With emissions rising and climate disasters growing worse even as financing continues to flow toward fossil fuels, it is understandable that many people have become fatalistic, cynical, or despairing. But even if this shared story feels justified, that does not make it practical – or even true.
SAN JOSÉ – We are already a third of the way into the decisive decade for bending the curve on greenhouse-gas emissions and biodiversity loss. Scientific warnings about the irreversible planetary changes that we are causing are growing clearer and more certain. Yet emissions continue to rise, and vast sums of money are still flowing toward investments that will expand fossil-fuel production and drive mass deforestation.
The gap between the urgency of the science and the dilatory policy response is so stark that no policy or technological breakthrough would be “enough.” But every fraction of a degree of warming we can ameliorate and every inch of nature we can protect is crucial.
The past year has been tough. Pakistan and India endured a nightmarish and deadly heatwave in which temperatures in heavily populated areas approached 50° Celsius (122° Fahrenheit). While massive floodsdestroyed lives and livelihoods across Asia and Africa, major rivers in Europe ran dry. In December 2022, a winter storm as big as a continent thrashed North America just when many were traveling for the holidays.
Meanwhile, those of us who have devoted our lives to climate action have been giving everything we can to push for effective solutions at global climate events. Three Conferences of the Parties in 2022 – COP15 on desertification, COP27 on climate, and COP15 on biodiversity – took a physical and mental toll: lack of sleep, food, and daylight, and the complex, yet highly emotional, web of victories, losses, hope, disappointment, and compromise. By the end, exhausted negotiators and observers were running on empty.
And yet, seemingly against all the odds, the biodiversity COP15, which had been plagued with doubt, ended up exceeding expectations, delivering a new Global Framework for Biodiversity.
Many of us were so saturated with 24/7 news, social-media posts, and worries about the cost of living that it was difficult to appreciate fully the significance of this major multilateral milestone. Or we had become so steeped in skepticism that we did not celebrate, for fear that the deal would prove insufficient for meeting everybody’s needs – that it would not be enough.
At a time of escalating global turmoil, there is an urgent need for incisive, informed analysis of the issues and questions driving the news – just what PS has always provided.
Subscribe to Digital or Digital Plus now to secure your discount.
Subscribe Now
I understand that skepticism, given how incomplete our current responses to the climate crisis are. Our atmosphere now has more carbon dioxide in it than at any time in human history, and none of us can avoid the resulting climate effects, accelerating species extinction, and growing inequality that it is causing. The risk is that the weight of all this overwhelms us, and the dominant narrative becomes one of failure and decline.
It may well be true that by now, owing to the inertia in our climate system, nothing we can do will be enough to turn things around; that we will overshoot the 1.5°C limit set in the Paris agreement, and trigger a series of catastrophic tipping points in the Earth system, such as the collapse of ocean-current and monsoon-regulating ice sheets. It is painful and overwhelming to consider that truth.
But it does not negate another truth: everything we do still counts. Nor does it negate the extraordinary efforts by those who are giving everything they have to build a better future for all of us. These people are already shaping a new shared story of repair, regeneration, and reconnection. And it is that story which offers us all a real chance of turning things around.
Here’s a glimpse of what it looks like. Despite – or more likely because – we are all still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, Vladimir Putin’s ongoing atrocities in Ukraine, and the subsequent ripple effects on food, energy, and supply chains, the global community stepped up at COP15 and formally recognized humanity’s interdependence with nature. In a major leap forward, countries committed to halt and reverse nature loss by protecting 30% of all land and ocean areas by 2030. They also promised to provide $25 billion annually, starting in 2025 and rising to $30 billion by the end of the decade, for a new fund to help poorer countries protect biodiversity.
The COP15 outcome, together with the COP27 agreement to establish a new “loss and damage” fund, reminded me once again how extraordinarily resilient the human spirit can be. Despite great obstacles, we still have the capacity to rise to the challenges of our time. As imperfect as our solutions may be, the capacity to confront and overcome great difficulties is renewable, limitless, and always worth nourishing and celebrating.
The rest of the story of repair, regeneration, and connection still needs to be written, and the pen is in our hands. As we enter the next phase of the decisive decade, we must seek, discover, and cultivate our own innate strength, while also offering our shoulders to support others. It is only together that we will be able to transform the weight of climate anxiety, stress, and fear for the future into empowerment to live our best lives and write the new story of the Anthropocene.
In the US midterm elections in November 2022, climate change finally emerged as a real issue for voters. A Data for Progress survey found that 73% of voters supported the groundbreaking Inflation Reduction Act, which allocates $369 billion in spending to address climate change. This supermajority of US citizens can already see the enormous improvements that the legislation will have on their lives over the long term.
Policies that empower everyone to lead their best lives are what people want. They are also necessary to change the economic fundamentals, so that companies and investors can deliver on the pledges and commitments that have been made at each of the COPs.
As we hurtle dangerously toward climate tipping points, we must muster the collective courage to close the gap between science and policy. That starts by acknowledging recent milestones and incorporating them into a new shared narrative of empowerment and possibility.
