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Towards the end of the 2010s climate change became a Climate Emergency, the Climate Crisis – and quite rightly so. Talk of climate change just hadn’t got us far.
Equally, conservationists pointing to this species or that being under threat raised a few donations, funded a few projects, but the wiping out of our natural world just accelerated.
Here’s a really simple explanation of what Climate change will mean for us all from Greenpeace.
Don’t Mention the Emergency? Making the Case for Emergency Climate Action – by Jane Morton is a report which was first published in 2018, with a second edition published in 2020. It explains why scientists are sounding the alarm; why we could be heading for ‘Hothouse Earth’; why current warming is not safe; why the emergency message is not reaching the public; and why leaders must lead.
We don’t have time for consultations, we don’t have time for citizens assemblies – we know what to do and we just need to do it – NOW.
We need to act now not make commitments for action and sacrifices by our children and grandchildren. And that action has to focused on drastically cutting GHG emissions – not pursuing mythological technologies to capture the emissions we fail to reduce. See an in depth explanation here.
Plenty of organisations have already consulted and researched and set out what we need to do – including
In May 2019 the UK Parliament declared a Climate Emergency. Here’s a few definitions of “emergency”:
“A sudden serious and dangerous event or situation that needs immediate action to deal with it.”
“A serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.”
Hmmm – well we can argue about whether the Climate crisis is sudden or unexpected – but the key issue is that an emergency requires IMMEDIATE action to deal with it.
So far immediate action to deal with the Climate Emergency is far from happening. We need to keep on campaigning until our media, Governments, Local Authorities and corporations take that “immediate action to deal with” the Climate & Ecological Emergency.
A peer-reviewed study of 180 articles on the human death rate of climate change, published in August 2023, has settled on a deeply distressing number. Over the next century or so, conservative estimates suggest a billion people could die from climate catastrophes, possibly more.
Scientists Warn 1 Billion People on Track to Die From Climate Change : ScienceAlert
Source: Energies Journal https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies
“If you take the scientific consensus of the 1,000-ton rule* seriously, and run the numbers, anthropogenic global warming equates to a billion premature dead bodies over the next century. Obviously, we have to act. And we have to act fast.”
*Under this framework, every thousand tons of carbon that humanity burns is said to indirectly condemn a future person to death.
Source: Energy specialist, Joshua Pierce, from the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
Quite simply because taking emergency action will affect the profits of some very powerful corporations, and those organisations have spent millions trying to cast doubt and confusion.
Here’s a good explanation – Timeline – Half a century of dither and denial – a climate crisis timeline Note in particular “1959 – The physicist Edward Teller tells the American Petroleum Institute (API) a 10% increase in CO2 will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. “I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe.”
“1981 –
An internal Exxon memo warns “it is distinctly possible” that CO2 emissions from the company’s 50-year plan “will later produce effects which will indeed be catastrophic (at least for a substantial fraction of the Earth’s population)”.
News Article – The Guardian May 2023: Big polluters’ share prices fall after climate lawsuits, study finds | Fossil fuels | The Guardian
This isn’t just important to tackle the climate crisis, it is also vital to tackle air pollution in our cities, which affects the vulnerable in society the most – in particular, children. The following article, published in April 2023, explains how Europe is “failing its children” on air pollution:
This is the reason why it’s so important that we focus our efforts to electrify transport, into public transport, where we can have the greatest impact most quickly. And that is why investing in companies like Kleanbus, who are providing a fast, innovative, and cost-effective solution to remove diesel engines from our bus transport network via their unique retrofitting system, is so vital.
Our wildlife is under threat on multiple fronts, and we are in a Climate & Ecological Emergency. In an emergency you need to urgently direct your efforts to tackling the biggest threats first.
Yet only 4% of major giving by philanthropists, trusts and foundations in the UK goes to environmental causes.
Food security, public health, education, the rights of vulnerable groups and even the arts and our heritage are all threatened by the climate crisis. There are no theatres or art galleries in submerged cities! By supporting organisations working to protect the environment we are addressing all these issues. Environmental degradation and the increased frequency of catastrophic weather events are rendering huge areas of the planet uninhabitable, displacing millions of people. Efforts to improve living standards and eliminate poverty will fail without complimentary action on climate change.
We Have the POWER is proud to be a member of the Environmental Funders Network who work to increase the amount of financial support for environmental causes and to improve its overall effectiveness through collaboration and sharing.
Funding core costs – As a donor it can be tempting to only want to fund specific charitable projects for the satisfaction of knowing what you have helped achieve and having clearly defined targets and outcomes to be achieved. However, charities really need help with their core costs, especially right now when many of their usual donors are feeling the pinch and so many fundraising events have been cancelled or postponed.
