced to the world his ambition to place man on the moon – with no clear roadmap for how it would be achieved – he created an inspirational vision that captured the imagination of a country and led to arguably the greatest human achievement of all time. According to IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report, to stand an evens chance of staying below the critical 2°C threshold, we’ll need to engineer a zero carbon energy system by 2050, with all the interim steps this implies. So why are we so hamstrung by realism – urged to focus on the ‘low-hanging fruit’ – when all evidence indicates that something absolutely extraordinary must happen and the world needs a vision of what the extraordinary might be? The evidence points to the need to go lighter on the doom and start to present a game-changing view of the future that captures the imagination, using the zero-carbon goal to echo the words of JFK: “we choose to [do these things], not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one that we are unwilling to postpone and on which we intend to win”.

Show us the future

Leaders with courage and vision will need to emerge from both the business and political spheres if work to decarbonise the economy is to secure the popular support it requires. Only bold and decisive leadership will prove sufficient to inspire the public towards zero-carbon, even if we don’t necessarily know how we will get there. We need to rethink and redesign the future instead of relying on economic factors such as rising fuel prices and dwindling oil supplies to drive investment, or waiting for top-down climate regulation to set standards for corporate climate accountability. China is surging ahead of the rest of the world in renewable energy, according to a recent study by Ernst and Young³, creating ‘a new world order in the low-carbon sector’ because it sees Cleantech – including renewable energy – as representing a significant part of the country’s future economic growth plans.

Vision drives change

Some companies are beginning to demonstrate they can go beyond the art of the possible by setting stretch targets for change that they do not know how to achieve. Procter & Gamble has made a leap of faith by committing to targets that are beyond its current ability to deliver, such as powering its factories with 100% renewable energy. Interface – a long-time sustainability pioneer – made a commitment through its Mission Zero to purchase renewables not yet available, planting a stake in the ground and giving the renewables industry confidence to invest.

In a recent interview with The Guardian William Todd, the head of operations for PepsiCo UK & Ireland, talked about how innovation is driven by setting bold goals which “forces people to look at every area of our operations and encourages ideas to bubble up. If you come up with a commitment, say to reduce energy by 3% next year, you will not get people engaged or any real financial engagement. But if you set an engaging vision, you can get a coalition of people excited by the possibilities.” The Chairman of IBM, which is paving the way with its Smarter Planet initiative, is quoted as saying: “No one waited for legislation to pass; no one waited for an industry consortium to form; no one waited to engage in a bit public policy debate – only through beginning do we being to learn more and move forward.”

Political and business leaders need to be bold. Paint a picture of the future we are going to build together, help us understand the limitless possibilities of a decarbonised world. Lead us with the courage and vision that put man on the moon.

(This article also appeared in Outreach", a multi-stakeholder magazine on environment and sustainable development.)

¹ Futerra, Sizzle: The New Climate Message, 2010.
fn2. Feinberg, M & Willer, R, Apocalypse Soon? Dire Messages Reduce Belief in Global Warming by Contradicting Just World Beliefs, University of California, Berkeley, November 2010.
fn3. Ernst & Young, Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices, November 2010.