Who Could Rescue Us from Climate Catastrophe?
Here’s a clue: it’s not Andy Burnham, Chris Packham or Sir David Attenborough. Nor is it Zack Polanski, by the way.
No job for a talking shop
Climate Change Summits come and Climate Change Summits go and still the world gets warmer, sea levels rise, glaciers melt, wildfires rage, hurricanes happen (but not yet in Hertford, Hereford or Hampshire). The sad truth is that change is faster than progress in tackling it. Anyone who believes that it’s not happening or that. for any reason, we do not need to reduce greenhouse gases right now should stop reading this and find themself a comfy mental institution.
So, who is it?
Can there be any doubt that most national leaders recognise the impending disaster posed to humanity by global temperatures? Or that most are reticent to broadcast the enormity of the threat until they have a convincing plan for salvation that they can take to their people?
The threat of retribution at the ballot box leaves all but the bravest and most secure unable to apply stringent ‘net zero’ policies in isolation. There’s always a populist happy to lull the gullible into a false sense of invulnerbility – better to do nothing unless every other nation will swallow the medicine, too. This is especially true when the World’s second largest polluter (USA) will not play its part, let alone lead the way to a solution.
I cannot conceive of a way through this international stand-off unless one very strong world leader, and one that can take their nation with her/him, will take the lead. Like him or loath him, that one person is Xi Jinping. He has ‘previous’ in that RoC has far greater investment in alternative power and green technology than any other nation and I do not believe that development at that pace occurred without the encouragement of this strongest of leaders.