As I read this weekend’s papers and made my way through lists of things to make me a better person this year, one piece of wisdom stood out from the usual litany of drink less, exercise more, go to bed earlier - a call for us to be more empathetic.

Roman Krznaric’s suggestion, in The Observer, sounded more interesting than all of the others (though of course I’ll be giving those a shot too), so I duly looked at his blog: www.outrospection.org where, amongst other thoughts, he has a very interesting piece on empathy and climate change.  There’s also a full article here.

Krznaric’s argument is that empathy is a powerful emotional tool that can be mobilised to create social change.  He offers the historical example of the rise of the social movement that challenged slavery, which created an outpouring of empathy from the public, and quotes historian Adam Hochschild as saying “The abolitionists placed their hope not in sacred texts, but in human empathy”.

We need that scale of empathetic response, he says, to deal with climate change, and to close the gap between knowledge and action.

He points to two types of empathetic response that we need – through time (to future generations) and across space (to people living now in developing countries).  This is familiar territory to anyone who’s thought long and hard about sustainable development which has right at its heart the ideas of inter- and intra-generational justice, i.e. that we should develop in a way that allows others now and in the future to meet their needs.

The problem has been how to take the idea that we all have the same entitlement to meeting our needs, put this into practice and articulate it at a policy level.  Krznaric is suggesting that empathy provides a way of bridging the gap, where political and economic arguments fail.

Empathy has definitely started moving up the agenda in recent years, particularly as it’s a topic which Barack Obama has talked so much about, referring often to what he calls the ‘empathy deficit’: “When those of us in comfort can’t look at a child in poverty and say ‘they’re just like my kid, they’re as special as mine’”.

Examples of the use of empathy in public policy can also be found with the success of movements such as that for Restorative Justice, which brings together the victims of crimes with their perpetrators. It has been shown to be beneficial for both, and to reduce re-offending rates.  By putting themselves in the place of the other, both sides it seems have much to gain.

I spent some time last year wondering if we wouldn’t be doing better on climate change if we had more women leaders?  It feels like there’s still a lot of belief in the macho-techno solution that is going to come from somewhere at some point and sort this out, without the need for behaviour change. 

However, I’ve decided this isn’t to do with male versus female, but the sort of leaders we tend to go for.  A year into office and Obama is already accused of not ‘doing’ enough.  It seems people don’t want leaders who think, or empathise, they want people who (appear to) act: reflective types need not apply.

But I think Krznaric is right.  We’re going to need a huge dose of empathy to sort this out, at every level.  It’s a nice thought experiment to wonder how Obama would find running China for a week, and vice versa with Wen Jiabao.  I don’t think we’ll persuade them to do it.  But if we teach ourselves to empathise more with others, maybe we’ll learn to press our politicians for the right sort of solutions.  We may also choose different politicians, and look for different characteristics in our leaders.  I wonder how differently Copenhagen would have turned out with a bit more empathy?