Why protecting the climate is so difficult

To anchor climate protection in people's minds society must begin to change the way it talks about climate change, British journalist Sunny Hundal urges in an article in Krytyka Polityczna which also appeared in opendemocracy:

“Our problem isn't a choice between good news or bad news or between hope and fear - it is that our stories are too abstract and removed from daily lives. ... We can make those links [with our daily lives] in face-to-face conversations with our friends and families, in our local communities. That would change minds and prompt political action much quicker than we realise. But we have to start the conversation with what is close to our hearts.”

Environmental measures hit the weakest strata of society the hardest, the Financial Times warns:

“Mishandled deindustrialisation undermined entire ways of life in many western countries - as, indeed, did the decline of mining. The changes now required to address climate change threaten to do the same all over again to the same communities, while satisfying the concerns of the urban middle classes. If, on top of this, unfair burden-sharing is justified by what science says we must do, it is hard to resist the temptation to tell science where it can go. This is how a conflict of interests over climate change aligns with and reinforces a deeper culture war dividing centrist urban elites from system-critical populists.”

Climate issues are a question of intergenerational fairness, Mladina admonishes:

“Global CO2 emissions continue to top previous records, but at the same time the resistance to climate measures is growing. That's also due to the knowledge that we won't be able to attain these objectives without renouncing certain things. ... Consequently the Climate Conference in Katowice is about more than just technical issues. The conditions for reaching an agreement are not good. ... But a fair transition is only possible if the interests of coming generations and the people who are already feeling climate change are taken into account. The time for change is now.”

The switch from fossil fuels to renewable energies is the only sensible way to fight climate change - and ultimately also cheaper, writes Avvenire:

“The required investments until 2050 would have to be estimated at around 500 billion dollars per year. That's a hefty figure, but it must be compared with the losses that will be incurred if action isn't taken. According to several studies the annual damage caused by climate change could amount to five percent of the global gross domestic product. That would be 3.5 trillion dollars per year - so seven times more than the sum required for the conversion to renewable energies.”

Although the disastrous consequences of climate change are foreseeable, humanity as a whole is burying its head in the sand, columnist Fintan O'Toole laments in The Irish Times:

“The capacity for foresight is what allowed our species to survive and thrive. Unlike other species, we can build and share mental maps of what may happen. Unlike them, we can keep records of what has happened over many, many generations and use them as guides to the landscape of likely consequences. Yet here we are acting collectively as if we had never developed this unique capacity. Paradoxically, life in a virtual world has made us even more literal-minded: we don't believe what we have not yet fully experienced.”

Kurier describes what it sees as a huge misunderstanding:

“Namely that [environmental protection and climate change] are exclusively or primarily still issues for the Greens. If we're waiting for the Greens to save the world then we may as well just say our goodbyes now! Climate change HAS TO BE a central topic for all parties. Unfortunately you can't just close down climate routes, erect climate fences, cut benefits for the climate or boycott climate trains - and the climate doesn't pay much into pension coffers either. The climate is a migrant that doesn't stop at borders. And it couldn't care less about punitive tariffs. In other words: with the climate you can make a world, but not a state.”

The global climate remains captive to politics, Hospodářské noviny complains:

“Limiting the rise in temperature to below two degrees isn't really an ambitious goal. Global temperatures will rise considerably unless we take radical action. But the scientists' efforts are pitted against the global political reality: the booming populism and nationalism in Europe, America and Asia. But it's not just about the problem that the US and others have withdrawn from the Paris agreement, it's also about the fact that many other states only set rules that don't really allow for effective control of emissions.”

Around 65,000 people demonstrated for climate protection in Brussels. De Morgen sees the fact that many children and youths took part as a hopeful sign:

“December 2, 2018 was the day on which climate moved out of the domain of a handful of scientists, a few citizens and a few celebrities. It is now clearly in the domain of the younger generation. ... In addition to the Paris goals this is precisely what matters: that we help our children to understand what the generations before them have done to the planet, so that they are cleverer than we were. A new subject at schools: Climate.”

Expressen calls on politicians, citizens and businesses to make climate-friendly investments:

“One example is the fossil-free steel developed by [Swedish companies] SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall. It can make a dirty sector clean again. If this technology functions and becomes widely used this new type of steel can do more to reduce China's emissions than all the summit meetings put together. There are two strategies for achieving the necessary change of course: to wait and hope that it will become cheaper in the long run, or to act now. Those who take the lead will be able to export their technology to others. Climate change is not just an (unavoidable) cost - it's also an investment.”