George Monbiot: Dead Line - Future corporate profits are officially more important than life on Earth
The human tragedy is that there is no connection between what we know and what we do. Almost everyone is now at least vaguely aware that we face the greatest catastrophe our species has ever confronted. Yet scarcely anyone alters their behaviour in response: above all, their driving, flying and consumption of meat and dairy. During the most serious of all crises, the UK elected the least serious of all governments. Both the Westminster government and local authorities continue to build roads and expand airports. An analysis by WWF suggests that, while the last budget allocated £145 million for environmental measures, it dedicated £40 billion to policies that will increase emissions.
Astonishingly, it
is still
government policy to “maximise
economic recovery” of oil and gas from the UK’s continental shelf.
According to the government’s Energy
White Paper, promoting their extraction ensures that “the UK remains an
attractive destination for global capital”, which is “the best way to secure an
orderly and successful transition away from traditional fossil fuels”. It’s
hard to imagine a more perverse argument. But when you pursue incompatible
aims, the first casualty is logic.
So, as our house
burns, the government sends in the tanker trucks to spray petrol on the flames.
Doubtless unswayed by the donations the Conservative party has received
from oil and gas companies, Boris Johnson appears to be on
the cusp of approving the development of a new oilfield – the Cambo –
west of the Shetlands. Yet, as climate scientists have long explained, there is
no realistic prospect of preventing more than 1.5C of global heating unless all
new fossil fuel development is stopped. In fact, existing projects need to be retired. Nor
can we achieve the government’s official aim of net
zero emissions by 2050. This target, incidentally, in another sign of the
gulf between knowing and doing, bears
no relationship to the temperature goals in the Paris Agreement. It
urgently needs to be replaced with a more stringent measure, but no one in
power is prepared to discuss it.
The same goes for
almost every government. As soon as Joe Biden’s green promises collided with
business as usual, they collapsed in a crumpled heap. Since he pledged to ban
new drilling and fracking on federal lands, his administration has granted
2000 new permits. His national security adviser has demanded that OPEC+,
the oil cartel, increase
production, to reduce the cost of driving the monstrous cars that many
Americans still buy. We were told that Biden’s modest talk concealed
an appetite for radical action. But talk sets the boundaries of
action, and those who promise low deliver
lower.
Unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground, any commitment to stop climate breakdown is merely gestural. The atmosphere does not respond to gestures. It is unmoved by promises, unimpressed by words. It has no factions that can be set against each other, no voters who can be fobbed off and distracted. This is one of the reasons why governments hate and shun what climate science tells them. If they took it seriously, they would tailor policy to scientific advice. But such constraints on political choice are perceived as intolerable, not only by politicians, but by the philosophy on which our democracies are founded.
Or are they? On behalf
of commercial interests, governments are all too happy to be constrained. A UK
oil company is
currently suing the Italian government for the loss of its “future
anticipated profits” after Italy banned new oil drilling in coastal waters.
Italy used to be a signatory to the Energy Charter Treaty, which allows
companies to demand compensation if it stops future projects. The treaty’s
sunset clause permits such lawsuits after nations are no longer party to it, so
Italy can be sued even though it left the agreement in 2016. This is one of
many examples of “investor-state dispute settlement”, that makes effective
action against climate breakdown almost
impossible. It represents an outrageous curtailment of political choice,
with which governments like ours are entirely comfortable. I’m not sure how we
can escape such agreements, but government lawyers should be all over this
issue, looking for a way out. Otherwise, future corporate profits remain
officially more important than life on Earth.
The global emergency
requires a new politics, but it is nowhere in sight. Governments still fear
lobby groups more than they fear the collapse of our living systems. For tiny
and temporary political gains, they commit us to vast and irreversible consequences.
MPs with no discernible record of concern for the poor, and a long record
of voting
against them, suddenly, when the profits of fossil fuel companies are threatened,
claim that climate action must
be stymied to protect them.
The Treasury refuses
to commit to the spending needed to support even the government’s
feeble programme. Boris Johnson, charged with transforming the global response
to climate breakdown at the November summit in Glasgow, blusters and dithers,
constitutionally incapable of making difficult decisions.
No government, even
the most progressive, is yet prepared to contemplate the transformation we
need: a global programme that places the survival of humanity and the rest of
life on Earth above all other issues. We need not just new policy, but a new
ethics. We need to close the gap between knowing and doing. But this
conversation has scarcely begun.
https://www.monbiot.com/2021/08/24/dead-line/
POSTED IN CLIMATE BREAKDOWN
JOHN BUELL: Living on a Newly
Unrecognizable Planet
Chomsky:
Internationalism or Extinction
Earthly
Anecdotes: an alternative to the doom-saying of our times
Reynard Loki -
Here’s a major lesson from the pandemic: We can save the planet from climate
change
This
obscure energy treaty is the greatest threat to the planet you’ve never heard
of
Erin
Brockovich - Plummeting sperm counts, shrinking penises: toxic chemicals
threaten humanity
David Cox - The
planet's prodigious poo problem
Owen Jones: Why don’t we treat the climate crisis
with the same urgency as coronavirus?
JOHN BUELL: Living on a Newly
Unrecognizable Planet
Chomsky:
Internationalism or Extinction
Earthly
Anecdotes: an alternative to the doom-saying of our times
Reynard Loki -
Here’s a major lesson from the pandemic: We can save the planet from climate
change
This
obscure energy treaty is the greatest threat to the planet you’ve never heard
of
Erin
Brockovich - Plummeting sperm counts, shrinking penises: toxic chemicals
threaten humanity
David Cox - The
planet's prodigious poo problem
Owen Jones: Why don’t we treat the climate crisis
with the same urgency as coronavirus?
