Paul Hohnen Sustainability Strategies

This article was published in Ethical Corporation on March 31, 2008.

From Mr PAUL HOHNEN

Climate change: Is Branson the next Churchill?

Richard Branson has called for a global ‘War Room’ to win the fight against climate change. But where are the leaders to fill it?

In an address at the United Nations General Assembly on 11 February, Richard Branson — no virgin in either politics or PR — formally put climate change and war on the same footing.

In order to fight climate change, the Virgin boss said, we needed to recognise that it was a war: "The first war that truly threatens almost all human life". In a speech clearly intended to echo Sir Winston Churchill's prescient 1934 warnings about the dangers of ignoring German rearmament before the Second World War, Branson proposed a number of measures.

These included the creation of a Global Warming "War Room", which would include high-level representatives of government, business and civil society, and would be led by "someone of the stature of Churchill". Its tasks would include encouraging innovative technological ideas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to climate change.

Dig for victory

The analogies about climate change and war have been expressed in hushed tones in UN corridors at least as long as global warming first came to world attention in the early 1990s. Jeremy Leggett's book ‘The Carbon War’ fired the first shot, and both Bill Clinton and Al Gore have spoken separately of the need for an anticipatory ‘Marshall Plan’.

Politicians and the mainstream media, however, have generally ignored or been dismissive of the analogy. Attempts by the UK government, for example, to put climate change on the agenda of the UN Security Council have been rebuffed, on the argument that it was not within that body's mandate.

The western media has cautioned against the link, recognising — probably rightly — that the general public would prefer not to think of the potential devastation, mass mobilisation of resources, not to mention hardships, which wars imply.

The world is not yet ready for a replay of Churchill's "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech. The calving of Antarctic icebergs seven times the size of Manhattan are not, it seems, yet the same motivators as the tanks rolling into Poland.

While a respectable number of national leaders, including the UK's Tony Blair and Holland's Jan Peter Balkenende, have publicly warned about the dangers of triggering dangerous and irreversible climate change within a decade or so, the fact is that no politicians have actually put in place the comprehensive policies and institutions commensurate to the challenge, or implemented what they have promised.

Into the breach

Against this background, it is perhaps not surprising that it took a flamboyant entrepreneur to up the ante on leadership. Like Churchill in opposition, Branson has little to lose and everything to gain from scoring a few points on an issue that is already defining the 21st century.

One suspects that Churchill would have applauded Branson's stance. Both men determined to take a position that would initially prove unpopular, in the knowledge that "one ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it", in the former British prime minister's words, which Branson quoted to UN delegates in New York. Both understand that leadership on hard issues requires the combined efforts of government and society.

What a pity, then, Branson did not go further in elaborating on his Churchillian vision. There are two aspects of Branson's ‘War Room’ proposal that Churchill would certainly not have missed.

The first of these relates to how to make better use of existing international institutions. In has 1934 speech, Churchill was careful to reference the League of Nations, a precursor to the UN, and the need to take steps to strengthen it. Given the expertise and mandates of the panoply of existing international bodies, including the Security Council, there is an urgent need to work out how to ensure these institutions are more effectively coordinated.

The second concerns where the ‘War Room’ would sit, who would be on it, and how it would be governed. Would it be a Davos-like self-selecting forum, or an ‘open-source’ model? To whom would it be accountable? Churchill, who lived in an era where the government was more confident in telling business what to do, might have been less comfortable with the inclusion of non-state actors, but supportive of the motives.

Statesmen CEOs

In some respects, however, Branson was probably not really concerned about details. One senses that his main concern was to throw down the gauntlet to government to show some sadly lacking initiative and institutional innovation.

Whether this is in the form of implementing existing emission reduction commitments, creating government ministries for climate change, providing state-backed support for the mass production of wind turbines and solar cells, or reprioritising international institutions, it seems increasingly clear that we're still far from ready to combat climate change successfully.

Branson's call serves as another reminder of the need for more urgency in the response to climate change, and for governmental leadership. As Branson would probably concede, while business will play a large part in providing many of the technological solutions, and even in raising awareness, it cannot write the policies.

The war against climate change will not be won with voluntary instruments, new institutions or PR flourishes passed off as action. The hard fact is that there is no alternative to greater government intervention in markets, and to do so before the metaphorical tanks arrive.

Until a new Churchill appears, however, agitating CEOs may remain our best hope.

Amsterdam-based, Paul Hohnen consults, speaks and writes on sustainability and CSR issues. www.hohnen.net. Mr Hohnen is a member of Ethical Corporation's editorial advisory board.