Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, makes in his article Three Ways of Going MAD a comparison between the current climate crisis and the conditions during the cold war where an atmosphere of MAD (mutually assured destruction) ruled the world. By building the power structure on mistrust and fear of a nuclear attack, the world was destructing itself. That is the same we see happening now, Schnellnhuber argues. Today all countries have the C-bomb (carbon-bomb)-- throwing the bomb is the same as not doing anything to reduce our carbon emission. The difference is though, that where the dangers and the result of using the a-bomb was obvious to everybody (or should have been), the complexity of the eco-system, the long time-span from cause to effect and the difficulty of directly attributing single actors, using the C-bomb seems so much easier than the terrifying A-bomb, but this doesn’t make it less dangerous.

Because all countries posses a short-sighted fear of economic loss we do not dare to be the first pioneers not throwing the C-bomb, and bet as much as possible on the fight against climate change problems. Even if it’s what we actually want, we don’t trust that other countries will do the same and not just take advantage of our effort. Schnellnhuber writes: “The United Nations Climate Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen in December 2009 can only be successful if the logic of MAD is turned upside down, transforming it into “mutually assured decarbonisation”.

We have to aim for a balance where “all will commit themselves to the strongest climate-protection actions, which are economically and technologically feasible. Such a novel spirit of trust would optimally induce a global competition for the most innovative ways out of the carbon trap. In such a leadership race, the disastrous arms-race logic of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD1) would be turned on its head, transforming it into a new cooperative logic of “mutually assured decarbonisation” (MAD2).”(Schnellnhuber).

But how do we build a globally mutual trust? Who will have to start? Can the politicians at COP15 make agreements and documents to sign about trusting each other? Or is this one of the things politic just cant solve? Where should the trust come from? And is such a novel spirit of trust really the answer to the whole problem?

Read Prof. Schnellnhuber’s article Three Ways of Going MAD.