Now or Never

This is the front page headline of today’s Guardian - ‘ “It’s now or never” if the world is to stave off climate disaster - IPCC. ‘ Of course they’re right, and of course it isn’t news. It’s been obvious for years, but somehow it never quite became the priority that it should have been.

At the time of COP 26 we claimed to be leading the world on this issue, but other things sort of get in the way. There’s Covid, and putting the economy back on track, and the Ukraine war, with the consequent need to sort out alternative energy supplies…You can hear the irritation of government ministers: “OK, I heard you! But I’m busy. I’ve just got to sort this out first, and then I’ll have a look at climate change…”

It’s never going to happen. Sunak produces his short-term economic plan without even an acknowledgement of its ecological cost, let alone a calculation of the impact his measures will have on our use of fossil fuels. We are heading for hell in a handcart, singing all the way, so we don’t have to listen to stuff we don’t like. Only a radical change of direction and priorities is going to alter any of this, and where are we going to find that?