The rich West is ruining our planet
The industrialised economies have created climate change, but the poorest are paying the price for it. We must do more to help
People stand among debris and ruins of houses destroyed by Super Typhoon Haiyan Photo: REUTERS
6:30PM GMT 29 Mar 2014
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The storms that have battered parts of the UK this year and left hundreds of people facing the misery of flooded homes and ruined land have again brought questions about the impact of climate change to the forefront of the public consciousness. And this week the whole question has been put into still sharper focus, as the world’s leading climate scientists publish a report on the subject putting our local problems into a deeply disturbing global context.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading body of scientists in this area, will be pointing out that, appalling as the experiences of recent months have been here, we have in fact got off relatively lightly in comparison with others. It is those living in the typhoon-prone Philippines or in drought-ravaged Malawi who are being forced not only to deal with the miseries of flooded homes and prolonged disruption, but to make fundamental changes in their way of life.
We have heard for years the predictions that the uncontrolled burning of
The waves that destroyed railway lines in the South West and the record-breaking rainfall that flooded homes and led to the Severn and the Thames bursting their banks show what we can expect as average temperatures increase worldwide. Rising sea levels, absorbing glacial melt from polar waters, exacerbate the severity of tidal storm surges; warmer air containing more moisture will lead to increasing rainfall. The chaos experienced in Britain came as a shock to many; but for millions around the world, this is nothing new. And there is a particularly bitter injustice about the fact that those suffering its worst ravages – such as the pastoralists of northern Kenya or the Quilombolas of
Rich, industrialised countries, including our own, have unquestionably contributed most to atmospheric pollution; the development of profitable heavy industry relied on what we now think of as "dirty" energy sources, and involved environmental degradation on an unprecedented scale. Both our present lifestyle in the developed world and the history of how we created such possibilities for ourselves have to bear the responsibility for pushing the environment in which we live towards crisis.
To say this is not a plea for handwringing over a history that is what it is. But, as Professor James Hansen, a former NASA climate scientist, has said: "Our parents honestly did not know that their actions could harm future generations. We, the current generation, can only pretend that we did not know." The new scientific mapping of what climate chaos is doing leaves us with little choice but to face the unpalatable fact that, unless our societies and governments step up the urgency of their response, profound injustice will be done both to the poor of today and to the entire global population of tomorrow.
What we tend not to hear enough of in the UK is the first-hand experience of those who live with devastating climatic insecurity. It is sadly easy to treat the scientific evidence as adding up to no more than alarmist predictions which may or may not be realised. So it is vital that we hear the voices of those on the front line, for whom this is a present, not a future catastrophe. A report published this week by Christian Aid, Taken By Storm: Responding to the Impacts of Climate Change, gives us a chance to listen to these voices directly.
It sets out various examples of how communities are being forced to adapt to a distorted climate. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels have contributed to the salinisation of inland water and the loss of the mangrove forests which historically have provided a buffer against increasingly severe storm surges. In Bolivia, farmers living on the Illimani glacier have been forced into fierce conflicts over scarce resources as a result of the irregular melting of their previously stable water source; many have had to migrate.
There are, of course, some in the current debates around climate change who are doubtful about the role of human agency both in creating and in responding to climate change, and who argue that we should direct our efforts solely to adapting to changes that are natural and inevitable, rather than modifying our behaviour.
This feels all very well in the UK, where we can adapt to some extent with better flood defences and by banning building on flood plains. And of course adaptation and behaviour modification do not constitute an either/or. But these options are not so readily available in the most vulnerable communities around the world. People in these communities would agree that adaptation is crucial to save lives, livelihoods and investments – and they have some good examples to demonstrate this; but they are adamant that it won’t be enough on its own.
Current examples of climate change are the result of a global temperature rise of just 0.8C. Doing nothing about levels of fossil fuel-based pollution sits uncomfortably with the fact that, if temperatures rise by 2.5-5C above pre-industrial levels – something that many scientists believe to be possible without modifying present patterns – many adaptation measures will simply be too late.
So the communities on the front line, the communities whose voices Christian Aid is seeking to make audible, need the world to tackle the root causes and to do so urgently. A good place to start would be ending the $523 billion (£314 billion) the world spends on fossil fuel subsidies (more than six times the support given to renewables). But whatever the exact response, these two reports make it clear that we have to stop subsidizing the degradation of the planet – and that this is not a question to be tackled the day after tomorrow. The cost is now – as so many in the UK have discovered in recent months.
Dr Rowan Williams is chairman of Christian Aid
It sets out various examples of how communities are being forced to adapt to a distorted climate. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels have contributed to the salinisation of inland water and the loss of the mangrove forests which historically have provided a buffer against increasingly severe storm surges. In Bolivia, farmers living on the Illimani glacier have been forced into fierce conflicts over scarce resources as a result of the irregular melting of their previously stable water source; many have had to migrate.
There are, of course, some in the current debates around climate change who are doubtful about the role of human agency both in creating and in responding to climate change, and who argue that we should direct our efforts solely to adapting to changes that are natural and inevitable, rather than modifying our behaviour.
This feels all very well in the UK, where we can adapt to some extent with better flood defences and by banning building on flood plains. And of course adaptation and behaviour modification do not constitute an either/or. But these options are not so readily available in the most vulnerable communities around the world. People in these communities would agree that adaptation is crucial to save lives, livelihoods and investments – and they have some good examples to demonstrate this; but they are adamant that it won’t be enough on its own.
Current examples of climate change are the result of a global temperature rise of just 0.8C. Doing nothing about levels of fossil fuel-based pollution sits uncomfortably with the fact that, if temperatures rise by 2.5-5C above pre-industrial levels – something that many scientists believe to be possible without modifying present patterns – many adaptation measures will simply be too late.
So the communities on the front line, the communities whose voices Christian Aid is seeking to make audible, need the world to tackle the root causes and to do so urgently. A good place to start would be ending the $523 billion (£314 billion) the world spends on fossil fuel subsidies (more than six times the support given to renewables). But whatever the exact response, these two reports make it clear that we have to stop subsidizing the degradation of the planet – and that this is not a question to be tackled the day after tomorrow. The cost is now – as so many in the UK have discovered in recent months.
Dr Rowan Williams is chairman of Christian Aid
