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Contraction and Convergence: The Global Solution to Climate Change (Schumacher Briefings)
 
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Contraction and Convergence: The Global Solution to Climate Change (Schumacher Briefings) [Paperback]

Aubrey Meyer
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 96 pages
  • Publisher: Green Books (Dec 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1870098943
  • ISBN-13: 978-1870098946
  • Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 14.8 x 1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 530,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • See Complete Table of Contents

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Aubrey Meyer
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Review

"If you read only one book on climate change - its past and future, politics and solutions - read this one. This is the global picture and the key to a global solution." - Tom Spencer, Professor of Global Governance, University of Surrey and President, GLOBE International 1994-99 "Man-made climate change is probably the most serious environmental threat we face. This book offers interesting and useful ideas exploring the concept of 'Contraction and Convergence' as one way to address the global climate challenge." - Michael Meacher, UK Minister for Environment "It is clear that urgent action is called for not only by government and industry but also by ourselves. If our lives are to be conducted according to principles of conscience and survival, we cannot continue to evade our responsibility on this portentous issue. I can think of no better investment of time and no more effective means of jolting people out of their complacency on the ramifications of global warming than by reading this remarkable book." - Mayer Hillman, Town & Country Planning Feb 2001

Michael Meacher, UK Minister for Environment

Man-made climate change is probably the most serious environmental threat we face. This book offers interesting and useful ideas exploring the concept of 'Contraction and Convergence' as one way to address the global climate challenge.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Human-induced climate change is the greatest environmental threat today. Rising to this terrible challenge means overturning the global apartheid between rich and poor. For example, the United States, with a twentieth of the world's population, usurps a quarter of the global atmosphere to dump its pollution. Such inequity motivates this book's author: Aubrey Meyer, a musician who grew up in South Africa. In 1990, Meyer helped found the London-based Global Commons Institute to promote a simple and powerful concept that may yet break the deadlock of climate negotiations.

Simply put, everyone in the world has an equal right to emit greenhouse gas emissions. First, take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change figure of 60 per cent cuts to stabilise global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by 2100. Second, calculate the level of pollution each nation should be allowed. The book's eye-catching computer graphics illustrate past emissions and future allocation of emissions by country, achieving per capita equality by 2030. Emissions thereafter fall to reach safe levels by 2100. Climate damage will still result, but disaster should be averted. Global emissions trading of per capita shares will ease transition costs to a zero-emissions lifestyle, Meyer argues.

This 'contraction and convergence' (C&C) framework has gathered the support of a majority of the world's countries, including China and India. It may be the only approach that developing countries are willing to accept. That, in turn, may spur even the US to ratify the Kyoto protocol. However, Meyer warns that the 'sub-global framework' of the protocol with its 'guesswork' of market mechanisms and 'inadequate' cuts 'could prove worse than useless' because the public would be lulled into a false sense of security 'that something is at last being done'. Meyer's argument is powerful, fuelled by compassion for the poor.

The crux of the matter is whether grassroots support for global equity will defeat the powerful elite interests that currently enjoy the status quo. As one US delegate put it: 'We won the Cold War. Contraction & Convergence is Communism'!

Communism or not, accepting C&C would require that the developed world eschews dirty economic growth. If global weather-related damage continues its present trend of doubling every 7 years, then by around 2050 the costs of climate change could exceed the total value of everything that humanity produced over one year. Has global capitalism finally destroyed itself by its own success? Let's hope so.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
CONTRACTION & CONVERGENCE: The Global Solution to Climate Change by Aubrey Meyer

Review by Dr. Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Policy Studies Institute, London, UK

Climate change caused by the greenhouse gas emissions from our past and present profligate energy-intensive lifestyles already appears to be having tragic consequences. If the reduction of these emissions to a relatively safe level is more important than the pursuit of economic growth, then it is clear that a framework for action is needed within which the reduction can be achieved.

This concise book profoundly and lucidly spells out such a framework. Its author, Aubrey Meyer, founder and director of the Global Commons Institute (GCI), logically calls it 'Contraction and Convergence'. It requires the reduction to be completed within a timetable determined by scientific evidence whilst at the same time programming it towards an end-state of per capita emissions 'shared out between people globally, equitably and sustainably'. This, he says, will deliver a clean and green form of prosperity which does not seriously prejudice the future of the planet. He argues convincingly that it is the only way of avoiding ecological catastrophe.

In addition to a devastating critique of the failure of economics to treat with the subject of the welfare of all mankind and the global environment, he provides a fascinating history of the process by which a transition has been made in the space of ten years from what was at first ridiculed as a totally unrealistic and impractical solution to a centre stage proposition at the heart of current climate change negotiations.

The effectiveness of his argument is reflected in a growing consensus around the world that 'Contraction and Convergence' may indeed be the only realistic route to ecological salvation. For instance, last summer, the Royal Commission on Environment and Pollution and Jan Pronk, the Netherlands Environment Minister and Chairman of the Hague Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, supported the case for an international agreement based on the principle. In his environment speech in the City of London in the autumn, Prime Minister Blair acknowledged that the massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions must be achieved on 'an equitable basis'. A month later, in the Hague, President Chirac stated that 'France proposes that we set as our ultimate objective the convergence of per capita emissions'. It is extraordinary that acknowledgement by these two world leaders and others of the relevance of the concept of equity to the subject, with its seismic implications for the future of economic growth, received almost no coverage in the media.

It is clear that radical changes are called for not only in the policies and practices of government, industry and the business community generally, but also in our own lifestyles. If these are to be conducted according to principles of conscience and survival, we cannot continue to play down the significance of climate change. The fact that greenhouse gas emissions remain in the atmosphere for several generations makes it urgent that we take our responsibilities on this portentous issue far more seriously.

I can think of no better investment of time and no more effective means of jolting people out of their complacency on the ramifications of global warming than to read this remarkable book...

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Jeremy Williams TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Contraction and Convergence is the genius idea of Aubrey Meyer, a South African born classical musician with a passion for global justice. Over several years of campaigning, his theory of equal emissions rights for everyone on the planet slowly won round the international community. It is now considered a fundamental principle of climate discussions at the international level.

As an idea, Contraction and Convergence is simple and compelling. As a book, it's not nearly so engaging.

This short book is more about the story of Contraction and Convergence as an idea than an explanation of it. Rather than describe and sell his idea, Meyer writes timelines of UN climate change negotiations and meetings, details of resolutions, amendments, articles, and obscure QUANGOs. On one level its interesting to see the political machinations behind the Kyoto protocol, but a book about diplomatic processes doesn't really do justice to the idea somehow.

If you're researching the topic, or interested in the politics and diplomacy of climate change, then this will be a useful little book, but it is a little technical for the casual reader.
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