In early 2024, two trends are apparent. First, emerging evidence of the magnitude of global warming and its disastrous effects is increasingly grim. Second, Western politicians and the general public seem to be increasingly disinclined to act upon it.
In the UK, there is a legislative crackdown on climate protests – with a trial starting today, 19th February, of five climate activists alleged to have vandalised JPMorgan’s London office, that is likely to be an important test case. Tabloid newspapers find room on their front pages for headlines that eco-warriors are threatening our democracy. The government is back-tracking on its green targets. EV sales are falling as a percentage of new car sales (down in 2023 versus 2022). The Labour Party, almost certain to form the next government, has abandoned its pledge to spend £28 billion per annum – a little over 1% of the UK’s GDP – on investment in the green economy, on the basis that it might be unaffordable.
Really? 1%? This is not about sophisticated economic analysis; it is about basic priorities. Like the state of life on Earth.
Elsewhere, the EU (in common with the UK) has reduced funding for the environment on the basis that more needs to be spent on defence. The irony is that there are likely to be more conflicts in future for access to increasingly scarce resources, such as water and agricultural land, due to deterioration caused by climate change. So the EU’s actions are precipitating the very requirement for that military hardware that they’re meant to forestall.
And in the US, the front-runner to be the incoming President (again) is a man who thinks we shouldn’t be worried about global warming.
Give up?
So should we just give up on the basis that we are already stuffed? No, because there is a world of difference between bad and very bad. It may be that the future is inevitably hard, but better a hard one than none at all. In fact, the incremental impact of our actions, the impact of those few extra tonnes of CO2 equivalent that we can influence, is greater – not lesser – now than it was a decade ago when the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases was lower and the climate less sensitive.
CAR
Individually and collectively, we need to do whatever we can, in three ways: communication, action and reflection – CAR for short. We have not to be afraid to communicate with family and friends, work colleagues and politicians. We need to take whatever action we can to reduce emissions directly. And we need to reflect on what we’re doing, to learn constantly as new evidence comes to light; and also to think about whether our communications and actions are having the desired effect; and if not, how we should change them.
For it to work, CAR is indivisible; none of its three strands can be omitted. Consider, for instance:
Communication without action
Many people take the view that it’s entirely up to politicians and oil company CEOs to act: that ordinary people have no direct influence. This viewpoint conflates none with very little: hundreds of millions of ordinary people who each do a little can together achieve a lot. Our direct impact aside, if we act as if we have none then politicians in government might assume – with some justification – that the climate is hardly top of our agenda and there are higher priorities for them to worry about.
Added to which, when people join marches and protest outside Parliament, they lend themselves open to charges of hypocrisy if their own lifestyle has a high carbon footprint. Hypocrisy fosters cynicism in the minds of people in power.
Action or communication without reflection
We probably all know someone who thinks it’s important to recycle bottles “for the good of the environment” but takes frequent foreign holidays without a second’s pause to consider and compare the relative impact of these two things. Sadly, for whatever reason, we don’t seem to be very good at cultivating a sense of proportion. (To-do lists may be part of the problem, as in “here are [100, or whatever number] tips for saving the planet …” One of these in particular, published by a well-meaning charity, is vivid in my memory – the very first, and by implication most important, action mentioned was to buy a bamboo toothbrush.)
And when we feel strongly, it’s all to easy to form an entrenched or knee-jerk perspective. I was guilty of this recently when the government announced it was giving licences for more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. My initial thought was “That’s outrageous!” … until I remembered that there are pros and cons (reduced emissions from production and transportation versus a greater overall supply of fossil fuels internationally), and that even the Committee on Climate Change recently admitted to not knowing whether it was in the round beneficial or detrimental to allow further North Sea O&G development.
Those who join marches are often very brave people, with considerable integrity. Sometimes though, they are unhelpfully pig-headed. It seems worthwhile to ask the question: is this march going to be effectual? Are there enough people to change the government’s actions? Will the main impact be to antagonize the general public and actually harm rather than help the environmental cause?
Those (me included) who sign up to renewable energy tariffs should ask – and, in fairness, power companies and Ofgem should be more helpful in this respect! – does my signing up actually have any impact at all on how much renewable energy is generated? Almost always, the answer is No, the renewable energy is being generated anyway, whether it’s attributed to my account or not. That doesn’t mean it’s bad to have a renewable tariff – more likely than not, it’s a good idea – just that it’s a much smaller environmental benefit than we might think. It goes a very small way indeed towards obviating the need for other and bigger things we can do.
Reflection without communication
At the opposite end of the spectrum from the political activist with a high-carbon lifestyle is the quiet thinker who is vegan and never gets on an airplane, but also never interrupts anyone else and is hardly noticed. Displaying integrity is all very well, but has limited oomph if there isn’t much of a display.
Doing what we can, just not equally
If everyone, and every organisation, does what they can – subject to the occasional lapse because we’re human – through CAR in its undivided entirety, humanity can probably avoid the worst scenarios for climate change.
Occasionally, I’m met with scepticism when I suggest this. What, for instance, is a poor person in Rwanda meant to do? But that’s the whole point. Indeed they can’t do much, but there will almost certainly be something small …
Shakespeare wrote words to this effect in one of his plays, but then he could get away with it. Today’s middle-class westerners are on safer ground talking about what today’s middle-class westerners can do. Eat less red meat? Go on fewer long-haul flights? Stop shopping for clothes? Don’t drive an SUV in an urban setting? Talk to one’s friends or colleagues? Communicate with one’s MP? Stop pretending it’s about global population when the world’s richest billion cause most of the damage? There’s unlikely to be a shortage of worthwhile things to be getting on with.
At the corporate level, companies could be much more honest about their genuine carbon footprint for a start, rather than attributing their emissions to someone else, somewhere else, in the disingenuous rush towards Net Zero. There’s on-site energy efficiency, greener offices, less business travel, greener purchasing of upstream supplies, an emphasis on making greener products or delivering greener services, even if they appear to be less profitable according to an economic system that still largely treats the environment as an ‘externality’ …
The government (and many economists) could tackle its unhealthy obsession with GDP. And its tendency to pander to short-term popularity and perceived selfishness in the electorate when it comes to policy-making. Many would say that’s simply naïve: that it goes against the grain of human nature. Perhaps. But perhaps it’s also true that most people have at least some better instincts than those to which politicians pander. And are adaptable when they have to be, as the Covid pandemic illustrated.
Some historians might say: “Oh well, humanity has survived before so will survive in the future.” Alas, we may need to ditch our love affair with historical precedent and tradition. In a world of exponential change, tradition is not our friend.