Join the green industrial revolution

Our society is in the midst of an unprecedented transformation through the development of clean technologies (sometimes refers to green technologies or environmental technologies) that are more energy efficient and environmentally clean. Scholars such as Jeremy Rifkin and Nicholas Stern have predicted a new industrial revolution with a strong environmental connection based on green technologies and which I refer to in this as the ‘green industrial revolution’. Since green issues underpin almost every aspect of our lives, we hardly think or even notice that we are actually walking into the new era of green industrial revolution.

To understand the narratives of green industrial revolution, we should briefly touch upon the first and second industrial revolution. The first industrial revolution in 18^th & 19^th century brought profound changes to human civilisation. It concentrated primarily on producing goods and services, which we never experienced previously in human history. It was a transition from the rural economy (e.g. working on the land) to urban economy (e.g. manufacturing and commerce). Consequently, it had effects on socio-economic & environmental conditions not only in Britain but also in other countries around the world. Rapid industrialisation, urbanisation and increased fossil fuel consumption - particularly coal, had put huge damaging effects on the quality of the environment. This trend is still going on even in the present days.

The second industrial revolution, also known as the technological revolution merged with the first industrial revolution around 1850. According to the scholars, the second industrial revolution was usually dated between 1870 and 1914, where many of the important technological advances that took place for example, the growth of steel & chemical industry, expansion of the usage of electricity, replacing the steam powered engine by the internal combustion engine, increase agriculture productivity and food processing to mass production in the other sectors etc. However, environmental and ecosystem impact in the midst of such technological development were the least of people's concerns.

Today we are living in a world where environmental drive is not a romantic environmentalism anymore; rather it is a hard choice between collaboration versus confrontation with the earth's carrying capacity. While our world is facing growing environmental challenges, the green industrial revolution seems to be the driver for the green economic growth - where the economic growth and development have shared goals and effectively show a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.

The journey towards building a sustainable future have already started and we don't need to go too far to see it. Let’s take the example of using mobile phones which we all desperately try to get hold of. It is remarkable to see how the usages of mobile phones have grown so fast in the last decade and it shows no slowing down. Just imagine the environmental impacts of these (millions and billions) of mobile phones going to the landfills for waste disposal at their end of life. It would be a tremendous waste of resources; in addition it would certainly increase negative impacts on the local environment. Producers of these mobile phones face continual pressure to increase productivity while lowering costs and having negative environmental impacts (in this case, particularly from their products). Under these circumstances, producers ought to look for more sustainable design innovation e.g. recycling product designs, reducing component size and weight and utilisation of biomass resources (e.g. plastics made from corn, sugar cane and wheat starch etc.) as raw materials.

It says when sustainability drives innovation, everybody wins. Pursuing a sustainable society would not be fulfilled without the development of innovative environmental technologies. Motorola, Nokia and Samsung all have handsets made from recycled plastic materials and it is compatible with their business growth, technological innovation and standing up for their commitments to sustainability. Mobile phone is just one example out of many. However, examples of clean technology are all around us. This includes green manufacturing (e.g. environmentally friendly products and processes), green chemistry (e.g. molecular level pollution prevention), renewable technologies (e.g. wind power, solar power, biomass, tidal energy, hydro-power etc.), energy efficiency appliances, lighting, recycling, green transportation, information technology and many more. All these clean technologies have made its presence visible in all aspects of our lives in both developed and developing countries.

Finally, the key factor for green industrial transformations is the advanced energy innovation, which would ultimately help create a green market economy and consequently create more jobs in the new green industries. Successful countries will be those who will embrace this transformation. It is claimed that the countries that will lead this green industrial revolution will be the leaders of 21st century. However, the concern is if this new technology remains in the hand of big corporations or countries then it will not benefit all the developing countries unless there is a level playing field. Also, introducing any new green technology into a social system without addressing the social questions of access to and who gets the benefits from it will raise some fundamental social inequality questions. We need to address the issues of inabilities of poor to afford these technologies otherwise the dream of a sustainable future will still remain a distant future.

