The Davos countdown has begun, as some of the world’s most powerful embark on the ritual trek up the Magic Mountain. What should be expected from this glitzy dialogue in this Year of Unreasonableness. Davos this year is titled The Great Transformation. But can Davos offer real alternatives or will it serve up a smiling, gritted-teeth espousal that ‘business as usual’ can and should be sustained…read my response to Mr Wolf’s proposed ‘seven ways to fix the system’ on OpenDemocracy @ http://bit.ly/wP96tP…
The Guardian invited me along with a few other folks to scribble some predictions for 2012. It must been a bad day when I finally hit the keys, but here is what I wrote.
2012 is going to be an unreasonably difficult year. We must be equally unreasonable in our ambitions for advancing sustainability.
The ‘sustainable biz’ circle’s golden rule is to keep one’s chin up, point out the good news, and duck the hard questions by appealing to an unknowable future.…
The climate negotiations in Durban has delivered a deal. As we return exhausted to our Xmas preparations, can we celebrate a breakthrough securing the future of our children, or should we condemn the outcome as a sham. The truth is that our futures depend less on the effectiveness of the Durban deal, but on what nations, communities and businesses do over the next decade, largely in their own economic interests.…
This upcoming Monday (December 19th) at 11am EST, I will be participating in a webinar hosted by the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment Inititative on the implementation of a Financial Transactions Tax. The debate will feature four very practical thinkers from different sides of the issue including Tjerk Kroes (APG Asset Management), John Fullerton (Capital Institute), and Roger Exwood (BlackRock).…
President Zuma today endorsed the South African Renewables Initiative as a South African-led, international, lighthouse initiative designed to enable the scaling up of renewables in South Africa by reducing the incremental cost burden to South Africa’s citizens, economy and jobs…the relevant part of his speech is below:
“Ladies and gentlemen,
As we noted, the biggest barriers to developing renewable energy in Africa to date are not technological, but financial.…
Unilever, working with The Guardian, today launches its on-line debate on sustainable living. As a part of this initiative, Unilever invited a number of folks to write short essays on the topic that have been compiled into a bound collection, Inspiring Sustainable Living, also published today on line. My contributed essay is set out below.
Exiting the Valley of Death
Start-up companies have named the most dangerous moment in their development as the ‘Valley of Death’ – the moment between proof of concept and the beginning of mass production and significant sales.…
The Financial Transactions Tax is surely dead, may it rest more peacefully in future. Surging objections to the European proposal, indeed ridicule, have come from almost every quarter, from leading lights representing the ‘responsible investment movement’ to the IMF’s former chief economist, Kenneth Rogoff. Beleaguered European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, will find it hard to continue circulating in polite society if he sees through his high-profile support of the tax to the bitter end.…
“There is no such thing as the perfect hangover”, argued Indigo Jones in the History of the Hangover, “although anyone who has known more than one of them seems to have the perfect hangover cure. The roast beef sandwich, I’ve heard it said repeatedly, can’t be matched”. Like such cures, there appears to be a profusion of ‘keys to economic recovery’ currently in vogue, ranging from the well-worn calls to ‘spend, spend and spend’ through to the magically curative effects of garbage, emissions contol and women.…
