Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Innovation is a process of failure and learning from failure. The same is true in development cooperation. Take PlayPumps for example, which aimed to take the energy produced by children playing on a merry-go-round to pump water up from a borehole, supplying villages with clean, effortless drinking water. An inspired, ingenious plan – how could, and did, it go wrong?
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What if you discovered a hidden treasure beneath the soil in your backyard, but found out that in order to dig it up, you would have to chop down a unique and irreplaceable tree? The country of Ecuador is facing this problem, however on a much bigger scale: preserve the Amazon, or exploit the petroleum underneath? Their solution is to ask the international community to pay them not to extract the black gold.
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With 2011 over, Durban behind us, and another 365 days gone to save the planet from the devastating effects of global climate change, United Explanations looks back. What is the final score? Did Kyoto find an African grave? And what about this new ‘Durban Platform’?
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As the 20,000 delegates in Durban head into their second and final week of climate negotiations, what are the ones with the EU badges saying? What are their positions, who are their allies, and what do they mean by ‘yes, but…’ to a second round of Kyoto commitments?
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