A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

Draft for CommentVersion: 21st May 2020

A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

Two messages

1. Individuals Can Make a Difference

Personal choices count. Why YOU should do the right thing

2. Spread the word

Multiply the impact of your knowledge to lever greater action

Bob Earll

CMS - Communications & Management for Sustainability

bob.earll@coastms.co.uk

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

Inside Cover – page 2.

This is a draft and all comments are welcome

A test: Could you use any of the information in this guide to help with what you do?

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Louise Earll, Mike Floyd, Rob Jarman, Paul & Beverley Kinnaird and Astrid Fischer for their helpful comments and inputs to the guide and to Martin Brocklehurst for his input into the reasons why organisations should act on climate change. I have also used a great diagram prepared by Chris Rose on how we can multiply our own activities.

Feedback

Please send any feedback to bob.earll@coastms.co.uk

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

1. Introduction

Why this guide?

A time to rethink our actions and make them more effective Many people have been aware of these environmental issues and sustainability (Note 1) for many years and so it is easy to habituate to them. For many reasons the events of 2019 prompted me and many others to think about the climate emergency anew and this prompted this guide (Note 2).

Now is the time to rethink our actions and renew our commitment to making our actions much more effective. Covid-19 has prompted change on a huge scale, and is already affecting many of the points made in this guide (see Note 3) See this jargon buster from the Climate change coalition

Reducing our environmental footprint The climate emergency and the need to substantially reduce our carbon footprint was my main driver when I started this guide but we need to reduce our overall environmental footprint. The related issues of resource consumption as the world’s population grows and destruction of wildlife and ecosystems are as significant in many ways as climate change. In the following text ‘footprint’ can be taken to cover both carbon and the broader range of environmental impacts.

The objectives of this guide are as follows:

1. Individual action and personal choice To encourage individual action on climate change through people exercising their personal choices

2. Multiply your effectiveness: To encourage individuals, especially those professionally engaged with the environment to use their knowledge to multiply the effectiveness of their actions to lever greater action

3. To provide a structure and overview to the ways people can act4. To provide the reasons why individuals should act, beyond highlighting the problems that

are arising from the climate emergency 5. As a resource – feel free you take out chunks of the text and use as you see fit

The guide is for individuals

1. Who want to do the right thing, who want to make a start and do more2. Who, because they have expertise and information, want to make a greater impact, and

influence more people either at work or in their free time3. Who are thinking about running talks and programmes of awareness raising with the specific

intention of providing a structure for this

How to use this guide

The Contents of this guide overleaf outlines what each guide sections covers, including: 1. Those actions we can take through personal choice 2. Those actions at work, and with the wider community that multiply our effectiveness3. The final section describes some elements of the ‘bad news’ and evidence4. There are lots of live web links throughout the text to provide broad illustration of points

made.

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

Contents

Page Numbers1. Introduction, objectives & change owing to the coronavirus ……………………… 3

2. Individuals make a difference: Personal choices

Introduction …………………….………………………………………………………………………………. 5

Themes for action (with web links) ………………………………………………………………………... 5

Table 1 Summary of the themes for action …………………………………………………………… 6 3. Spread the word: Multiply the impact of your knowledge to lever greater action

3.1 Action at Work ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 9

3.1.i What you might do if your organisation isn’t doing enough but you have no direct responsibility to act ……………………………………………………………………………………………... 10

3.1.ii Why should organisations make these changes? ………………………………………………… 10

Where to start – Time to take stock – Questions to ask …………………………………. 10

References, examples and web links ………………………………………………………………… 11

3.2 Personal commitment to influencing a bigger audience in our own time …………….. 12Mechanisms ….. 12Projects …… 13

4. Bad news

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 14Why is it a climate emergency? ……………………………………………………………………………………… 14The types of evidence ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 15

5. Notes

Note 1. Sustainability ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 17Note 2. Why I have produced this guide - three main prompts …………………………………….. 17Note 3. Change and the realities of the Covid-19 emergency – a Wakeup Call ……………….. 17

