Climate Code Red: The Case for Emergency Action by Spratt David & Sutton Philip

Author:Spratt, David & Sutton, Philip [Spratt, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: ebook, book

CHAPTER 17

When ‘Reasonable’ Is Not Enough

In November 2007, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon told the world that global warming is an emergency, and ‘for emergency situations we need emergency action’. Why, then, has climate politics moved in such a painfully slow manner? How can the impasse be resolved between urgent action, based on the science, and action that seems ‘reasonable’ in the current political environment?

It seems as if there are two great tectonic plates — scientific necessity and political pragmatism — that meet, very uneasily, at a fault line. Some examples may help to illustrate the tensions and compromises that result from trying to balance the two factors:

• In 1996, the European Union’s Environment Council ignored advice from the advisory group on greenhouse of the World Meteorological Organisation, the International Council for Science, and the UN Environment Programme that an increase in the global average temperature of greater than 1 degree above pre-industrial levels ‘may elicit rapid, unpredictable and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage’ [emphasis added]. Instead, they advocated a 2-degree cap, even though that figure was described as an upper limit ‘beyond which the risks of grave damage to ecosystems, and of non-linear responses, are expected to increase rapidly’.

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