Article
Climate
Comment
Politics
5 min read

Climate meets politics at UN summits, so who will save us?

It's that time of year when commitments to change are sought. Is there a different way to power the energy transition?

Juila is a writer and social justice advocate. 

A fallen statute with tyre tracks over it lies on the steps to a government building, in a form of protest.
Climate protest, Berlin.
Nico Roicke on Unsplash.

We’re coming up to a tipping point: the autumn equinox, when the balance of light and dark shifts. For some, this season change still carries the possibility of September – new term, fresh notebook; for others, myself included, there’s more a feeling of ‘here we go again’ with the nights closing in and the hurtle to the end of another year. 

On the global scale, it also kicks off the pattern of international summits and negotiations to drive progress on making this world, our world, a bit fairer, safer, and more hopeful. World leaders gather in New York for the United Nations (UN) General Assembly; then it won’t be long until the next UN Climate Summit (COP29) in Baku, swiftly followed by discussions in Busan to create a new UN Treaty to end plastic pollution. Perhaps that draws another sigh; here we go again.  

But there’s something new this time on the agenda in New York: the UN’s Summit of the Future on 22-23 September. It is being touted as a ‘once-in-a-generation’ opportunity to forge a better way forward. Will this be the moment that saves not just us, but future generations and the natural world too?  

A few years ago, I was involved in organising an event that brought together experts in sustainable development from science, government and civil society. To get the conversation going, we wrote this question on a flipchart: What will save us over the next decade? We asked people to cast their vote with a sticker, giving them just three options: government; society; technology.  

As people gathered around, we noticed a general pattern emerging: 

  • the scientists voted for government  

  • the civil servants voted for society  

  • people from civil society voted for technology 

There seemed to be subtext to all this: 
 
‘Who will save us?  

Not me.’ 

I wonder if in that moment, the people voting – knowledgeable and connected, experts in their industries – were feeling the limits of their power.

When we brush up against our own limitations, it can be tempting to look elsewhere for reassurance. I find hope in a too-little-known story of change, a kind of David and Goliath story  , that cuts across government, society and technology. A story that has seen leaders held to account, voices heard and literally billions of dollars shifted out of fossil fuels and into clean energy. 
 

It might seem distant from our day to day lives, such wrangling over exact punctuation at global summits. But these commitments can have long-lasting influence.

People said it was impossible, because no one had ever done it before. For decades, the UK and other wealthy nations provided billions in taxpayers’ money for fossil fuel projects in other countries around the world. People’s taxes were spent on a gas plant in Mozambique, oil fields in Brazil, thereby fuelling the climate crisis and risking locking low-income countries into using fossil fuels for decades to come instead of investing in the clean energy transition. 
 
This is a transition that has begun. In most places around the world, solar and wind are cheaper and more easily accessible than oil, gas or coal. Power is transformational; it fuels homes, schools and hospitals, it unlocks jobs, education and healthcare. And it’s getting to the point where there’s little reason it can’t be renewable.  
 
With the technology getting there, it became time for the political will to shift too. So, a few years ago, a small group of campaigners came together to push for an end to this funding in the UK. They built relationships with MPs and civil servants, they got the media interested in this fairly niche issue, and they worked with the communities affected by UK-funded projects, coming with a straight-forward message that got to the heart of the injustice: stop funding fossil fuels overseas.  
 
And it worked. In December 2020, the UK announced an end to all taxpayer support for overseas fossil fuel projects, the first high-income country to do this. But not the last. In the run up to the 2021 UN Climate Summit, campaigners and civil servants worked to get 38 more countries and large banks to make the same commitment to end funding for fossil fuels and shift it into renewable energy projects. With Norway and Australia joining at COP28 last year, that group now numbers 41, and represents over $28 billion a year that could be shifted from fossil fuels and into clean energy.  
 
It’s not been plain sailing, and it’s not fully in the bag. For a few years, I got work alongside the incredible advocates at the frontline of this work. A few weeks ago, some of them published a new report which found good progress on the fossil fuels part of the pledge but much more work needed from governments on getting that money into the renewable energy projects that could be transformative for the 685 million people who currently don’t have access to electricity.

This story reminds me that ‘saving us’ isn’t a once and done thing. It’s bigger than that; something to be lived out, imperfectly, with others, over the years.

One of the hot topics at the Summit for the Future, is whether the leaders can agree to transition away from fossil fuels in a new ‘Pact for the Future’, echoing language that was fought for, weakened, then mostly put back into the final commitment made at COP28 last year. (This counts as a high stakes drama in the climate policy world). It might seem distant from our day to day lives, such wrangling over exact punctuation at global summits. But these commitments can have long-lasting influence. For nearly 80 years, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been protecting people – or showing the gap when their rights are being violated.

And really, this isn’t just about words, it’s about power.

Part of the problem with our question on that flipchart was that it divorced people and opportunities, rather than bringing them together. The best way of driving change is to build collective power, holding each other and our decision-makers to account.

Perhaps thinking of the future brings more fear than hope. But this story reminds me that ‘saving us’ isn’t a once and done thing. It’s bigger than that; something to be lived out, imperfectly, with others, over the years. And lived out with God. This is a partnership that he invites us into: to join in his work of seeing a world full of potential being nurtured and restored. We might not see the whole change we hope for, but sometimes we’ll get to see the scales tip.

