Radical Realism for Climate Justice. A Civil Society Response to the Challenge of Limiting Global Warming to 1.5°C

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial is feasible, and it is our best hope of achieving environmental and social justice, of containing the impacts of a global crisis that was born out of historical injustice and highly unequal responsibility.

To do so will require a radical shift away from resource-intensive and wasteful production and consumption patterns and a deep transformation towards ecological sustainability and social justice. Demanding this transformation is not ‘naïve’ or ‘politically unfeasible’, it is radically realistic.

This publication is a civil society response to the challenge of limiting global warming to 1.5°C while also paving the way for climate justice. It brings together the knowledge and experience of a range of international groups, networks and organisations the Heinrich Böll Foundation has worked with over the past years, who in their political work, research and practice have developed the radical, social and environmental justice-based agendas political change we need across various sectors.

Radical Realism for Climate Justice includes the following eight volumes:

A Managed Decline of Fossil Fuel Production by Oil Change International shows that the carbon embedded in already producing fossil fuel reserves will take us beyond agreed climate limits. Yet companies and governments continue to invest in and approve vast exploration and expansion of oil, coal and gas. This chapter explores the urgency and opportunity for fossil fuel producers to begin a just and equitable managed decline of fossil fuel production in line with the Paris Agreement goals.

Another Energy is Possible by Sean Sweeney, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) argues that the political fight for social ownership and democratic control of energy lies at the heart of the struggle to address climate change. Along with a complete break with investor-focused neoliberal policy, this “two shift solution” will allow us to address some of the major obstacles to reducing energy demand and decarbonizing supply. “Energy democracy” must address the need for system-level transformations that go beyond energy sovereignty and self-determination.

Zero Waste Circular Economy A Systemic Game-Changer to Climate Change by Mariel Vilella, Zero Waste Europe explains and puts numbers to how the transformation of our consumption and production system into a zero waste circular economy provides the potential for emission reductions far beyond what is considered in the waste sector. Ground-breaking experiences in cities and communities around the world are already showing that these solutions can be implemented today, with immediate results.

Degrowth – A Sober Vision of Limiting Warming to 1.5°C by Mladen Domazet, Institute for Political Ecology in Zagreb, Croatia, reports from a precarious, but climate-stabilized year 2100 to show how a planet of over 7 billion people found diversification and flourishing at many levels of natural, individual and community existence, and turned away from the tipping points of catastrophic climate change and ecosystem collapse. That world is brought to life by shedding the myths of the pre-degrowth era – the main myth being that limiting global warming to 1.5°C is viable while maintaining economic activities focused on growth.

System Change on a Deadline. Organizing Lessons from Canada’s Leap Manifesto by The Leap by Avi Lewis, Katie McKenna and Rajiv Sicora of The Leap recounts how intersectional coalitions can create inspiring, detailed pictures of the world we need, and deploy them to shift the goalposts of what is considered politically possible. They draw on the Leap story to explore how coalition-building can break down traditional “issue silos”, which too often restrict the scope and impact of social justice activism.

La Via Campesina in Action for Climate Justice by La Via Campesina in Action for Climate Justice by the international peasants movement La Via Campesina highlights how industrialized agriculture and the corporate food system are at the center of the climate crisis and block pathways to a 1.5°C world. In their contribution, La Via Campesina outline key aspects of system change in agriculture towards peasant agro-ecology and give concrete experiences of organized resistance and alternatives that are already making change happen.

Re-Greening the Earth: Protecting the Climate through Ecosystem Restoration by Christoph Thies, Greenpeace Germany calls to mind that greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and the destruction of forests and peatlands contribute to global warming and dangerous climate change. His chapter makes the case for ecosystem restoration: Growing forests and recovering peatlands can sequester CO2 from the atmosphere and protect both climate and biodiversity. This can make untested and potentially risky climate technologies unnecessary – if emissions from burning fossil fuels and other greenhouse gas emissions are phased out fast enough.

Modelling 1.5°C-Compliant Mitigation Scenarios Without Carbon Dioxide Removal by Christian Holz, Carleton University and Climate Equity Reference Project (CERP) reviews recent studies that demonstrate that it is still possible to achieve 1.5°C without relying on speculative and potentially deleterious technologies. This can be done if national climate pledges are increased substantially in all countries immediately, international support for climate action in developing countries is scaled up, and mitigation options not commonly included in mainstream climate models are pursued.

We hope that the experiences and political demands, the stories and recommendations compiled in this publication will be as inspiring to all of you as they are to us.

Lili Fuhr and Linda Schneider

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According to evolutionary biologists, cooperation ultimately outcompetes competition and violence. As we confront the end of the old paradigm, we are on the cusp of realizing our intrinsic unity and interdependence.

A brief update from Daniel Pinchbeck:

Another year, and another massive super-hurricane batters the East Coast. Florida Governor Rick Scott ordered one and a half million people to evacuate their homes. “You need to leave,” he said. 

My new book asks the question, How Soon is Now?, because whether we admit it or not, we can feel the truth of things: our biosphere has been pushed to its limit and has, reluctantly, started fighting back. What’s worse, like a mother protecting its young, it will do everything in its power to stave off the threat. Alas, this is the threat we – our human family – now pose to the intricately interdependent web of life surrounding us, as we eliminate more than 10% of the Earth’s remaining biodiversity every ten to fifteen years.

The outrageous prosperity of the Post-War era bred a sense of entitlement directly into the underlying genetic code of our culture. We believe our lifestyle is the most attractive and that we can consume without recourse. And yet we can see the proof all around us–whether you live on the Eastern coast of Florida today, or Haiti yesterday, or everywhere tomorrow, we will all feel the effects of the ecological mega-crisis. No amount of property or wealth will save us.

It’s only fair, since that’s precisely we’ve been doing as a society and increasingly as a global system, for 150 years. Before the industrial era, the planet’s bio-sphere was relatively stable…for 10,000 years. It was this period that allowed human society to flourish.

And now we’ve gone and ruined it.

But perhaps this is our moment to break out of the collective chain of illusions and delusions that our society, and the mass media that so obviously controls it–breeds into us. Instead of distracting us with years-long election campaigns, debased entertainment and reality hysterics, we need a media that reports science as fast, unapologetically, and clearly illustrates our need to change, now.

We need a media committed to offering solutions and spurring collective action.

How Soon is Now?

This is the question we all have to face together, because the sooner we can start realizing the urgency of this collective moment, the more quickly we can begin what I believe will be our most beautiful act as a species: Transforming our societies, our politics, our values systems, our economies, our expectations and beliefs, learning to cooperate and thrive sustainably on this fragile spinning orb. According to evolutionary biologists, cooperation ultimately outcompetes competition and violence. As we confront the end of the old paradigm, we are on the cusp of realizing our intrinsic unity and interdependence. If you agree, than I invite you to read How Soon is Now. In this book, I offer, as Russell Brand put it, “a blueprint for the future.” I’ve spent the last decades studying the dynamics of global change, while building relationships and tapping into communities that I believe can make a difference and accelerate our evolution. Although the book comes out in February, you can pre-order it here.

Filmmaker and futurist Jason Silva recently had this to say about the book:
Daniel Pinchbeck’s HOW SOON IS NOW? is a powerful exploration of our need for a massive upgrade of collective consciousness if we are to address the inconsistencies and pathologies that afflict the modern world. While we have seen massive progress, we have also seen moral failures… and our unwillingness to question preexisting dogma might cost us dearly.  Daniel’s book offers a startling call to action!

Republished from Daniel Pinchbeck’s Newsletter.

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