Contraction and Convergence Awards

“The [climate] problem was framed in abstruse scientific terms and actions in
which ordinary individuals could play no part. Only extraordinary individuals such
as Aubrey Meyer, father of C&C managed to penetrate this remote citadel.”
Chris Rose - Campaigns Director, Greenpeace

The growth of the human economy – population, production and pollution -
has put the planet’s overall radiation budget out of balance, consequences of
which are global warming and climate damages. This has become a survival
issue.

Aubrey’s vision of the future evolution of energy is one where this
environmental imperative requires the production and consumption of
everything, including energy, to be clean and green and operating within
environmental limits.

Within the present human economy, the global imbalance between the ‘over-
consumers’ and ‘under consumers’ worsens. This augurs conflict over
dwindling key resources. This issue of international and intra-national inequity
threatens everyone’s survival interests.

As people’s right-to-be-here and sharing the benefits of the commons is
fundamentally equal, Aubrey’s vision requires that as we go ‘clean and green’,
we redress that imbalance with an equal sense of urgency. This recognizes
that equity and survival are inextricably linked.

Only achieving UNFCCC-compliance at rates that avoid dangerous rates of
climate change, leads to sustainability. While investments in clean technology
and renewable energy are utterly vital in this, they are also completely tied to
success in securing a global climate treaty at the UNFCCC negotiations. So it is
vital that the international political log-jam over issues of equity and survival,
which has been the obstacle encoded into the negotiations for the last twenty
years, must be broken.

Aubrey uniquely managed to break the code for that in devising the C&C
framework for GHG emissions. Of itself C&C is not the clean and sustainable
future, but it lays out the path that is a key part of the journey that takes us
there. Whether this is ‘the right way to frame the solution’ is a question
superseded by the more pressing question, ‘what’s the alternative’?

Clean-tech and renewable energy investors need to recognize there isn’t an
alternative that’s as effective and as helpful to success in achieving the
agreement, than C&C. This will in turn, defend and enhance their investments.
It is encouraging that an agency of the Chinese Government has now begun a
dialogue with GCI about this.