Our future in balance

Posted on 05. Oct, 2010 by annac in United Kingdom

As the talks get underway here in Tianjin you’d think we’d all be talking about what’s happening here in China, but on the second day of these negotiations actually it’s more of a case of Mexico on the mind. With just this week of talks left before we reach Cancun and another COP (the only place where decisions can be made), many of the conversations here in Tianjin are focusing around what we can expect to achieve there, and what we can’t.

But though they may not be talking about the China negotiations, being here is maybe having more of an influence than it would appear.

Because the word on everyone’s lips in this conference centre is balance. And balance is a concept which features heavily in Chinese philosophy.

In Chinese philosophy everything in nature must be in balance, like the concept of ying and yang:

“At its heart are the two poles of existence, which are opposite but complementary. The light, white Yang moving up blends into the dark, black Yin moving down. Yin and Yang are dependent opposing forces that flow in a natural cycle, always seeking balance. Though they are opposing, they are not in opposition to one another. As part of the Tao, they are merely two aspects of a single reality. Each contains the seed of the other, which is why we see a black spot of Yin in the white Yang and vice versa. They do not merely replace each other but actually become each other through the constant flow of the universe.”

Everyone’s new favourite UNFCCC buzz term is ‘balanced package’. A balanced package is what we are now looking at being the outcome of Cancun in December. But it would seem that this term is floating around without anyone actually clarifying what balanced is. This leaves it rather open to be interpreted by each country to mean just what they want it to mean. To mean a package that works the best for them.

If we take the Chinese philosophical approach, it would seem to me that what balanced really means becomes a bit clearer.

Ying and Yang, developed and developing, we are but one single reality. Opposing but not in opposition, each containing the soul of the other, not replacing but becoming each other.

A balanced packaged must take all this into account. We are but two parts of the same, we are one world and we have one planet for all of us to live on, in balance.

A balanced package is one that allows this, one where there are no winners or losers, one which works for the whole, for the good of us all, for the good of our planet.

For the good of our past, our present, and our future.

As we spend yet more of our lives here in the soul sucking staticness of UNFCCC negotiations our future is truly in the balance.

But with true balance we can restore the whole.

If we take just one thing from China, let it be that.

Tags: balance, balanced package, Cancún, China, COP16, Tianjin, UNFCCC