Now That the World Is in Chaos, Will Climate Change Take a Backseat?
Ukraine and Hamas have stolen the limelight from climate change
Can you cast your mind back to 3 years ago? Can you remember what events were at the forefront of the news cycle?
When you turn on the TV today, you are inundated with news about Israel, Hamas, Russia, Palestine, China, and some coups in Africa. Three years ago, the news cycle was remarkably different; climate change and the coronavirus had the world’s attention. We were fresh from the pandemic, trying to figure out how much COVID-19 had changed our world. At the same time, the discussion about climate change and climate damage mitigation was raging. Our understanding of climate change is that it is an existential threat, with the capacity to end human life on Earth. The scale of the panic was unimaginable. Experts somehow found a way to link every consequential event to climate change and explain them as the effects of human actions on nature.
When you turned on the TV three years ago, pundits and newscasters were in a frenzy as well as whipping up a frenzy about the imminent destruction of the earth as a result of climate change. In January 2021, the doomsday clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight, and the scientists in charge cited climate change as one of the main reasons for this valuation. There was much debate about the best way to tackle the menace of climate change and reduce our collective carbon footprint. It seemed as if the climate was all the rage, and we were at least ready to have a serious and sustained conversation about the way forward.
As soon as President Putin gave the order for Russia to invade Ukraine, the conversation changed. The initial shock has given way to a heightened but constant tension in the Western political sphere. One huge victim of this is the climate issue. Whereas the news cycle used to be inundated with climate conferences and climate warnings, the newscasters have channeled their energies toward churning out opinions and analyses about Ukraine, Israel, and the Middle East. Talk about climate change, though still present, has been pushed to the background.
It makes you wonder where all the vigour and sense of urgency went. It seems as if the newly minted save-the-earth enthusiasts have all gone cold or been shipped to Ukraine to distract their attention from the impending catastrophe that is climate change. We have lost the message along with its urgency, and the signs are everywhere. Since climate change is no longer the coveted bride she used to be, this loss of attention has created the perfect conditions for countries to weaken their climate commitments while avoiding harsh criticisms. Just recently, the UK announced a couple of policies that weaken their original commitment to achieving their climate goals. In a move that would have been considered political suicide a few years ago, the UK government increased the timeline for banning diesel and gasoline cars, gas boilers, etc.; the political equivalent of shifting the goalpost.
Yes, the discussion on climate change has been pushed to the background, but for how long? How long can we ignore climate change before it becomes too dangerous and risky to ignore? Scientists, in a recent report, announced that the Ice in the West of Antarctica is melting so fast, and irreversibly. In other words, no matter what carbon emissions-cutting measure we take, some parts of Antarctica have reached a point of no return as a result of climate change. This is a huge announcement that future historians will remember as the beginning of the end of life on Earth as we know it.
The signs are clear, but the question remains. For how long can we keep living on the edge, hoping that we can do something or invent a technology just in time to avoid a climate apocalypse? How much longer can we wait?
