ON the eve of COP26, your editor wonders whether action will be taken or if just more targets and proposals for mitigation will be set.
I’M writing this on another warm, above average, September afternoon. XR and Insulate Britain have been in the news daily for almost a week now. This current issue in your hands straddles the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow running from October 31 to November 12. I reckon this will probably be one of the most crucial gatherings mankind will ever make to tackle climate change. The talks will bring together heads of state, climate experts and campaigners to agree immediate coordinated action. At least that is what I hope will happen. Greenpeace’s chief UK scientist has warned: “This is not the first generation of world leaders to be warned by scientists about the gravity of the climate crisis, but they’re the last that can afford to ignore them.” Tipping points may have already been passed, a distant red line to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, by the end of the century, is looking to be in reality crossed in just over a decade. Last month the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report (the first since 2013) confirmed that human activity is changing the Earth’s climate in ‘unprecedented’ ways, with some of the changes now ‘inevitable’ and ‘irreversible’. We all know the world is on ‘red alert’, we have watched viral images of oceans on fire, forests burning, communities flattened, glaciers vanishing, torrential rain flooding European river valleys, snow in Brazil, Italians sweltering – live streamed from the frontline of those experiencing climate breakdown. A recent Tweet caught my eye which said simply: “Kinda weird that we’re all gonna experience climate change as a series of short, apocalyptic videos until eventually it’s your phone that’s recording.” The UN warn that Nations are “nowhere close” to the level of action needed to fight global warming, and urge countries to adopt stronger and more ambitious plans. As a geography and geology student I was taught in the 80s that these fossil fuel created disasters would magnify in size and scope. Superstorms become megastorms, fires would rage across continents, events that were once in a millennia would become frequent. I learnt that like light from a faraway star we are not experiencing breakdown in real time. What we experience now is from the fossil fuels sold and burnt back when I was taking my exams. It’ll be another 30+ years until what we are burning now affects our climate. I admit I’m desperate for leaders at COP26 to give us proper hope. I have to concede like Greta, I’ve come firmly to the opinion that our leaders have failed us, and badly. COP26 must deliver major action to try and fix our climate. But, I’m not convinced it will. I notice more and more people are turning away from difficult conversations, be it on climate change, CoVid19, or politics, people respond “I don’t want to talk about it, I’m fed up with it.” I know the constant images of air polluted cities, oceans awash with plastic, floods and droughts have begun to disconnect us, and we risk a sense of foregone conclusion, and an inability to influence the future decades by ending our fossil fuel habit. Shocking images of disasters and heatwaves, gale force weather, high tides and air quality must not make us complacent. I’m reminded of a study on responses to extreme weather by Frances C. Moore. He suggested humans like frogs would be happy to sit in a pot of water as the heat is slowly turned up until we boil to death. Moore studied people’s social media posts during extremes of hot or cold weather and concluded around five regular exposures to abnormal temperatures and people began to normalize what were extreme temperatures. I hope the UK is genuinely committed to working with all countries to inspire action not more targets, mitigation, or promises. But, can we really lead the world back from the brink? At the moment it’s not political leaders but bands like Massive Attack that are leading the way. They have released an industry blueprint in partnership with the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, proposing an achievable path for the ‘urgent and significant reassembly’ of the music industry to combat the climate crisis. The band urge that super low carbon needs to be baked into every decision, including “routing, venues, transport modes, set, audio and visual design, staffing, and promotion.” Impressively they argue that mitigation through carbon offsetting is not the answer, and only employed when further reductions are impossible. Historically COP26 must be the moment that the ‘frogs in the pot’ take action, and implement a global climate plan. We can’t rely on machines like Orca, the World’s biggest machine capturing carbon from air. Built in Iceland it sucks 4,000 tonnes of CO2 out of the air every year and injects it into the ground to be mineralised. Here’s hoping COP26 creates real activity in the energy sector, the buildings sector, in transport, in industry and business, in agriculture, in land use and forestry, in biodiversity, and in our oceans and rivers. Our leaders must agree to take action not create yet more strategies and targets we may never have the time to meet – we will know by next issue, what, if anything COP26 really delivered.
– Scott