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Climate Leadership Rapid Response Teams to enable Climate Leadership and Climate Prosperity by 2020

1. Executive Summary

When he accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri said concerning global warming, that "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." 

The clarity expressed by Pachauri is being converted into action by the 2020 Climate Leadership Fund established by State of the World Forum as part of its 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign. This Fund will enable the development of 2020 Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) comprised of professionals and specialists drawn from the local area and internationally with many of the solutions to our climate challenges. These teams will be deployed to any city, state or institution making the commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% by 2020 and develop sustainable lifestyles and economies.  The strategic objective is to enable climate leadership to generate climate prosperity.

These 2020 Rapid Response Teams will work with local leaders to develop carbon footprint assessments, develop strategies to reduce carbon emissions while promoting savings, jobs and opportunities; participate in implementation plans to ensure that the goals are achieved; and to synergize their efforts with counterparts nationally and internationally.

Initial groups partnering with State of the World Forum include the Asia Foresight Institute, Bioneers, Climate Bonds Initiative, Climate Prosperity Alliance, Conservation International/Brazil, Earth Policy Institute, Ethos Institute, Gaiasoft, Hague Center, and Oxford Leadership Academy. Climate Prosperity Strategies will serve as the Managing Partner of the RRTs.

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2. The Critical Challenge

The 2020 Fund is an urgent imperative. The current world situation with regard to climate change is worse than the worst case scenario of the IPCC in its 2007 Report.  The more our scientists learn about global warming, the more urgent the situation becomes and the less time we have to solve the problem. At most, we have no more than ten years to solve the climate crisis. This mission lies at the heart of the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign and its 2020 Fund.

The central contradiction in the global warming crisis is that while the urgency is getting increasingly acute, our governments are negotiating as if we have another forty years to solve the problem. This timeframe is at the heart of the Copenhagen negotiations – reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, which, among other things, basically allows business as usual for another 15 -- 20 years. We must be guided by science not political expediency.  “2050 by 2020” must be our single most important organizing principle, which necessitates that we begin now to take leadership, designs 2020 strategies, and implement solutions.  Rapid Response Teams are the logical and inevitable conclusion of realizing that our time frame for action is rapidly closing and that action must be taken immediately.

The 2020 Climate Leadership Fund will be utilized to accomplish two specific goals:

• Develop 2020 Rapid Response Teams to travel in short order to cities, states and institutions embracing the 2020 timeline to work with local leaders in assessment, strategy formation and plan implementation aimed at reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2020.  The 2020 Fund would underwrite all the necessary upfront expenses so that work can begin immediately.  Once the contacts have been made and agreements reached, then it would be the responsibility of the city, state or institution to support the RRTs in their ongoing work, repaying the original costs to the Fund with a percentage of the remuneration also going to the 2020 Fund to support its ongoing effort.

• Mobilize 2020 Climate Leadership Campaigns, events and projects worldwide with the intent of creating a mutually reinforcing meshwork of 2020 campaigns. The intent is to develop an expanding group of cities, states and institutions joining the 2020 campaign so that there is an expanding network of opportunities the RRTs can support.

The ethos of the 2020 Campaign and the intent of the 2020 Rapid Response Teams is to achieve the 2020 goal using existing technologies and to demonstrate that taking climate leadership produces climate prosperity. Taking climate leadership by shifting from fossil fuels to clean technologies and renewable energy will save money, create jobs, and open up vast new opportunities for growth, innovation, and abundance. Conversely, if one simply wants to grow a robust economy, the best way to do this is tackle the challenge of climate change. The idea of moving from “resource-wasting capitalism” to “resource-saving capitalism” is simply good business practice whether one’s objective is to stop global warming or to stimulate economic growth. 

3. The Extraordinary Opportunity in Brazil

There is an unprecedented and highly potentiated opportunity to develop the 2020 Rapid Response Teams in Brazil where the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign is experiencing extraordinary receptivity and success. A truly national mobilization is developing around climate leadership and the beginnings of social change models at large scales are emerging that, if cultivated, could dramatically change the public perception about climate change and be replicated worldwide.

