Outside In | ‘Code red’ climate emergency: alarming complacency endures over tackling the crisis

Name: Global warming dangerously close to being out of control: US climate report
Uploaded: 2021-08-14T00:45:20.000Z
Duration: 2 min 27 s
Description: Global warming dangerously close to being out of control: US climate report

With fewer than 100 days until the UN climate summit, there is still a shocking disconnect between the urgent action needed to keep us from catastrophe and the middle-class ignorance of the problem at hand

Reading Time:4 minutes

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A man stands on a stranded car on a flooded road after heavy rainfall in Zhengzhou, Henan province, China, on July 22. More than 290 have died as a result of the unprecedented flash floods. Scientists warn that more such extreme weather can be expected. Photo: Reuters

David Dodwell

Published: 8:45am, 14 Aug 2021Updated: 8:45am, 14 Aug 2021

If you want to see the huge chasm that lies between the “code red” climate warning from the world’s scientists this week and the agenda driven by the British government, host of the critically important COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow in November, look no further than Allegra Stratton, Boris Johnson’s summit spokeswoman.

She listed “micro-steps” people can consider as we strive towards net zero carbon emissions by 2050: “Did you know [ …] you don’t really need to rinse your dishes before they go into the dishwasher?” Asked if she planned to exchange her diesel car for an electric one, she said: “I don’t fancy it just yet.”

Opposition environment secretary Luke Pollard was quick to pounce: “The planet is on fire and we are living in a climate and ecological emergency. If the government’s best answer is rinsing dishes, we are in serious trouble.”

Pollard – and the 234 global climate scientists who last Monday released the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Sixth Assessment Report, which rang new alarm bells over the gravity of the climate crisis – would be right to throw up their hands in despair.

But Stratton reflects accurately the alarming disconnect between the urgent global action needed to prevent a descent into a hothouse “hell on Earth”, and the middle-class ignorance and complacency that allows many to think that tinkering around the edges of our comfortable lives is enough.

02:27

Global warming dangerously close to being out of control: US climate report

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the IPCC report “a code red for humanity”, warning there was “no time for delay and no room for excuses”. The report called for “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions” if runaway, irreversible climate shifts are not to make life on Earth unliveable.

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.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Outside In | ‘Code red’ climate emergency: alarming complacency endures over tackling the crisis

Outside In | ‘Code red’ climate emergency: alarming complacency endures over tackling the crisis