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

2. Individuals make a difference: Personal choices count - why YOU should do the right thing

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

Introduction

Quite apart from understanding the climate emergency, and the other major environmental impacts there are some powerful reasons why we should act. Not least of these is the way we feel about ourselves. We need to rethink our lifestyles …

o The personal choices affecting our lives are largely within our control and we can decide to ‘Do the right thing for the planet’

o Importantly this can make a difference to the way we feel about ourselves. Doing something can make us feel a whole lot better than doing nothing

o Being positive, constructive and optimistic is an important aspect of how we frame taking action

o What’s in it for you? The reality is that in addition to reducing carbon there are also a wide range of health, wellbeing and personal finance benefits from doing the right thing

o Importantly the insight, expertise and experience we gain in doing the right thing enables us to communicate this experience to others – to multiply and increase our impact

This section describes the reasons why we should act, Table 1 provides an overview of the main areas where we can act, and then there is a fuller description of web links that cover this area

Personal Choices: The main themes for action

The web is full of references. The text in a colour and underlined below are live web links; these will take you to the information sources. Whilst these suggestions will help you reduce your carbon and environmental footprint they also have benefits for your health, wellbeing, finances and many other aspects of your life. This first set of references are articles that cover a wide range of topics. These topics have been put in clear groups in Table 1 and described in more detail later. The web links will take you to sites covering these topics.

General overviews Grantham Institute (2019): Nine things you can do about climate changeGuardian: 50 simple ways to make your life greener (February 2020) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/29/50-ways-to-green-up-your-life-save-the-planet?CMP=Share_iOSApp_OtherStudent Guide to sustainability (2019) https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/advice/student-guide-sustainability#survey-answer

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

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Table 1. An Overview of Themes for Individual Action – Rethinking Our Lifestyles

1. Diet & food security Many people are transitioning from a traditional to a more vegetarian diet eating less meat,

dairy and fish. Eating less and reducing food waste whatever we eat Food security: ‘growing your own’, eating seasonally, storage and buying local and organic

2. Travel: Reducing our carbon and environmental footprint Walking, cycling (health, exercise) and using public transport Electric vehicles – cars and bicycles Reduce or eliminate flying -> offsetting Working from home, using online meetings

3. Energy in the home: Reducing our environmental footprint Behaviour e.g. switching lights off -> Insulation -> Investment e.g. the new boiler/fuel/ renewables Renewables: Solar PV & Water, heat exchangers, air and ground sources heat pumps Housing: Old and challenging -> to new build and passive houses

4. Consumption & consumerism: Rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, refill & recycle

Consumption Related ideas: Charity shops as agents for reduce and reuse, buying 2nd hand, repair café’s and Buying local

Consumption and plastics pollution Reducing using of fossil resources and reducing plastic items consumed Related ideas: Refill – alternative products – 5 R’s Clean-ups

5. Wildlife (Biodiversity): To help restore & recover wildlife and their environment Wildlife Gardening – ponds, bird feeding Wildlife planting, tree planting, wildlife corridors

6. Investment: Where to invest to achieve the above Using your spending power wisely especially on major items Financial investments: Investing ethically – divestment from fossil fuels Land purchase to supporting wildlife conservation efforts and reduce carbon

Fig 1. Individuals can make a huge difference!

A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

During the Covid-19 outbreak there have been a number of guides on ways of taking action on climate change without leaving home – from ‘Possible – Inspiring climate Action’ or ‘30 tips from Greenpeace.’

