Avoiding Armageddon: Pointers to A Better Future
As the renowned cellist, Pablo Casals, famously said, “The situation is hopeless ..we must take the next step.” Those next steps are already clear: “We have everything we need in terms of technology and, in terms of the actual physics, we know what we need to do,” says Solitaire Townsend, co-founder of the change agency, Futerra. “The vast majority of solutions have a really significant benefit to our health and wellbeing, income and standard of living around the world.” What are those solutions, and what is the evidence?
Here are just a few examples, to give us hope and galvanise us into action to continue the good work of restoring the health of our planet and its inhabitants.
Renewable energy is growing exponentially cheaper. It now delivers 75% of all new power, while coal has plummeted to just 4%. Moreover, an important recent study found that a swift transition to clean energy would save trillions of dollars, even without accounting for the enormous damage continued fossil use would cause.
Electric vehicles are taking off, literally! Sales in China are doubling each year, with now more than 500,000 EVs sold. And in Australia, car manufacturer Volvo has just announced that it will offer only EVs for sale by 2026, leading the way for other car makers to follow suit in this transition to cleaner, cheaper transport.
These are both examples of positive tipping points – ones that will help accelerate the decarbonising of our global economy. This is not necessarily a walk in the park: we will need to go more than five times faster than we are at present. But it can be done. As Simon Sharpe, Director of Economics for the UN’s Climate Champions, points out, “We’ve got to change massive chunks of the global economy and do that really fast…. It’s obvious you’ll manage that better if countries work together and they are focusing on making clean technologies and sustainable solutions the most affordable, accessible and attractive option.”
Even the war Russia is waging against Ukraine offers an unforeseen opportunity for global health, with European nations in particular facing massive increases in the cost of energy. “The case for a global energy transition is more solid now than before the invasion,” says Christiana Figueres, formerly the UN’s top climate official. “Once we are on the other side of the current Russian blackmail, no one will want to be [held] hostage again.”
Young people are leading Hi-Viz protests against oil and gas interests. Some activists – those gluing themselves to major highways or tossing soup over treasured paintings in art galleries – may annoy or outrage complacent members of the public, but they certainly grab the headlines and offer protesters a platform to put forward their (and our) case for urgent change.
It will never be too late to act. However high the global temperature rises, every tenth of a degree that is avoided means members of our global family suffer less.
This brings it home to us. As Bernice Lee, an expert on climate politics at Chatham House, says, “Good results at a global level are built on strong domestic, local and regional action and, that being the case, there are reasons for some optimism” - if we choose to act in our best interests.
This blog has drawn on an article by Damian Carrington Environment Editor at The Guardian, posted 4th October, 2022. For sources, go to https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/04/hope-climate-chaos-renewables-science.
Contributed by Wendy Morgan