But there’s no argument of the sheer power of well produced public service announcements (PSAs) to move people with a specific, short message. Nothing can beat them for the economy of time and efficacy of delivery.
During August 2008, Al Gore’s ‘We’ campaign for climate change activism released two new PSAs, both appealing to Americans to change their energy habits, especially their addiction to oil. This follows and promotes the challenge Al Gore posed to America in July 2008 “to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years”.
Real change can happen real fast. We can strengthen our economy, lower fuel costs, free ourselves from our addiction to oil, and help solve the climate crisis. We can do this by switching to clean, free energy sources like the wind and sun — and to do it within 10 years. Meeting this ambitious goal would create millions of new jobs, lead to permanently lower energy costs for families and help America lead the fight against global warming. William H. Macy narrates in this ad which premiered on network TV in the US during the 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage.
We must save our economy, lower fuel costs, free ourselves from our addiction to oil, and solve the climate crisis. To do this, we must demand that we Repower America with 100% clean electricity within 10 years.
Never underestimate the power of moving images. Al Gore tipped the balance in the long-drawn climate change debate with his Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth. The rest is recent history.
Thanks to the film – and sustained advocacy of hundreds of scientists and activists – climate change is no longer a speculative scenario; it’s widely accepted. The challenge now is to understand how it impacts different people in a myriad ways.
Called Vulnerability Exposed, the contest is open to anyone anywhere in the world who wishes to have their voice heard. The submitted films should innovatively illustrate the consequences of climate change through one of the following theme categories: conflict, migration, the urban space, rural institutions, drylands, social policy, indigenous peoples, gender, governance, forests, and/or human rights. The submission period ends on 24 October 2008.
Caroline Kende-Robb, Acting Director, Social Development Department, said, “There is a need to see climate change as an issue of global social justice. The rights, interests and needs of those affected by climate change must be acknowledged.”
Watch the Bank’s short video, where she explains further:
The contest has two award categories:
1) Social Dimensions of Climate Change Award (general category) – open to professional and amateur; and
2) Young Voices of Climate Change (youth category) – open to entries submitted by filmmakers under 24 years old.
Award winners will be chosen through a combination of public voting and a judging panel. The film with the most public votes in each theme category will receive honorable mention.
Vulnerability Exposed film competition: Judging process
This contest indicates that the World Bank is slowly but surely opening up to the currently untapped communication potential of web 2.0 – the very point I made in a recent op ed essay.
There are several noteworthy aspects in this competition, some more positive than others. I offer this critique in the spirit of improving a commendable initiative.
Three cheers to the bank for accommodating both amateurs and professionals. It’s about time those who don’t video film for a living (some of who are no less talented in the craft) had more opportunities to showcase their products.
It’s good to see the preference for shorter films, in this contest defined between 2 and 5 mins in duration. This certainly resonates with TVE Asia Pacific’s experience with Asian broadcasters, many of who now prefer shorter films. Longer films have their place, of course, but shorter ones are clear favourites of 24/7 news channels and also online.
Most film contests are judged exclusively by an all-powerful jury (I’ve been on several over the years), but here the online public have a chance to vote for their favourite entries. Let’s hope the judges will consider the story telling power of entries as the most important deciding factor. (The examples in the YouTube film given above are misleading – they all seem extracts from expensively made documentaries.)
The big challenge for many aspiring contestants would be to relate climate change to daily realities in their societies. Despite global headlines and the development community’s current frenzy about it, climate change as a phrase and concept still isn’t clearly understood in all its ramifications. If science now knows 100 facts about the murky processes of climate change, the average public knows less than 25 and understands even less. So it will be interesting to see how entries relate the big picture to their individual small pictures.
I’m a bit disappointed that the World Bank is not offering any cash prize to the winners. Instead, “the winners will receive an all expenses paid trip to Washington, DC for a screening of their film and will have the opportunity to attend a series of networking and learning events organized by…the World Bank in December 2008.” This is all useful, but video – even at the low end – is not exactly cheap, and even labour of love creations cost money to make. We are currently running a comparable the Asia Pacific Rice Film Award – which seeks entries no longer than 10 mins on any aspect of rice – and despite being a non-profit, civil society initiative we have a prize of US$ 2,000 to the winner. And we wish we could offer more.
