Rio+20: ‘We Cannot Conflate The Negotiations With What Is Actually Happening On The Ground’

[kristopher]

Perspectives From Rio+20: ‘We Cannot Conflate The Negotiations With What Is Actually Happening On The Ground’
By Stephen Lacey on Jun 25, 2012 at 10:33 am

As the crowds at the Rio+20 Earth Summit dwindled and attendees left the conference hall late in the day Friday, a small group of people sat around a lunch table in the cafeteria engaged in spirited conversation.

They weren’t talking about the failed negotiations. They weren’t complaining about diplomats, the UN process, or the lack of a strong agreement at the summit. Rather, they were debating the barriers faced by entrepreneurs delivering solar to under-served populations in India.

The group consisted of Carl Pope, former executive director of the Sierra Club; Jigar Shah, former CEO of the Carbon War Room; Simon Bransfield-Garth, CEO of Eight19, a company developing an off-grid solar lighting and battery system; and Mayank Sekhsaria, co-founder of Greenlight Planet, a firm helping entrepreneurs deploy off-grid solar technologies in India.

“What people don’t understand is that this isn’t about demand for solar, it’s about supply. If you could theoretically service these markets all at once, you’d solve the problem immediately,” said Sekhsaria, describing the different deployment bottlenecks within the off-grid Indian market.

Over the next hour... these experts debated the real, on-the-ground problems ...

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/25/504984/perspectives-from-rio20-we-cannot-conflate-the-negotiations-with-what-is-actually-happening-on-the-ground/

[XemaSab]

1. Can you edit this down?

Thanks.

[kristopher]

2. Why?

There is no hard and fast 4 paragraph rule any longer; and this is a very small snip from a long article at a blog that is intended for wide dissemination of climate related information, not profit. If you think it violates copyright rules, send it to a jury.

[Spazito]

6. Yes, there is a definitive copyright rule on DU...

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[joshcryer]

3. The article at least admits Rio+20 was an abject failure. Too bad it puts on rose colored glasses...

...and pretends that outside of diplomatic treaties we are going to get shit done.

After watching the talks fall to the lowest common denominator, Scherr now believes that the Rio+20 summit marked an end to the central role of multilateral negotiations on sustainability.

I mean, fucking Venezuela of all countries sided with the US at Rio+20. If nothing makes one more cynical than that I don't know what to tell you. You'd think Venezuela would jump off in spite of the US.

Guess what? All this fucking means is that the environmental movement has gone from having a chance at effecting policy to being nothing of portent.

[kristopher]

4. The difference between top-down "command and control" methods and grass roots economic change...

...obviously isn't something you are willing to acknowledge.

That doesn't make it less real or less effective.

[joshcryer]

5. It's not worth acknowldeging.

For every win at the grassroots level there are dozens of wins for the multinationals and the governments.

[kristopher]

7. Sure it is, unless you are a proponent of centralized thermal.

The infusion of renewable energy into power systems is forcing the demise of the market structure that supports them. Whether that infusion is a result of lowering the cost of renewables (the present course) or raising the price of central thermal by taxing carbon really doesn't impact achieving the end result of delivering sustainable, clean energy.

[joshcryer]

8. No, I support decentralization, I simply recognize the system doesn't...

...support it to any significant extent.

As we can see even with the much lowered cost of renewables, they still aren't making a dent in coal and other fossil sources. A carbon tax is really the only way to effectively and quickly do that.

But hell, we're not even getting cap and trade, so a carbon tax is far beyond realistic.

[kristopher]

9. Perhaps if you had some inkling of economics you'd make more sense.

As it is, your posts on the topic are one step removed from gibberish.

[joshcryer]

10. I've been predicting no abatment for 5 years or more now.

I think I'm more credible on the subject than our local "the free market will save us" poster.

[kristopher]

11. You haven't predicted anything.

You engage in bar-room level opinion-slinging and throw around a bunch of words you really don't grasp the meaning of. Case in point is "free market" as you just used it in "free market with save us".

Understanding that there are such things as "markets" and understanding how they work is entirely different than embracing the philosophy that the norms of society should be decided by the decisions reflected in financial transactions under a mythical state of non-regulation.

There is no poster on DUEE that has expressed the latter belief and the fact that you think there is simply reinforces my point about gibberish.

[joshcryer]

12. But you regularly post how "the norms of society" will "be decided by" such things.

Of course, rather than admit that you put emphasis on the market you'd rather take aim at my more casual use of "free market" since, as far as I'm concerned, no market is controlled.

You still think that "the norms of society" will "be decided" by the market, as you continually post misleading reports about how magically renewables are going to overcome fossil fuels.

On a global scale they simply will not until much of those fuels are used up.