Dear Colin (if I may)
Many thanks for your reply to my letter. I had hoped we’d see something from Danny Kruger but let me assume that, if he had replied, he’d be raising similar points to those you have brought up and doing so as passionately and elegantly as you have.
My reaction to most of your arguments is not that they’re wrong but that they are too weak to justify further procrastination. We’ve been hearing excuses for inaction for over thirty years. Initially the “reason” was that the science was uncertain (that was always nonsense) but now I frequently hear arguments that the UK has already done its share, that we’re too small to make a difference or that it’s not our fault anyway. I find such argument very unconvincing.
Two of the objections to UK action, that you raise and that I keep hearing elsewhere, are actually wrong rather than merely weak and I’m grateful to you for giving me this opportunity to refute them.
Firstly, the idea that we don’t matter because we’re only responsible for 1% of global emissions always reminds me of a teenager refusing to tidy their own room. This argument also implies that we could solve the China-emissions problem by breaking that country up into 27 smaller nations, each of which “only” emitted an insignificant 1%. The plain truth is that we can only solve the climate crisis if every nation on Earth does its utmost to curb its own emissions and, in my view, the UK should continue to show leadership, in this, rather than stepping back.
Secondly, it is simply not true that global emission growth is driven by population growth. This argument is a crude attempt to suggest that “other people” are causing the problem and that, therefore, we don’t need to do anything. However, those few pockets of rapid population growth left, consist entirely of extremely poor communities who contribute almost nothing to global greenhouse gas emissions. The increases in global emissions are, instead, driven almost entirely by increasing wealth in countries like India and China. As people get richer they also increase their emissions. And why should we deny the aspirations of millions of people to enjoy the lifestyles most of us take for granted in the West? Instead, we should be leading the way in demonstrating how a dignified life can be compatible with low emissions.
As for targets being “a moving number”, there’s no point is setting targets if you simply move the goalposts every time things get difficult. The whole point of a target is to motivate us to stretch.
Sincerely
Dave
Women’s Table Tennis at the Kennet Valley Hall, Lockeridge
