COP 28 (30th Nov – 12 Dec) concluded this morning, extended as ever, but also slipping back in the calendar (COP 26: 30th Oct, COP 27: 6th Nov), and now the winter solstice and crowded festive season approach… a short triple post therefore, starting with the consolidation of EQ:
- EQ’s promo movie has been very well received. Do watch it – and please feedback! Though filming was improvised in a few hours (filmmaker James and I had never met before) and edited on a shoestring, it needs no apology.
- The new logo is in process of registration as a trade mark to join the older simpler version (still useful as an educational tool, being easy to make using Euclid’s Phi Φ geometry)
- EQ – Action at Equinox is the name of a new charity being established to protect and enhance EQ, with the message upfront that we have to act.
COP 28. Let’s not cavil, a deal that calls on all countries to move away from using fossil fuels is historic, but once again, as with COP 27, Prof Sir Dieter Helm is underwhelmed. Interviewed yesterday on BBC’s PM radio programme he cogently argued (my precis notes):
COP’s top down approach since 1990 has not cut it – rather it has to start with consumption – bottom up – with a coalition of the willing – with us the polluters, the consumers paying – with proper carbon pricing, including imports. It’s perfectly possible to apply this to this great problem of our age, but it needs politicians to tell us we are living beyond our means. This complimentary way – more attention to emissions trading schemes – attention to the damage we’re doing to the ability of our planet to absorb carbon – can and should be addressed. Take it back to us – us human beings – price things properly, make us face up to what we need to do to live in a sustainable economy. “You could not have expressed it more clearly¹” said Evan Davis.
This bottom-up process is what EQ is set up to facilitate and enhance, anywhere, to grow that ‘coalition of the willing’. And to leaven the bitter pill, to metaphor-mangle, positivity is built-in. With collective will, if we all ‘do our bit’, it can be done!
Now the winter solstice is but a week away – the season when the share of sunlight is at its most unequal – so the COP delegates, as they fly home (hm…), might reflect upon the unequal carbon output of the ‘North’ consumer-centric economies and the developing ‘South’. COP 29’s agenda is already filling.
The solstice’s festive season is also upon us, so I end with an explanation of the featured image. My birthday treat in March was a ride in the Wealden Hills and Eden Valley to check out Spin-off 5 sections of Cycle Orbital’s network. First stop was Churchill’s Chartwell for a coffee and croissant treat. This cheeky robin pecked at the pastry, then perched above me, waiting for more. The background is a wonderful hoar frost emerging from fog on the lip of the Chilterns at Aston Rowant, above the M40 motorway, last week. Here’s to many more frosty (and snowy) days in SE England. Season’s Greetings!