But my biggest concern is the unequal, unfair terms of copyrights found in the small print of the competition rules. This is where the lawyers have done their usual handiwork, and with the usually lopsided results. The World Bank wants all contestants to make absolutely sure that all material used is fully owned by the contestants, or properly licensed. That’s fine. But tucked away on page 7, under section 12 titled Entrant’s permission to the organiser, is a set of conditions which will allow all affiliated institutions of the World Bank group to use the submitted material for not just promoting this contest (a standard clause in most competitions), but for ‘climate change work program of the organiser’.
What this means, in simpler terms, is that without offering a single dollar in prize money, the World Bank is quietly appropriating the unlimited user rights for any and all the submitted material. These are the core materials in the moving images industry, and nothing is more precious to their creators.
I have long advocated a more balanced, equitable and liberal approach to managing copyrights and intellectual property by both the broadcast television industry and development community — especially where public funded creations are concerned. I have nothing but contempt for lawyers and accountants who often determine the copyrights policies in large broadcast and development organisations. They set out terms that may be justified in strict legal terms, but are totally unfair, unjust and, in the end, counterproductive to the development cause and process. It seems that while our friends in the social and communication divisions were not looking, the Bank’s lawyers have done their standard hatchet job.
While this doesn’t detract from the overall value of Vulnerability Exposed, it diminishes its appeal and potential. Many professional video film-makers who value their footage – gathered with much trouble and expense – may not want to sign future user rights away for simply entering this contest. And worse, the unsuspecting enthusiasts who don’t necessarily earn their living from making films – but are entitled to the same fair treatment of their creations – would be giving away material whose industrial value they may not even fully appreciate.
It’s certainly necessary and relevant for development organisations like the World Bank and the UN system to engage web 2.0. But they must be careful not to import or impose rigid, one-sided and outdated copyright regimes of the past on this new media.
I hope the Bank would consider revising these unfair copyright terms, and treat the submitted material with greater discretion and respect. If not, all entrants risk seeing their material popping out of bluechip films produced by top-dollar production companies in North America and Europe who have ‘mining rights’ to the Bank’s video archives.
Vulnerability Exposed can have more meanings than one. We’d rather not consider some.
On the set of Sri Lanka 2048: Living with climate change
I have finally done it…and not a moment too soon!
There I was, moderating an hour-long TV debate on Saturday evening prime time television on Sri Lanka’s premier English language Channel One MTV. Our topic for this edition of Sri Lanka 2048 was living with climate change. After exploring its many facets, I was beginning to wind up.
But not before underlining the need for us to take personal responsibility for changing our lifestyles whose cumulative impact on the planet is significant.
The philosophical and political debates over climate change will continue for a long time, I said. Meanwhile, we have to live with climate change impacts that are already happening…and change how we use energy and resources so that we don’t make matters any worse.
This means we must consume less, share more, live simply and pursue smart solutions through green technologies. Of course, at the basis of all this is finding meaningful, practical ways of kicking our addiction to oil.
That’s when I put my hand up and admitted, on air, my own substance addiction: I am hooked on hydrocarbons, a.k.a. petroleum. I’m struggling to break free from it, but it’s not easy.
Of course, my individual addiction pales into insignificance when we look at how entire industries, sectors and countries are addicted to oil and stubbornly insist on continuing the status quo. But we must be the change we seek, so it’s never too late for me to work on my oil problem. When enough of us individuals do, countries and economies will follow.
But people with addictions often need expert guidance, as well as to keep the company of fellow addicts who are similarly trying to kick the habit. That’s why those having drinking problems find help in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Nalaka Gunawardene moderates Sri Lanka 2048: Race Against Time
Here’s what the promotional blurb for last weekend’s show said:
Sri Lanka 2048 looks at living with climate change: how challenges can become opportunities
Climate change is no longer a theory; it’s already happening. What awaits Sri Lanka – and how best can we adapt to live with extreme weather events, disrupted rainfall, sea level rise and other projected impacts? How can Sri Lanka play a meaningful role in mitigating further damage to the world’s climate?
These and related questions will be raised in this week’s Sri Lanka 2048, the series of TV debates exploring Sri Lanka’s prospects for a sustainable future in the Twenty First Century. The one-hour debate, in English, will be shown on Channel One MTV from 8 to 9 pm on Saturday, 26 July 2008.
