From climate crisis to cultural revolution

Top adviser, top scientist, climate activistHans Joachim – John for his friends – Schellnhuber (1950) is a key figure in the European climate policy. He is the climate adviser of the German chancellor Angela Merkel and attended in that function the climate summit in Copenhagen. He advised the climate agenda for the British government during the G8 summit of Gleneagles (2005) and for the German government during the G8 summit of Marienburg (2007).Schellnhuber is a physicist and mathematician. In 1991 he founded the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, of which he is the Director. He is also Research Director at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the university of East Anglia in the UK.In 2004 Schellnhuber drew attention to 12 “tipping points” on the planet. These are threshold values for certain natural phenomena that regulate the climate on the planet, like the Gulf Stream, the Greenland ice cap, the Amazon Rainforest and other special physical systems. Once a tipping point is reached, global warming accelerates. The concept is transferred from the physical world to the socio-cultural environment, with the intention to create a mental tipping point, a changing point in human consciousness and behavior to get climate protection going.Not long ago John Schellnhuber was a guest of the Tipping Point conference for scientists and artists in Brussels, an initiative of the British Council in cooperation with the Kaaitheater and the Flemish-Dutch house deBuren. (adw)



The bad results in Copenhagen did not surprise Schellnhuber, even though he considered what happened “a disaster”. Schellnhuber believes that in the build-up to the next climate conference in Mexico, Europe has to work toward a “coalition of the willing” with India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and Mexico. There is no time to lose: we have but ten years to carry through the big transformation.
According to you China and the USA are responsible for the failure of the climate summit.
John Schellnhuber: Other countries could have done more as well, and Europe could have opted for a different strategy. But it was clear that China and the US didn’t want a binding agreement. I am convinced that they had a clandestine deal. Precisely these two superpowers cast off their responsibility, which is absurd because they are accountable for the largest emissions. The US will say: ‘No one can pressure us into changing our lifestyle.’ And the Chinese say: ‘No one will stop us from getting where the Americans are today.’
They are allies in a shared attachment to a devastating lifestyle of high consumption and high emission. I’m sorry I’m so crude, but it’s the US that should be the radical activist for climate protection. The US and Europe are rich – we have innovation, industry, scientific knowledge, engineers, money … If we don’t take up the role of the most aggressive pioneer in climate protection, then I don’t see why the rest of the world would be motivated to follow.
Copenhagen recognized the two degrees Celsius limit -after twenty years of scientific argumentation-,  but didn’t manage to develop a step-by-step plan securing that limit. The proposals that are now upheld, will take us to a global warming of 3,5°C, even 4°C. An increase that sounds innocent but has unimaginable consequences.
Why didn’t the EU transfer to a CO2 reduction of 30 percent?
John Schellnhuber: After the speech of Hillary Clinton, my advice was to take that step. I believed it was time to move on and create a momentum. But in the end it didn’t happen. And I think it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. The African countries would have appreciated the gesture, but it wouldn’t have changed the position of China and the US. They were happy to marginalize Europe, precisely because Europe had such an ambitious plan.
What is Europe’s objective now, in light of the coming conference in Mexico in 2010?
John Schellnhuber: Europe barked up the wrong tree in Copenhagen. It was a big mistake to bet everything on China and the US. The Russians should’ve been more involved.
I see a big potential “coalition of the willing” that can be formed by the time of the conference in Mexico. Japan’s new government is really motivated to participate in climate protection. Mexico, Brazil, some African countries and India are possible partners. India neglected its own concerns to defend the interests of China. We should have supported India far more aggressively. Without China and the US it’s hard to achieve anything, but at least we would be doing something useful and preserve our dignity. In life you have to make  choices without loss of dignity, even if you end up with meager results.
Why the gap between the seriousness of the climate crisis and the incapability to act?