The energy transition has begun – but it’ll take the collective influence of a movement of people to ensure that it’s fast, fair and serves those who need it most. With a big gap remaining between the finance needed and the finance pledged, all eyes are on this year's COP29 in Baku to see tangible progress.

Here we go again.

Article
Comment
Economics
Politics
Trust
5 min read

Tariffs destroy trust so where do we go next?

Blunt weapons cause a mess in markets and lives.

Paul Valler is an executive coach and mentor. He is a former chair of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

A gold coin with the DOGE dog on it, lies over the face on a $50 bill.
So doge-y.
Kanchanara on Unsplash

‘When America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold’ quipped economists almost a century ago after the Wall Street crash.  A comment that might equally apply to the more than 10 per cent drop in stock markets caused by President Trump’s sudden raised tariffs on imports to the USA.  The impact of the American economy on the world is inescapable.  It represents almost a quarter of global GDP and the dollar is the leading reserve currency, accounting for around 60 per cent of international foreign exchange reserves.  Size is what enables America to bully the rest of the world. 

For decades the American trade deficit has been an elephant in the room and Trump is to be applauded for recognising it and addressing the problem. Unfortunately, the way he has gone about it has caused another, bigger problem. Changing the direction of the global economy is like turning a tanker, it cannot be done easily or quickly, but Trump’s style is to attack, like hammering at a nail.  Every issue in geopolitics looks like another nail, waiting for him to hammer out a negotiated deal.  Full marks for courage, but not for wisdom. The blunt weapon of trade tariffs is designed to bring wealth and power back towards the USA, but blunt weapons often cause a mess, and sure enough a global mess is what we now have.  A US/China trade war with higher prices that could end up stoking inflation and a government own goal.   

Panic selling of government bonds signalling a loss of confidence following Trump’s dramatic tariff boost is reminiscent of the impact of Liz Truss’ sudden and radical UK tax cuts, which were also driven by an ideology, but ended up as a wrecking ball.  Even some of Trump’s backers have warned of an economic nuclear winter.  In the long run, Trump has done the world a favour by highlighting a structural issue that needed correction, but his economically violent methods of addressing it look increasingly unwise.  If a global depression does happen on the back of all this, then coupled with the rise of autocratic and belligerent leadership, we would face a worrying parallel to what happened in the 1930s when the world eventually slid into war.   

Tariffs are like walls, barriers to cooperation and the epitome of economic selfishness.  Make America Great Again is selfishness writ large - a society pursuing wealth and power without the cohesive framework of values that are so essential to cooperation and community wellbeing.  A psychology of self-centredness that damages relationships at the national level.  This is what I find most concerning about Trump’s approach; not just the economics but the long-term legacy of relational damage that could last well beyond his Presidential term. 

Our fears reveal just how much we trust in wealth above everything else, and how much the fear of scarcity affects our mental health.

Michael Schluter in his book The Relational Lens defines five principles, or measures, of relational health.  They are directness, parity, common purpose, continuity and breadth.  Applying those five measures helps us see why Trump’s tariffs are the polar opposite of relational.  He introduced these escalating penalties remotely and not in face-to-face negotiations.  Exploiting the power of America instead of showing respect for the status and needs of other nations.  Tariffs have no common purpose with other countries, only a selfish agenda.  There is no continuity with previous trading protocols.  And it is all purely financial, with no reference to the broader holistic impact.  All in all, a relational disaster.   

Despite living in the ‘first world’ we remain gripped with fear of loss.  Our fears reveal just how much we trust in wealth above everything else, and how much the fear of scarcity affects our mental health. Markets are not entirely rational; they are driven by algorithms that stem from this psychology of greed and fear.  Emotions and trading swing wildly with a herd instinct that often drives behaviour.  As Rabbi Jonathan Sachs said:  

‘Markets have no moral compass; we have outsourced morality to legislation by the State.’   

But the worry now is that the current US administration shows signs of ignoring morality and even riding roughshod over the courts.  No wonder people feel afraid. 

Where can we find hope in all this turmoil?  Is there a better response than gritted teeth and the mantra: ‘this too shall pass’?  I think so.  There is life beyond the market.  Jesus said: ‘life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’  We can choose to step back and look at all this with the true perspective that money isn’t everything.  We can cultivate gratitude for what we do have.  We can learn contentment.  Yet I feel for those who have experienced financial loss, and don’t want to minimise the reality of hardship.  In fact, something important and practical all of us who are privileged can and should do is to be vigilant in watching out for those who are poor and disadvantaged.  To look after those with a real need for the basics of life and help them through this tough time when economic disruption could make life even harder.  For those with a faith this is part of working out how our faith makes a positive difference where we are. 

Perhaps the supreme irony of this crisis is President Trump’s insistence that Americans must trust him.  Ironic, because the one thing that his tariff actions seem to have undermined more than anything else is trust.  The trust that is essential to the functioning of both markets and civilisation as a whole.  Face to face discussions must be the way forward now, to rebuild trust and find more nuanced, mutual approaches to solving America’s trade deficit.   

There is one person we can always trust though, and his name is written clearly on the American One Dollar bill. In God we trust. Let’s pray that Trump and his America returns to that imperative and turns back to a more Christ centred philosophy of loving our neighbour as ourselves, reflected in a more bilateral approach to diplomacy and agreement.

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