Titled Race Against Time, this week’s debate brings together concerned Sri Lankans from academic, corporate, civil society and government backgrounds to discuss the many challenges of living with climate change. The debate looks at aspects such as promoting renewable energy to reduce our carbon emissions, and emerging opportunities for individuals, communities and businesses to adopt low carbon lifestyles and practices.
This week’s panel comprises: Dr. W. L. Sumathipala Director, National Ozone Unit, Ministry of Environment & Natural Resources; Dr. Suren Batagoda, CEO, Sri Lanka Carbon Fund; Dr Ray Wijewardene, Eminent engineer and specialist in renewable energies; and Darshani de Silva, Environmental Specialist, World Bank Office in Colombo. The debate is moderated by TVE Asia Pacific’s Director Nalaka Gunawardene.
The debate also seeks answers to questions such as: What niche can Sri Lanka occupy in the fast-growing global carbon market? How much money can we make from this market? What is the role of the recently established Sri Lanka Carbon Fund? Is the Clean Development Mechanism the right way forward?
The debate concludes with the recognition that climate Change is not just an environmental concern, but also has economic, social, political and security implications. While the philosophical and political debates over climate change will continue for a long time, everyone has to learn fast to live with it. This calls for consuming less, sharing more, living simply and pursuing smart solutions that reduce carbon emissions without compromising the quality of living.
Sri Lanka 2048 debates are co-produced by TVE Asia Pacific, an educational media foundation, and IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in partnership with MTV Channel (Private) Limited. This editorially independent TV series is supported under the Raising Environmental Consciousness in Society (RECS) project, sponsored by the Government of the Netherlands.
When our Sri Lanka 2048 TV debate series started a few weeks ago, I had no idea that I’d be hosting some programmes. But through an interesting turn of events, I’ve ended up doing just that.
The series, which TVE Asia Pacific is co-producing with IUCN and MTV Channel (Pvt) Limited — Sri Lanka’s ratings leading TV broadcaster — has been going out once every week from 22 May 2008. As I wrote at the time the series started, most programmes (8 out of 10) were hosted by Sirasa TV’s versatile and dynamic presenter Kingsly Rathnayaka.
Our plan was to do two shows in English, exploring the topics living with climate change and the nexus between business and the environment. We were still searching for a presenter for these two even as we produced and aired the Sinhala programmes.
In the end, the channel management as well as our production team all suggested for me to take it on. I’ve been hosting quiz shows on TV since 1990, and have been a regular ‘TV pundit’ on a broad range of development, science and technology issues for at least a decade. I’ve also been doing a fair amount of moderating sessions and panels at international conferences. Hosting Sri Lanka 2048 challenged me to combine all these skills — and to be informed, interested and curious about our topics under discussion.
I enjoyed being the ‘skeptical inquirer’, a role I’ve had fun playing for long years as a development journalist. Our viewers can judge how well I fared. My aim was to keep the panel and audience focused, engaged and moving ahead. My style is slower and more reflective than Kingsly’s fast-paced, chatty one. Direct comparisons would be unfair and unrealistic since we are very different personalities.
But I’m enormously grateful to the younger, more experienced Kingsly for his advice and guidance in preparing for my new role. The TV camera is ruthless in capturing and sometimes magnifying even minor idiosyncrasies in presenters. It has as much to do with style as with substance. Hope I made the grade…
Sri Lanka 2048 series branding
Here’s the promotional blurb for this weekend’s show, titled Business As Unusual (yes, I borrowed the apt title from our sorely missed inspiration Anita Roddick). It was broadcast on Channel One MTV, the English language channel of Sri Lanka’s Maharaja broadcasting group.
Sri Lanka 2048 looks at Business As Unusual: How can companies do well while doing good?
The private sector is acknowledged as the engine of our economic growth. But how long can this ‘engine’ keep running without addressing its many impacts on society and the natural environment? With public concerns rising everywhere for a cleaner and safer environment, how best can businesses respond to the environmental challenges — and find new opportunities to grow and innovate?
These and related questions will be raised in this week’s Sri Lanka 2048, the series of TV debates exploring Sri Lanka’s prospects for a sustainable future in the Twenty First Century. The one-hour debate, this time in English, will be shown on Channel One MTV from 8 to 9 pm on Saturday, 19 July 2008.
