Written by Miguel Azzopardi
On the fifth anniversary of the Paris agreement, activists from Fridays from Future warned us that the action needed is ‘nowhere in sight’ and that we are still in ‘a state of complete denial’. They are correct. The world is in danger of missing Paris climate targets because politicians haven’t enacted any policies to stop the use of fossil fuels or reduce human pressures on the environment. The gap between what we are doing and what needs to be done continues to grow wider.
Observers and activists from Fridays from Future have repeatedly warned that committing to targets in the distant future is far from enough, especially when we only have perhaps seven years (or maybe less) left before we will have put enough carbon in the atmosphere to breach 1.5 degrees of warming. Business as usual hasn’t solved the climate crisis so far, and it’s definitely not going to in the future. It’s what put us in this situation in the first place.
How many ‘Mass Extinctions’ is too many?
We are currently living through the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history – a fact often forgotten or brushed aside. Locally, this has been helped in no part by a developmentalist mindset seeking to destroy every piece of natural land and replace it with apartments with the only goal of making a short-term profit. The collusion between developers, government, the (inappropriately named) ‘Planning’ Authority and the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects has led to the unprecedented destruction of our open and natural spaces. This is often also done with the blessing of ERA, which are meant to be protecting – not sanctioning the destruction – of our natural environment. The situation is bad enough that some scholars claim that our islands’ biodiversity has changed more in the past ten years than in the past nine thousand.
How Can We Solve the Climate Crisis?
Solving the climate crisis will require fundamentally rethinking the type of society we want. This would require considering alternatives such as Kate Raworth’s doughnut economic model, which places our social and ecological well-being at its centre, as well as contemplating a carefully planned and socially just reduction in excess resource and energy use in a way that maintains or improves wellbeing (i.e. degrowth). It would also require us to think more ecologically and see ourselves as part of nature, rather than superior to it. Our politicians have shown zero interest in tackling our environmental and social grievances, preferring instead to cling on to old ideas that measure prosperity solely based on increasing how much we produce and consume – a ridiculous idea that is long past its sell-by date.
To make matters worse, current ‘net-zero’ targets are woefully inadequate and insufficient, leaving a gargantuan amount of emissions unaccounted for and being based on scenarios relying on fictitious negative-emissions technology. 5.5 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions are not covered by the targets. Emissions from aviation, shipping, imported goods, and the burning of biomass have all been ignored.
2050 Targets: Mission Impossible?
The scenarios which 2050 targets overwhelmingly rely on the possibility that speculative negative-emissions technologies can be developed and deployed at scale. These technologies currently barely exist and cannot be realistically scaled. Scientists have repeatedly condemned this approach, because they are based on the idea that we can continue burning fossil fuels in a vain hope that someday, somehow, we’ll magically be able to suck those emissions back down from the atmosphere. Political leaders continue to pay lip service to these warnings preferring instead to deny the gravity of the crisis while safeguarding the interests of those who benefit from the current system.
What Future?
This lack of action constitutes nothing less than a betrayal of current and future generations. We thus affirm our core demands, for politicians to tell the truth about the climate and ecological emergency, to act on this emergency, and to establish a citizens’ assembly in the absence of adequate systems and institutions to deal with this crisis. If politicians were serious about tackling the climate and ecological crisis, they would be taking immediate action, not waiting another 10, 20 or another 30 years in the vain hope that the problem will somehow go away. Since they have broken their social contract to protect the interests of their citizens, it is time to let citizens themselves deliberate on these issues, as should happen in a truly democratic society.
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