Global Warming, World Affairs, the EU, the US and leadership

Here are some thoughts, a tad radical maybe, food for thought, on the dynamics of our times:

1) EU: -30% not even as a conditional EU offer to the US, China, et al? Hm!

2) Here is a radical strategic scenario for the EU (EU2020 etc):
EU2020 Scenario: The EU adopts a -30% emissions target and stops trading with those who do not match the cut! I know, radical.

3) IMO EUropeans need to adopt a sustainable, simpler, healthier lifestyle anyway! Maybe all the way to a "Fortress Europe" (economic+environmental)? Just brainstorming!

4) How radical would this scanario be: The EU uses only solar and wind energy, no CO2 emitting energy, no nukes and EUropeans adopt simpler lifestyles (anyway). Radical, but the times we live in ....

5) Let's look at it from a wider point of view: The West: Our industrial lifestyles in the West have proved unhealthy, thus Europe, North America and others need to revise many aspects of life.

6) Why all this (the above)? Among other things, because the industrial era brought many good things but many bad ones as well, thus it is maybe time to audit the "basket" and revise models and lifestyles.

EU Leadership?

7) For the EU to assume a leadership position in world affairs, it must IMO be a thought leader, instead of a "world bureaucrat"

8) What sort of leadership has the EU shown in the 9 years of the Doha Round of WTO world trade talks and the COP15 - Climate Change talks in 2009 (leading to the results of the Copenhagen Coneference in December 2009)? With Obama now stuck in the US, there seems to be a certain leadership vacuum in world affairs and the EU could/needs to rise to the occasion and lead the world in thought and in "do as I do" throwing in a negotiation assets its 0.5 billion population - consumers - lifestyles and the economic weight of the "rich" EU in order to be a leader in world affairs. Bold?

The US:

9) In the US, the GOP (+ Fox) sem to have checkmated Obama and the Dems and thus US policy making, home and abroad, may be frozen until .... Jan 2013?


The world:

10) Meanwhile, the Director-General of the ILO (International Labor Organization) Juan Somavia calls for the same policy decisiveness that saved banks to save and create jobs