So the people who fought for sentences, for the precise wording to be included in treaties, were doing the best they could think of to avoid that world of bare force and murder in the night. They were doing the best they could with what they had.
Now, as the situation continued to deteriorate, there were delegates at every annual Conference of the Parties who kept on focusing on words and phrases. Many of them were now arguing that all the young people on Earth, and all the generations of humans in the centuries to come, and all their cousin creatures on the planet who could never speak for themselves, especially in court— all these living beings added up to something like a poor and vulnerable developing nation, a huge one, appearing inexorably over the horizon of time. These new citizens were young and weak, in many cases utterly helpless. And yet they had rights too, or should have rights; and under the Paris Agreement’s equity clauses, which every nation had signed, one could argue that they had rights equivalent to those of a developing nation. And without quick and massive efforts from the Annex One nations, meaning the developed world, the “old rich” countries, that giant new developing nation’s development, even its very existence, looked less and less likely. So the COP meetings had to keep insisting on equity as a fundamental value and policy. Which meant that support for the Subsidiary Body popularly known as the Ministry for the Future should continue to be supported in full.
71
Notes taken for Badim again, regular executive meeting with Mary and leadership group. The usual summary of points, plus impressions (B wants more). Will clean this up later. Typing as they speak. I keep forgetting to go to the bathroom first.
Badim next to Mary, silent, distracted.
Tatiana Voznesenskaya next to him, also distracted. She’s being sued back home, can’t go to Russia safely, here no longer living in same place. Her report: Lawsuits in over a hundred countries. Also joined defense of nearly four hundred groups being sued for doing good things. T not happy.
Imbeni: MftF being attacked might have caused others to step up. African Union backing all nationalizations in Africa, means a united front toward China, World Bank, all outside forces. Africa for Africans the fastest growing party in every country there. Pressure on Nigeria in particular to claim the carbon coin like Arabia and Brazil. Doing so could fund a lot of other things. Basic infrastructure and education, then more. Possession of oil now seen as a curse to be exorcised. Chance here to help leverage good change. Africa led by Africans.
Bob, Adele, Estevan in a team report. Mostly Antarctica. Test projects pumping water out from under glaciers getting positive results. Pine Island Glacier slowed from hundreds of meters a year to tens of meters. We should help scale this up, support it fully. 60 Antarctic glaciers, 15 Greenland glaciers. Big push, but amazing cost-benefit. Bang for buck. Let’s do it. M nodding.
Kaming not so cheery. Rate of extinctions still rising. Sumatran tiger, northern white rhinoceros, more river dolphins, these just the latest charismatics confirmed to be gone in wild. Orangutans next, along with 350 other mammal species in red zone danger of extinction.
Indra: Direct air capture now more powerful and less expensive, need to scale up appropriately, then find places to sequester billions of tons of dry ice. Progress being made in this technology means more should be invested in it. Like most of the MftF budget, and a huge dose of carbon coins.
Elena: The 4 per 1000 movement has made an accurate, uncomplicated, inexpensive test kit for year-by-year changes in carbon in the soil. Measurement now possible, need a whole army of certifiers to certify, then good to go.
Mary: Anyone paying farmers for losses incurred in transition to new ag methods?
Elena: No. No payers found.
Mary: But this is perfect for carbon coins! Why shouldn’t they be getting carbon coins?
Dick: The banks have to make it clear the carboni can be issued in fragments of a coin. Like carbon pennies.
Elena: We would like to see that. But we’re only just now able to quantify what’s being sequestered. Also, defining sequestration becoming an issue.
Dick: The standard definition from CCCB is being held in storage for a century.
Mary: Is that long enough?
Dick: Long enough for now. Kick the can down the road a century, not bad compared to not kicking it at all. Emergency definition, in effect.
Indra: This is part of why geoengineering no longer a useful word or concept. Everything people do at scale is geoengineering. Glacier slowdown, direct air capture, soil projects like 4 per 1000, they’re all geoengineering.
Mary: But solar radiation management is definitely geoengineering.
Indra: Sure but so what? The American heat wave has brought that one back again for sure. Indian results still debated. Claim that a double Pinatubo lowered global temperatures by three degrees for the five years following the event, a degree in the decade after that. Now we’re back to pre-intervention levels. But so many confounding factors, all these figures contested.
Mary: Not in India. They’re going to do it again.
Indra: Generally agreed there that their intervention worked. So you can see why they might want to. Talk of it now also in US Congress. Controversial. Meanwhile, we’re working with CCCB to list all ways carbon drawdown could be quantified and confirmed, in ways that would allow for carbon coins to be created and paid to individuals. All geoengineering, all good. The word itself needs to be rehabilitated.
Mary: Good luck with that. Dick, what’s going on with finance? World still in Super Depression but finance sailing along just fine, what’s up?
Dick: Effect of carbon coins on global finance a nice stimulus for them! (joking as usual). Finance unfazed by anything, carbon coins just another tradeable commodity, listed in currency exchanges just like any
