After much suspense, COP27 ended with mixed results. The establishment of a relief fund for poor countries affected by climate change was rightly welcomed. But key issues, including fossil fuels, have been treated as if it were still possible to ignore the urgency we are in. It’s hard not to see reason to despair further on this second point; especially in a context that has posed another threat for months with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
However, one can see the situation positively. This is the whole paradox of the global drama caused by the Ukrainian tragedy and its multiple geopolitical consequences. Because, more than ever, the world seems to be on the edge of the abyss, a way seems finally to be opening within the intellectual spheres, of public debate… and thus even within the international summits, from which we no longer expected much. . A way to a real confrontation with the ecological question in its triple physical, biological and political dimension.
Without claiming to be exhaustive, let’s take a look at the contributions to the public debate from the intellectual world over the last few months. Without mentioning the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), or academic or activist works, or the latest books of big names in ecology, and staying in layman’s relatively concise or affordable formats, many publications enriched the discussion. There was the issue of Green magazine, directed by the philosopher Pierre Charbonnier, devoted to the “ecology of war” in all its dimensions.
New convergences
There was the 2022 Global Inequality Report [Seuil, 496 pages, 24 euros] including a chapter on carbon inequalities, and the note by Jean Pisani-Ferry and Selma Mahfouz documenting the macroeconomic difficulties that the ecological transition will cause. There was also the report that the Institut Rousseau dedicated to fossil fuels seen as “new subprimes” or, just to go beyond the French borders – because this movement obviously exceeds them – the latest edition of the published by the “International Energy Agency ” published world panoramas. the World Energy Outlook.
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If contradictions remain, this work will result in new convergences beyond scientific knowledge that we absolutely must take seriously. We tend to forget it despite all the evidence: ecology and economy assume the same etymology. In fact, one claims to study our house, the other to govern it. The tragedy is that with this decoupling, the first has literally become powerless and the second has gone insane. Therefore, more than any other sectoral measure, we must first bring them together if we are to finally act effectively. This is exactly what these new convergences seem to be making possible.
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