Titled Business As Unusual, this week’s debate brings together concerned Sri Lankans from academic, corporate, civil society and government backgrounds to discuss what choices, decisions and tradeoffs need to be made for businesses to become environmentally responsible — and still remain profitable. Increasingly, there are examples of smart companies achieving this balance.
Sri Lanka 2048 panel on business and environment broadcast on 19 July 2008
The wide ranging discussion — looking at both domestic and international markets, and covering a range of industries — notes that many companies already address not just financial but also social and environmental bottomlines. Adopting cleaner production practices have helped increase profits through being thrifty with resources and careful with waste.
The debate also looks at the findings of a survey that IUCN and the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce carried out last year of 45 companies on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and practices. It revealed that a significant number of companies are actively applying CSR principles, with slightly over half (53%) already having environmental components in their CSR (known as CSER). The survey also found that local companies were stronger on CSR/CSER than the local operations of multinational companies.
As some panelists and audience members argue, embracing sound environmental practices goes well beyond CSR. With rising consumer awareness and greater scrutiny of how companies source materials and energy, ‘going green’ has become an integral part of responsible corporate citizens.
Sri Lanka 2048 debates are co-produced by TVE Asia Pacific, an educational media foundation, and IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in partnership with MTV Channel (Private) Limited. This editorially independent TV series is supported under the Raising Environmental Consciousness in Society (RECS) project, sponsored by the Government of the Netherlands.
Sri Lanka 2048 - Nalaka briefing audience just before recording starts...
Wherever you are, Anita, I hope you were watching our show tonight — and hopefully nodding… When you insisted that businesses must care for community and the environment, you were so ahead of the pack. We’re still struggling to catch up.
On the set of Sri Lanka 2048: Nalaka with panelist Jeevani Siriwardena
“There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more – if more should be required – the future of human civilization is at stake.”
With these words, climate crusader Al Gore opened a powerful speech delivered in Washington DC on 17 July 2008, in which he issued what he called ‘A Generational Challenge to Repower America’ to take bold steps towards solving the climate crisis.
At one point he told fellow Americans:“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.”
Having outlined the environmental, security and economic implications of America’s addiction to oil, Gore challenged his nation “to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years”.
I was immediately reminded of President Kennedy’s pledge to Congress on 25 May 1961 where he said:
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth.”
In fact, later on in his speech Gore referred to this saying: “When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.”
Al Gore’s full speech, according to a video recording posted on YouTube, lasted 27 minutes — but the We Campaign has released the highlights of the speech running for 5 minutes:
The We Campaign is a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection — a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. Our ultimate aim is to halt global warming. Specifically we are educating people in the US and around the world that the climate crisis is both urgent and solvable.
With these words, UNEP’s newly appointed Director of Communications and Public Information, Satinder Bindra (photo, above), engaged my attention at a meeting in Paris earlier this week.
I almost jumped up in total agreement — this is just what we’ve been saying for years, especially to those who support information, education and communication activities in UN agencies.
Unlike many career UN officials, Satinder knows what he’s talking about. He comes to UNEP with over two decades of wide and varied experience in journalism and broadcasting – the last 10 years spent as a Senior International Correspondent/South Asia Bureau Chief for CNN based in New Delhi, India.
In the hard headed and hard nosed world of international news and current affairs television, distribution and outreach can make or break any content provider. This is something that the two leading news channels BBC World and CNN International know very well — and the more recent entrant Al Jazeera English is still finding out.
Satinder’s remark, in this instance, was more to do with how to get information and analysis on sustainable development out to as many people as possible in all corners of the planet. This is part of UNEP’s core mission since its founding in 1972 — and as chief of communication and public information, Satinder now takes on this formidable challenge.
Com+ is a “partnership of international organizations and communications professionals from diverse sectors committed to using communications to advance a vision of sustainable development that integrates its three pillars: economic, social and environmental”. TVE Asia Pacific was admitted to the partnership a few months ago.
As I’m sure Satinder realises, at stake in his new assignment is a lot more than audience ratings, market share or revenue stream of a single broadcaster. Those are important too, but not in the same league as ensuring life on Earth – in all its diversity and complexity – continues and thrives.
Satinder struck me as a practical and pragmatic journalist who wants to get the job done efficiently. We can only hope the rest of UNEP will keep up with him — or at least they don’t get too much in his way!
As he finds his way around the globally spread, multidisciplinary and sometimes heavily bureaucratic UN organisation, Satinder will come across some incongruities, cynicism and institutional inertia all of which have held UNEP back from being the dynamic global leader in our pursuit of elusive sustainable development.
