Climate warning

Last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Davos summit that the world is losing the race against climate change. The reality is that there has been more talk about climate change, but very little action. The easy scapegoat is the US, where the Trump presidency decided to pull out of the Paris accord, but the reality is that with or without the US, the world is going to need to take responsibility for their own actions. The UN chief has asked the rest of the world to take bold actions to arrest climate change before it does more damage, but it will not be an easy task. It is important to recognise what Guterres said about climate change being the defining issue of our time. Most would accept this characterisation, but the acceptance cannot just be verbal. We will need to do more to ensure that the increase in global temperature remains under 2 degrees celsius.

This is a crisis that has been caused solely by human action. The solution too is in our hands. Humans have a chance to act before the world we inhabit becomes hostile to our habitation. Many species have perished before us in the same habitat -- and it would be hubris to think that our planet will forgive our contribution to its destruction. Forests continue to be cut down and fossil fuels continue to be burned in greater quantities than before. This explains why the UN chief expressed that he was not ‘hopeful’ that the countries of the world would find a path forward together. We have already known that the commitments made in Paris are not enough, but the UN chief delivered a more stark warning: even if the Paris accord were to be implemented, the temperature would rise above 3 degrees Celsius. Environmental activists have raised these concerns before but nations continue to see profit and growth above the climate – even though the change in climate threatens both of these in the medium-term. While there have been positive signals from the automobile and fossil fuel industries about transitioning away from fossil fuels into renewables, but the reality is that it will be up to regulators to keep multinationals in check. The private sector will need to be regulated to push through the changes we need and there will be a need for drastic measures, rather than the slow-moving approach we are witnessing now. If disaster strikes, it will be hard to pretend that we were not warned.