To resist clean energy future is insanity

HAS the human race decided it no longer wishes to exist? We’ve just had ten consecutive months of record breaking global temperatures - several over the 1.5C the Paris Agreement of 2015 committed 196 countries to take action to stay under.

The UK is facing catastrophic weather conditions - with farmers unable to grow crops in waterlogged fields. We face vastly reduced crop yields and yet higher food prices when we already have much of the population missing meals and facing destitution.

Most climate models say we are in for around 3C of heating by 2100. But global heating is accelerating and climate models which predict much worse outcomes may well be more accurate.

There are people who work tirelessly to increase greenhouse gas emissions and others who seek to slow the pace of decarbonising. A “phase out” of fossil fuels was called for at COP 28 but blocked by fossil fuel interests. No countries have a convincing plan for decarbonisation - many are expanding fossil fuel use amidst calls for Net Zero to be scrapped, calling it eco-zealot hysteria.

The Lancet Countdown Report 2023 reported that global heat deaths are likely to quadruple because of global heating and yet right wing media and politicians are decrying the landmark ruling from the European Court of Human Rights that inadequate government action on climate change, not in line with science, constitutes a violation of human rights.

Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, said in a recent speech that 80 per cent of global emissions come from G20 countries and that it’s time to redirect trillions of dollars “from the energy and infrastructure of the past, towards that of a cleaner, more resilient future”. To resist this transition is suicidal insanity - a crime against humanity. To enable it, I hope, is to survive and thrive.

Gaye Hanson, Hessle.