There is a global climate emergency, and Governments of the biggest countries need to take real decisions of strategic consequence if catastrophe is to be avoided. One look at the weather disasters of the first half of 2021 is enough to raise questions. “Extreme weather emergencies raging on four continents” was a headline in the Daily Telegraph of 20 July, following recent record-breaking floods and fires of murderous consequences. Wildfires have raged across California and Oregon, and across the other side of the world in Serbia. Lethal floods swept through Germany and other parts of Europe, hundreds losing lives. In China dams were swept away and urban tube train systems flooded with deadly effect. Indian monsoons have been horrific. Australia had fires, New Zealand epic flooding. But it will be important not to panic.
Greece is aflame as this is written “The world is warming faster than we feared, warn UN” (The Times of 7 August). The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published a report, including its conclusion that global warming could reach the crucial 1.5C increase since industrialisation much earlier than previously anticipated, say by 2040 or even earlier, not 2050, the previous target. The Paris accord of 2015 committed many countries to keeping the increase substantially below 2C, and nearer 1.5C. But the world is not on track to meet the pre-report targets let alone faster results. The COP26 conference in Glasgow in November is the nearest chance for politicians to follow the science and declare open war on greenhouse gases. Alok Sharma, UK Minister acting as President of the Conference, is quoted in The Observer of 8 August as failure of saying that failure of the conference would be “catastrophic” and “I don’t think we are out of time, but I think we are dangerously close…”. The UK has ambitious targets of net zero by 2050, a World front runner, but debatably has no strategic plan to reach it. Some others are far behind and less proactive, with no clear strategic plans of action. The message of immediate emergency was always a fair point made by Extinction Rebellion even if their means of resolving things are somewhat less accepted and perhaps flawed, such as their pretence of being non-political. The good news is that the IPCC consider that stabilising the climate is within mankind’s power.
Leaders face making massive strategic decisions which, if not ducked, will require massive commitments of resource and industrial changes which will have to be implemented, not simply declared. The world’s track record of global concerted action is not good, as the pandemic evidences.
COMBATTING CLIMATE CHANGE CAN DRAW ON PANDEMIC LESSONS
The effect of the pandemic and measures to combat it show that societies need to accept real disruption to previously accepted norms where a serious crisis demands. The pandemic taught that, among other things:
- Forecasting the future is fraught with difficulty and predictions must not be mistaken for facts
- When a global approach was needed to tackle a global emergency, individual countries acted alone, often in competition with each other
- It is politicians who had to make the judgement calls, reliant so heavily on scientists’ and other experts’ inputs, but those inputs need sensible leavening
- Massive change can only happen with the commitment of Government power
- Politicians are heavily influenced by local reactions, media pressure and short-term issues
- The worst off are worst hit domestically
- Poorer countries are dependent on the rich for science and survival, fairing worst in a crisis
- Authoritarian leaders seize the chance to cash in on people being afraid and unsettled
- Technology is key to solving major problems of massive scale
- Inherent weaknesses in society get magnified and are exploited in a global crisis
- There are no easy choices, and they all involve pain, and the media and the public mostly seem to have greater appetites for blame rather than pain
- Communicating honestly and seriously with the public and not avoiding issues is fundamental to get their trust, without which hard actions cannot be delivered.
The issues raised by Covid are big and pervasive but should be temporary in their effect and not totally transformational. The financial commitment to minimise its worst effects has been unique. The issues behind and raised by climate change are a thousand times more complex, potentially more deadly, and transformational in a highly destructive way: all choices to combat it are likely to involve huge expense and pain. Innovation and courage to break moulds will be essential, just as with Covid. The teachings of the pandemic will perhaps be relevant as options are considered and adopted. The climate change crisis is globally existential and long term, Covid is hopefully not.
EXISTENTIAL ISSUES REQUIRE BIG THINKING – TAKE MOTOR VEHICLES
A huge multitude of subjects and activities will need addressing to create a cohesive strategic plan for long term control over greenhouse gas emissions: each will need considerable thought engaging many skill sets, a huge task globally. But thinking must not be constrained by assumptions about what is possible without testing.
By way of example, transport is thought to be the cause of about 24% of carbon emissions. There has been a huge focus in individual countries on replacing petrol and diesel vehicles (ICEs) with electric vehicles (EVs). There is no doubt the EVs will emit less carbon.
Joe Biden recently announced that by 2030 half the new vehicles sold in the USA must be electric, a major policy change. The EU has 2035 as its due date for no more new ICEs. And in the UK it is 2030 for the same milestone. There is a mass of public discussion around the cost of infrastructure, such as battery manufacture and charging points to achieve the targets. Are they deliverable at current rates? The mining required, supply chains and production costs of EVs and their batteries are significant and not especially environmentally friendly. No doubt technology advances will improve this over time. But will it be quickly enough?
As an example, an interesting article entitled “Electric Vehicles: recycled batteries and the search for a circular economy” in the Financial Times of 2 August, addresses the big issue of recycling batteries of all kinds to make new car batteries, a process which is growing rapidly and is encouraging, but at best it is thought can supply perhaps 25% of need. The circular economy idea is to be embraced, and even Apple’s Tim Cook aims by 2030 to make the iPhone without taking stuff out of the earth. The FT article cites an example of how battery materials can travel 20,000 miles before they are finally part of an EV – such as cobalt mined in the Congo, shipped to Finland for refining, shipped to China for inclusion in battery cells, then to the USA or Europe for cell packaging, then to a car production factory: no doubt such supply lines can be simplified but the EV has a long way to go to become a really green product.
