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Will we rewire the world with clean energy-or descend into political chaos, social disruption, and climate hell? And will Washington get with the program?
HUMANITY IS STANDING AT A CROSSROADS BETWEEN a more just, peaceful world and an increasingly chaotic, turbulent, and authoritarian future driven by a succession of climate-driven emergencies. We could find ourselves struggling to survive a desolate era of climate hell marked not only by a degraded and fractured society but also by more authoritarian governments.
But the good news is that the bad news is at last being taken seriously. With the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change synthesizing the work of some 2,500 scientists, there are no longer serious deniers. An alternative path could lead not just to a pullback from climate disaster, but to a more peaceful and cooperative world. Why? Because the private, corporate forces that have produced the climate emergency are powerless to cure it. As even many in the private sector now admit, the necessary solutions will require new feats of cooperation among governments, new collaborative regulation of energy and the environment, as well as new social investments in renewable technology and a global system to distribute them.
The challenge has been taken very seriously in Europe-where leaders want much stricter goals for the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol beginning in 2012. In May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought agreement by industrial nations to cut emissions 50 percent by 2050 at the June G-8 summit. But U.S. negotiators accused the Chancellor of ignoring their concerns. Prior to the summit, Bush seemed to undermine the G-8 by calling on the U.S., India, China, Mexico and Australia, and 10 other major polluters to craft a new carbon-cutting framework by 2008. James Connaughton, senior U.S. climate advisor, kicked off the summit by declaring the United States would not accept the EU goals. In the end, the U.S. agreed only "to seriously consider" the non-binding vows by the EU, Japan, and Canada to halve emissions by 2050. Bush's plan for the 15 large polluters could allow his successor to work more closely with the EU on the next phase of Kyoto. But, despite bravely optimistic words by Merkel and Tony Blair, Bush undermined the EU...