At the big picture level, communication at UNEP has often been defined narrowly as institutional promotion – delivering UNEP logo to the news media of the world, or boosting the image of its executive director and other senior officials. We don’t grudge anyone enjoying their 15 minutes of fame, but a technical agency like UNEP has so much more to offer — in terms of rigorous science, multiple perspectives, wide ranging consultation and bringing diverse players to a common platform.
The Nobel Peace Prize winning Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), co-supported by UNEP and World Meteorological Organisation, is a good recent example of how solid science, communicated through the media, can inspire governments, industry and rest of society to find solutions to a major global challenge.
There’s a lot more good science and tons of good stories lurking inside UNEP — if only its experts know how to get these out, and if only its bean-counters won’t stand in the way.
Then there is the whole scandalous situation where UNEP-funded environmental films are released with needlessly excessive copyright restrictions. As I have been saying, this is the big mismatch in environment and development film-making: many films are made using donor (i.e. public or tax payer) funds, but due to the ignorance or indifference of funders, the copyrights are retained by private individuals or companies involved in the production.
In UNEP’s case, for years it has been commissioning (and sometimes funding) a London-based production company, with a charitable arm, to produce environmental films. That’s certainly a choice for UNEP if the agency feels it continues to get value for its money. But tragically, the producers jealously guard all the copyrights, releasing these only under rigid conditions to a select few.
Whatever outreach figures they might claim, these cannot match what the same films would achieve if the copyrights were not so restrictive. Freed from crushing rights, such environmental films – made with UNEP funding or blessings or both – could benefit thousands of groups engaged in awareness, advocacy, activism, education and training.
For sure, we’ve heard the arguments in favour of tight copyright regimes. Film-makers have every right to be acknowledged for their creative efforts, but public funded products must not be locked up by greedy lawyers and accountants — or even by selfish film-making charities. And millions of users around the world should be able to access such products without having to get through the eye of the copyright needle first. July 2007 blog post: Lawyers who locked up the butterfly tree
Can Satinder Bindra overcome these hurdles that have for so long inhibited UNEP from reaching its potential? We just have to wait and see.
When he talks about distribution being God, we have to readily agree. But he will soon find some elements within UNEP – or in crony partnerships with UNEP – that stand between him and this God.
To be fair, there’s only so much that an inter-governmental agency like UNEP – beholden to its member governments – can really accomplish. That’s why it needs partners from corporate, civil society, activist and academic spheres. Some of us can easily say and do things that UNEP would, in all sincerity, like to — but cannot.
Satinder sounds like he can forge broad alliances that go beyond monopolist partnerships. Here’s wishing him every success….for everyone’s sake!
That could well be a message from your local radio this weekend. Radio channels across Asia would be asking their listeners to turn off their lights for an hour or two today, 21 June 2008.
The Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union (Abu), an alliance of (mostly government-owned) radio and television stations across Asia, has urged broadcasters to join a campaign to encourage listeners to “Turn off Your Lights” for one or two hours as a step to raise awareness of global warming.
According to Abu, the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) made the suggestion at a meeting in Tehran in November 2007. The Japanese broadcaster hopes that the event will encourage the public “to not only to save energy but to give consideration to wider global warming issues.”
Global warming and resulting climate change are such major concerns that every action counts. So we hope the Abu-inspired campaign, although hardly original, will be successful.
It might have made more sense for the broadcast alliance to be part of the more widely observed Earth Hour — an annual international event created by The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), held on the last Saturday of March, that asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. It was pioneered by WWF Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald in 2007, and achieved worldwide participation in 2008.
As this composite NASA image of the Earth at night shows, energy use is proportionate to the level of economic activity and social development. Asia accounts for a good deal of the world’s lights at night.
But at the bigger picture level, broadcasters can and must do a great deal more than merely talk about the multi-faceted, rapidly-evolving issue. For a start, they need to take a closer look at their own industry, which is not known to be particularly efficient in its resource and energy use.
I’ve been writing and talking about the need for the TV broadcast and film-making industries to become more climate friendly (even if everybody can’t immediately become carbon-neutral). These industries are not particularly known for their energy or resource use efficiency.
