There is something pathetic about the battles we are engaged in, throughout Europe, to rightly participate in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and waste recycling. Meanwhile, elsewhere, coal and oil are shamelessly used, waste is thrown into the sea ad infinitum, water and food are wasted; and, by doing so, these countries produce goods at low cost and flood us, ruining our industries and jobs, and at the same time our environment.
Even if we, Europeans, become ecologically irreproachable before 2050, (which is far from likely as long as Germany, Poland, or the Czech Republic remain on their current trajectories); even if, which is perfectly possible, the European Union is no longer emitting any greenhouse gases at that date; even if we recycle all our waste, even if we do not waste any scarce resources, even if we adopt the most stringent regulations and if we all become virtuous in our personal lives; and even if, in sum, we become positive in each of our actions, it will change almost nothing in the equation of climate change that is currently happening on our planet, as long as China, India, the United States do not follow suit. And as long as we do not, in due time, prepare Africa to do the same.
How can we achieve our goal when the United States tells us that they are the masters of their own home and that we can neither give them orders nor advice? And when other countries, from Asia, Latin America and Africa, refuse to hear us, on the grounds that we cannot forbid them from developing to satisfy our own interests. And then we observe them, one after the other, creating industries of the same type as those that ensured Europe’s growth in the 19th and 20th centuries.
And yet, humanity will not be saved by the use of bicycles in European cities or by the massive installation of (Chinese) wind turbines in our countryside. Not even by closing our borders, which would not protect us from anything at all. Humanity will be saved through the radical transformation of the development model, including these steps: short-circuiting conventional industrial development, and accelerating development that is efficient in energy and raw materials. Certain countries did this in telecommunications by bypassing fixed telephone lines and going directly to mobile communications. These countries must be able to do so in every other areas.
To convince these countries of this, you probably have to use the carrot and the stick model. The stick: forbidding imports, in Europe, of goods whose production has a disastrous impact on the environment; introduce taxation at European borders that accounts for greenhouse gas emissions of imported products. The carrot: showing them by being an example, and doing our part in Europe to make the necessary efforts to create a positive development model for the future. Moreover, we can massively help these countries organize the transition to a positive development model, through a major 30-year plan, which could succeed in ensuring that humanity as a whole no longer emits any greenhouse gases in 2050. This requires a lot of study, technical progress, goodwill, common actions and sacrifices by the present generations. Just like we did 75 years ago, to fight another hell. It is possible. The G20 summit, in Osaka, in a month’s time, should discuss this.
This is the precondition for the survival of the human species. Isn’t it worth it?
j@attali.com