Leadership failure heats climate crisis

COP26, the UN Global Climate Change Conference held in Glasgow, was not a complete failure, but only those paid to be optimistic would say it was a success.

This global gathering was billed as the ‘‘last chance to save the planet’’. Having failed to agree on much that will make a real difference (the backsliding began as soon as the private jets were in the air), I am guessing the planet is not going to be saved.

Given how desperate the situation is, how do we explain the continued failure to agree on what needs to be done? The answer might lie in what is known as the Giddens Paradox.

Anthony Giddens, one of the world’s leading sociologists, has argued, ‘‘since the damages posed by global warming aren’t tangible, immediate or visible in the course of day-today life, however awesome they appear, many will sit on their hands and do nothing of a concrete nature about them. Yet waiting until they become visible and acute will, by definition, be too late.’’

Giddens wrote those words in 2009. Today, as we watch seas rise, wildfires rage and extreme weather become more common, it may be that the damage caused by global warming is visible to most people, but it is too late to act.

Whether Giddens proves to be correct or not, we have no choice other than to continue trying to find ways to work together to stop temperatures rising. The question is, how?

There are a number of answers. We can start by each doing our bit. Global warming can seem a problem too large to be resolved by individuals, but we can make a difference if we make choices that lead to a reduction in greenhouse gases. Don’t use plastic bags, take public transport, grow your own vegetables – our choices make a difference.

On a larger scale, business can decide that the pursuit of profit is compatible with behaviour that is better for the planet. In 2018 Larry Fink, the chair of BlackRock, the largest investment company in the world, said: ‘‘Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose. To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show it makes a positive contribution to society.’’

In recent years, many businesses have followed Fink’s advice. Possibly because they realise that if they do not, they, along with everything else, will not exist.

In practice, however, there is only one real answer to global warming and it is that governments must reset the rules and regulations that guide the way we live.

Individuals, families, communities, businesses and public entities can only do so much as long as the rules they operate within remain the same or much the same.

Real change requires all of us to live differently.

The problem is no-one – especially those who specialise in saying what cannot be done rather than what can be done – is able to paint a compelling, credible, achievable picture of what a future that will stop temperatures rising looks like.

Thousands of people went to COP26, but it was the governments present that everyone wanted to see act.

Unfortunately, the authoritarian ones don’t see the problem (China may be an exception), others saw the meeting as an opportunity to party (see Zimbabwe), while democratic governments worried about how far they could push their fractured constituencies.

When he stumbled home from the thrashing he received at the G20 meeting and COP26, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that coal would continue to be used because there was no alternative when it came to power generation.

Comments like this mean that we need to update the Giddens Paradox for contemporary use.

The damage posed by global warming is tangible, immediate and visible in the course of everyday life.

However, in the absence of government leadership and a clear understanding of an alternative future, we will all continue to live in much the same way while lamenting, ‘‘but what else can we do?’’

There is only one real answer to global warming and it is that governments must reset the rules and regulations that guide the way we live.