I have had the opportunity to attend a number of post Copenhagen reflections the last few weeks... the first one was organized by Tällberg (http://www.tallbergfoundation.org/) and the other by the science museum.
Both these organizations have a tradition of organizing and host high quality and interesting conversation. So even this time! I guess I came there with the expectation to get a sense of what some thinkers on the topic of global governance and security had to say about what happened in Copenhagen and how the process and ultimately outcome can be improved in the future. I also wanted to understand the role of science versus the role science assumed in Copenhagen.
The role of science…
In the months leading up to Copenhagen science started to play a role as a communicator about the “truth” of the causes and the effects of climate change. I have always been in the space that we should communicate and view the indications from science as possible causes and effects, and accordingly pursue risk mitigation efforts in case the terrible scenarios they are suggesting could be a reality…why take the chance?! I feel very comfortable they are somewhat in the right space of where the world is likely to evolve, but I do understand that people are confused on what to believe at this stage…
To me, nothing has changed in terms of my views on science…What I hope though going forward is that leading scientist will learn about what they are best placed to do, and allow other people, better placed to do other things, do those things… (wow, a complicated sentence)… e.g. communicate and translate science and the conclusions that we can make especially around the science around climate change.
As science reached out receivers interpreted their messages as the “truths” of the world and that clearly provoked quite a few that then decided to make sure to challenge the validity of the scientific statements feeding the debate. An unfortunate situation, but maybe what we really needed to think about the way we assume the roles we are playing in the debate…
My reflection – everyone don’t need to be good at everything, but what we need to ensure and take responsibility for is that we are trying to do and live in spaces we are best placed to be in. science are great in the spaces of analyzing patters and defining scenarios, other people are better placed to interpret those and communicate the implications to a wider audience.
Science will still have an incredibly important role to play – their challenge, focus on what you are really good at and delegate the rest to someone ells!
The process…
As for the process aiming to create the most important consensus of our time it wont be fixed. I understand that people in the system are trying to fix it, but after having spent some hours simulating that Copenhagen process I have to conclude that nothing good will ever come out of that a process. It is a process defined forgetting that people will actually take part in it. It is set up for some to win and others to loose, i.e. in the end of the day, it is a zero sum game.
In terms of being well placed to do things. I doubt that the prime minister of Denmark was well placed a to manage a process like that – I feel sorry for the people who would expect that from a head of state. He is brilliant in many other way and thus should allow other people better placed to facilitate processes, do that! – the process wont be fixed by replacing the Danish prime minister…
There are people working full time with process work, and there are great processes e.g. the U-process, appreciative inquiry, open space technologies, that all are great processes to help articulate a new desired states – any of these would have achieved a better outcome that what we saw in Copenhagen, simple because they are trying to create a new desired state as opposed to set up a zero sum game.
As for the events that I attended…I listen and I listen and I was somewhat really challenged during most of the conversations simply because most participants never challenged the fundamentals of what really needs to happen. They were convinced that we need to try fixing something that is fundamentally flawed and most were incapable to see a new way of doing things implying a new way of living life! I felt challenged because of the inability to see a bright future, a future that at least I would want to be part of. They believe that we can act and achieve from a space of fear as opposed to from a space of opportunity and optimism.
There is something about the way we talk about generations these days that also challenge me quite a bit. I have never believed in the chronological way of measuring age – I think age as understood and measured from an emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical and chronological perspective where we are currently only focused on the chronological perspective. The reason for that is because it is the easiest way of measuring age in the same way as profit is the easiest way of measuring the success of a business, or GDP growth for a nation and the number of cars we have as individuals. – dare to allow complexity, but don’t make it too complicated.
What became clear for me during these events though is that I will be very difficult for some who have dedicated their life to understand the current system learned current ways of doing things and living life to think about and practice new ways of doing things…we need to help each other!
As we are realizing and recognizing that some of the past ways in which we have lived our lives have been flawed we need to encourage all of us to trying to practice new ways of living lives. I came to these events with an expectation to get answers and that was really ignorant! It is not that easy anymore – we all need to explore new ways of doing things… some will work, share them and reapply them, others wont work so try not reapplying the... What makes this task really interesting though is that no one really knows how the world is likely to evolve and needs to look like so we all need to assume responsibility for the way forward – bearing in mind that we all will have different roles to play, ideally roles that we are best placed to play!
Until next exchange
Emanuel
