Business lobbies such as ALEC in the US or Business Europe in the EU are fighting tooth and nail to prevent progressive climate policies from being adopted. They claim they do this to "protect jobs". But this is an utter lie. We want workers fully involved in a just transition to a clean energy future. But we also know from Greenpeace Energy Revolution analyses over the past decade that renewables and energy efficiency will deliver more jobs than carrying on with dirty energy business as usual. By implementing a step by step energy [r]evolution governments can, for example, help businesses create 3.2 million more jobs by 2030 in the global power supply sector alone. In South Africa, to pick just one country, 149,000 direct jobs could be created by 2030. That's 38,000 more than in the current government plan.
Meanwhile, China's turnaround on coal could also change the dynamics in the global climate debate. At the New York summit, the Chinese government could end the current "you go first" mentality that has poisoned progress during the UN climate talks. Wouldn't it be wonderful if China, emboldened by its domestic actions, were to lead the world to a new global climate agreement by, for example, announcing in New York a peak in their emissions long before 2030?
It's only these kind of bold, concrete commitments that will be acceptable for the New York climate summit. Progressive business leaders need to – as Ban Ki-moon put it, "push back against skeptics and entrenched interests". They can do so by leaving destructive business lobbies such as ALEC or Business Europe and setting themselves concrete deadlines by which they will run their businesses on 100% renewable energy. Governments need to send a clear signal to investors by supporting a phase-out of fossil fuels by 2050. Indeed concrete steps need to be taken now – such as ending the financing of coal fired power plants – to get us there.
The world has changed since 2009. Baby steps are no longer enough. To control runaway climate change, we need to sharply change tack and sail with the wind, not against it with unsustainable fossil fuels.
That's why we marched on the streets of New York, and cities around the world on September 21st: to show – alongside tens of thousands of people – that it's time the polluters got out of the way and let us build a green, just and peaceful future for the generations which follow us.
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