UN Climate Action Summit

Hello, I’m Christian Williams. I study category theory with John Baez at U.C. Riverside. I’ve written two posts on Azimuth about promising distributed computing endeavors. I believe in the power of applied theory—that’s why I left my life in Texas just to work with John. But lately I’ve begun to wonder if these great ideas will help the world quickly enough.

I want to discuss the big picture, and John has kindly granted me this platform with such a diverse, intelligent, and caring audience. This will be a learning process. All thoughts are welcome. Thanks for reading.

I am the master of my fate,       I am the captain of my soul.

It’s important to be positive (1) . Humanity now has a global organization called the United Nations. Just a few years ago, members signed an amazing treaty called The Paris Agreement. The parties and signatories:

… basically everyone. By ratifying this document, the nations of the world agreed to act to keep global warming below 2C above pre-industrial levels – an unparalleled environmental consensus. (On Azimuth, in 2015.) It’s not mandatory, and to me that’s not the point. Together we formally recognize the crisis and express the intent to turn it around.

So how’s it going? Nations are taking significant action, though a whole analysis is yet to be done. Here is the UN progress tracker. Here is an NRDC summary. But the picture is much deeper than national; reform sparks at all levels of society.

A US politician wanting to leave the agreement emboldened us to form the vast coalition We Are Still In. There are many initiatives like this, hundreds of millions of people rising to the challenge. A small selection:

City and State Levels Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, U.S. Climate Alliance Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy International Levels Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) RE100, Under2 Coalition (The Climate Group) Everyone Levels Fridays for Future, Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion 350.org, Climate Reality

Each of us must face this challenge, in our own way.

We have consistently found that the ecological crisis is of a greater magnitude and urgency than we thought. The report that finally slapped me awake is the IPCC 2018, which explains the difference between 2C and 1.5C in terms of total devastation and lives, and states definitively:

We must reduce global carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, and by 100% by 2050 to keep within 1.5C. We must have strong negative emissions into the next century. We must go well beyond our agreement, now.

Blue is “we might still have a stable society”.

Responding to these findings, the UN is meeting in New York with even higher ambitions and higher stakes: UN Climate Action Summit 2019. These leaders are not sitting around giving pep talks. They are developing plans which describe how to transform society.

On the national level, we must make concrete, compulsory commitments. If they do not soon then we must demand louder, or take their place. We must change how the world works. We have reached global awareness, and we have reached the ethical imperative.

(1) There is much to say about the psychology of the ecological crisis. By being positive I do not mean the mutual comforting hope we’ve been sharing for decades. I mean posit-ive.