We heard passionate and articulate views from radio and television managers in Asia on how the airwaves can carry various messages that would sensitise governments, industry and individuals on the climate crisis — and how to live with its many impacts. But I was frustrated that the session was entirely on broadcasters carrying climate change related news and content.
All that’s necessary – but not sufficient. Surely, carrying relevant content is only one part of what broadcasters can do. When it was question time, I asked the more than 400 media managers in the audience: how can our own industries reorient core operations to become more climate friendly?
I noted that a good deal of carbon dioxide – the principal gas that warms up the planet – is emitted by the radio and TV production and broadcast processes, through the use of lights, cameras, transportation and transmitters, etc. Broadcast Television, in particular, is on a high energy mode with a fondness for dazzling lights, super-cooled studios and heavy production gear. The digital revolution has helped bring down size and weight, but it’s not yet a particularly light-weight business.
And energy is consumed not just at the production and transmission end, but when signals are received too. News from that front is not very encouraging: new plasma screens for High-definition Television (HDTV), the trendy new wave, gobble up more power at the viewing end too.
Have Asia Pacific companies engaged in the broadcast industry addressed these integral issues? How many of them calculate carbon dioxide emissions from their day-to-day operations and offset it by comparable investments in renewable energy or support for community-operated greening efforts?
I didn’t get clear answers to any of these questions from the dozens of movers and shakers in Asian broadcasting in the audience — which indicated that these concerns have not been given sufficient thought.
This was disappointing, but I can only hope it doesn’t stay that way for too long. Other players in the communication sector, such as telecom companies, have already started addressing industry-wide, smart contributions they can make in the pursuit of a more climate friendly society.
So here’s the challenge to radio and TV broadcasters across Asia: by all means, ask your audiences to turn unnecessary lights off every now and then, or even every day. But like charity, good climate conduct begins at home. It’s just not enough being a diligent distributor of climate messages or a mirror of contemporary society’s attempts to adopt climate-friendly lifestyles.
To confront climate change effectively and sincerely, broadcasters must turn those bright lights on to themselves — and adopt meaningful, lasting ways to contain and then reduce their own industry’s emissions.
That’s when they can switch from being part of the problem to part of the solution.
The theme for this year’s World Environment Day (WED), being marked on 5 June 2008, is Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy.
Responding to worldwide concerns on climate change, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is asking countries, companies and communities to focus on greenhouse gas emissions and how to reduce them. UNEP says it plans to “highlight resources and initiatives that promote low carbon economies and life-styles, such as improved energy efficiency, alternative energy sources, forest conservation and eco-friendly consumption”.
All this is well and good — except that the United Nations does not practise what it preaches. UNEP or any other part of the UN system telling the world to kick the carbon habit is a bit like a heavily drunken person extolling the virtues of staying off liquor. It just doesn’t sound credible.
Let me explain. Having been a UN-watcher and critical cheer-leader of the UN system (though not always of individual agencies), I have personally seen how carbon thrift – or indeed, any kind of thrift – is not a strong point in that system.
Consider these well known facts.
The UN has long been known as a formidable ‘paper factory’ because of the millions of documents it cranks out every year. On an average, it produces over 700 million printed pages every year (2005 figures). The cost of printing documents in its New York and Geneva offices is over 250 million dollars annually. IPS May 2005 story: World’s celebrated paper factory tries to save forests
And despite recent claims of trying to become carbon neutral, the UN system – including specialised agencies – convene thousands of international meetings every year. Only a few of them produce tangible outputs (some merely agree to meet again!) and even fewer are covered in the public media. But beneath media’s radar and public scrutiny, the UN officials and their buddies (mostly) in governments continue to huddle together in key world cities and some exotic locations.
It would be worth investigating if the number and magnitude of numerous meetings convened by the UN system have shown any marked decrease since climate concerns rose to the top of the public agenda during the past couple of years.
Similarly, with the rise of electronic means of information storage and distribution, it would be interesting to find out if the UN’s endless churning out of paper-based documents has been reduced.
I doubt if either has happened, but we can keep looking for some evidence.
What I have noticed in recent months is the proliferation of meetings – convened or endorsed by the UN system – that address different aspects of climate change. That has become the latest excuse for the development set and its academic friends to have endless physical meetings.
The contradictions and incongruities reach dizzy heights when agencies like the International Telecommunications Union – keeping track of the world’s telecom and ICT developments – convene meeting after meeting to discuss how ICTs can help mitigate climate change.