The fact that this is taking place in Brazil is critically important, particularly because of its pivotal role in the developing world and its emerging role in global affairs.  Success in Brazil would dramatically alter the most fundamental misperception in the world about global warming -- that governments must choose between economic growth and dealing with climate change. Governments, and to a significant degree the public, are caught up in the misperception that dealing with global warming is bad for business and therefore somehow a compromise must be sought between the two. More than any other reason, this is what is paralyzing any real movement in the Copenhagen negotiations and in dealing with climate change generally. 

Brazil offers an extraordinary opportunity to turn this misperception around and to demonstrate that climate leadership generates climate prosperity and that it is precisely the focus on solving the crisis of global warming that is the key to job creation, vast new opportunities as economies shift from fossil fuels to clean technologies and renewable energy, and thus economic growth.

There are many aspects to what is happening, but the principal actor is Globo TV, which controls 80% of the Brazilian media market and is the fourth largest media company in the world.  It has initiated a prime time nationwide ad campaign about global warming to support the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign. Additionally, Globo is developing sustainable lifestyle themes in two of its most popular daily prime time soap operas, initiating educational programs on climate leadership in over 7,000 schools across Brazil, and is working with the 2020 Campaign to develop local media campaigns in all 27 states of Brazil.

Globo is developing these initiatives completely at its own expense and is committed to continuing the campaign over the next ten years with an intent to make global warming a major national issue, stop the clear cutting of the Amazon, and mobilize the Brazilian public to make lifestyle changes around the ethos of climate leadership and climate prosperity.  These actions are unprecedented. It marks the first time anywhere in the world when a major media company has decided to begin educating an entire nation about global warming with an emphasis on climate leadership and climate prosperity.

The effect has already been dramatic.  Global warming is now being discussed across Brazil and the notion of 2020 as the goal by which solutions must be implemented is gaining currency.  To date, the following developments are in place:

• The National Association of Municipal Environmental Organizations (ANAMMA), the National Association of State Environmental Organizations (ABEMA), and the National Council of Environmental Organizations of Brazil (CONAMA), which between them comprise all the city, state and federal environmental organizations of Brazil, are partnering with the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign to map out a national strategy on climate leadership/climate prosperity.  The Ministry of the Environment and Ministry of Cities have offered support. The principal focus is the deployment of 2020 Rapid Response Teams that will be deployed to any city or state making the commitment to reduce their carbon emissions by 80% by 2020 and develop sustainable lifestyles and economies.  The strategic objective is to enable climate leadership in a way that generates climate prosperity. City level “Climate Prosperity Summits” are being contemplated all across Brazil as part of the ANAMMA/ABEMA/CONAMA/2020 Campaign partnership.

•  The cities of Curitiba, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and Vitoria da Conquista are in the process of joining the 2020 Campaign and active discussions are underway about deploying Rapid Response Teams to work with them on specific plans of action. Climate Prosperity Summits are already being planned.

•  The state of Minas Gerais has joined the 2020 Campaign and Governor Aecio Neves has allocated R$ 6 million to a specially designed scientific team to think through a 2020 pathway. Minas Gerais has already completed its carbon footprint, the first state in Brazil to do so. The state of Bahia has joined the 2020 Campaign and discussions are underway with several other states to join this initiative. The state of Minas Gerais is initiating plans for a “Climate Prosperity Summit” for all the states of Brazil.

• Major Brazilian NGOs involved in the climate change domain are working with and supporting the 2020 Campaign, including Akatu Institute, BioAtlantica Institute, Conservation International, Ethos Institute, Friends of the Earth, Fun Bio, and World Wildlife Fund.

•  A number of the major industrial federations and national associations are also in support, including the Brazilian Chamber of Industrial Construction (CBIC), Federation of Industries of Bahia (FIEB), Federation of Industries of Minas Gerais (FIEMG), the Federation of Industries of Parana (FIEP), Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro (FIRJAN), and the National Association of Small and Medium Companies of Brazil (SEBRAE).

The single most important ingredient in the success of the 2020 Campaign and the partnerships that are developing around it, is the timely and focused deployment of the 2020 Rapid Response Teams in a manner that provides the financial analysis, option sets, and strategic pathways to prosperity when a city or state makes the commitment to reduce carbon emissions and shift the basis of its economy to clean technology, renewable energy, and a culture of sustainable living.  The amount of business that will be generated will be substantial and the media attention significant. 

