THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
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Global Climate Action Summit 2018
Blog 1: Taking Aim – Global Summit On Target?
Alison Holmes reports from the heart of the GCAS
www.globalclimateactionsummit.org
San Francisco is perhaps uniquely suited to host the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). The event, taking place this week (exact dates depend on which ‘strand’ of activity one is following), has an urgent message while still maintaining its distinct California vibe. More than 4,000 delegates from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe are arriving for the ‘official’ summit on the 13th and 14th (though the 12th was a heavy day of closed pre-negotiations in a General Assembly). Meanwhile, ‘affiliates’ are creating, hosting, informing, briefing and generally spreading the word about climate change all week to summit attendees and the community at large. There are no official numbers on these groups, but given the vast number of events they are providing, they are doubtless here in the thousands as well.
The organizers were clearly aiming to generate the type of enthusiasm that begets momentum – while those who are here to ‘do the business’ all look to be all about the business. Yet, stepping back to observe the scene, it is clear that the face of the environmental movement has shifted. The traditional cadres of protesters and sign carriers seem to be on the decline while suited NGO, government, science types are now the majority. Indeed, the fact that the dress code of the summit is ‘business attire’ (who could have imagined such an instruction not so very long ago??) is surely a sign that ‘environmentalism’ writ large has made it to the mainstream of the mainstream.
However, neither side has been free of the logistical challenges of such a massive event or the amusing anomalies such pressure brings to the fore. For example, there was the small, intense, anti-fracking/clean water group carrying large bright signs along a side street off Market - but they might have been well-advised to suggest to the lead sign/marcher that chain smoking while protesting was a little incongruous. On the official side, the first day for credential collection involved a two- hour queue snaking in circles in the Moscone Center foyer. Similarly, the bridge between the two groups seems a little wobbly as it is not unheard of to discover, after traipsing the streets, that an affiliate event on the official GCAS website does not exist.
Yet all of these issues are small beer for such a massive effort and on the eve of the official Summit, the organizers should be rightly pleased with the mood and tenor. California has teed up key announcements of its own - including the signing by Governor Brown of Senate Bill 100 (sponsored by Member of the California State Senate Kevin de León) - that will require CA to get 100% of its energy needs from clean sources by 2045. A huge move by any standard, but provides the perfect context to events as diverse as an all-day California-Germany bilateral conference on energy and a vibrant celebration of Latino Leadership on climate change. The bilateral conference offered well-informed officials, eloquent on their areas of expertise speaking to an audience full of equally well-informed attendees asking questions that sounded more like a science teach-in than a public conference, while Kevin de León addressed a cheering room, full to the doorways, on the disproportionate impact of climate change on Latinos while celebrating the community’s leadership on the issue (and he didn’t mention his own current fight against Dianne Feinstein even once). The Latino community is not the only group celebrating as the whole week is, on a crucial level, about acknowledging the work already done while the goal is obviously to also address the work ahead. The city is truly poised to take aim.
