THERE is a global climate crisis. Our world is heating up at an alarming rate and, frankly, you’d have to be from the moon not to have known that for the last decade or so.
The impacts of global warming have been spoken about in every aspect of life. Finally, governments are listening. A climate emergency has been declared by the Westminster politicians – and about time, too.
MPs are calling on the Government to make changes that include setting a new target of reaching net zero emissions before 2050. The current target aims to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent (compared to 1990 levels) by 2050.
I agree that emissions need to be dramatically reduced in order to slow down climate change and we need to do a lot more than just tinker around the edges in order to make this happen. The Government needs to now follow warm words with hot actions to reduce the impact of years of not caring too much.
New electric taxi fares very well for Scots cabbie David
Spring into action to save the planet and lives
Suddenly, the mission that so many of us have been on to raise awareness and bring about change is political news. A Government bereft of a clear way forward to tackle us leaving the EU now has a new bandwagon to climb upon.
The obvious question is what does that mean for the way we live our lives? The mainstream media immediately started saying we need to eat less red meat, take less flights and give up our cars.
Well, that is easy to say. We have never eaten more red meat, taken more flights or driven more miles in more cars. We are resistant to change in how we lead our lives. We are fundamentally selfish. Behaviour will not change without legislation and a concerted effort to fund new ways of doing things.
Driving cars and vehicles is fundamental to modern life, with poor public transport and urban sprawl making journeys essential. Working out how we move to a shared ownership, centrally organised, system of transport with lower emissions has never been more necessary – or further away, it feels.
Experts say we have 12 years to avoid environmental catastrophe. The clock is ticking louder than ever.
