Club Europe

Thanks to some orphaned Qatar miles, I was able to redeem an award ticket to Stockholm with BA this afternoon, concluding two intense days full of climate futures and sunlit green meadows. Meanwhile, yet another meaningless terror attack took place in central London. Worlds that are almost impossible to reconcile.

Obviously, the Trump administration’s decision to leave the Paris Agreement brought further dissonance. In my view, the Paris Agreement is important not because it will stop climate change (it won’t) but as an articulation of global responsibility and common cause. At least on a nominal level, each country remains free to fill its National Determined Contributions (NDCs) with whatever mitigation action it chooses. Wise policy-makers (like in Finland) have all the options in the world to pursue an effective mitigation pathway and avoid the German cul-de-sac of fossil lock-in and renewables.

On a personal level, the coming weeks will hopefully be a bit less stressful as the semester is finally over and I will again be able to focus on my research.