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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/14/grownup-leaders-are-pushing-us-towards-catastrophe-says-former-us-climate-chief>
"Political leaders who present themselves as “grownups” while slowing the pace
of climate action are pushing the world towards deeper catastrophe, a former US
climate chief has warned.
“We are slowed down by those who think of themselves as grownups and believe
decarbonisation at the speed the climate community calls for is unrealistic,”
said Todd Stern, who served as a special envoy for climate change under Barack
Obama, and helped negotiate the 2015 Paris agreement.
“They say that we need to slow down, that what is being proposed [in cuts to
greenhouse gas emissions] is unrealistic,” he told the Observer. “You see it a
lot in the business world too. It’s really hard [to push for more urgency]
because those ‘grownups’ have a lot of influence.”
But Stern said the speed of take-up of renewable energy, its falling cost, and
the wealth of low-carbon technology now available were evidence that the world
could cut emissions to net zero by 2050. “Obviously it’s difficult – we’re
talking about enormous change to the world economy – but we can do it,” he
said.
Stern would not name any world leaders, but he said the UK was in
“retrenchment” over climate issues. Rishi Sunak and Claire Coutinho, the energy
secretary, made several U-turns on climate policy last year, and have
repeatedly said climate policies imposed “unacceptable costs on hard-pressed
British families” and that by slowing such action they were “being pragmatic
and protecting family finances”.
Stern said that, in fact, delaying action to cut greenhouse gas emissions was
leading to disaster, given the rapid acceleration of the climate crisis, which
he said was happening faster than predicted when the Paris agreement was
signed. “Look out your window – look at what’s happening,look at the
preposterous heat. It’s ridiculous.”
Leaders who claimed to be grownups by saying the pace of action had to be
slowed had to be honest about the alternatives, he said. Just as political
leaders took swift action to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in 2020, so must
they confront the consequences of slowing climate action now.
“All hard questions of this magnitude should be considered by way of a
‘compared to what’ analysis. The monumental dangers [the climate crisis] poses
warrant the same kind of ‘compared to what’ argument when leaders in the
political and corporate worlds balk at what needs to be done.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
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mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
