7th Annual Conference of the German Council for Sustainable Development

At the end of November, I went to a day long conference put on by Germany’s Council for Sustainable Development. While most of the conference was in German, there were headsets available with translations into English and for the part presented in English, translations into German. I was in the small minority using them for the English translation, but the number of people using them for the German translation was equally as small or smaller.

Panel Discussion
The first presentation was called, “New Ideas: What makes sustainability attractive?” which was an interesting discussion among several panelists. One issue noted was that the EU had a target of reducing CO2 by 12% by 2012 and when they met in 2006 they raised that target to 20%. What was not asked at that meeting was why the only overall reduction had only gone down by 1.7% which was far below where it should have been. Policymakers have given little attention to implementation while focusing only on goals so there are still problems with the policymakers’ ability to implement scientific solutions seriously. Additionally, it’s hard to incorporate all scientific knowledge which leads to unintended consequences such as the rise of tortilla prices in Mexico due to increased corn demand for ethanol use. The auto industry in Germany is for bio-fuels but doesn’t support increasing energy efficiency (the first changes their business very little while the other is a big problem they would have to solve). Considering the negative impacts of bio-fuel from rising food prices to the use of South American rainforest land for corn production, it shows the need to understand the climate balance from a holistic approach before an idea influences public policy.

The panel acknowledged the challenge ahead, that not everyone understands sustainability or what it means for them. Changing labels to “bio” is not enough but actually walking the talk makes a lot of things harder. However, they noted sustainability can’t be reduced to one formula. In order to limit the planet to less than a 2 degree rise in temperature, the economic and social aspects need to follow the ecological aspects and not the reverse. As one person commented, with the next industrial revolution approaching, the dream of limitless freedom is over and we need to look at other freedoms. I’m still pondering this comment. Somehow I don’t see it becoming a popular slogan in the U.S. anytime soon.

Helen Clark, Prim New Zealand
The second presentation was by Helen Clark, the Prime Minister of New Zealand. I must say, that is not a county I have heard a lot about, but Helen had a lot to say about sustainability. Interestingly, half of the greenhouse gas emissions come from farming although they have some time before agriculture is phased into emissions trading in 2013. Some of the country’s goals and accomplishments include:

• Raise renewable energy use from 64% to 90% of total energy used.
• Introduce electric cars; add 3.4% renewable fuel
• New building code and new public transport systems in major cities underway
• All governments must have a carbon neutral plan by next year (any U.S. planners working on one of those for their city?)
• Using sustainable buying guidelines for all government purchases to use government purchasing power to drive the market

They are also working to make their major industries, tourism and farming more sustainable. One way is by arranging for all travel to New Zealand to be carbon neutral through selling credits to offset air travel. The transport component of food sustainability is a concern to New Zealand meat, but they feel that currently have less total lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than British sheep due to greater efficiency but they are concerned about retaining that competitive ecological advantage.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
Finally, Angela Merkel spoke so I got to see the Chancellor herself in person. She had plenty of general statements about sustainability, but no earth shaking news. Each generation cannot pass its problems onto the next; all people on all continents should have some access to natural resources; in 50 years there will be 9 billion people on earth and more people will want access to increasingly limited resources. She noted that energy policy is linked to security polity and that it’s in everyone’s interests that conflicts are avoided not accepted. While I think this can be taken as a jab at the U.S., I wonder if some Germans found this ironic given the close relationship Germany has with Russia and its reserves of natural gas and coal that power Germany.

Angela defended the most recent energy legislation as a great feat politically and a small step forward while she also acknowledged that many see it as not enough. She called for the use of technology to reduce costs and improve efficiency. She also felt developing countries need to decouple CO2 emissions and economic growth. Concerning raw material, she wants transparent forms of trade to enable a fair agreement for efficient and fair distribution. In order to achieve these goals, Angela stated that sustainability guidelines and indicators are needed to provide the best results. I agree, sustainability guidelines are needed, but they are certainly easier said than done. Considering the amount of criticism the LEED guidelines face, I can only imagine the scrutiny that many sets of government guidelines would fall under.