Letter from the future
Module 11 – The world we want
by Alina Oehmen
Thirty years ago, when I was 24, I couldn’t imagine a world we have today. Changes can happen faster than one would have thought then. In 2022, we had the driest summer we ever had with the consequence that the river Rhine dried up for a period of two months. Storms and hurricanes increased tremendously and caused many people’s death worldwide. That was the tipping point for changes in politics. Taking a first large alliance in 2017 as inspiration, more European and other countries in 2027 stepped out of coal, followed by the oil and gas phase-out three years later. This trend spread over the whole world. Thus, as fast as the motor vehicles emerged on the market in a timeframe of one decade, so fast they disappeared again in 2035 and were replaced by electric ones (Mommers). Looking back, this important turnaround in terms of environmental policies was crucial for the globe.
Reconsidering the ECL program in 2017/18, in this context Module 11 "The world we want" remained present in my memories. It gave me hope that a sustainable transformation of our society was still possible. I remember that the talk of the journalist Jelmer Mommers about "Forget climate apocalypse – There’s hope for our warming planet" inspired me. He mentioned the true causes of climate change: the true causes were the people of the global north, meaning everyone of us. We had caused climate change over a short period at the expense of people in other regions of the world. In those days "the richest ten percent of consumers emitted almost half of all greenhouse gases" worldwide (Mommers). And the problem was that this topic has not been present in the media so that the people could understand how to counteract climate change. Yet, already then, I could see a change coming up in our society. A clear indication was the protest against coal exploitation at the German forest "Hambacher Wald" in September 2018. But those days, while participating in a protest against coal, I was still discouraged by all the people standing in front of the demonstration stage and listening to statements about climate change and stories about climate justice. Because all these people were still doing one thing which continued triggering climate change: they took planes for travelling from one place to another. As long as this topic did not get more attention in society most debates in politics about climate change did not lead to a solution. But as mentioned this turnaround in environmental politics eventually came true, and even more: Though 2020 was the peak of right-wing parties’ power worldwide but given similarly rising awareness of people of the need to defend democratic values, the resistances against this political tendency grew as well. And imagine: The world’s nations agreed to an international treaty to ensure human rights and sustainable development. Hence, in the end, two major challenges of our society were reconciled.
Today I am living in Tanzania, one of the leading countries in the sustainability sector. Tanzania succeeded to "leapfrog" fossil fuels for energy production and moved directly to renewable energies. Due to the increase of population in urban areas the Tanzanian government decided to decentralise energy and food production. And finally, a dream I had thirty years ago became true: Today we have an international high-speed line which connects the European and the African continent. It starts in Gibraltar in Spain and ends in Johannesburg in South Africa. It only takes me ten hours by train going back home to Germany. This infrastructure we established during the last three decades is a symbol for worldwide intercultural respect and peace.
More Information on Empowerment for Climate Leadership
Source: TEDx “Forget climate Apocalypse. There’s hope for our warming planet. www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/gtu9GHhiK0o (21.01.19).