The St James’s Palace Memorandum
Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 8:56PM Prince Charles' time arrived some while ago, when the pleas that he raised were finally recognised to be those of someone wise and insightful, not mad. Such are the mores of change.
At the end of May 2009, the Prince used his considerable convening powers to bring a group of Nobel laureates to St James's Palace to continue a series of discussions that started in 2007 in Potsdam. As at Hay on Earth, the call for action was based on now, with the same recognised goals for reduction that we must achieve:
"Acknowledging the compelling evidence of science we should confine the temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius to avoid unmanageable climate risks. This can only be achieved with a peak of global emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2015 and at least a 50% emission reduction by 2050 on a 1990 baseline. This in turn means that developed countries have to aim for a 25-40% reduction by 2020."
To achieve a global peak of emissions by 2015 means that the UK and other developed countries need to peak around 2012. The start of that year is 700 or so days away, and it's time to get a plan together, NOW.
If you're not already involved in planning for descent of this scale, and want to share learning, then get in touch with the team at EcoSapiens. We're developing the plan now, starting with one small country.
The laureates also called for the need for effective protection of the world's tropical forests, something that each and every one of us can effect through political engagement, meat consumption (to reduce the pressure on land for soya and grazing) and only buying FSC timber. They said "Tropical forests provide the ecosystem services essential for human well-being and poverty alleviation. In addition
deforestation and forest degradation are substantially contributing to climate change and global biodiversity loss at the genetic, species and landscape level. Both locally and globally, protecting boreal and tropical forest cover is an essential tool for mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change. Without a solution to rainforest protection, there is no solution to tackling climate change.
The memorandum is available for download here:
