From today onwards, I will be reporting on the UN Climate Conference, COP15, in Copenhagen, representing the WSC-SD.

To give a kick-start, below is the first article.

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The battle of minds

New perspectives on responses to climate change

No public issue or scientific discipline is as confusing and complex as climate change is currently. In the wake of potential catastrophes, we are trying to grapple with the alignment of widely opposing discourses, seemingly impossible to unite in a world ridden by confusion and uncertainty.

The recent ‘Climate Gate’ has offered us a glimpse of the sad state of the debate around climate change. It is a debate increasingly backed by ‘confused climate sceptics’ on the one hand (according to sir Nicholas Stern) and emotional arguments referring to issues as survival of humanity, on the other.

The ultimate issue might be survival, indeed, but the issues at stake are so daunting and complex, that it takes more than negotiations, to align both sides of a debate mostly fuelled by opposing world views. It’s too simple to argue as if the debate is only one of white, conservative Republicans squeezing the last dollars out of the drops of oil, versus undernourished Africans who are the ones most impacted by the consequences of climate change. It might be a White Man’s Burden, but one which is more fundamental and more persistent than anything we’ve had until now.

According to many insiders, the debate is flawed, and more importantly, mainstream media still pictures both sides of the debate as if there was a real debate, with pros and cons, out of the principle of balanced representation. Al Gore recently stated in a BBC Interview that he is irritated by the way mainstream media picture the climate skeptics as a accountable counter-voice in the debate, while in science, the debate is settled for years already. And to continue showing this picture of pros vs. cons will keep you in the illusion that both sides are potentially right.  This, according to Gore, will have ‘disastrous consequences’ if real action is delayed.

The ‘battle of minds’ is also reflected in the increasing information pollution, spread of confusing messages on the internet and the extraordinary growth of more and less scientific articles. Most worryingly, people with the highest responsibility to act upon climate change (e.g. policy-makers) are usually the ones most heavily dependent on expert knowledge.

Still, the main battle in climate change seems to be about the hearts and minds, about a profoundly flawed picture of our world and society.  What does such a persisting debate about such a complex issue teach us about the ability of humanity to respond to highly uncertain and complex problems?

Climate change is one of the most serious and urgent earth-system challenges, overarching tens of different discplines and impacting people around the world in all walks of life. But ultimately, climate change poses us for an even more fundamental challenge:

To change the way we see ourselves in the world, and to change the way humans respond to global challenges that cause a danger for their own survival as humankind.

Climate change poses a serious challenge for our ability to respond collectively to global problems, and thus we need new forms of multilateral negotiation and collaboration. The stalemates in recent climate negotiations show that current climate regimes are flawed and need to be reinvented, rather than optimised.

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