Blueprint explained
How can we to halt the worst excesses of material extractivism, consumption and pollution and the injustices of ecocide that have been committed, first and foremost, by the world’s economically wealthiest societies, through a legitimate, decision-making process, in which a representative strata of stakeholders in society can engage?
The Climate-Nature Emergency Hub provides a platform to explain about the ‘Blueprint’ in detail, including arguments to justify how such a concept, originally deployed in a national campaign in the form of proposed ‘Bill’ for legislation in a G7 country, could be so transformative if it were adopted throughout the Global North.
Such a transformative shift can be envisaged through the Climate-Nature/Ecology Emergency ‘Blueprint’ – a concept derived from the Climate and Ecology Bill.
The Climate-Ecology Emergency Blueprint (‘Blueprint’) is a thoroughly researched concept that proposes the basis of a legislative framework; a framework, aimed at Global North countries, that, were it to be implemented in law, would bring about ecological and climate justice via deeply democratic processes.
Whilst the purpose of the Climate- Nature Emergency Hub is educational rather than a campaigning vehicle for the Blueprint, the Hub nonetheless, will hopefully inspire the Blueprint’s dissemination as a plausible piece of transformative legislation.
The Blueprint concept may be explained as follows –
What are the objectives?
The ‘Blueprint’ states, dual climate-nature targets: these targets abide by UN internationally signed country commitments to limit greenhouse gas emissions so that we do not breach a catastrophic 1.5C-2C hotter Earth (Paris Agreement, 2015) and to reverse and restore biodiversity loss and halt biosphere degradation (Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, 2022).
According to what benchmark standards should these objectives be achieved?
To create a benchmark standard, dual climate-ecological strategy that addresses climate and ecological justice, the ‘Blueprint’ provides a set of criteria that guards against climate and ecological injustice and greenwashing. This calls on the given Global North country (denoted as xx) –
i). to reduce xx’s CO2 emissions to net zero at a rate consistent to the remaining 1.5C global carbon budget;
ii). to reduce xx’s greenhouse gas emissions sources caused by human activity consistent with limiting the global mean temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels;
iii). to reduce xx’s emissions of carbon dioxide in respect of imports (consumption emissions) at the same percentage rate each year as the annual reduction of CO2 production-based emissions reductions;
iv). to ensure xx’s end to the exploration, extraction, export and import of fossil fuels within 4 years from a 2021 baseline;
v). to ensure xx takes steps to mitigate emissions minimise, as far as possible, damage to ecosystems, food and water availability, human health; and, do not infringe on human rights; restoring and expanding natural ecosystems, and enhancing the management of cultivated ecosystems to protect and enhance biodiversity, ecological processes and ecosystem service provision, including the active safeguarding of resilient carbon sinks;
vi). to include measures to protect, restore and enhance ecosystems in xx and elsewhere, where activity is originally commissioned/ generated from the within xx that is harmful to such ecosystems;
vii). to take every practicable step to avoid, limit—and where limiting is not possible under only exceptional circumstances—compensate for the adverse impacts of xx’s generated cycles of consumption, trade, financing and production, on ecosystems and human health; including, but not limited to, planned obsolescence, the extraction of raw materials, deforestation, land degradation, pollution and waste production.
The Blueprint stipulates principles that ensure that speculative, unproven tech fixes and the type of unbridled ‘green growth’ that perpetuates unsustainable demands of energy, polluting extractivism and the fallout of accumulative waste along supply chains, are minimised if not avoided. A post-growth paradigm is therefore up for discussion.
How and by whom, were the adoption of the concept of the Blueprint to become legislation in a given Global North country?
The ‘ Blueprint’ -were its concept adopted, drafted accordingly and passed as law in a given country, calls on the incumbent Government to commission an independent Citizens’ Assembly. This assembly, working in collaboration with the said government and expert bodies, is to be the corpus of decision-makers that will create the climate-ecology strategy to achieve the Blueprint objectives. In order to ensure the process of deep democracy is applied, the emergent strategy will be debated in parliament where it is finally approved. However, the Blueprint, in law, stipulates that within 12 months of its passing, the climate-ecology strategy must be published and implementation begun. Expert bodies will be required to monitor and evaluate this implementation and ensure that the strategy is aligned to the most up-to-date scientific evidence as such evidence evolves.
Adaptibility with core principles of climate and ecological justice
The Blueprint, as a legislative template, can be adapted to suit cultural, ethnic, social and political characteristics of any given number of Global North countries… as long as the standards are not diluted to render such a version of the Climate- Nature ‘Blueprint’ invalid.
Social Dimension in Climate-Nature Policy Engagement
The ‘Blueprint’ champions the nexus of the social dimension, alongside the climate-nature synergy, in its assertion of the central role of deliberative democracy as a vital tool of robust decision-making. Deliberative democracy applied through the formalised structure and process of a Citizens’ Assembly, transcends the debate of policy- making beyond traditional political partisanship which is subject to vested interests and short-termism.
Humanity faces an unprecedented climate-ecological existential crisis that calls for a non-partisan approach and radically cooperative systems-thinking and meaningful implementation.