To have unlimited access to our content including in-depth commentaries, book reviews, exclusive interviews, PS OnPoint and PS The Big Picture, please subscribe
SAN JOSÉ – We are already a third of the way into the decisive decade for bending the curve on greenhouse-gas emissions and biodiversity loss. Scientific warnings about the irreversible planetary changes that we are causing are growing clearer and more certain. Yet emissions continue to rise, and vast sums of money are still flowing toward investments that will expand fossil-fuel production and drive mass deforestation.
The gap between the urgency of the science and the dilatory policy response is so stark that no policy or technological breakthrough would be “enough.” But every fraction of a degree of warming we can ameliorate and every inch of nature we can protect is crucial.
The past year has been tough. Pakistan and India endured a nightmarish and deadly heatwave in which temperatures in heavily populated areas approached 50° Celsius (122° Fahrenheit). While massive floods destroyed lives and livelihoods across Asia and Africa, major rivers in Europe ran dry. In December 2022, a winter storm as big as a continent thrashed North America just when many were traveling for the holidays.
Meanwhile, those of us who have devoted our lives to climate action have been giving everything we can to push for effective solutions at global climate events. Three Conferences of the Parties in 2022 – COP15 on desertification, COP27 on climate, and COP15 on biodiversity – took a physical and mental toll: lack of sleep, food, and daylight, and the complex, yet highly emotional, web of victories, losses, hope, disappointment, and compromise. By the end, exhausted negotiators and observers were running on empty.
And yet, seemingly against all the odds, the biodiversity COP15, which had been plagued with doubt, ended up exceeding expectations, delivering a new Global Framework for Biodiversity.
Many of us were so saturated with 24/7 news, social-media posts, and worries about the cost of living that it was difficult to appreciate fully the significance of this major multilateral milestone. Or we had become so steeped in skepticism that we did not celebrate, for fear that the deal would prove insufficient for meeting everybody’s needs – that it would not be enough.
Winter Sale: Save 40% on a new PS subscription
At a time of escalating global turmoil, there is an urgent need for incisive, informed analysis of the issues and questions driving the news – just what PS has always provided.
Subscribe to Digital or Digital Plus now to secure your discount.
Subscribe Now
I understand that skepticism, given how incomplete our current responses to the climate crisis are. Our atmosphere now has more carbon dioxide in it than at any time in human history, and none of us can avoid the resulting climate effects, accelerating species extinction, and growing inequality that it is causing. The risk is that the weight of all this overwhelms us, and the dominant narrative becomes one of failure and decline.
It may well be true that by now, owing to the inertia in our climate system, nothing we can do will be enough to turn things around; that we will overshoot the 1.5°C limit set in the Paris agreement, and trigger a series of catastrophic tipping points in the Earth system, such as the collapse of ocean-current and monsoon-regulating ice sheets. It is painful and overwhelming to consider that truth.
But it does not negate another truth: everything we do still counts. Nor does it negate the extraordinary efforts by those who are giving everything they have to build a better future for all of us. These people are already shaping a new shared story of repair, regeneration, and reconnection. And it is that story which offers us all a real chance of turning things around.
Here’s a glimpse of what it looks like. Despite – or more likely because – we are all still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, Vladimir Putin’s ongoing atrocities in Ukraine, and the subsequent ripple effects on food, energy, and supply chains, the global community stepped up at COP15 and formally recognized humanity’s interdependence with nature. In a major leap forward, countries committed to halt and reverse nature loss by protecting 30% of all land and ocean areas by 2030. They also promised to provide $25 billion annually, starting in 2025 and rising to $30 billion by the end of the decade, for a new fund to help poorer countries protect biodiversity.
The COP15 outcome, together with the COP27 agreement to establish a new “loss and damage” fund, reminded me once again how extraordinarily resilient the human spirit can be. Despite great obstacles, we still have the capacity to rise to the challenges of our time. As imperfect as our solutions may be, the capacity to confront and overcome great difficulties is renewable, limitless, and always worth nourishing and celebrating.
The rest of the story of repair, regeneration, and connection still needs to be written, and the pen is in our hands. As we enter the next phase of the decisive decade, we must seek, discover, and cultivate our own innate strength, while also offering our shoulders to support others. It is only together that we will be able to transform the weight of climate anxiety, stress, and fear for the future into empowerment to live our best lives and write the new story of the Anthropocene.
In the US midterm elections in November 2022, climate change finally emerged as a real issue for voters. A Data for Progress survey found that 73% of voters supported the groundbreaking Inflation Reduction Act, which allocates $369 billion in spending to address climate change. This supermajority of US citizens can already see the enormous improvements that the legislation will have on their lives over the long term.
Policies that empower everyone to lead their best lives are what people want. They are also necessary to change the economic fundamentals, so that companies and investors can deliver on the pledges and commitments that have been made at each of the COPs.
As we hurtle dangerously toward climate tipping points, we must muster the collective courage to close the gap between science and policy. That starts by acknowledging recent milestones and incorporating them into a new shared narrative of empowerment and possibility.