But should not the leaders of the World be thinking more broadly? The population of people is growing and the sheer number of vehicles likewise. See ISN’T IT TIME FOR A NEW UK STRATEGY FOR THE PASSENGER CAR? Is not now the time to contemplate a world where private vehicle ownership is the exception not the rule? Cities are barely moving. If electric transport systems of trains, buses and smaller but accessible pay-as-you-go hire cars predominated, and were really planned for, as well as bicycles and similar means of travel, getting hundreds of millions of cars off the roads can only be beneficial. All trucks could be electric, or hydrogen powered. Can anyone have the debate? Do too many jobs and so votes exist in the automotive industry as to make the idea political suicide, off the table along with the NHS?
The end of the age of the private motor car ought to be a long-term goal perhaps. In any event obsession with the EV and related issues cannot distract from other strategic questions. After all, power generation itself produces more carbon emissions than transport.
TIME TO ADDRESS WATER
To pick one other immediate and current growing source of conflict due to climate change: melting of ice caps and the Greenland sheet among other things will see the sea levels continue to rise. The heating of the earth drives desert south to eat up the African continent. Iran is short of water. Man-made projects are controlling water flows, such as China controlling the Mekong River, and Ethiopia’s plan to dam the Nile. A brief article in the Times of 28 July prompts thoughts about the terrible risks of water shortages or water-caused disaster. It is called “The first water war is uncomfortably close” by Roger Boyes. Less water, less food. Less food, higher prices. As sea levels rise, or water droughts affect more people due to climate change, migration will be the only option for swathes of people, and not just from Africa. Survival instincts will drive people to take great risks to find food and water. The migrations across the Mediterranean and the consequent thousands of migrants crossing the Channel is a problem on the increase. If one State prevents supply of water through river control and deprives another, will violence be the result?
Water and food shortages linked to global warming produce but one illustration of the dire social consequences that can follow.
SCIENTIFIC UNITY AND POLITICAL COURAGE
There is now a lot more knowledge about climate change and its causes. For any firm and meaningful policy decisions to be made, let alone implemented, the global leaders first need to have clear scientific guidance which justifies the considerable cost that transformational changes will need. In the pandemic the World was riddled with scientists competing with their theories and predictions. The IPCC Report has Governments backing it, but will all Governments take it on board publicly and practically to change their industrial approaches, paying more than lip service – will the USA and China lead the way as the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases? It does not however contain all the remedies to achieve the very challenging emissions reductions target. It may make recommendations, but each country will have to adopt a plan to address its circumstances – the costs will vary hugely as will the simple administrative ability to meet targets.
How much cost will the G7 or G20 richest nations be able to impose on their taxpayers to subsidise the rest of the world let alone transform their own domestic production and usage of energy? The rich will have to bail out the poor, and it is the rich who have the greatest responsibility to reduce emissions. Persuading countries to change practices will be hard. A simple example is that Germany and other parts of Europe are highly dependent on Russian gas; but the production of Russian gas involves a huge amount of flaring of methane, and methane is tens of times more climate lethal than CO2. Western relations with Russia are on a knife edge. How does Russia get persuaded to reduce its methane emissions? One size will not fit all: Africa’s contribution of greenhouse gases to global warming is relatively tiny, its levels of inequality extreme, its political, social and poverty problems exceptional. A solution relevant to a developed country is unlikely to be appropriate in an African one.
What is the cost to India of reducing its coal fired power stations and moving to solar or wind or nuclear? How does Brazil get persuaded to stop massacring the Amazon rainforests, which are said now to be net emitters rather than absorbers of CO2?
These are but a few examples of the challenge of the political complexities surrounding implementation, let alone agreement on what actions are needed by which nations and by when. While there can be a lot of pessimism over the world’s ability to cooperate to achieve a global purpose to save the earth from man’s destructive selfishness, there is simply the fact that, unless transformational actions are agreed, there is a real possibility of a slide into irreversible catastrophe.
Politicians must think big ideas, not pontificate and placate. Recent UK concerns over the small increases in energy cost for UK families, and comments about not rinsing before machine dishwashing are of a level which really dilute the significance of what is being addressed. Yes, individuals need to embrace the problems and to know steps which they can take to reduce their own contribution to emissions, but most important first is that Governments the World over communicate the seriousness of what is ahead and the reality that short term sacrifices will need to be accepted for longer term gain and show through actions determination to win the war. However, exaggerated forecasts to instil fear and which prove wildly false will undermine credibility and popular buy-in which is fundamental to real change happening. The IPCC report provides hope suggesting the 1.5C or 2C limits of increase are attainable with immediate rapid and large-scale emissions reductions. The right climate change measures could cost political parties votes, and one wonders perhaps if there are leaders in power who have the courage to decide and to do what is needed. Those leaders, not Extinction Rebellion, need to be the loudest voices.
