Beyond Copenhagen – Now what?

February 8, 2010

Are current corporate-dominated international institutions inadequate to the task of meeting the multiple planetary survival challenges they themselves have helped create? As headlines proclaim that COP15 was a ‘catastrophe,’ that a global climate deal is ‘all but impossible in 2010,’ and progressive NGOs,’ “The forces trying to tackle climate change are in disarray, wandering in small groups around the battlefield like a beaten army,” according to one diplomat, Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute (postcarbon.org), talks about the factors contributing to the stalemate in the Copenhagen climate summit, the other ‘game ending’ challenges confronting the current economic system, and the bottom-up steps necessary to move to a post-carbon economy. Interviewed by EON’s James Heddle.

Richard Heinberg

Richard is Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute, and is regarded as one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from our current reliance on fossil fuels. He is the author of fourteen books, including some of the seminal works on society’s current energy and environmental sustainability crisis. He has authored hundreds of essays and articles that have appeared in such journals as Nature and The Wall Street Journal; delivered hundreds of lectures on energy and climate issues to audiences on six continents; and has been quoted and interviewed countless times for print, television, and radio. His monthly MuseLetter has been in publication since 1992. Full bio at postcarbon.org.

Tags: Building Community, Coal, Culture & Behavior, Electricity, Energy Policy, Fossil Fuels, Media & Communications, Natural Gas, Oil, Renewable Energy, Resource Depletion