What does Convergence mean?

To converge means to merge, unify, unite, approach, and gather together. There is a dynamic quality to this word; it's as if we can always get a little closer. The opposite of converge is diverge, which means to move or draw apart, to vary, to deviate and to extend in a different direction. It suggests separateness, boundaries, and maybe disagreements.

We can see convergence and divergence in nature with co-operating and competing organisms making up complex ecosystems, which exhibit both these types of process to maintain a fine balance. How often do we say that in our social lives 'we have to get a balance', and how often do we blame an over-emphasis on divergent processes as the cause of the ills of our society?

For example, the history of the West since the Renaissance has been driven by expansion and by economic growth, so much so that we now claim that our economic systems are necessarily locked into ever greater volumes of production and distribution, which produces an increasing gap between those who have and those who don't – this is both among and within nations. Divergent growth not only causes tensions and conflict, but it feeds on itself and has led to a crisis point in our overuse of resources and disregard for waste. The current focus on atmospheric pollution is a direct symptom of a multitude of divergent processes.

It is tempting to suggest that we impose some opposite, converging process whereby we curtail overall growth and introduce the idea of equal rights to equal shares of all resources. Unfortunately there appears to be no will to vote this in, and we have tragic examples of how imposing something like this gets perverted and ends in disaster. But it may happen this way, as Noam Chomsky says:

"Suppose it was discovered tomorrow that the greenhouse effect has been way underestimated, and that the catastrophic effects are actually going to set in 10 years from now, and not 100 years from now, or something. Well, given the state of the popular movements we have today, we'd probably have a fascist takeover – with everybody agreeing to it, because that would be the only method for survival that anyone could think of. I'd even agree to it, because there are no other alternatives around right now." – Chomsky, 2002

This frightening prospect of a self-imposed, fascist convergent mechanism would probably contain horrors on a vast scale. However, Chomsky continues by saying that we don't have to wait for the disasters to happen; we have to create the groundwork to adapt and cope. These mechanisms, if we take a moral stand, should be convergent. They should bring people and people together, and people and nature together.

Balance is needed, and we need to hold and live with contradictions and even paradoxes. Convergence and divergence are both required within complex systems; they are opposites, but we need to find a way to accept the dynamic unity of these opposites that need each other. Communities do develop separately: they may pull away and diverge, but forces for convergence are required to prevent them springing too far apart; they need reasons and goals for uniting in common purpose for mutual benefit. It is our contention that our present world systems have too few converging or correcting mechanisms to do this. As a result we have extraordinary wealth in some parts of the world and abject poverty elsewhere, and this divergence feeds on itself.

The challenge of The Converging World is to discover and implement mechanisms for convergence in order to counteract the forces that separate.

At the core of any construct of a converging world is the natural world. We now have a perspective on this planet that shows how remarkable life is, and how life is essential to the maintenance of the atmosphere, the seas and even the rocks. Our actions are destroying this fine balance. We have introduced new, divergent processes by burning fossil fuels and peat bogs, and we have inhibited convergent processes like the absorptive action of the rainforests, by chopping them down and burning them.

Proper regard for convergent processes would restore that balance. It would see human activity as part of the natural systems: our waste will be Earth's resource, our resource will be Earth's bounty in mutual beneficial cycles rather than the destructive, one-way processes that we have currently created. All societies need to converge to similar benign relationships with the Earth. The model for those relationships is what we propose is at the heart of our future work, especially our relationship with the atmosphere.

The Converging World is a big idea. It derives in part from the 'Contraction & Convergence' principle proposed by Aubrey Meyer of the Global Commons Institute (Schumacher Briefing No. 5), which sees, across the world, an equal per capita right to emit 'carbon'.

Contraction & Convergence

"Should Contraction & Convergence fail to occur, the globally asymmetric growth of emissions and income will continue, triggering rates of damage that will collapse security and overwhelm the [global] economy. The need to avoid this is obvious and absolute." – Global Commons Institute

The year 2006 may be a turning point in history. The media created a storm over climate change, and the last vestige of any dissent about global warming being real and serious almost disappeared under a hail of articles, publications, films and conferences and important reports.

