Fresh thinking to respond to climate change
FOR DECADES, some of the worlds sharpest minds have advanced a plethora of ideas to tackle climate change, but to no avail. Perhaps its time to give the kids a chance. The Economist asked 16- to 25-year-olds to answer, in fewer than 1,000 words: What fundamental economic and political change, if any, is needed for an effective response to climate change? We received almost 2,400 entries from nearly 130 countries and territories. The winner is Larissa Parker, a 25-year-old law student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her essay is published here. The way to get governments to adhere to long-term climate targets, she argues, is to recognise the rights of future generations. As she puts it: [It] would open the door for lawsuits on climate inaction and keep governments accountable to their commitments under international law. If a government does not take sufficient action on climate change now, then it is not doing enough to prevent harm to future generations, thus violating their rights to a healthy environment. The essay submissions came from all over the world, including countries vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as Haiti and the Philippines, as well as war-torn ones, such as South Sudan and Yemen. Some excerpts from other entries are here. Around 40% of the entrants were teenagers. The jury included five academic readers and six judges from The Economists editorial staff, as well as five external judges: Bill McKibben (author and activist), Camilla Toulmin (from the International Institute for Environment and Development), Amitav Ghosh (fiction and non-fiction writer), Malini Mehra (from GLOBE International) and David Wallace-Wells (author and journalist). We thank Turnitin for its assistance in the final review process to confirm the originality of the submissions. As the winning entry, Ms Parkers essay is published on Economist.com. She will attend The Economists annual ideas summit, the Open Future Festival, in Chicago to present her ideas. And she is invited by the United Nations Secretary-Generals Envoy on Youth to participate at the UN Youth Climate Summit in New York on September 21st. Twenty long-list finalists will receive a one-year digital subscription to The Economist. There were five shortlisted and 14 longlisted finalists. They are named below, with an edited excerpt from each of their essays. * * * Shortlisted finalists Gonzalo Fernandez-Codina, 25, Barcelona, Spain The best and fairest way to control pollution, it appears, is to give each individual an equal right to pollute. Daevan Mangalmurti, 17, Pittsburgh, United States Industrialised countries need to use trade policy and tariffs as a stick to convince nations to sustain climate-friendly development. Sanaa Mariam, 20, Indian in London, Britain It is time to declare access to clean energy and all other forms of sustainability a fundamental human right. Jeremiah Milbauer, 22, New York, United States A Green Homesteading program will allow individual entrepreneurs to begin renewable energy farms, and associate with the idea of American frontiersmanship. Hank Sparks, 20, Colorado Springs, United States Litigation taps into a powerful anti-corporate impetus across the globe that just might push climate action across the finish line. Longlisted finalists Denzel Chung, 20, Dunedin, New Zealand The worst-case catastrophes scientists gravely warn of hold little sway for those of us in the developed world, perhaps meaning a brown lawn or a new air-conditioner. Tomas Green, 24, Cambridge, United States For most policy decisions, there are trade-offs between equity and efficiency. What might be optimal for the economy can be privately harmful. Nicholas Hulbert, 25, London, Britain It may take as much of a change in mindset, and as much fantastical daydreaming, to escape the climate trap. Hassam Khattak, 21, Oxford, Britain Countries should wield sticks-and-carrots and essentially bully the developed world into making more appropriate commitments to ensure that climate change is tackled. Hannah Kirk, 22, Briton in Beijing, China A climate crisis is indiscriminate to citizenship, cultural affiliation or race, instead affecting all under a warming atmosphere. Antje Lang, 25, American in London, Britain In the face of this immense and frightening challenge we are also presented with an opportunity: how do we use the change required of us to build something better? Emily McDermott, 25, Sydney, Australia The restructuring of the global farming industry will minimise the harmful ecological impact from farming and global demand for cheap meat products. Joanna Nowinska, 20, Pole in Cambridge, Britain An increased role of local governments in climate change mitigation is precisely the fundamental change that we need. Olga Okhotinskaya, 17, Russian in Malaga, Spain It is no longer a question of fair trade...It is a question of accountability and long-term investment into the future of the planet. Toure Owen, 25, American in Beijing, China Authoritarian regimes are less equipped to respond to the climate crisis because the top priority of any authoritarian government will always be social stability. Drew Pendergrass, 21, Huntsville, United States Residents of Louisiana have one strength that people in other sinking landscapes do not: they can cross borders, escaping disasters and rising oceans. Jacob Smessaert, 24, Leuven, Belgium Green growth is doomed to fail, since it refuses to acknowledge the root cause of climate change: continued economic growth which proves impossible to dematerialise. Prakhar Tripathi, 22, Kanpur, India What will happen to discarded objects? Where will these objects go? This question is at the heart of our worlds response to climate change today. Emanuel Zbeda, 21, New York, United States Environmental populism makes climate change policy accessible, expanding the discourse from solitary environmental and economic policy to an integrated variant of the two. And to everyone who submitted an essay: thank you.