LONDON — When I first heard the bongos on my daily commute, I rolled my eyes. I cross Waterloo Bridge by bike to get to work. Normally, that means weaving between buses. But last week, it was green activists who were creating the obstacle course, with a healing-fields-at-Glastonbury vibe, living up to all the tree-hugger stereotypes.
Extinction Rebellion — the movement occupying several London landmarks to demand action on climate change — certainly caused disruption: 55 bus routes were closed, affecting half a million people. More than 1,000 people were arrested, with 53 charged during just a week of protests. The protest movements tactics and image are divisive, and its demographic skews white and privileged.
But on the street, they have been met more with mild bemusement than angry backlash. Some bystanders even welcome the pop-up pockets of pedestrianization across the city. A YouGov poll for the Times last week found that over a third of Brits say they support the protesters.
The fact is, these “prancing hippies,” to borrow the Daily Mails description, have a point.
Leaders have become complacent about climate change. Yes, the U.K. supports the Paris Agreement. Yes, it has a pioneering climate change act. And no, that is not enough to prevent dangerous disruption to the natural world. These activists have a half-decent idea for how to do better.
The Conservative government does not have policies in place to stay within next decades carbon budgets.
Our current response to climate change is indisputably inadequate. The U.N. climate deal struck in Paris in 2015 was the beginning of a process, not a job done. It set the goal of holding global temperature rise “well below 2 degrees Celsius” aiming for 1.5 degrees Celsius. (Were already at 1 degree Celsius over pre-industrial levels). The building blocks are voluntary national emissions targets that — guess what — are not collectively up to the task.
Britain has a relatively good record. It is hitting its emissions targets, thanks to a coal power phase-out so painless it barely makes the news. Its 2008 climate law binds governments to a series of decreasing “carbon budgets,” set and monitored by an independent watchdog in line with a 2 degrees Celsius global warming limit. A handful of other countries are adopting this model, which helps to sustain climate policy beyond short-term electoral cycles.
Last year, though, a blockbuster science report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) hammered home that 2 degrees Celsius is no “safe” guardrail. Its a death sentence for coral reefs worldwide and puts millions more people in the path of weather disaster.
The Conservative government does not have policies in place to stay within next decades carbon budgets. What is more, it has asked the Committee on Climate Change how to bring these budgets in line with the Paris Agreements 1.5 degrees Celsius stretch goal. The answer can only be to cut carbon faster.
Extinction Rebellion climate change activists lie on the floor as they perform a mass “die in” in the main hall of the Natural History Museum in London | Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images
Ultimately, stabilizing the climate means bringing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. Though it did not always look that way, cleaning up electricity is the easy part: Wind and solar power costs are falling fast. Next come the transport, heating, heavy industry and farming sectors, where solutions are less mature — not to mention the controversial business of negative emissions.
Which brings us to Extinction Rebellions demands.
The first is simply to “tell the truth.” Scientific projections about the risks of climate change can seem dry; these activists have the imagination to consider their implications and feel the fear.
The second is to cut U.K. emissions to net zero by 2025. Its an extreme target, with unclear origins. The IPCC advised that, to meet the 1.5-degree Celsius goal, we would have to achieve net zero by 2050 globally. Rich countries are expected to go furthest, fastest, but no credible model has suggested they can get there inRead More – Source
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