On this World Environment Day, let’s turn things around — and ask the United Nations secretariat and its specialised agencies (especially UNEP) to heed their own clarion call. Let change begin with them, and let’s see how (and if) the UN sets an example for the rest of the world.
So here’s a modest proposal that can have far-reaching benefits for the planet. Adopt and strictly observe for a year or two a moratorium on all large UN gatherings (no matter what they are called – Summits, conferences, symposia, meetings, etc.) that involve more than 500 persons. In this day and age of advanced telecommunications, it is possible to consult widely without always bringing people physically together.
It’s not just the carbon emissions of air travel that I’m talking about (aviation accounts for less than 5% of worldwide carbon emissions). Much more important is the message such UN austerity would send out to the world. Practising what you preach has a strong moral persuasive power — even if it goes against addictive habits formed for over 60 years of the UN’s history.
After all, the UN wants everyone on the planet to ‘kick the habit’. So let the ladies and gentlemen of the UN Secretariat and agencies lead by personal and institutional example — kicking their own addiction for meetings, more meetings and more paper.
PS: Don’t be too shy to turn up at Hydrocarbons Anonymous.
Declaration of interest: I have attended my share of UN meetings in the past 20 years, but the last mega event I joined was WSSD in Johannesburg in mid 2002. In 2007, I declined three sponsored invitations to go to Bali, and now selectively attend very few small meetings that promise clear focus and output.
The leading Indian newspaper The Hindu has just published (on 4 May 2008) my article on the future of food, based on the views of Sir Arthur C Clarke. It can be found here.
I originally wrote this article in mid 2000, based on an interview with the late Sir Arthur Clarke. It was produced at the request of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which included it in an information pack to mark World Food Day in October that year. No doubt they circulated it among the charmed development circle, but as far as I know (or Google can find), it never appeared in a public media outlet – until now.
I came across this in the weeks following Sir Arthur’s death on March 19, when I was going through manuscripts of our collaborative essays and my interviews with him over the years. The Hindu‘s Sunday Magazine, which earlier printed my essay on Sir Arthur’s views on nuclear weapons in South Asia, agreed to publish it, which they did on 4 May 2008.
The essay, written in Sir Arthur’s first person narrative, makes a number of points that are very relevant to discussions on today’s global food crisis. In fact, these points are more valid today than when they were first made eight years ago.
An extract:
“Meeting everybody’s basic nutritional needs requires a combined approach of the mind and heart – of intellect and compassion. How can we explain the fact that one sixth of humanity goes to bed hungry every night, when the world already produces enough food for all?
“The short answer is that there are serious anomalies in the distribution of food. Capricious and uncaring market forces prevent millions of people from having at least one decent meal a day, while others have an abundance. For the first time in history, the number of severely malnourished persons now equals the number suffering from over-consumption: about a billion each!
“To adapt a remark that my late friend Buckminster Fuller once made about energy: there is no shortage of food on this planet; there is, however, a serious shortage of intelligence. And, I might add, compassion.
Sir Arthur then runs up his famous ‘crystal ball’ to gaze at the near and far future on how humanity can feed itself without damaging the planet. He offers some useful lateral thinking and suggests some unlikely new sources of food.
But all these are short term solutions, he says, because “eventually, the matter will be resolved when we are able to synthesise all the food we ever need, thus no longer depending on other animals to satisfy our hunger.”
Towards the end of the essay, he takes the big picture view:
“Improved communications and the free flow of information will not, by themselves, eradicate either hunger or poverty — but they can be instrumental in the struggle to create a world without these. And when the world’s collective conscience finally succeeds in mobilising sufficient political will and resources to banish those twin scourges, we will be left with another, far more insatiable but far less destructive substitute — the hunger for knowledge and wisdom.”
Today is Earth Day. It’s especially observed in the United States, where it originated in 1970 as an apolitical event to rally everyone around to the call for a cleaner, safer environment.
Rather than talk anything environmental, I just want to share a brilliant animation produced by the famous Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto.
It’s called Grasshoppers. It takes a satirical look at the rise of our species in a historical context – and reminds us of our place.
Synopsis: In the natural course of earth’s evolution, five or a thousand years represent just a handful of seconds. What is mankind’s role in this infinite stage?
Grasshoppers received an Oscar nomination in 1991 in the animation shorts section.
Open Minds! 