[P2P-F] Fwd: The World Post COP - System Reboot Not Plug-and-play

Mon Jan 4 08:23:31 CET 2016

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jules Peck <jules.peck at jerichochambers.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 1:50 PM
Subject: The World Post COP - System Reboot Not Plug-and-play
To: jules peck <jules at flourishingenterprise.org>, Jules Peck <
jules.peck at jerichochambers.com>

Happy new year all - I thought you might be interested in my new year
thoughts on the 2016 landscape post COP21 and the SDG process.

If you like the blogs please tweet and share at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jules-peck/the-world-post-cop-system_b_8827940.html
and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jules-peck/the-world-post-cop-system_1_b_8836934.html

*The World Post COP - System Reboot Not Plug-and-play*

The* SDGs and COP21 raise more questions than they answer - 2016 will need
to shift the debate to wider system change. This two-part blog explores
these issues.*
[image: Inline image 1]

*The current policy landscape*

*"Woo mercy, mercy me, mercy fatherAh things ain't what they used to be, no
noOil wasted on the ocean and upon our seas*

*Fish full of mercury*"

I was struck by the poignancy of Marvin Gaye's 1971 poetry as I listened to
broadway star and member of Hip Hop Hope for Divestment Antonique Smith
singing <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BgJE0C-ilw> Mercy, mercy me at an
event at COP21 ten days ago.

The lyrics reminds us just how long it has taken us to wake up to the need
for an end to the fossil-fool age and how, though 2015 was a good year in
some ways, in others we have only just begun the real journey.

2015 saw at least three seismic shifts in the sustainable development
world. For starters in September the Sustainable Development Goals
<http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/post-2015-development-agenda.html>
were
adopted by governments, setting a new developmental pathway towards 2030.

Next, by November over $3.4 trn of assets had committed to divest
<http://divestinvest.org/> out of fossil-fuels and invest in a new economy,
supported by a diversity of voices Sent from my iPad
In principle COP21 has moved things on. At least the 'what' of the IPCC
process, the shape of things to come, is now clearer. It rhetorically sets
collective sights on 1.5 degrees, we can be sure that governments will be
held to their INDCs by civil society, and $100bn of new money has in
principle been committed to deliver on the agreement.

But many questions remain on the 'how' to achieve this. The COP outcome is
still voluntary
<https://globalclimatejobs.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/world-pledges-to-increase-emissions/>,
its not negotiated with wider society, the INDCs arguably currently could
lock us into at least 3degrees, the agreement's mechanisms are weighted to
'market solutions' like trading rather than other solutions civil society
favours and there is precious little clarity on where the $100bn will
actually come from and in what form.

Perhaps that's partly where the divestment movement comes in. As the
divestment movement starts to shift its campaigning to focus on the
'invest' piece in 2016, it has already become clear even to the head of the
coal industry lobby
<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/15/coal-lobby-boss-says-industry-will-be-hated-like-slave-traders-after-cop21>,
that the fossil-fool economy is dying and that perhaps the world's carbon
traders are becoming the new slave traders.

But despite $trillions committing to some form of divestment, the
DivestInvest movement has a long way to go to plug the investment gap and
to integrate a wider equity and justice frame to its work.

The disjunction between the SDG narrative and Paris is stark, with COP21
failing to integrate key social issues into the text or sentiment of the
talks despite these being central to the SDG vision. The framing of a Just
Transition
<http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-10-30/just-transition-with-mateo-nube-of-movement-generation>
to
a new economy was largely lost over the two weeks of haggling in Paris.
Likewise fundamental pillars of sustainable development such as Climate
Justice
<http://newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2015/12/12/cop21-paris-deal-epi-fail-on-planetary-scale/>
 and equity <http://www.skepticalscience.com/TRTTDEquity.html> were
sidestepped as too uncomfortable.

Issues like consumerism are also largely absent from the SDG and climate
agreements and Paris saw no confrontation of prickly questions such as what
Professor Kevin Anderson says
<http://critical-angle.net/2015/12/11/the-road-to-two-degrees-part-two-are-the-experts-being-candid-about-our-chances/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter>
about
the limits to economic growth relating to combating climate change.

Ignoring the views of civil society in this way is a mistake. As Naomi
Klein said in her COP21 rally speech
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhYIA7E3JsY>, the true leaders of system
change are in the streets not in the negotiating halls.

These thorny issues won't go away. The Divestment movement has been
emboldened to go further and become more radical post Paris. And, as can be
seen from the Too weak, too late
<http://oneworld.org/2015/12/12/too-weak-too-late-says-climate-justice-campaigners>opinion
compendium, the failures of COP to include justice issues hasstrengthened
<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2015/dec/15/claim-no-easy-victories-paris-was-a-failure-but-a-climate-justice-movement-is-rising>
the
resolve and momentum of the climate justice movement.
*The current landscape -- shifting from 'what' to 'how' post SDGs*

Clarity on where we go with the SDGs is also lacking. As SDG advisor Alex
Evans says, now that the Open Working Group (OWG) on the post-2015 SDG
agenda has reported, "minds are shifting to the 'how' as opposed to the
'what' -- and what a new Global Partnership on development might look like.
There is a risk that the soaring ambition of the OWG's Goals will not be
matched by adequate action on the delivery side."

