It's Now Or Never: Scientists Have Shown What Needs To Happen, And Politicians Are Out Of Time
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However, it will take considerable, sustained effort for the nation to keep up such efforts. On Tuesday, national front pages were filled with images of burning Greek villages and lurid headlines. “PM: wake up to red alert to climate crisis,” warned the Daily Express; “As doomsday report warns of apocalyptic climate change: can UK lead world back from the brink,” asked the Mail; while the Telegraph announced “UN warns of climate ‘reality check’”. Given that many of these papers have gone to lengthy efforts in the past to denigrate climate science and to question the reality of global warming, these were radical announcements. It remains to be seen just how long each publication remains committed to the science.
“The climate story was all over the front pages on Tuesday but by Friday, three days later, it was hardly mentioned,” added Prof Martin Siegert of Imperial College, London. “Yet this is the most important thing that humanity needs to do in the next 30 years. It is going to change our lives, it is going to change the way we regard ourselves on the planet. And if we don’t, we are going to stoke up huge problems for our children. But after three days we seemed to be forgotten despite the fact this is something that needs decades of consistent, persistent work.”
Siegert added that it had been estimated that investment levels equivalent to 1% of GDP are needed to ensure the country’s transition to net-zero status. “However, we are currently spending about 0.01%… a 100th of that estimated price tag. And this is also well below what the government is spending on things that will actually add to our emissions, such as airport expansion plans and the tens of billions it has pledged on new road schemes, which will only make it easier to drive around and burn more fossil fuel.”
These are all issues for the UK to hammer out, as a matter of urgency, over coming months, although the opening of the Cop26 conference in Glasgow is going to be an even more pressing event. At the meeting, which begins on 1 November, delegates from more than 190 nations will gather to hammer out a deal that will determine just how hot life will get on Earth. At Paris, in 2015, nations pledged emission cuts that now urgently need to be updated or global temperatures will soar to well over 2C. Similarly agreements will have to be reached on how to phase out coal power stations as quickly as possible, to protect carbon-dioxide-absorbing forests, and to agree aid for developing nations to help them survive the impacts of global warming.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/15/its-now-or-never-scientists-warn-time-of-reckoning-has-come-for-the-planet
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