Walking the climate talk

The greatest virtue of the 10:10 campaign is that it shows we can take action on CO2 here and now

Anthony Giddens
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 September 2009 18.00 BST
Climate change is a problem that transcends political differences: it is not a left/right issue. Support from all sides of the political spectrum will be needed if we are successfully to minimise the threats posed to our collective future. Hence it is encouraging that an unprecedented coalition of groups and individuals has got together to initiate the 10:10 campaign, announced in the Guardian on Tuesday and also trailed prominently in the Sun.
Currently, as the organisers emphasise, there is a massive gap between the looming catastrophe that climate change represents and the action needed to limit its advance. One cannot stress too strongly that climate change is a here-and-now issue. If I have a pile of dust in the corner of my room, I can leave it for a while and clear it up when I get round to it. Climate change is not like that. The level of greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere is steadily rising. Once there, they are likely to remain for centuries, since, at the moment at least, we know of no way of getting them out again. The importance of 10:10 is that it is a concrete and immediate project.
10:10 is bound to have its detractors. Maybe those who sign up won't take their commitment seriously, since there is no real means of enforcing it. Certainly, in the beginning, it will cover only a limited range of groups and individuals; there is a risk that everyone else will carry on as before. Moreover, only a segment of the carbon footprint of those who participate will be covered. For instance, the obligation for members of the public is mainly to reduce domestic energy bills by 10%. In addition, 10:10 won't work if the 10% reduction isn't built upon in future years – how is such an outcome to be achieved? Finally, a critic might ask, what difference can a campaign limited to the UK make, given that Britain only contributes only 2% of total world greenhouse gas emissions?
The success or otherwise of 10:10 will depend almost wholly upon momentum. Those who sign up will be in the vanguard of change and could help create a genuine mass movement. So the launch and fanfare can't be today's headline, forgotten tomorrow. Efforts will have to be made to translate the initial impetus into a continuing, and rapidly expanding, enterprise. It is important to stress the positives. Sacrifices will be needed, but reducing emissions is not the same as donning a hair-shirt. Companies as well as individual citizens can make sweeping savings through greater energy efficiency and the more they do so, the more others might be persuaded to come on board.
Much the same point applies to the fact that not all emissions are covered. From what they have committed themselves to achieving, organisations and individuals should learn the habit of energy conservation, and experience the benefits it can bring. The Guardian will monitor a sample of organisations and individuals over the course of 2010, to check progress and see what obstacles are encountered. This feedback can be passed on to the majority.
10:10 stands a good chance of initial success because it isn't too difficult, in the short term, to make sweeping reductions in carbon emissions. But what happens when the low-lying fruit has been plucked? Is a concerted 20:11 campaign conceivable? Plainly, it is a question that should be thought about right at the beginning, not just left to good fortune. Reports of householders in Oxford who managed to reduce their emissions by 25%-30% in a single year should be drawn upon in looking for ways of further radicalising good habits.
In any case, the 10:10 campaign will not stand alone. It is one initiative alongside a host of others – such as innovation in low-carbon technologies – needed to stand some chance of containing the dangers we face. We are living in an unsustainable society, whose core rationale – the maximising of economic growth – is incompatible with its long-term survival. A great deal of new thinking, and practical action, is needed to break away from our current trajectory.
A campaign limited initially to the UK can make a difference to what is by any reckoning a global problem. If effective here, it could readily be extended elsewhere: that very success will lead others to take notice. A key country will be the US, which generates such a high percentage of world emissions. President Obama's climate change bill, now going through Congress, has been watered down in the face of opposition, and may not even pass through the Senate. A 10:10 movement there could be of great importance, as it could be in the EU countries that have dragged their feet.
I don't think it likely that 10:10 will gather sufficient impetus in time to have any impact on the Copenhagen negotiations. More important, to my mind, is the fact that it will demonstrate the possibility of making changes in short order. It is taking action, not simply talking about doing so.