As We Cross the River
By Katherine Risse
Landscape with Charon Crossing Styx, Joachim Patinier
The Renaissance painting, Landscape with Charon Crossing Styx (1520), hangs in the Prado Museum, in Madrid, and shows Charon, the giant of the underworld, standing in a boat as he accompanies a human soul down the river Styx. The soul has two choices: he can either turn down the current that will take him to the charred landscape on the right, full of fire, ash, black air and water, or Paradise on the left, with its green forests, fields, frolicking animals and pristine waters. The viewer’s gaze shifts down to a tiny angel perched on the green hills, his arm raised, as he tries to catch the attention of the human soul whose time is running out and guide him towards a lush green salvation. But the soul, fixated on the fiery gloom, has turned his back and does not heed the warning.
I thought about this painting during the COP25 conference in Madrid: how worldwide there are a lot of fingers pointing out the sustainable path. Unfortunately, a lot of backs are turned, including the big polluters whose short-sighted decisions will have devastating effects, as we heard yet again this week from the IPCC.
How do we raise awareness? Mobilize human souls? Promote equity? Bring everyone in? Make sure everyone has a voice and knows it?... Questions posed again and again this week at most of the side events to the high-level negotiations. And, to quote John Kerry during his talk at the Action Hub at COP25, “How do we marry top boots with grass roots,” in order to implement the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris agreement, to close the emissions gap and ramp up the Commitments, to take the hash tag that was dangling in front of us the whole time #TimeForAction, and unfurl it in a bold but concrete way that will get us to net zero by 2050? The numbers aren’t looking so good and the jury is still out for COP25 as I write this. Yet, I heard several groups taking ambitious (the word bantered around by so many at COP25) steps and making progress towards tackling the climate crisis. How do we follow the pointing finger of so many earthly angels? It turns out, while the parties in their closed session are hammering away at important and complicated policy decisions, progress is being made by people on the ground with their hands in the thick of it, and this was on full display at COP25 in Madrid.
In Latin America, the region of my own study and research, NGOs and local indigenous alliances, such as Cuencas Sagradas, and other groups supporting the Escazú agreement, advocated for environmental justice, education and mobilization of local populations as part of a key component to implementing the Paris Agreement. They called for local participation in climate policies that will directly benefit their region and those who are most affected by climate change. Their presentations and press conferences emphasized a ground battle that hinges on access to environmental information, that promotes robust and localized education, participation and change.
Expanding on this idea, former president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, during a session called “The Human Right to Participate” emphasized the disconnect between policy that states that it is everyone’s right to act to advance sustainability and a carbon-free future, and making these rights actually become a reality for people, setting up a mechanism that informs and empowers people at a local level to make the energy transition.
This disconnect was present in a number of the session I observed, where audience members genuinely wanted to know: “What are the actual concrete steps that communities/countries will take in order to eliminate carbons and achieve the targets.”
The side event: “Decarbonizing Transportation,” presented by sub-national leaders working at a local level, members of groups like Transportation and Climate Initiative, highlighted their commitment to reducing greenhouse gas pollution in transportation. Their vision of increasing charging stations and offering incentives for people to go electric was impressive. When pushed by an audience member to explain concrete steps they might take to adopt the necessary but difficult change in rural communities in some regions, two panel members admitted it was still a work in progress. This raw gap in execution gets to the heart of the challenges that we face in implementing policy, and doing it now, since it’s clear that time is a major factor if we are to make progress. And if we don’t? That needs to be part of the educational campaign as well.
I went into COP25 thinking a lot about my own town of Brookline, Massachusetts, which just passed a ban on all gas and oil in new construction and major renovations. As I observed some of the high-level negotiations at COP25, my phone pinged several times with emails from the group: GasBanMass, a local forum in my region for communities working on gas bans similar to the one passed in Brookline. As I write, a good number of neighboring towns are eager to get on board with this effort, projected to cut 15% of the town’s fossil fuel emissions over the next 30 years. The passage of this by-law took a lot of advocacy - a lot of angels pointing - but it demonstrates how policy (Mass. has GWSA), hammered out in negotiations, in conjunction with boots on the ground determination, can lead to concrete action to reduce carbon. And this can’t get done without robust public awareness and outreach, in essence, education.
Tufts delegation at COP25 sign.
I wondered sometimes at COP25 if the strong youth presence, the youth activists, in part, are successful (I heard party members referring to Greta and her movement more than once during open high level talks) because of their proximity to education; they are familiar with debate, discussion, collaboration, public speaking and technology, in a different way than most adults on the planet; their action springs from an educational environment in which they are immersed all the time. Sometimes, at COP25, they were the ones standing on the green hill, trying to turn the boat in the right direction.
Katherine Risse was a Tufts delegate to COP25 made possible by Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE). Should you be affiliated with Tufts University and interested in being a Tufts delegate to COP in future years, please visit: https://environment.tufts.edu/initiatives/events/unfccc-cop/.