So, given the simplicity and certainty of the maths around greenhouse gases and their effect on global temperatures – that world leaders have been meeting annually to tackle (this year ’s COP26 took place in Glasgow) – and that sustainability has been part of our framework for looking at the world for 30 years, where are we? More greenhouse gases have been released into the atmosphere in the years between Hansen’s speech and now, than in all of human history. Another, darker definition of sustainability is the capacity of a thing to continue performing the same action over and over. IPCC CONCLUSIONS Sustainability is a noble concept and one which, if it had been honestly embraced, might have softened the impact of where we have landed. But the word is now... almost embarrassing. To use the word sustainability when discussing the environmental crisis reveals a lack of understanding of where things really are, or a deliberate attempt to avoid the truth. The 2021 IPCC report, put together by the consensus of conservative, sober scientists, notes that humans have already warmed Earth by 1.2°C (remembering that the planet is mostly covered in water – land temperatures are higher). In the IPCC’s dream scenario, where emissions fall to zero over the next decade, and we invent new carbon removal technologies, we could see global heating peak at 1.6°C. This would be catastrophic, but potentially manageable for wealthy countries. The actual outcome is likely to be even worse. The Paris Agreement itself, in which countries committed to keep Earth “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and “to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5°C” assumes the use of negative emissions technologies, which haven’t been tested at scale – or even invented in some cases – to achieve its goals. The decarbonisation of our infrastructure – our businesses and personal lives – needs to happen
ridiculously fast. Much faster than most business people are willing to talk about. But if we don’t have a conversation about it now, our kids will be shouting about it and cursing our names – assuming they make it. Is that a little dark? No, I’m afraid that is what we’re dealing with. NO MORE NET ZERO It hardly needs to be said that global heating isn’t about polar bears going extinct (although that’s likely). It’s about global crop failures, mass migration, infrastructure collapse and resource wars. To deal with this unfolding emergency, we have to first dump our ‘sustainability’ thinking. If we want to have anything like a comfortable society, let alone a thriving economy, we need to throw all our energy, education and experience at this. This isn’t about sustainable models; this is about radical changes. Cooperation and interdependence will be essential to make this jump. The media industry, split into its 20th-century fiefdoms, will have to start forging new alliances, designed to enhance the wellbeing of populations which are going to be brutally challenged in the next decade and beyond. New types of information services will need to be developed, as well as fresh ways of building social media, that create genuine knowledge sharing and useful partnering – rather than isolation and rage. And these services must be universally accessible. One of the most important factors in this transition is supporting developing societies who are facing a crisis they had almost no part in creating.
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