Letter: We Can’t Risk Inaction on Climate Change

Published on: 2 Sep, 2019
Updated on: 2 Sep, 2019

From Mark Bray-Parry

In response to: If There Is A Climate Emergency What is the Solution?

We don’t need historic evidence to ‘believe’ that CO2 has a warming effect, physics tells us that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Given that CO2 makes up 60% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it should be unquestionable that CO2 has a significant impact on warming.

The author is right that CO2 and global mean temperatures have been cyclical, moving in-tandem through warm and cool periods. The problem we now face is that we have reached unprecedented levels of CO2 and we have no idea if there is a natural correction.

Humans have been responsible for a huge increase in atmospheric CO2, and we must take responsibility for reducing it as quickly as we can. It is right that large emitters like China need to work hard to reduce their emissions but so must the western world. The US still remains the biggest CO2 emitter when viewed accumulatively since 1970 and the per capita emissions throws up other countries like Canada, Germany, and Japan.

As for the UK, we went through our industrial period and now have a relatively low CO2 emitting economy. However, that doesn’t mean we shirk our responsibilities to global CO2 emissions, be it through green energy aid to steer developing countries away from cheap fossil fuels, looking at contribution to aviation industry emissions, or the carbon footprint of our imports.

Contrary to this article’s author’s belief, currently the Government are willing to listen only to climate sceptics who offer no scientific evidence to base their argument on. Groups like Extinction Rebellion and declaring climate emergencies are democratic actions we can take to force the government’s hand to act, not on our advice but those of 97% of scientists in the field.

Of course, we are into an unknown, but that makes me think of a cartoon by Joel Pett: “What if it’s a hoax and we create a better world for nothing”.