Stop playing the blame game in the battle against climate change

UNCOMFORTABLE truths are being faced in Glasgow this week. Yesterday’s opening speeches set the tone for what is likely to be a series of attempts by prime ministers and presidents to outdo each other with the grim nature of their warnings and the dire quality of what they believe is to come... if we fail to act.

Words, however, are cheap. Actions are going to be costly, both politically and financially, if the measures needed to keep global warming inside limits widely agreed to be vital are to be maintained. Already the likelihood of a deal is being downplayed by the Prime Minister. And even if global temperature limiting proposals are signed off by the end of Cop26 there is still no guarantee that world leaders will deliver on their promises. There is a long way to go.

It might help, however, if there was an acknowledgement that apportioning blame for the climate crisis is not a fruitful way to proceed – even if it makes for good soundbites. The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres sounds faintly ridiculous when he condemns “our addiction to fossil fuels” as if most people had had a choice for the last century or so about the way to heat their homes, power their cars or travel long distances by plane or boat.

Fossil fuels helped to create the modern world, made nations wealthier and the lives of the majority of their citizens much richer, and more fulfilling. As their use spread across the globe, so a whole range of blights on the human race, from child mortality to hunger, were lifted.

It’s easy to forget that the world we occupy today is a far, far better place for the majority than the one lived in by many generations that have gone before and that developments in technology – most of which have involved pumping C02 into the atmosphere – have fuelled that growth and those improvements.

Of course we now see the downsides, but to deny the positives is to deny the value and importance of human life. And to blame people – all of us – for taking too many foreign holidays, driving to see our friends and relatives and keeping our homes warm – or cool – and our food safely preserved is pointless and wrong.

We now need to change, that is clear. And the technology is available to help us do just that, maintaining an upward trajectory for the quality of human life on earth; spreading the benefits more widely and more fairly but realising, all the time, that we cannot deprive people of all they need or deserve.

Some see the battle against climate change as one in which we ourselves, the human race, are the enemy and the ‘natural world’ must be the victor. Yet humans are part of the natural world and have the responsibility to make the changes we now know are needed to hold back and eventually reverse the damage done to the planet.

Endless self-flagellation of the kind so many climate campaigners and some world leaders engage in does not help. It does a disservice to all those pioneers who helped make life better for billions over the past century and more. We need more of the same, but this time with a closer eye on the impact on the planet.