A cynical view is that this media attention is transient; global warming fatigue will set in, just like fatigue over famine disasters or HIV/AIDS in Africa. Perhaps, though, we have attained some critical mass in the thoughts of enough people, perhaps some paradigm shift is under way and we, as yet, have no idea what the consequences of that may be.

If so, then major credit goes to the work of Aubrey Meyer and the Global Commons Institute (GCI), who have consistently presented and represented the concept of Contraction & Convergence.

Contraction & Convergence (C&C) is a framework for international action; it is generally considered fair and simple. C&C says that the right to emit carbon dioxide is a human right that should be allocated on an equal basis to all humankind.

Carbon dioxide is a useful proxy for all greenhouse gases, the concentrations of which are now threatening to produce irreversible climate change with potentially devastating effects on all life. The C&C idea is that we should estimate what levels of global emissions are acceptable to the Earth, which will then determine how much we need to cut back (contract). Once we know this, an equal per capita allowance is calculated which is used as a starting point for reduction and for trading (Convergence).

So by deciding an acceptable level for CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere we can determine the maximum global emissions per year. This gives us an equal per capita amount: each individual's allocation. A full implementation of C&C would require global agreements and systems of trading so that the process of Convergence would occur by those countries unable or unwilling to reduce emissions paying others who were not fully utilising their allowance.

Contraction & Convergence was one of the major influences on the development of the Kyoto Protocol, which came into force in February 2005 as a mechanism to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. However, the Kyoto Protocol is an inadequate and limited response to climate change as, for example, the United States and Australia did not ratify it. Also India and China, who have ratified the protocol, are not required to reduce carbon emissions. These countries have formed, with Japan and South Korea, the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate to promote the development and transfer of clean technologies amongst themselves.

In summary, you could say that one half of the world is making a feeble attempt to reduce demand for fossil fuels while the other half seeks to clean up the supply. Nowhere is anyone implementing the concept of equal shares for all.

Contraction & Convergence remains as an ideal. It is on the table as a direct challenge to intergovernmental negotiations and to national policy makers. It has met considerable resistance, which suggests that it challenges the existing order that has got us into the mess we are in.

The Converging World is an experiment, an action story. Carbon, climate change, and poverty are its central players. In contrast to schemes which require governments to legislate and to force things to happen, our experiment starts with what individuals can do, and it makes the local connections that are necessary for changes in behaviour and for directly addressing the inequity that persists in our polarised world.

Globalisation and sustainability

As if carbon emissions and climate change were not enough, there are many other pressing global issues. We face the imminent prospect of the demand for oil, gas and water exceeding the capacity for supply.

A recent advertisement in The Economist, ironically run by Chevron, states that it has taken 200 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil and it will take only 30 years to use the second trillion [and there isn't a third!]. Throughout the world, water extraction from aquifers is increasing, and these fossil water supplies take tens of thousands of years to replenish – what happens to cities that run out of water?

This is all part of the context for Convergence. How do we allocate today the Earth's resources for the survival of a projected global population of nine to ten billion people in 2050 – and for their offspring indefinitely?

Minerals, energy, food and water are quite tangible. We also consume or control other less tangible items that are in some sense 'common'. Many aspects of knowledge, particularly scientific, medicinal, and agricultural, should morally belong to everyone.

The world has gone a long way to stating that everyone should have political and religious freedom and access to the law, health care and education. The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:

"The recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."

The Declaration divides into two areas: political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights. So far implementation, in legislation, has concentrated on the political and freedom rights; little has happened on incorporating rights on employment, education, health and security. The Converging World embodies the Declaration of Human Rights in its philosophy; fully implemented, the declaration would produce a convergent world.