World aims for a global climate change deal in 2015

On 11-22 November 2013, Warsaw hosted the United Nations Climate Change Conference. After days of intense negotiations, a long-sought global climate change deal seemed to be on the horizon. It has been a long and bumpy road for many years in the international negotiations of climate change. Finally the international community (almost 200 countries) managed to reach a consensus, which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Perhaps, it is an optimistic view on the outcomes from the Warsaw negotiations compared to all other preceded climate change negotiations since its journey began in early 90s. But with a hopeless sigh, pessimists would more likely to argue that it’s 'too little too late' to stop global warming – ‘the chances of even slowing down got slipped out of our hands’. Whichever way we look at it, the reality is, whether we will have a deal in 2015 or not, we as a society need to prepare ourselves to face climate adversity and adapt to the inevitable consequences of the impacts of climate change.

Warsaw climate change conference ended with an appeal to all the countries working together towards a common goal to keep the world on the right track. All the governments are expected to work on a draft text for a new global climate change agreement. They will then be presented in the next ministerial-level climate conference in Peru and subsequently will formally be filled to reach a final agreement in Paris in 2015. All the countries decided to initiate their domestic preparations towards an agreement, which will come into force in 2020. In fact, countries will have some time to prepare themselves before they commit to a legally binding treaty. Technical support, advice and more frequent engagement with the ministers will be provided to those countries that would lag behind those in other countries in minimising CO2 emissions.

The general feeling that the Warsaw climate change conference was a successful one where all the countries agreed to carry forward the decisions, which were taken in 2011 in Durban Climate Change Conference (known as Durban Platform for Enhanced Action). The Durban Platform included an important message - all countries are to adopt a universal legal agreement on climate change as soon as possible, and no later than 2015. In Warsaw however, for the first time all the countries have agreed to a timeline to achieve a universal legal agreement. It is undoubtedly a big step forward in securing the consequences of breaching carbon emissions thresholds.

Other main decisions adopted in Warsaw include for example, the Warsaw International Mechanism for ‘Loss and Damage’ against the extreme weather events in order to protect vulnerable population. The Green Climate Fund and Long-Term Finance, the Warsaw Framework for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD Plus) - under the REDD Plus initiative, the latter has been backed by pledges of 280 million dollars in financing from the US, Norway and the UK.

Although some progress has been made, however a sense of failure and disappointment that drifted from it, is still hanging in the air. The outcomes on highly contentious issue ‘Loss and Damage’ were seen as avoiding the responsibilities of creating largest share of historical emissions by the industrial countries. It was proposed under the ‘Loss and Damage’ mechanism that the financial assistance would be provided to those countries that suffer from the severe weather. However all things considered, it was a very different stance what many of the developing countries had been asking for – to receive climate change compensation for the damage caused by global warming. I reckon the 'Loss and Damage' will remain to be a contentious issue in the upcoming negotiations.

I think climate change compensation is right on moral grounds but in reality it is very difficult to persuade some big countries when the total carbon emission of some emerging economies, including China, is overtaking the industrialised countries as the largest producer of greenhouse gases. Most of the industrialised countries are still trying to pull themselves out of 2008-09 global financial crisis. It is particularly unfortunate that the timing has been wrong to ask for any financial compensation. However, thankfully it was decided that the UN would set up a mechanism to deal with the 'loss and damage' caused by the climate impacts. Many critics would argue that the loss and damage mechanism was created without any real substance. Despite its ambiguous and rather shaky promises, I still think that it is small steps forward towards a new seed for future financial settlement.

However, we shouldn't claim the victory too early. In this kind of hard-bargaining negotiations where cracks between developing and developed countries could be widen any time in the coming months, particularly on the issues of ‘Loss and Damage’ and the ‘allocation of national greenhouse gas reduction responsibilities’.

In conclusion, the world aims for a global climate change deal but nothing will immediately get better for the poor and vulnerable families, communities or the countries. Maybe putting a cap on carbon emissions won’t stop global warming but having a global agreement is better than no agreement at all. Big polluters can individually declare war (like China did recently) on pollution but it will never work unless we have legally binding agreements, which eventually can lead to legal repercussions.