Contraction and Convergence Awards

“Let a thousand solar plants bloom”
Aubrey Meyer - Director GCI

C&C turns a set of climate change problems into a framework solution by
analysing and integrating the long-term trends and defining the future global
path-dependency for achieving UNFCCC-compliance. While C&C is not a trendy
idea, the ‘continuity’ in its wide uptake as a frame of reference for a vast and
diverse range of initiatives, almost suggests that it is.

C&C is continually cited as crucial at the global level right down to the local.
Many campaigns at this level are openly and clearly based on the C&C
principle. This is a critical part of the emerging debate as often a problem has
been the perception that what is globally relevant is locally irrelevant and
what is locally relevant is globally irrelevant. So the emergence of the C&C
principle in action both locally and globally helps to unify and give continuity to
the initiatives that are emerging at all levels in the vast new ‘sustainability
industry’.

Moreover, a diverse and growing range of actors are suggesting the C&C
principle should be applied to resources other than ‘carbon-consumption’.
The pattern emerging overall is that across all sectors of the economy, the
indefinite expansion and divergence of resource exploitation, is unsustainable
and must stop.

So, with the C&C principle, key messages are gradually now being acted
out in a more rational way; there are limits to growth; resources should be
conserved and shared equitably; environmental impacts attending their use
must be reduced; only doing those things that directly enhance sustainability
must now be encouraged.

Sustained investment in the clean-tech, renewable energy sector is crucial.
This is equivalent to a second Copernican Revolution where UNFCCC-
compliance is understood as solar-centric with a common C&C narrative that
replaces the ego-centric lottery of the previous decades.