Energie-Blog

André Jurres

This week the climate conference started in Copenhagen and more than 15000 participants are trying to save our planet from drastic climate change.   The aim is to stay within a 2 degree rise in temperature.  For some parts in the world this means the end, the Maldives for example will simple disappear (read sink in the ocean).  It sounds strange that we accept certain losses as long as we do not have to pay the price.  Today more than 170 climate ministers will join the conference and meet with each other to prepare a final agreement.  Now I do not know if you have ever had a meeting with 170 people at the same time?  No, that is perhaps because it is simple impossible.  Imagine they all want to speak three minutes on this issue, it will take more than 8 hours just to be able to listen to each other.  Just being there seems to be more important than participating, what strikes me more is that nobody seems to touch the real problem and that is to my humble opinion the explosion of our population versus normal growth.  Secondly it seems for me contradictory that we need an annual economic growth of 2 percent and on the other hand decrease items like transport, energy production and consumption of goods.  In order to achieve a climate meltdown it seems more likely that we have to decrease our population drastically over the next decades and create a sustainable economical model(read replace the actual one of economical constant growth and especially the need for growth in order to prevent recession).  Listening to for example Minister Cramer of the Netherlands stating that for now the Netherlands are going to built several new coal plants says it all, we agree on a new climate initiative and the next day we kill it.  Nevertheless a possible new agreement will create at least a more sustainable way of producing electricity and saving some of it.  Although looking at the underlying problem of economical growth we can discuss the benefits of sustainable investments versus the necessity of consuming and producing less(paradox).