Many of the answers on how to solve the challenges we face now on climate
and the SDGs will need to come from society at large, from social
movements, communities and citizens. This calls for a p2p revolution, the
end of top-down and the beginning of people-power. The institutions of
today can, and indeed must be involved in this revolution. But power needs
to disperse and so does the conversation.

So delivering on the SDGs will require a host of tough issues to be
resolved and delivered on including those same climate finance, loan and
developing world support details so missing from Paris.

Other key issues which need to be included in delivering on the SDGs
include; strong action on tax avoidance and subsidies, stretching private
sector ambition and support for SD, recognition of natural resources like
land, water, and the atmosphere as a special category of property right,
with dividends from their use accruing to society at large, a radical
overhaul of the financial system, consideration of a universal basic income
and some fundamental questioning of issues such as the growth paradigm,
limits of decoupling and the need to shift from consumerism to a world of
intrinsic values and wellbeing.

This starting list of key SDG delivery issues represent radical changes to
the status quo.

*This changes everything -- why we need to think 'system reboot not plug
and play'*
As the post COP party hangovers start to wear off people are recognising
the momentous, perhaps paradigm shifting
<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/14/eu-says-15c-global-warming-target-depends-on-negative-emissions-technology>,
scale of the challenge facing us as we attempt to deliver on the highest
ambitions from Paris. As Richard Heinberg has said
<http://www.postcarbon.org/renewable-energy-after-cop21/> post COP, the
required transition is "not plug and play, its civilisation reboot".

And as Professor John Foran puts it
<http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-12-14/the-paris-agreement-paper-heroes-widen-the-climate-justice-gap>,
"Despite their beautiful words, our leaders remained trapped in a broken
system and a crashing worldview."

Coming out of Paris IPCC scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has concluded
that we have to make: "Fundamental changes to the political and economic
framing of contemporary society...let Paris be the catalyst for a new
paradigm."

The social justice narrative of 'system change not climate change' has now
gone mainstream with voices such as UNFCCC Chief Christiana Figueres now
calling for 'a new system' at COP21.

Delivering on these radical changes will require a sea-change in the
process of change. Policy-wonkery and lobbying may play a role but above
all what is needed is a new society-wide Big Conversation on paradigm shift
and systems change.

*The emerging new economy vision*
Many of these issues are the staple diet of those involved in the wider
'new/next economy' world which is the focus of the Real Economy Lab
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jules-peck/making-sense-of-the-new-e_b_7219732.html>
I
convene.

This new economy space is a vibrant hot-bed of innovation. As Professors
Gus Speth and Professor Gar Alperovitz of the Next System Project put it,
"just below the surface of media attention literally thousands of grass
roots institution changing, wealth-democratizing efforts have been quietly
developing."

Hundreds of movements, alliances and organizations around the world are
experimenting with a new-economy - new ways of living, of making, of
commerce and of ownership -- open-coops, social solidarity, Transition
Towns, Commoning, Sharing, initiatives from groups like the Club of Rome,
Nef's Great Transition, the Next System Project, the New Economy Coalition,
Neon, the Just Transition movement of labour, Movement Generation and Edge
Funders and many others.

But between the current policy landscape and this vision of the future lies
an unmapped territory on which we need to start to plot a roadmap to system
change.

*Where do we go from here?*
Very different actors inhabit the worlds of the current policy landscape
and this emerging vision of a new system. Some bridge both worlds -- but
too few. What is needed is a common vision and narrative and an inclusive
conversation we are all part of.

I see this as a journey. For a journey to be worth taking you need a
roadmap. Right now we have only the slimmest of clarity and agreement on
even the shape of the landscape we need to cross let alone where we want to
get to. Many of us are too busy looking at our feet, fearful of stumbling,
few ever get even a glimpse of a possible horizon let alone the peaks we
need to aim for.

Those working in the foothills need to be helped to see a vision of where
we need to head. Those with their heads poking through the fog need support
to keep their feet in reality and real-politic.

Above all what will be needed is to take everyone with us on this journey.
What that will require a new form of conversation built on deliberative,
participative dialogue, open-enquiry and inclusiveness and powered by
digital democracy.

This dialogue will need to bridge the here and now with a desirable and
achievable future which is truly fair and sustainable for people and planet.

Whats crucial is that the dialogue of the deaf between so many of us needs
to end and we need to find a way to develop one big conversation about
system change and transformation.

Perhaps our attitude to this journey needs to take a hint from another of
Marvin Gaye's songs What Going On.

*Picket lines and picket signsDon't punish me with brutalityC'mon talk to
meSo you can seeWhat's going on*

*All the bestJules PeckFounding PartnerJericho Chambers*

*Convenor of the Real Economy Lab www.realeconomylab.org
<http://www.realeconomylab.org>  *
12a Charterhouse Square
London EC1M 6AX

*M: 00447920844802 <00447920844802> W: www.jerichochambers.com/
<http://www.jerichochambers.com/> and www.julespeck.co.uk
<http://www.julespeck.co.uk/>  *
T: @citizenjules
'*Aspire not to have more but to be more*' Archbishop Oscar Romero

Clerk to Jericho Chambers eve.harris at jerichochambers.com 00 44 7403 738 097

Jericho Chambers is the trading name of Jericho Chambers LLP, a limited
liability partnership registered in England and Wales with partnership
number OC385688 and whose registered office is at 35 Piccadilly, London,
W1J 0LP

-- 
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