John Schellnhuber: Groucho Marx once quipped: ‘Why should I worry about future generations? What have they ever done for me?’ This is the heart of the matter. To protect the climate, you have to do things that could be of vital importance for a child on the other side of the world in fifty years. The reward is very abstract. This is a problem that can’t be approached by rational thinking and scientists alone. It’s an emotional message. Why should we look after people who aren’t even born and to whom we will probably never speak? And still it is a very real problem, a dimension we don’t talk about enough.
But the gap between discourse and action definitely exists. I was part of the official German delegation. I was in the eye of the storm and saw from up close what happened. It was extremely bewildering. It was a clash of ideals about global governance interspersed with national interests, a huge clash. While 140 state and government leaders staged a climate kitsch play, the true ambitions for climate protection reached an all-time low. And this at the time the final accord should have been signed.
And now you are looking in Brussels for the cooperation of artists to save the planet?
John Schellnhuber: Maybe Copenhagen hast taught us that civil society has to take climate protection in its own hands. In the end it’s not about scientific proof. We are more than 95 percent sure of the findings. Which company keeps doing the wrong thing with that kind of numbers?
The UN Climate Panel can look for more proof, but to change human behavior, further proof is unnecessary. It has something to do with empathy and motivation. If you are open to the problem, more than enough proof is available. It’s important to create the right images to move the people.
I saw a picture of Kiribati, an island in the Pacific that slowly sinks into the sea. The water had already flooded over the cemetery, only the crosses were visible. Like hands begging for help. A very strong image. If you see a picture like that, you can’t deny that something very serious is going on. It touches the heart, and not so much the mind.
What has to be done?
John Schellnhuber: If we want to have a two in three chance of a global warming below 2°C, we have a cumulative budget left of 750 gigatons CO2. Which means two tons per person per year. Which is equal to a Mercedes doing 20.000 kilometers in one year, and then you can kiss your budget goodbye, you can’t warm yourself or produce any other kind of CO2 emission.
Two out of three possibilities, that’s a very precarious situation to protect the climate. If you are at the airport and they say there’s a one in three chance that you’re going to crash, I don’t know who would get on the plane. Or if you live next to a nuclear plant and they say there’s a 33 percent chance of a meltdown… 
This also means that emissions have to peek in 2015, in 5 years. In Copenhagen I sat next to two Chinese ministers who proudly presented a project that made the Chinese emissions peek in 2050.
They called it the most ambitious plan of the world. And it might have been, but I still asked: ‘Couldn’t you make it a bit sooner?’ They answered: ‘Yes, maybe by 2040, but then you have to pay for it.’ It’s a terrible dilemma. If we don’t succeed to reach the peek by 2010, or by 2020 at the latest, there is no hope for the 2°C limit. We will not be able to avoid a dangerous global warming.
So what perspective have we left?
John Schellnhuber: According to me, the emission reduction we need can only be realized through a third industrial revolution that is based on energy-efficiency, renewable energy and projects to clean the air of CO2, like reforestation. The first industrial revolution took a hundred years to get through, we are going to have to do it in ten.
This industrial revolution is only possible if accompanied by a cultural revolution. It’s very important that civil society takes responsibility here. Creativity becomes increasingly important. If we fail to create awareness, the case is lost. What happens in Kiribati will happen to us. There’s nothing that can save Kiribati, not even the strictest agreement in Mexico.
Even if we would succeed in keeping global warming below 2°C, even then a two meter sea level rise is inevitable. Kiribati is about two meter above sea level. The island state will disappear. Your “conservative” behavior will be the death of you. Which is, by the way, a metaphor for everything we do about climate change: keep on doing what we do now equals heading for disaster.
Still you are not prepared to give up the battle, regardless of the doom scenarios?
John Schellnhuber: I have a two-year-old son, which is surprising for a man of my age (Schellnhuber is sixty,

‘To protect the climate, you have to do things that could be of vital importance for a child on the other side of the world in fifty years. Which is very abstract.’

adw), but it’s true nonetheless. He could live to see 2100. It’s hard for me to accept that my son arrives in an uninhabitable world. And this holds true for all our children and grandchildren. If you see what people are willing to do for their children… They want to give them a good education, a car, they save money, want to leave an ample inheritance. But we forget to leave them a livable planet. I do this for my child, and for all other children. If we screw up everything and don’t take responsibility, no one will forgive us.