THE CARBON WAR

A minimum of sleep 309
is a great example today. You can’t see across the street in their cities. They don’t
want to end up like Russia, where the Communist party didn’t give the people
what they wanted and now doesn’t exist. Federal governments do basically
nothing. Oh, they start wars. But cities are moving, and so are businesses.
Yes, I think to myself. Cities and many businesses are moving, making
impressive commitments left, right and centre. But if federal governments were
to act in any kind of congruence with that, would that not send the mother of
all signals? I for one am not going to give up on federal governments so quickly.
Meaningless stuff or not, at least they seem to be trying. The negotiations
did go all night. The final agreed draft text for ministers to review is presented
to the UN minutes before Fabius’s deadline of midday. It is down to 42 pages,
with all major areas of disagreement unresolved.
Laurence Tubiana, French Ambassador for the climate negotiations, a key
confederate of Christiana Figueres and Laurent Fabius, has this to say: “We
could have been better, we could have been worse, important is that we have a
text that we want an agreement next week and all parties want it. The job is not
done, we need to apply all intelligence, energy, willingness to compromise and
all efforts to come to agreement. Nothing is decided until everything is decided.”
Today I am with the medics. The Global Climate and Health Alliance
is staging a summit in the city. I have been invited to speak on a panel about
what a clean energy future could mean for health. In preparing for it, I learn
that 77% of countries have no comprehensive policies on climate change and
health. Astonishing.
Speakers in the panel before mine show why. An epidemiologist recounts
that ten years ago we didn’t know that urban and indoor air pollution from
fossil-fuel burning caused cardiovascular disease. Now that we do know, top
of the action agenda is to stop to burning coal and kerosene.
The panel also talks of the high greenhouse gas emissions inherent in a
meat diet and the much lower emissions for a vegetarian diet. And when you
look at direct health benefits, the benefits are clear too, they say: much lower
risk of type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease in particular. Big statistical
databases show a strong correlation with total mortality: the more you eat
red meat, the earlier you tend to die. Processed meat is classified as a type 1
human carcinogen.
My panel begins with the thoughts of Gary Cohen, President of Healthcare
Without Harm. He a man who takes no prisoners when it comes to the fossil
fuel industries. “The captains of this public health holocaust are actually being
subsidised!”, he says. “This is an industry that is completely inimical to human