A climate change protest in Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Takver/Flickr. Some rights reserved.
The distraction
Climate change is a global emergency from which the UK Brexit vote is an almighty distraction. Brexit has been much debated in the period up to the UK’s general election – but so should the steady erosion of public services, growing inequality and the need to move much more rapidly to zero carbon societies.
Scarcely anyone noticed that 9 May was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to which almost every nation on earth is a signatory. The risks to life on earth from mounting average global temperatures have been increasing for decades. Because global temperature rise results from cumulative emissions over time, and is therefore quantitatively predictable, arriving quickly at a ‘net zero carbon’ world is critical to minimising the risks.