1. DietChanging diet will be key issue in combatting climate change. Eating less meat especially beef is one of the main things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. Health and a diet with more vegetables has pronounced health benefitsVeganuary is a campaign to encourage people towards eating less meat – the website is a goldmine of useful advice including recipes Guardian (2020) Life after Veganuary: the ethical guide to eating meat, eggs and dairy This BBC article from May 2020 is a very helpful guide to what you should be looking out for in moving to a lower carbon diet – some surprising results Growing your own food: Love the garden & Royal Horticultural Society

2. Travel

Travel choices could enable you to get more exercise –which is a critical health benefit (NHS, or 10 benefits). More walking or cycling could cut your carbon foot print as well as providing health benefits. Public transport: Whenever possible try and use public transport.Cars: Electric cars are fast developing and produce less carbon than conventional cars. Even with limited range electric cars (or plug in hybrids) can often be used to cover the vast range of local journeys. Electric cars in UK are 50% cheaper to run than conventional cars. Car share clubs are also fast developing Flying: Whenever possible don’t. If you do fly offset – UN guidance https://www.carbontrust.com/what-we-doOnline meetings can considerably reduce the need to travel, saving time and carbon.

3. Energy in the home to reduce your carbon footprint and energy bills

There are many relatively inexpensive steps you can take to reduce energy use in the home which can reduce your energy consumption and fuel bills. Many of these fall into the behavioural – ‘wear and extra jumper’, fix the drafts – category. Lots of ideas and advice are included in this booklet sent to me by Astrid Fischer – click here to access.

The first major most cost-effective investment worth investigating is insulation.

More fundamentally the ‘new boiler’ question often entails significant investment and can involve a change of fuel source; the Climate Change Committee recently highlighted the way forward for home energy. Air source heat pumps are a well tried technology and can be a cost effective way of not using fossil fuels. If you install solar panels this can help with the heat pumps and travel considerably reducing your bills. Passive house technologies with no space heating bills are now fast developing; these include exceptional levels of insulation and draft proofing as well as heat exchangers for ventilation.

4. Consumption & consumerism

Consumption and consumerism in general

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

With global development and population growth our uses of natural resources are increasing rapidly exceeding the ability of the planet to supply demand. In many ways this is as significant a problem as climate change. See One Planet Living. A whole set of ideas, often expressed in the sequence – rethink –> reduce –> reuse –> repair –> recycle have arisen to try and encourage us consume less. Implicit in this is using our spending power wisely, avoiding unnecessary purchases. Can you go for a year without buying any new clothes? There are a series of related ideas and ways we can buy into this including using charity shops as agents for reduce and reuse, buying 2nd hand, repair café’s and buying from local producers. This article describes how 3 people directly make enormous savings on the waste the produce and the ways you can do this.

Consumption and plastic pollution

Although the impact of litter in the marine environment had been known for many years, it took Blue Planet II to highlight this growing threat of plastic pollution in every ocean of the world and indeed in every habitat on the planet. The raw materials of plastics come from the same oil and gas industry that have created the climate change problem so reducing our use of plastics provides one way of using less fossil fuel. The pressing need to reduce the use of pointless – single use plastics – has been a major agenda item in the west for the last 5 years. There are now many books, organisations and web-links to how to combat plastic pollution: see the Marine Conservation Society and City to Sea . The sequence – rethink –> reduce –> reuse –> repair –> refill -> recycle applies. Clean-up especially on or adjacent to rivers is one way of reducing plastics getting into our seas, or more routinely on local walks.

5. Wildlife (biodiversity) to help Restore & Recover Nature

The third great threat to the planet from human activities is to our wildlife and natural ecosystems. In a personal capacity we have a relatively limited ability to do much about this. We know that protecting natural systems and in particular the soil and trees can be key to carbon sequestration (CO2 removal) locking up carbon for generations. Our understanding of wildlife gardening have been with us for 30 year championed by people like Chris Baines. Garden ponds, bird feeding, wildlife friendly planting, tree planting, movement corridors and many other techniques can all play their part in supporting wildlife.

With this in mind how we work with the wider environment (see page 10) can be a key and there is a growing recognition that natural flood management systems can reduce the impact of flooding and improve biodiversity. Investment in land purchase is another way of helping address issues (see below).

