Judged by the enemies we have made, judged by the actions we take: Arbitrations and Earth Day 2020
Today is Earth Day “the world’s largest environmental movement to drive transformative change for people and planet”.
The poster for the first Earth Day in 1970 read “We have met the enemy and he is us”. Amongst all the tragic war metaphors used to describe the efforts against the global pandemic, maybe on Earth Day 2020 it is time for us to go on the attack and, fifty years later, see climate change as our enemy. In 2014, the World Health Organisation estimated that climate change would lead to about 250,000 additional deaths each year between 2030 and 2050. That is a formidable enemy.
Earth Day spawned in the United States as a reaction to an oil spill off the coast of California in the 1970s. Environmental disasters should be a catalyst for change, but when I consider the ones that immediately spring my mind as events that shaped my child and adulthood - Chernobyl, the Exxon Valdez, Macondo and Bhopal - I do not immediately see a corresponding change in attitudes or behaviour.
Covid 19 may be the biggest catalyst for environmental change that we see in our lifetimes…or it may not. Almost 80% of flights have been cancelled and we saw the price of a barrel of crude hit minus $40 two days ago. It is almost impossible to believe the situation we are in. The contraction of GDP and the lack of flights and traffic could “cause the world’s oil demand to fall by more than five times the drop in demand triggered by the global financial crisis in 2008”, according to a recent Guardian article . There are indications that global carbon emissions from fossil fuels could drop by 2.5 billion tonnes this year.
In looking for the positives in the pandemic, many have seized upon the changes we are witnessing; the Venetian canals running clear, Indians enjoying views of the Himalaya that have emerged from the smog, lions relaxing on roads in safari parks in South Africa, clear skies due to the lack of aeroplanes. But will these changes last? They have not been caused by policies, they are consequences of a global economic meltdown which has caused people to lose their livelihoods and, all too often, their lives. Sadly, it is more likely that the environmental effects of the pandemic will not be sustained. In 2008-2009, during the global financial crisis, global emissions dropped significantly due to the reduction in industrial activity. There was an overall drop in emissions of 1.3% but by 2010 this had been reversed and emissions reached a record high that year. It looks likely that once the pandemic has passed, we will see a return to pre-Covid 19 emission levels.
It was Franklin D Roosevelt who said “judge me by the enemies I have made.” The legacy of the Covid 19 pandemic may not be immediate environmental change, but is a lesson to us that it is better to attack a problem rather than wait for it to attack us. We may well be judged by our actions that led to climate change becoming our enemy but we will also be judged by our contributions to the fight. Here the arbitration community can be proud of the way that it has adapted to more environmentally friendly ways of running arbitrations. Yes some of this change was forced upon it by the lockdown, but much of it was a voluntary decision to change our approach, be less wasteful and more mindful of the consequences of the choices we make. On Earth Day 2020 the Campaign for Greener Arbitrations asks you to show your support by signing up to its Guiding Principles and committing to playing your part in the war against climate change.
Happy Earth Day.
