Carbon War Room and Super Freaks – Blog Action Day 2009

Here is something interesting to look at on this Blog Action Day on Climate Change.

A group of wealthy business people have joined forces under the name Carbon War Room. The front figure is Sir Richard Branson – well known to most.

The Carbon War Room intends to gather entrepreneurs and institutions on a global scale to harness the experience and practices of business in fighting Climate Change. I think this idea is well worth supporting – business has to be the primary answer to deal with this issue – for reasons I will elaborate further down in this post.

Jordan is not a big CO2 emitter, but one of the countries most at risk because of climate change. It will be difficult(!) for Jordan to solve this problem on its own – so why not look at it as an opportunity – an opportunity for developing a business sector that will provide some of the answers to the problem for all of us. Jordan have the opportunity to become the first Arab country to base its development on sustainable practices, renewable energy, recycling and all the services that comes with being in the forefront of development.

I am not saying it is easy to do this – but the Government could start with proposing a legislative framework that will be conducive for Jordanian business and Jordanians to move in this direction. Unfortunately, this is not happening yet – we are still waiting for sustainable initiatives within recycling and for the law on renewable energy to name some examples.

In connection with this - it will be important to create serious incentives for business and people alike to change the way we behave and we make business. I think this is one of the ideas behind Carbon War Room.

It is probably fair to say, that even with a good result in Copenhagen – whether a new international treaty or commitment – the climate change issues will only be dealt with substantially if there is something tangible in it for us as persons or business.

This is an argument that is being made in the new “freakonomics” book “Superfreakonomics”

“The problem with trying to reduce carbon emissions, they argue, is that the incentives are all wrong. Too many of the benefits are “externalities”, from which the people making the sacrifices will never benefit – and the whole history of economics demonstrates that such completely unself-interested behaviour is impossible to implement on a large scale, especially when so many people suspect that their sacrifice would not, in fact, make a significant difference to the outcome. “Behaviour change is hopeless,” Levitt says. “It’s just completely pointless to think that you’re going to get six billion people, the poorest people around and the richest people around, to work together, when every individual person has no impact on the problem.”

Many of course will not subscribe to this less-than-idealistic approach – but aren’t we all free riders to some extend?

From an economic perspective the Superfreaks suggest that the answer to Climate Change is not less but more pollution The economic argument is straight forward. It is much cheaper to infuse the stratosphere with (a lot) extra sulphur dioxide which will cool the earth than to do all the other things proposed. To me it might be a very effective measure but not necessarily an efficient one. You can open a door by blowing it away which is an effective way of getting through but it is more efficient to use the door handle – since you down ruin the door – if you get my point.

Anyway, the book will hopefully be as enjoyable as was the first one.

UPDATE: Official Jordan is also blogging on Blog Action Day. Minister of Environment and Climate activist Khaled Irani give his take on Climate Change and Jordan on 7iber.com