See Hunter Lovins on COPx, a new network that global leaders have launched to take on climate change in ways the UN’s COPs have failed to do
For 30 years, the world’s governments, working through the United Nations, have negotiated to keep global warming within “safe levels” of temperature rise.
Most nations have negotiated in good faith through 60 UN Conferences of the Parties (COPs). But they’ve failed. It’s time for change.
The climate crisis — which seemed so distant in 1985 when Carl Sagan warned Congress about human-driven climate change, and even in 1992 when the UN began the COP conferences — is now upon us.
The data is clear: increasing floods, fires and hurricanes leave people without homes and insurance, rising seas, millions of people displaced, political upheaval… 2024 was the hottest year in recorded history. So many of us watched heartbroken as fires swept Los Angeles, and climate disasters strike ever closer to home. Nature does not negotiate.
The bottom-up alternative to the UN’s top-down COPs
If nations can’t protect us, who can? We can.
What’s been clear for years became even more apparent last November in Baku: we need a global, bottom-up alternative to top-down COPs that can bring together and inspire millions of people around the world who want to protect our future and help make our efforts more effective.
That’s why we call it COPx: Conferences of People, Independently Organized.
For two years, a small team of us worldwide has worked to unleash COPx, a global citizens’ movement to solve the climate crisis by enabling people everywhere to implement the solutions on their own, in their own communities, in their own ways.
Solving the climate crisis: Trust your gut
We are crafting the tools to enable you and people everywhere, and anywhere, to act where you live, in your own way, to draw ideas and inspiration from our global network, and help solve the climate crisis – and even share your success with the world so that others can be inspired by your work.
We’re going on guts. All of us are volunteers. But after yet another person plaintively asked us what they could do about the precarious times in which we now find ourselves, it became clear: it’s time to act.
Last Wednesday, we sent a letter to the almost 500 people around the world who have been helping create COPx, saying, “We’re launching.”
Our friend Juan sent us this graphic novel that explains it better than I ever could.
Please share the COPx website and graphic novel with your friends and network. Invite them to visit. It’s the best description we’ve found to tell others what we’re setting out to do.
COPx is personal
The failure of top-down approaches to solve the climate crisis is now obvious. While much has been accomplished, the world’s governments have moved far too slowly to ensure a climate-safe future. And, honestly, that’s inevitable, given that governments tend to be responsive to incumbent power centers, not necessarily to future interests, no matter how much scientific and financial data demonstrate the growing risks posed by climate change.
Even the prediction by analysts in the insurance industry that half of the global economy could be lost to climate chaos this century does not seem to faze politicians. I guess that date is long after they are safely dead.
For me and my colleagues, COPx is personal.
Two years ago, I was about to hang up my spurs. I’d asked myself, “If you add up everything I’ve ever done, is it enough?”
No time to waste
No. We’re losing. The climate science is increasingly grim.
I asked, “Do I know what enough is?” …well, no.
Then why go down the road? Why burn carbon? Stay home, ride my horse, watch an eagle fly.
When a friend who had conceived COPx out of an insider’s frustration with the official process presented it to me I thought: Whoa. A global community working together to share action and insights on all the ways we already know can protect our planet and our future. That would be enough.
Then I thought, “It’s too big. I’ve no earthly idea how to do it.”
I still don’t, TBH. We reckoned that if we could raise enough money to bring COPx to mainstages everywhere, with celebrities and musicians celebrating the work of everyday people in communities, that would kick it off in the right way.
A global community working together to share action and insights on all the ways we already know can protect our planet and our future. That would be enough.
But, that costs a lot of money, and per above, we’re out of time to wait for the perfect moment. You know, I know, we all know, don’t we, that we need to move forward — now.
Are you with us?
“What can I do?” you ask.
Take the first step now by joining COPx. Go to the COPx website and register. You will be a first mover in creating the alternative the world so desperately needs. Put a pin on the map for your community.
If you are part of an existing group working on climate solutions, that’s great. Please keep doing that. We invite you to connect your group with COPx so that we can together build this global community.
COPx is a force multiplier, a community, an action network
New ideas and technologies are being developed constantly. And yet, as all the experts tell us, we already have the solutions we need to safeguard our future. We just need to implement them. Clearly it will be up to us to make them happen.
These solutions include the growing forms of renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, energy efficiency, resilience, a circular economy, and self-reliance — all the approaches that cut energy use, and replace fossil energy cheaper, better, faster, as Tom Steyer put it.
Whoever first conceived of the little brick had no idea of the magnificent structures people would build. COPx is your Lego brick. Go amaze us with what you can create.
It can be as simple as organizing a local carpool, or as ambitious as convincing local politicians to shut down the biggest polluter in your area. Both of these are existing COPx projects. No project is too small. Or too big. What matters is your decision to act. Think of COPx actions as Lego bricks. Whoever first conceived of the little brick had no idea of the magnificent structures people would build. COPx is your Lego brick. Go amaze us with what you can create.
As we gain critical mass, our global climate network, organized by and for the people, will create or highlight events worldwide to build grassroots, “bottom-up” climate action. Even in the face of extreme fragmentation and polarization, we must not forget just how big our common ground is.
Millions of people want climate action. COPx will connect us.
Globally representative studies show that huge majorities of people everywhere want aggressive climate action. So why isn’t happening? Studies show that few people believe anyone else cares. And it’s scary to act alone. COPx will give us all the courage. Care for a climate-safe future is the most uniting concern there is for humanity.
Digitally connected, COPx will host “conferences of people,” everyone delivering action both right away and over the long term. These will make the millions of citizens committed to climate action ever more visible. It will give a megaphone to those too long ignored. At the same time, solutions will be implemented in every community, aggregating to a global commitment for action.
Convening people, ideas and organizations around the world like this will create a force multiplier, and build the necessary political will to get governments and corporations to implement smart climate policies – constituency by constituency.
This is how movements begin, grow and succeed. We are creating a long-needed movement – and a gathering place – for the millions of people around the world who want to protect our collective health, wellbeing and future.
This is how movements begin, grow and succeed.
Tell us: What would you want COPx to look like? What would you or you and a friend like to do – or to change? Email us: community@copx.global. We want to learn from you, see your pictures, videos, and hear your ideas. We’ll continue to refine COPx, but please tell us how you think it can be improved.
COPx will give you tools – and agency
Our global team of scientists, authors, consultants and leaders is committed to sharing the countless sustainable practices and their positive impacts. Some $10.5 billion was poured into the recent US election. We’re hoping that now, people will realize that it’s time we invest in efforts to protect our health and planet.
We continue to pursue funding, taking meetings with potential donors every day and working every connection we have to find the money to build COPx globally with the urgency and resources that this moment demands. Here, as well, any advice and help is most welcome.
But we’re not waiting. Want to help? We need you.
Created by people from around the world, COPx will empower you to act in your own community. It will connect you with others around the world taking similar steps, offering projects you may want to try, describing how others have achieved results. It will give you know-how, community and inspiration. Even if you have never acted before, COPx will be there with you.
Our newsletters will come regularly. If you have news to share about what you and your community have done, please send it in. We want to showcase the great work you are doing to bring climate solutions to the world.
Thank you for being a leader.
Related Content:
– Dispatch from COP: Empty – but half full
– Dispatch from COP: Actual climate solutions – and at a profit
– Dispatch from COP: From surreal to real
