Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Your next choice is Kyoto2 by Oliver Tickell.
We’ve touched on technological solutions and lifestyle solutions, but the elephant in the room is of course political solutions. Unless you can create a global cap on the amount of carbon that’s emitted, you’re never going to be able to tackle this problem in any meaningful way. Oliver Tickell’s book isn’t so much a brilliant piece of writing, it’s simply the vehicle for a very brilliant and original idea.
Which is?
We all worry about carbon emissions at the point where they are released into the air, from cars or from power stations. But if you think about it, that’s almost impossible to control politically, because there are so many millions of separate points of emission. More effective is an upstream approach which simply limits the amount of fossil fuels available on the market to the amount we calculate is compatible with a stable climate.
But fossil fuels aren’t the only culprits are they?
No, but given that other problems, such as deforestation, might in theory be tackled quite quickly, the amount of fossil fuel we take out of the ground is the most important factor. The problem is that Kyoto1, which the UN has been attempting to negotiate the sequel to, is so obsessed with limiting the damage at point of emission that Tickell’s solution is probably politically unworkable. But it gets to the heart of the matter in a way the UN process has totally failed to do.
He’s suggesting a completely centrist, top-down approach?
Yes, and no other solution which depends purely on limiting emissions is going to be enough.
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Duncan Clark has worked to raise environmental awareness as a writer, journalist and campaigner. He is a consultant editor at the Guardian, and a director of the 10:10 campaign, which requires participants to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 10% within a year. In May 2010, the UK’s coalition government signed up to the project. His books include The Rough Guide to Green Living
