Green Focus: The government must do more for climate change

These are words we are hearing more and more often in relation to climate change, including its effects on energy bills, low incomes, and threats to food production, as well as our national security.

As a country, we’re not actually doing too badly when it comes to adapting to climate change.

Local and national authorities and voluntary agencies are taking imaginative initiatives, and these are reducing a few of the worst effects of global heating.

But unfortunately, we have made ourselves increasingly dependent on imports, and don’t seem to mind that the production and transport of these are pulling in the wrong direction.

The temperature of the globe has risen by one-third of a degree Celsius in ten years (in layman’s language: a lot).

Adaptation is sometimes referred to as a 'downstream' solution, and, in the long term, extremely costly.

But, as with rivers, we also need to deal with the source of the problem - 'upstream'.

This is where mitigation comes in.

It goes beyond kerbside recycling or local rewilding, important though these are.

It requires policies that interfere with our lives by setting limits to (or a higher price for) the climate-damaging aspects of some of our cherished activities, whether that’s to do with food, travel, or the stuff we buy.

Such government 'interference' worked with speed limits and making seat belts compulsory; it worked with Covid, and it can work for climate change.

Quite simply, burning fossil fuels must be reduced urgently.

Still confused?

Much of our attempts to stabilise the climate requires both adaptation and mitigation.

Retrofitting an old house with better insulation will help its owners not to freeze in winter or roast in summer, but it also contributes to reducing the need for excessively climate-damaging (and expensive) heating.

For details, see the current National Emergency Briefing expert 10-minute talks at nebriefing.org.

Tired of sermons about climate change?

Prefer to talk about the things closer to home – like the three Ps (plastic waste, potholes, and pollution)?

Unfortunately, they’re also linked to climate change.

Is there going to be no way of getting away from this subject?

Sigurd Reimers is a member of Our Grandchildren’s Climate - www.ourgrandchildrensclimate.org.