We are currently facing the biggest crisis in the entirety of human history. It’s called global warming, and on Monday 11 November, last Monday, the warming rose to 1.54 degrees Celsius.
If we want to keep the warming below 2 degrees, we must start making proper reductions by 2028 minimum. And even then this is dangerous, and perhaps not enough. Starting reducing carbon emissions at the average rate of 8.57% from 2028, would only mean that we reach 71.42 tones of emissions in 2100; 72 years from now. And in the time taken for that to happen we will have emitted approximately 723 billion tones. And those numbers are made assuming that our carbon emissions don’t rise over the next 4 years[1].
It was estimated in 2023 that we, as humans, can pour up to 800 billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and still have 4/5ths of a chance of staying below 2 degrees in warming[2]. To put that into perspective, those are considerably worse odds than playing Russian Roulette with a loaded pistol. Using numbers from the paragraph above, if we do not cut carbon emissions by 2028 we will be gambling with our planet. Last year we emitted 57.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide – a 1.2% increase from 2022[3]. If we continue like this, not taking into account change in emissions (rise or drop), by the time I am 29, in just 14 years, the average climate temperature will have risen by 2 degrees. That is our deadline, quite literally, for if we don’t make it 250 thousand people are predicted to die from climate change each year[4]. That means in just four years, one million people will die.
The risks of rising to 1.5 degrees are somewhat less terrifying, although equally scary. According to a form which roughly 1/7th of the school responded to, 84% of us are scared by climate change. And understandably so, if we permanently rise to 1.5 degrees 70-90% of coral reefs will die, the total catch of fish will decline by 1.5 million tonnes, we will loose 4% of vertebrate species’ range, 8% of place where plants are able to grow, and 6% of insect ranges, the sea level is predicted to rise by 0.4 meters, and more. These examples are only the first in a long list of casualties.
But the list is so much worse if we rise to 2 degrees, as we are predicted to in 16-26 years[5], the fish decline will be twice as bad – rising to 3 million tonnes, the crop yields are 2.3 times worse decreasing by 7%[6] – enough to increase stunted growth in children due to malnutrition by 1-29% on average – up to 62% in southern Asia. The sea levels will rise by 15% more – 0.46 meters – which means that the 900 million people who live close to the sea (1 in 10 out of the total population) will have to deal with, most probably catastrophic, flooding[7]. If that’s not enough to convince you that we need to treat climate change as seriously as the impact is going to have on us will be, I don’t know what will be.
We are in serious trouble, and currently not doing enough to rectify this. In the Paris Agreement, which 196 countries pledged to follow in 2015, says that greenhouse emissions ‘must peak before 2025 at the latest and decline by 43% by 2030’. This is currently not set to happen. The targets which the Paris Agreement set are either too late or too little, but even then, and I cannot stress this enough, they are not being met.
And we need hold the government accountable for that. It is not doing enough to try stop climate change (and only 2.2% who responded to the whole school form thought that the government was doing enough), and we must now force a change.
On 11October, I sent out a school survey which gathered student views and their understanding on this pressing issue. These are some of the responses.
Demand action, as said by PW. ‘If we rally hard enough in big enough numbers, ultimately change will come about’, as said by LR we need ‘Big companies going carbon neutral as quickly as possible without shortcuts or greenwashing’. But that is not going to happen unless we, as citizens, take a stand. As a human being I have a right to life, a right to development, to food, to clean water, and more climate change threatens this, as it does all our lives.
But in addition to holding the government accountable, we must also hold ourselves accountable. Out of the 97 people who submitted the form only 2 mentioned protesting or us, the people, taking charge of our future. LR, who is quoted above, and DK, who said ‘create laws that require … people to take action’.
So hold yourself responsible. How much food are you wasting per week? How much responsibly sourced seafood are you eating? Do you know where it is from? How much energy are you using per week? Are you leaving the lights on, or driving when you could be walking, or using public transport?
Each person emits roughly 19 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year[8], if we each lose 1 tonne, the global carbon emission will drop by roughly 8 billion tonnes. Lose two tonnes? That’s 16 billion tonnes we’ve all taken out of the atmosphere. But for that happen, we all have to start making a difference. Small changes, like only taking as much as you can eat, recycling, turning lights off, buying second hand clothes (which are arguably better value for money). Know where your food is from – so much of our food is imported that if you went to the supermarket and tried to find apples grown in the UK, I’m not convinced you could. In 2021 46% of our consumed food was imported, and so much of these imported things are grown or produced in the UK[9].
There is only so much that governments can do without the help of the rest of us. Only 2.2% of our school think that the government is doing enough to help, but only 21.9% think that we as individuals are doing enough. What happened to that other 78.1% of us? Where did we go?
We need to stop climate change, and we need everyone on
board to do it. This is not a drill, there are no second chances in this world,
and I am begging everyone to help.
[1] CO₂ reductions needed to keep global temperature rise below 2°C
[2] How much CO2 can the world emit while keeping warming below 1.5°C and 2°C? – Our World in Data
[3] Emissions Gap Report 2023: Broken Record | UNEP – UN Environment Programme
[5] Predictions of Future Global Climate | Center for Science Education
[6] Climate Change, Crop Yields, and Undernutrition: Development of a Model to Quantify the Impact of Climate Scenarios on Child Undernutrition – PMC
[7] What is sea level rise and why does it matter to our future? | UN News
[8] What is your carbon footprint? | Carbon Footprint Calculator
[9] United Kingdom Food Security Report 2021: Theme 2: UK Food Supply Sources – GOV.UK
