What one person can do now to change world trajectory

The sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released earlier this month, makes for sobering reading.

The IPCC is an intergovernmental body of the UN mandated to provide objective scientific information about human-induced climate change.

The panel’s working group reports deal with the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change.

The report reads that things are worse than we thought and will get much worse than we could imagine, much faster than we think.

Many of the changes are already irreversible, and extreme weather events will become the norm.

For the first time, the IPCC said unequivocally that humans are responsible for the observed global warming, and that Earth’s surface warmed 1.09°C on average in the past decade.

It is clear for governments, corporations and individuals that we can no longer put our heads in the sand on climate change. Nor can we dodge our individual responsibility for it. The targets set out in the Paris Agreement are clearly too far away and too lenient.

The Paris Agreement entered into force on November 4 2016 after the Conference of the Parties 21 (COP21) and sets a goal to limit global warming to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C, by peaking greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and achieving a climate-neutral world by 2050.

But if 2021’s infernos, droughts and floods from the US to Asia-Pacific are anything to go by — there was even flooding in South Hampstead in London, less than a kilometre from my home in Swiss Cottage

— we don’t have until 2050. We need to get to net zero now.

I find myself bewildered by the obligatory corporate and government campaigns: pledging to “enter” the carbon transition by 2025; “aiming” for net zero by 2050; investing in green bonds. Yet our behaviour in society reveals large-scale cognitive dissonance on climate change.

Governments worldwide are still developing new hydrocarbon projects; companies sending unnecessary emails, telling people to start commuting again to offices; and individuals having children, taking unnecessary flights, eating steak.

On the individual actions we can take to influence the collective outcome, you can argue that it is your right to have children, take flights, eat steak

— this is normal behaviour. But we are not living in normal times and we can’t wait for others — whether they be individuals, governments or people to do something about it, it starts with you.

You can make the decision to walk, or ride a bike, or take a train for your journey; you can move your pension and other investments out of fossil fuels and into sustainable businesses. Wherever possible don’t waste energy, and use renewable energy; power yourself up on plant energy. Recycle.

To influence things at the policy level do not vote for governments or support companies that are not taking urgent action on climate change; talk to others about it. It is no use passing the buck, asking what one person can do.

As Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg said in 2019: “We must change almost everything in our current societies. The bigger your carbon footprint, the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility. Adults keep saying, ‘we owe it to the young people to give them hope’. But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”

I agreed with Thunberg then, and I agree with her now.

I am here to say: we have to move to net zero now.