Most people on this list have probably heard about the ‘100 months’ initiative launched by nef (the New Economics Foundation) (www.onehundredmonths.org. The report is drafted by a group of NGO and ex-NGO people along with a journalist and an MEP and was launched with a major article in the Guardian.

It calls for a range of actions (as below). But what does this actually mean for those of us working on the ground on climate change? Does anyone out there see this as a big step forward? Is this a tool that can be used? Is it just another ‘green and good’ paper exercise?

It is perhaps worth looking at this in a little detail. The key aims are:

· Executing a bold new vision for a low-carbon energy system that will include making ‘every building a power station’.
· Creating and training a ‘carbon army’ of workers for a vast environmental reconstruction programme.
· Establishing an Oil Legacy Fund, paid for by a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies
· Ensuring more realistic fossil fuel prices that include the cost to the environment, and that are high enough to tackle climate change by creating economic incentives to drive efficiency and bring alternative fuels to market.
· Minimising corporate tax evasion by clamping down on tax havens and corporate financial reporting.
· Re-regulating the domestic financial system
· Breaking up the discredited financial institutions that have needed so much public money to prop them up in the latest credit crunch. Large banking and finance groups should be forcibly demerged.

There’s nothing there I would disagree with. But here’s a few points to consider.

1. The first two points (on climate and energy) are hardly new. The idea of a massive task force to insulate and upgrade the nations’ homes was set out and costed in the 1980s (it’s depressing to think about how we’d have transformed society if we’d actually started then…). But it’s not happened despite repeated calls. Consider why not…

2. The remaining five points all relate to the economic system and are massive transformations. It’s easy to suggest re-regulating financial systems and again this is not new, but taking on the vested financial interests of the world might be a campaign a little longer than just 100 months (hard to see how the UK could do this on its’ own…)

3. This is (just a little!) top-down. Andrew Simms of nef finished his article with ‘Now it is time for the government to lead….’. The whole programme seems to be based on the idea that strong policy is enough to change the world. Policy wonks the world over cling to this belief. I would disagree – we need strong policy but we also need good infrastructure and we also need effective engagement. Active engagement often leads policy rather than being led by it.

4. That last point is what perhaps lets this down. Governments need to get elected and to do that they need to appeal to enough of the public. At the moment the public (and the media) may be aware of climate change as a threat but they are not engaged to anything like the necessary level.

They are, I would suggest, highly unlikely at present to give support to a strong radical programme to cut CO2 emissions if that means difficult life changes. They are vastly less likely to support the ‘break-up of financial institutions’ and re-regulation (“what’s that mean to my pension / mortgage / etc….”) unless there is either a crisis vastly greater than the minor-sub-recession we’re in now or they feel they have some onwership of what is going on.

Getting support for these changes will need an unparalleled programme of engagement and capacity-building to give people the skills and understanding so that they can engage effectively with this problem and get active both politically / collectively and in their personal lives.

There is nothing clear in this report (or the bits I have read) that suggest how such a programme should be developed. The 100 months website merely asks for an email address, promises mailings, and then asks you to sign up other people.... But if this programme is to have any chance of getting support outside the hallowed ranks of the 750,000 (or so) Guardian and Independent readers then the first 20 months needs to be devoted not so much to detailed analysis of financial systems but much more to transforming how people see and engage with this threat to our future.

So:
* Can we tackle climate change effectively without transforming the financial systems?
* Is a massive drive to transform the financial systems a diversion from work that can be done within the current systems?
* What does a central government programme for popular engagement with climate change look like? Could it work?
* How can the few thousand grass roots climate change initiatives actually use and work with initiatives such as this?

Comments welcome