Globalisation and sustainability are two words that are over-used and have multiple definitions. They are shorthand labels for difficult, incomplete concepts. Are we concerned about the emergence of some form of sustainable globalisation, or are we interested in globalising sustainability? Who knows? We have to cope with contradictions: globalisation contains localisation, with both processes happening together and interdependently; sustainable systems comprise many unsustainable components, much like an ancient and seemingly sustainable rainforest which is only a collection of organisms that live and die within a boundary that we define.

The Converging World concept goes well beyond carbon emission reduction and trading, although this is a fundamental aspect requiring emergency attention. It is a vision of a world where everyone has a fair share of the resources that the Earth can easily provide without jeopardising its potential to support life in all its diversity. It is also a world where everyone has a fair and equal share of, and access to, human-created resources such as knowledge. The vision extends to an indiscriminate right to justice, health, education, welfare and security. In this worldview, environmental issues are inseparable from social justice.

Convergence means reducing the ecological footprint of some while increasing that of others. The ideal Convergence point is an equal, per capita footprint that, in aggregate, is somewhat less than the Earth can support: as a motto of The Converging World says, "99 percent planet living is the max."

In a sense, the tangible Convergence that we seek is a realisation of a convergence of values – material, economic, political and spiritual. It is our personal responsibility to reflect on what that means for our own behaviour. We are converging in diverse communities, each living according to its own local definition of sustainability but with a responsibility to the sustainability of all other communities.

So Convergence means many things. It is another shorthand word for the complexities of restoring a balance, where appropriate, between moving apart and coming together.

Our thesis is that our systems are deficient in convergent processes, that we witness too much divergence in many fields: social, economic, governance, well-being, academic, and spiritual. The values of the Western world, in particular individuality, self-improvement, freedom, liberalism and economic growth, have created a great civilisation but are divergent. Now these forces are coming up against the limits to growth on a finite planet and new, convergent forces are needed to subdue and correct them.

All such attempts at convergence are valid and necessary. If this is achieved by international bodies or national governments, then big changes may occur. However, TCW wishes to encourage those who just want to get on with it: by starting the process with the individual, with local community groups and with businesses.

The Converging World: the story so far

Convergence is action to achieve social, economic and environmental justice.

We will explore many of the theoretical ideas behind Convergence later, but one concept stands out: Convergence is a process. It does not define a state that we wish to attain; rather it shapes and evaluates the actions we take. We are going to take a pragmatic approach – ideas and reflections suggest actions, and then we learn from doing.

We will tell the story of how two communities are beginning a process of linking with Convergence as a central principle. It is a process that is deliberately slow and careful. Although there are few visible results, the importance of building relationships is revealed. Hopes and aspirations are explored and critically examined, and we explore the dangers of raising expectations that cannot be met. We suggest practical ways to learn about the process.

The story starts with an organisation working for improvement and sustainable development in southern India and how it got linked to a zero-waste project in the village of Chew Magna, near Bristol, in the UK.

Social Change & Development (SCAD) is an organisation that works in Tamil Nadu. It has been supported by the UK charity Salt of the Earth for many years. Cletus Babu, who runs SCAD, visited Chew Magna in April 2005 and this was the starting point for a tiny Converging World Group within a community-based project called Go Zero. This group was formed to raise awareness of how we should address issues of poverty and justice in the world if we hope to reach a zero-waste society.

One token aspiration was to match the village of Chew Magna (population around 1,000) with some of the SCAD communities in Tamil Nadu which have a population of around 5,000 – the ratio roughly equivalent to that between the one billion people in the developed North and the five billion in the developing South.

The SCAD story

SCAD was set up by Cletus Babu in 1985 to enable the people of rural India to stand alone, both socially and economically. It is now a thriving NGO, which works in the areas of education, health, community, agriculture and animal husbandry and supports more than 300,000 people in more than 450 villages. What it has done is produce a model, in the Gandhian tradition of social enrichment, which is now shared across India and the world.

Cletus gave up a comfortable life in the priesthood to make a difference to the quality of life of the rural poor. With two friends he took the first steps to lift people out of grinding poverty. They started simply by listening to the experiences of village people, and they slowly came to realise the communities' values and the problems they faced.