How You Can Play a Part in Tackling Climate Change – Long After the Paris Hype Is Over

There’s a curious paradox at the heart of climate change. Despite scientists asserting the need for urgent action and the widespread acceptance of the reality of climate change by people worldwide, it is a subject that we tend not to talk about with friends, family or colleagues.  Just 6% of the British public say they discuss climate change often, whereas approaching half (44%) do so at most rarely.  Likewise, two-thirds of Americans rarely or never discuss the subject.

Perhaps we are too fearful of appearing worthy or hectoring to express our concerns, or maybe the issues seem too complex and overwhelming.  Or we have grown tired of seeing polar bears floating on melting icebergs.  Whatever the reasons for our reticence, however, it is hard to see how a global impetus for public engagement and action can be realized if it remains out of bounds for discussion by all but an interested few.
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Meeting the 2°C target will require an unprecedented level of disruptive change.  This won’t be achieved unless we embark upon a process of meaningful public dialogue to work out our collective response.  In doing so, we will inevitably encounter the old disagreements about climate change, but this is all the more reason to talk openly about the many challenges that remain.

Perhaps most significantly, and for the first time in human history, the Paris talks have led to a unanimously-endorsed policy position which appears completely at odds with continued fossil fuel dominance:  the world aims to be “net zero” in emissions of carbon dioxide by the end of the century.

But despite the rush to celebrate the end of the fossil fuel era, the truth is likely to be more complicated.  In addition to this “net zero” target, there are precisely zero mentions of fossil fuels in the final Paris text, and zero indications of how the production of fossil fuels (as opposed to the emissions they cause) will be curtailed by leaving most of these in the ground.

Have we even begun to imagine how this can be achieved, to consider the implications for changing the ways in which millions of people live?  How do we, as citizens, want this to be done? None of the options currently available are straightforward or palatable to many – whether through reducing our consumption, or at the system level through an acceleration of renewable energy, nuclear power, or the use of (still speculative) carbon extraction technologies.

The conversations that are necessary as we attempt to restructure our societies – if we attempt to do so – are where the real discussion on climate change is now required.  This will not result in neat texts endorsed by all, but will instead give rise to disputes grounded in different values, and played out in the familiar fight between conservatives and progressives.  Finding common ground on these more contentious topics is where the energies of climate campaigners and communicators are best placed now that the skeleton of a more sustainable world has been assembled.

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