The Foreign Service Journal, February 2008

clean technologies can compete with dirty ones and, indeed, over time outcompete them. This will lead to a great wave of innovation, investment, economic develop- ment and job creation — all of which the U.S. has histor- ically done better than any other nation in the world. U.S. leadership on technology development and deployment is also essential to lowering the cost of reduc- ing carbon emissions. Yet spending on energy research, development and deployment today is a small fraction of what it was more than 25 years ago. The federal govern- ment should make a major commitment to restoring investment in research, development and dissemination. There should be an immediate doubling of resources to accelerate the deployment of high-priority technologies in such areas as carbon capture and sequestration, second- generation biofuels and a modernized electric power sys- tem. Then the U.S. and others should find ways to col- laborate effectively with developing countries on the de- velopment and deployment of new sustainable energy technologies. Preparing for the Impact Technology change alone will not be enough, however; spending on adaptation will also be needed. Since there is enormous inertia in the climate system, significant effects of our climate-forcing pollution are already inevitable and largely irreversible, and they will be felt first and most keenly in the poorest countries. The United Nations Development Program’s 2007/2008 Human Development Report, Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World , warns that the world is drifting toward a tipping point that could lock the poorest countries and their poorest citizens in a downward spiral, leaving hundreds of millions facing malnutrition, water scarcity, ecological threats and a loss of livelihoods. As John Podesta and Peter Ogden explain in their excellent paper, “Global Warning: The Security Chal- lenges of Climate Change”: “In the developing world, even a relatively small climatic shift can trigger or exacer- bate food shortages, water scarcity, destructive weather events, the spread of disease, human migration and nat- ural resource competition. These crises are all the more dangerous because they are interwoven and self-perpetu- ating: water shortages can lead to food shortages, which can lead to conflict over remaining resources, which can drive human migration, which, in turn, can create new food shortages in new regions. Once under way, this chain reaction becomes increasingly difficult to stop, and there- fore it is critical that policymakers do all they can to pre- vent that first climate change domino — whether it be food scarcity or the outbreak of disease — from toppling.” Exacerbating the stresses on the poorest countries is the exponential growth of the human population. World population has doubled since 1950 and now stands at 5.6 billion. Every year, the world gains another 91 million inhabitants — the equivalent of another New York City every month, another Mexico every year, another China every decade. Ninety-five percent of that growth is taking place in the impoverished countries of the developing world, which are already struggling to provide jobs and sustenance for their people. The largest populations in the history of the world are now entering their child-bearing years. Will these women be able to make decisions for themselves about the size of their families and the spacing of their children, and will we meet the commitments that we made in Cairo to reproductive health, rights, services and commodities? On this, the jury is out. We know that the social and eco- nomic return from empowered women and stable fami- lies is one of the most important variables, and we know what to do to reach this opportunity. Early in 2007, with support from the United Nations Foundation and under the banner of the scientific research society Sigma Xi, a distinguished group of some of the best scientists in the world put out a report titled “Confronting Climate Change, Avoiding the Unmanage- able and Managing the Unavoidable.” That’s where we are. We are working to avoid the unmanageable and to manage the unavoidable. Our first obligation as human beings is to preserve our species. That means not fouling our nest beyond repair. We are gambling with a global climate system that we do not fully understand. It is capable of abrupt shifts, and those shifts are not reversible. If the Arctic ice cap, the engine of our weather systems, disappears, reducing our emissions will not put it back. If Greenland melts and Miami disap- pears, reducing our emissions will not put it back. We have to act now before it’s too late. We have the tools and the technology. Moving our energy systems into the 21st century will be a great chal- lenge but also a great business opportunity, an opportuni- ty for leadership and innovation. All that we lack, as for- mer Vice President Al Gore says, is political will — and that is a renewable resource. F O C U S 20 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 8