Page 47 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

30 M.E. MANN AND B. BREVINI

CONTESTED FUTURES
BB: Before Trump, just after the climate summit, there was a bit of
optimism. So how do you see the future now? Do you think this wave
of optimism has been stopped by Trump?
MM: I think that there are a number of things going on. Firstly there’s
progress at the global level and that’s really important: regardless of what
Trump does, you can’t stop the momentum that now exists for progress on
climate change—for transitioning away from fossil fuels towards renewable
energy. The rest of the world is going in that direction and there’s nothing
that Trump can do to stop that. What he can do is make the challenge a
little harder. Delay. And in so doing make the challenge even greater to
limit warming below dangerous levels. The amount of carbon that will put
us over the edge if the US pulls out of the Paris accord, for example, will
make it even more difficult for us to stay within our carbon budget. That
having been said there’s a lot of hard work that is happening still at the
municipal level, the state level, business that are committed to lowering
their carbon footprint.

BB: There are the campaigns as well ….
MM: The campaigns—absolutely. Getting major corporations and politi-
cians to divest holdings from the fossil fuel industry. So there are all of
these good things that are happening and, to me, they signify that we will
ultimately prevail in this battle. The question is will we allow Trump and
other bad actors to slow progress down enough that a lot more bad
impacts are observed. That we commit to worse climate change impacts.
That’s my fear. Ultimately it won’t prevent us from solving the problem,
but it will ensure that we commit to more harm and damage and suffering
than we otherwise would have.