Rodney Burton / Soil Erosion, Wigborough, Somerset / CC BY-SA 2.0
In September’s Climate Matters I presented the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015 as an ambitious plan to transform the world by 2030. The 17 goals were broken down into 169 targets. Approaching the two-thirds point of this 15-year plan, only 17% of the targets are on track to be achieved, nearly half are showing minimal or moderate progress, and progress on over a third has stalled or even regressed.
UN Goal 13 was to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. Urgent because climate change impacts all the other goals too.
The latest climate summit, COP 29, has recently concluded in Azerbaijan. At last year’s COP 28 in Dubai, countries agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels”. A year on, the dominance of coal, oil and gas has not shifted with CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels continuing to increase, year on year.
“Gradually, then suddenly” is how Ernest Hemingway described going bankrupt. The climate crisis could be on a similar trajectory. However, there are some small nuggets of good news. The growth of fossil fuel emissions is starting to slow, largely due to more renewable energy powering more electric vehicles and heat pumps.
China, the world’s largest emitter, installed more solar panels last year than the US has in its entire history. China’s emissions could even plateau in 2024.
However, these glimmers are not enough to put emissions on a downward trajectory. Global mean temperatures continue to rise. Melting ice in the Arctic is slowing the Atlantic Overturning Meridional Circulation, a vast ocean current that redistributes heat northwards from the equator, and has significant effects on climate. Scientists are increasingly concerned about the level of inaction.
A transition from humid to dry land is underway that has shrunk the area available to grow food, costing Africa 12% of its GDP and depleting our natural buffer to rising temperatures. More extreme weather is causing drought in some areas and heavy rain in others, washing away the topsoil, rather than nourishing the soil as does more even rainfall. Across the world, soils have been pushed beyond their capacity to recover, and humanity’s ability to feed itself is now in danger.
A huge problem is the influence of big business, particularly fossil fuel interests, on government policy. Huge amounts of money wash into the corridors of power from think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry. Governments are rightly concerned by the impacts of moving from fossil fuel dependency but delaying will only cause bigger problems.
Sam Hampton (University of Oxford) and Lorraine Whitmarsh (University of Bath) who study low-carbon lifestyle change, state that “Tackling climate change effectively requires a shift to a more equal society, where happiness is prioritised over consumption,”
“It necessitates radical behavioural changes, particularly from the wealthiest, and policies that enable these changes.”
Unfortunately, the wealthy are unlikely to support policies that reduce their wealth. In general turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. And the wealthy have significant power in government.
In the UK, briefing by a Think Tank linked to fossil fuel money helped the government draft recent anti-protest laws aimed at climate activists that have, among others, jailed a 58 year old climate activist for “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” because he gave a talk on civil disobedience. It is interesting that no charges have been made against farmers blocking motorways in recent protests.
The UN special rapporteur for Environmental Defenders, Michel Forst, stated that the UK could be breaking international law on the rights of environmental protesters.
When governments take action against those trying to save the planet, but support those who are destroying it, the future looks bleak. Time is running out; if we wish our children to inherit a planet in as good health as we did, we must do more. Now.
Phil Shotton,
Ramsgate Society Lead on Environment and Climate Change
