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Mobilising for the next 'good' fight


 109 million dollar investment in solar power near the King Abdullah City 
for Atomic and Renewable Energy
King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy

The state is the only really effective power in the war against climate change and it needs to force businesses to come along with it

Phil Hall

February 1, 2008 8:00 AM

It was Kurt Vonnegut, who admired the American volunteer firefighters very much, who said that the noblest war of all was the war against combustion. And don't his words ring true? Preventing global warming and reducing CO2 emissions is indeed the grandest and most noble war of the 21st century.

But has society lost the habit of engaging in grand "good" wars? Set aside, for the moment, the corporate driven wars like the recent Iraq oil war. In the 1930s and 40s, our governments organised the all-out fight against fascism and millions laid down their lives willingly to defeat the Nazis. The state is the only entity with the democratic license and power to mobilise a society through times of crisis and war. To make a simple, general point: it is not the job or the remit of the market or the corporations to occupy democratic spaces and lead society in maters of climate change. It is the job of the state. In the last grand war, companies like the Ford corporation and General Motors would have loved to continue trading with Germany in the 1940s, but neither the US government nor its people would tolerate this.

Moreover, the state is the only entity able to invest the resources in the development necessary to generate the required technological solutions to the problem of climate change. How many of our technological breakthroughs have come about initially as the result of wars and shooting for the moon? We can't all wait for Godot, falling asleep in front of the eco-adverts of the petrochemical, car and energy companies. Currently it is fashionable for large companies with big advertising budgets to environmentally tweak their products in order to pay lip service to ideas of corporate social responsibility (CSR). But in the end, even CSR is probably just a half-hearted and self-interested insurance policy, taken out against the possibility of future government legislation and consumer wrath. And it is not enough. In the end, the bottom line for a big company is not the common good, but maxim profit and shareholder dividends.

Science-fiction authors used to wish for a common enemy, so that mankind could put aside its petty differences and the governments of the world would unite. Well they have, finally got their wish. We have that common enemy: climate change.

South Africa is a world leader in Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

Recently, perhaps it was partly the thought of the 2 million sub-Saharan Africans amassed in Libya, waiting to cross into Europe, that concentrated the minds of Nato's generals. Their solution, citing climate change as a contributing factor in a worsening European security situation, was to be characteristically aggressive and unproductive. Their manifesto, published in Brussels, says in passing:

"Climate change and energy security, [will] entail a contest for resources and potential 'environmental' migration on a mass scale."

And Nato's solutions so far? Well how about a nuclear first-strike capacity? Presumably they think this will help with winning the "contest for resources" they anticipate. How it will help prevent mass migration is anyone's guess.

The European Union's response has been equally unimpressive. They have established climate change targets. Well, we know all about the wonderful effectiveness of targets in the UK don't we? Some countries will abide by them dutifully and other countries will not. They will all do as it suits them. This is hardly adequate.

Isn't it ironic then, that that very desert, which millions of immigrants cross to come to Europe, could provide part of the solution to minimising the effects of climate change? It could also be source of income and wealth to Africans and provide them with a reason and the resources to stay in their own continent.

Our governments should stop waiting for Godot. The market won't generate technical solutions to climate change. The state has to take the lead and pour money into resources and development to develop technologies such as concentrating solar power (CSP) and others. Al Gore is right; this is a grand millennial emergency. But forget red herrings like inventing targets and threatening nuclear first strikes. Our elected governments should take massive action to combat climate change and drag the corporations, willingly and/or kicking and screaming, behind them into a new good war, just like they did in the second world war.

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