WWViews Blog

The meeting in Boston was a far better example of citizen engagement than the Congressional town hall meeting on health care that I attended this summer.  The Worldwide views model of public deliberation is a good one and should be used in a wide variety of issues that concern the global community of nations.  While people’s views are fully expressed and respected, the meeting format does not allow obnoxious venting and grandstanding.  [Sorry, Fox News]
The results showed a very strong expression of concern about global warming.  There was an overwhelming sense of urgency for achieving a strong climate agreement.   In addition there was a pungent message that national politicians heed the deal made in Copenhagen this December.
In my first glance at the data, perhaps the strongest result was that 89% participants affirmed that short term reductions of carbon emissions in developing countries be reduced by 25-40%.  This will come as a shock to world leaders who are aiming at targets much lower than that in the immediate future.
At the same time within the aggregate results, there were some moderately worrisome themes.
1.  Some 43% of participants world wide seemed to say that a rise of 2 degrees Centigrade or higher is actually permissible. Reading the same figures, it’s also true that 89% of participants overall said that no more than 2 degrees increase would be acceptable. [Is the glass half empty or half full?]  From what I’ve read, even 2 degrees increase  would spell disaster.   Are people becoming acclimated (so to speak) to prospects for  dreary future?
2.   Another cloud on the horizon was that among some national groups, raising the price of fossil fuels was not uniformly popular. Some 32% of U.S. participants said no price rise was desirable. Evidently Americans want the Age of Happy Motoring to continue forever.   A substantial number people in the groups from Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, and UK were also opposed to fuel price hikes.
3. Finally, I was interested in the data from question 2.4 about whether punitive sanctions should be applied. In the combined groups from the U.S.A., 29% said there should be no sanctions or only symbolic ones. This may be a residual expression of the feeling that rules and penalties made in international treaties don’t really apply to America.
On the other hand, some groups from countries in which democratic institutions are relatively feeble were very strongly in favor of strategies of punishment.  I don’t know how to interpret that pattern.

- Langdon Winner

Tags: fuel prices, punitive sanctions, temperature rise, U

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