4. The Rapid Response Teams

The Rapid Response Teams are not consultants.  Their task is to help co-create a customized process for rapidly developing and sharing local expertise and action around climate leadership. Their challenge is to engage resident knowledge and local wisdom wherever possible and to empower local leaders to disseminate the knowledge gained and plans made throughout their regions, cities and communities with the inspiring vision that taking climate leadership will enable their communities to prosper.

The purpose of the RRTs will be to work with local leaders on:

•  Developing carbon footprint assessments and other “vital signs” as part of mapping the current health of their natural system;
• Liberating local knowledge and wisdom by engaging the community in ways that connect people and ideas in an entrepreneurial “ideas market” inspired by climate prosperity;
• Identifying leverage points for “whole system” change;
• Enabling the emergence of a coherent high level design together with relevant strategies that fulfill local criteria and needs to ensure the reduction of carbon emissions while promoting savings, jobs, and opportunities for growth;
• Participating in implementing plans made to ensure that desired goals are achieved;
• Supporting, accelerating and amplifying local enterprise by linking local efforts to similar initiatives both nationally and internationally;
• Taking forward insights, lessons learned and inspiration generated to other regions.

In most situations, the RRTs will be comprised of a custom designed mix of the following specialists, depending on local needs:

• Leadership Navigator: someone familiar with the structural dynamics of large systems and skilled in analyzing what is required to achieve individual, community and large-scale transformational change while avoiding potential obstacles;
• Climate Scientist:  a technical specialist who ensures that salient features and conditions of the natural ecology are considered and dealt with appropriately within the over-all impact that global warming is having in the region;
• Context Expert:  an entrepreneur able to propose and tailor innovative climate strategies to fit urban, local community, regional, or national contexts;
• Knowledge Integrator:  a local resident with an understanding of the whole system and the authority of their city, state or region and who is empowered to integrate the RRTs and the local leadership;
• Financial Analyst:  a specialist who understands how the local financing mechanisms works in relation to regional and national mechanisms and who can recommend innovative ways to both work the existing system and create new opportunities for financing;
• Energy Systems Specialist: an analyst who understands the local, regional and national energy grid and who can recommend ways to both take advantage of this system and to create new approaches to facilitate the shift to clean technologies and renewable energy;
• Innovations Specialist:  an analyst who understands and can recommend, given local conditions, what innovative technologies are available to be reviewed and implemented, someone who knows a range of technologies and their benefits/deficiencies elsewhere in the world.
• Legal and Financial Specialist: a specialist with extensive knowledge of the financial and legal systems, norms and procedures at the local, state and federal levels, who can advise the RRTs about the complexities of existing financial and legal structures.

Distinctive Factors in the 2020 Rapid Response Teams

The 2020 Rapid Response Teams will operate with the following distinctive factors as central organizing principles:

• They will only work with cities, states and regions inviting us in and which have made a prior commitment to reducing their carbon emissions and are motivated to work creatively and in the spirit of climate leadership and climate prosperity;
• The basic assumption is that we have an obligation to ensure that in the city, state or region in which the RRTs work, as many people as possible have access to and can contribute to the same liberating ideas, connections, innovations, and resources being created;
• The RRTs will focus on empowering local leadership and empowering people’s collective vision, enabling spirit and confidence to act;
•  The RRTs will seek to bring in a range of stakeholders and address social as well as cultural issues as these pertain to mobilizing the entire community to take climate leadership;
• The ultimate goal is to use the escalating crisis of climate change as a central organizing principle for future planning and to enable broad based climate leadership to generate climate prosperity.

Rapid Response Team Database

Working particularly with Bioneers, as well as with other partners worldwide, the 2020 Fund will assemble a comprehensive database of social and technical innovations that will be at the disposal of the RRTs and allow the 2020 Fund and Climate Prosperity Strategies to draw from specialists worldwide who can provide analysis, ideas, and concrete recommendations. Thus even though there might be a half dozen specialists comprising the RRT in any given situation, they will have at their disposal a database with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other specialists and technologies from which to draw and to whom they can turn for advice and support. This means that the RRTs will be able to be custom designed for each and every local situation.

5. Fund Manager

State of the World Forum, a nonprofit institution, will serve as the 2020 Fund manager and as the fiscal agent for all donations to the 2020 Climate Leadership Fund.

Make an open donation to the Rapid Response Team!