Climate Week: Deja vu but Also..

This development show that we, instead of relying on old power elite to suddenly change track, should put our faith and support in the hands of the new leaders - the new agents of change.
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The message from last Climate Week in New York was tepid. On the downside it was very much a déjà vu of what we have been hearing for years and thus just another confirmation of the current deadlock, which currently marks the climate challenge: It's getting worse, but the global leadership is still not moving forward. Concurrently with the fact that our knowledge on the seriousness and extent of the climate change challenge increases, our actions continue to decrease -- constantly widening the knowing-doing gap of climate change.

The good news is that the Climate Week also confirmed a growing new recognition that we need to abandon the idea of a political solution. During the week several actors stressed the need for a new global leadership in order to tackle the climate change and pointed out the business, civil society and countries as examples of the new leadership.

This was later supported by yet another confirmation that the political track is stuck, when the European Commissioner of Climate Connie Hedegaard commented on the expected outcome of COP17 in Durban to the Danish newspaper Politiken earlier this week. In the interview she expressed great critique of the fact that climate action is put to a halt by the fact that everybody within the political environment demands that everyone else acts first and that especially the current political situation in the U.S. is blocking for a global agreement: "When you hear American candidates for the presidency deny climate change, it is obvious that it looks difficult. The fact is that the U.S. is not going to support a new global agreement before Durban."

The leaders of the old economy are failing

The transformation to a sustainable economy has proven not only a monumental challenge in terms of identifying new economic models and finding new technological solutions. The last couple of years of fruitless results of DOHA, Copenhagen and Cancun bear witness to the fact that the organization of the transformation process itself represents an even greater challenge. Which actors and institutions are to play which roles? How should the process be orchestrated and who will claim responsibility for securing the transformation to the new sustainable economy?

The numerous useless warnings, suggestions, charters, and calls underline the fact that the governments' attempts to take lead in the transformation have failed. Instead of being important step stones in saving our planet, they have thus become symbols of the failed governess and a growing inertia that characterizes the international society's central institutions and organizations.

The reason for the growing failed governess can best be described as the 'bureaucracy's law of gravity': The institutional inertia and lack of adaptability increases with the institution's distance to the market. The less an institution or an organization is exposed of market pressure, the less adaptable it will be. The direct consequence is that different vital organizations and institutions have very different levels and pace of adaptability.

In the book "Revolutionary Wealth" the futurist Alvin Toffler illustrates this 'clash of pace' by describing different key institutions in society as cars on a highway moving with widely different speeds -- from the business as a racing driver in the fast lane driving more than 100 miles per hour to political institutions and civil service as Sunday drivers in the slow lane driving as little as 10 miles pr. hour. Toffler's highway analogy is a pedagogical simplification but it illustrates that the great challenges, which the world community is confronted with -- when it is forced to adapt to major changes -- can paralyze some and make others act faster.

New leadership -- new agents of change

Where the old political leadership fall short, new players stand out, ready to speed up the rate of change. In line with both the conclusions from Toffler's analogy and the Climate Week, new agents including a business community that increasingly accepts a social responsibility, civil society in terms of influential NGOs and organizations, and cities/regions/states which act more independently and targeted than states have taken matters into their own hands and are currently accelerating the green transformation. The main characteristic of these new players is that they attributed to a significantly greater readiness to change and innovate than many nations, governments and political leaders. As a consequence, they are pushing towards a new model of "global governance", where innovative actors and institutions are given a whole new level of power and influence.

The blossoming of new green change makers is outlined in the study, "Shaping the Green Growth Economy" conducted by Green Growth Leaders and UC Berkeley. The study identifies civil society, business and cities as the primary new drivers of change when it comes to securing a green transformation -- they are recognized as fast movers that help create the new sustainable society.

These new change makers are already acting and hereby moving towards the green transformation. For instance a recently published study "Climate Action in Megacities -- C40 cities 11 Baseline and opportunities" conducted by Arup on behalf of the C40 cities -- the first-ever comprehensive analysis of actions underway in the world's megacities to address climate -- show that the cities are at the forefront of the green transformation both as innovators and practitioners. The report concludes that Cities are currently making a meaningful global green impact by implementing and developing new sustainability practices on city level. Thus cities play an increasingly important role when it comes to taking action on climate change.

This development show that we, instead of relying on old power elite to suddenly change track, should put our faith and support in the hands of the new leaders - the new agents of change. This is not a step back, but a new way forward. Business, civil society and cities have proven able to take lead making the green transformation happen. They are thus becoming the architects of the new sustainable economy.

On the 12-13th of October, Erik Rasmussen and Green Growth Leaders host the thought leadership symposium Take Lead. The event will gather a number of the world's new green change makers -- the architects of the new sustainable society -- to discuss the new role of businesses, cities and civil society in the green transformation.

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