Institute looks at pragmatic solutions

MARK PRAIN previews the Hillary Institute of International Leadership's second symposium, to be held in Christchurch on World Environment Day, this Friday, June 5.

Barack Obama's Administration is well aware of the dangers of over- promising, but the US President himself continues to earn wide plaudits for a modulated approach based on addressing apparently unsolvable problems by an unprecedented level of partnerships.

Just over 100 days into his presidency is too early to fairly judge outcomes, but whether the issue is health care, economic recovery or foreign policy, America's place in the world has undeniably been reoriented.

The next and arguably most significant breakthrough may well be taking strong leadership on climate change.

The administration's move last month on fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards set the tone.

In the words of a spokesman for the American car industry: "What's significant is the announcement launches a new beginning, an era of co-operation. The President has succeeded in bringing three regulatory bodies, 15 states, a dozen automakers and many environmental groups to the table. We're all agreeing to work together on a national programme."

Key to this new administration's success is twinning green policies (and jobs) with economic recovery, thereby mitigating the temptation to put climate change on the back- burner (pun intended).

While politically neutral (with governors on five continents), in that spirit of moving sensibly forward, the Hillary Institute of International Leadership's second Annual Symposium in Christchurch will also focus on pragmatism not utopianism.

The institute's 2008 symposium was led by Nobel winner (as chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Rajendra Pachauri, who later joined its international board.

Its fully subscribed event on June 5 will be anchored by its own 2009 laureate, Jeremy Leggett, and will model a cross-sectoral trading floor focused on "The Real New Deal" - economic opportunities inherent in the institute's leadership topic for 2008-12, Climate Change Solutions.

Social entrepreneur Leggett was selected from a shortlist of eight exceptional mid-career leaders active in climate solutions from the US to Zurich to Bhutan.

He is founder and executive chairman of leading European solar energy company Solarcentury, and chairman of SolarAid - set up with 5 per cent of Solarcentury profits - teaching young Africans to make, sell and use solar lanterns. SolarAid has raised millions of dollars and has as its patrons actor Cate Blanchett and author Ian McEwan.

Leggett is also a founding director of the world's first private equity investment fund for renewables, run by Bank Sarasin, of Switzerland.

An associate fellow at Oxford University's Environmental Change Unit he was a member of the British Government's Renewables Advisory Board (2002-6), and is the author of The Carbon War (1999) and Half Gone (2005).

His latest book, Solar Century, is due out later this year.

This December, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen for the United Nations' "crucial conference" with the clear goal of global agreement on a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity.

Given compelling scientific urgency and Obama's crucial policy shift away from the denialist Bush years ( along with similarly positive movement from China, India and Australia), pundits are picking the emergence of a historic post-Kyoto global compact for action.

A leader in Kyoto uptake, New Zealand in 2009, however, is clearly struggling with a new government finding its way, global recession and entrenched climate scepticism in some sectors.

The recent furore over economist Gareth Morgan's half-million dollar climate-change journey from sceptic to squarely on the side of the angels, amply demonstrated that fact.

However, our lack of national performance (in Morgan's words "a joke"), may cost us dearly long-term if we're not willing to fully play our part in an international agreement.

The Press's own leadership on motivating "mom and pop" - Colmar Brunton research showed 57 per cent of Kiwis took part in Earth Hour in March - certainly gives support to sentiment on the ground, and we need more opportunities for involvement. Greenpeace's just- launched "celebrity campaign" with Stephen Tindall, 42 Below's Geoff Ross, Robyn Malcolm and others may also assist in driving policy, given politicians' susceptibility to the media.

Certainly if we want to avoid embarrassment at Copenhagen, or avoid having our "100% Pure" trade/ tourism banner bite us badly, we need to do more than insulate domestic housing stock or embrace a national bike track - taking nothing away from the value of long overdue energy efficiencies or the tourism track - which Prime Minister John Key has embraced, and good on him. Beyond these showpieces, however, it won't stand much scrutiny to simply suggest the larger issue is too hard.

Any unsentimental analysis indicates major and unnecessary risk, never mind lost opportunity if we retreat when major trading partners are increasingly taking climate change very seriously, and tying smart thinking therein to global economic recovery.

What's needed is serious, national conversation across sectors, resisting the chauvinism of individual silos wearing political, scientific or business colours, or worse, hiding behind the "ear-marking" mentality of industry lobbyists.

The institute's symposium will (modestly) model that conversation in micro, based on the city state of Christchurch.

Just what might it take to achieve a prosperous, carbon-positive community, one which also maintains high levels of those factors held in common by the best cities in the world, workability, investability, visitability and livability?

Seventy key influencers across sectors will come together, provoked by Leggett and several notable Kiwis, from the NZ Leadership Institute's Lester Levy, to business commentator Rod Oram, entrepreneur Melissa Clark-Reynolds, Ngai Tahu chief executive Anake Goodall, to the city's Anglican Bishop, Victoria Matthews - and the event (necessarily small-scale to enable effective work), will web- cast its "trading floor" for public access.

Outcomes will focus on deals across sectors, and their implications.

"Carbon-positive" city states will not be rocket science. They'll be entrepreneurially flying on the ledger's upside, generating profitability from integrity and best practice, rather than increasing debt through unbridled emissions.

Undeniably these issues are complex, but they're not irresolvable and scalable solution models are needed urgently.

Low-lying Pacific Island states like Kiribati are already in evacuation planning mode - as President Anote Tong made abundantly clear to the 2008 symposium.

2009's international Hillary Symposium will be in Leggett's home town, London, and city-state outcomes from both events may well form an "off-Broadway" proposition for Copenhagen in December.

In the extraordinary spirit of Sir Ed himself, nothing is impossible.

* Mark Prain is executive director of the Hillary Institute of International Leadership. Views here are his own.

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