6. Investment: Where to invest to achieve the above

Our ability to choose how we spend our personal funds – using our spending power wisely – is a key mechanism we have at our disposal; three ways to think about this: Major purchases – cars – home energy – ‘consumption’ (see above) can all be made to help reduce your carbon footprint Financial investments: ethical & green investments – divestment away from fossil fuels Land purchase for wildlife, woodlands & supporting local conservation efforts can be a major way of assisting carbon reductions as well as enhancing wildlife

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

3. Spread the word: Multiply the impact of your knowledge to lever greater action

The experience and commitment you have with personally addressing climate change can be applied to multiply the effects that you have to lever great action. This is well illustrated in Diagram 1 which has been prepared by Chris Rose illustrating the way effective communication tools can be harnessed. This approach can be applied in two main areas:

i. At work and change within our organisation and work with clients ii. In other aspects of our lives, using our knowledge more widely

This section describes this in these two parts with an overview of the main themes and then case studies with web links. (More examples in both sections would be helpful)

Diagram 1 Source - Chris Rose

3.1 Action at Work

Introduction

Such will be the ramifications of climate change that it will affect every aspect of our lives, social, economic and environmental. As one speaker at CF2020 put it, from now on, ‘every policy is a climate change policy’. The scope for influencing climate policies through our work is wide ranging, and in many ways overlaps with the topics covered by personal choice section e.g. travel, energy consumption and investment. The obvious difference is the scale at which the actions can be applied and benefits derived. Responding to climate change is in essence the same as the way we respond to any major disruptive change – except the impact is much more profound.

For people who work in larger organisations two scenarios for staff may operate

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

i) many others will have no direct responsibilities or agency to act in terms of their routine work

ii) whilst others will have direct responsibilities to act on the organisations response to the climate emergency and their overall environmental footprint.

Set out below are some ideas for both scenarios.

i) What you might do if your organisation isn’t doing enough but you have no direct responsibility to act

If you have no direct responsibility or agency for your organisations environmental footprint – you might be a student at a university, there are a variety of things that you might consider including:

Setting up discussion or affinity groups within the organisation Consider taking action on issues like divestment e.g. Oxford University Set up events within the organisation that highlight issues – vegan food days Set up facilities like battery recycling or refill centres More examples

ii) Why should organisations make these changes?

In many cases mechanisms are in place e.g. ISO standards on sustainability, and what is required is a reset of ambition and targets e.g. to meet net zero by a set date. For any organisation doing the right thing and being proactive on climate change can bring both advantages within the organisation and the way it works and in the relationship with the clients and customers, with whom it works. (* I would like to thanks Martin Brocklehurst for his contributions to this section.)

1. It is good for your business, not least because there are many business opportunities arising from climate change and our response to it

2. These opportunities may give you a competitive edge

3. Thinking this through can put your organisation on the front foot, enabling proactive work future proofing your organisation. Standing still is not an option and risks losing ‘stranded assets’.

4. It is good for the bottom line: renewables for example can slash your energy bills

5. It can help build organisational resilience and adaptation to risks to climate change events

6. It strengthens your reputation with the people you work with, your clients and customers

7. It resonates with your staffs ambitions

Where to start – Time to take stock – Questions to ask

1. Is it time to take stock and reset your organisations ambitions and targets?

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

2. What kind of business you want to be? What type of business you want to be on the journey to a low carbon economy - a pioneer or innovator (circa 3%); an early adopter (circa 13%), a majority adopter (circa 68%), or a laggard (circa 16%). (source web link ). What decisions do you need to take in this regard?

3. Benchmarking How does your climate change performance match the performance of others in your sector?

4. In what year will you be carbon net zero?

5. What is your carbon footprint re the organisations, products and supply chain? What changes can be made?

6. Even if your organisation does not believe in climate change make your business attractive to investors and customers by embedding carbon in your business management systems: consider:

Put carbon at the heart of your day-to -day business decision making processes Make the carbon footprint of your products and services clear along supply chains

and to the consumer Embed carbon reduction and pricing into your systems of work.

7. Have you tested your current business model against a low carbon future to understand the scale of change you will need to make to survive in a low carbon world?

Explore: Will you be ready for carbon pricing and carbon taxation? The financial benefits to your business of reducing carbon emission in line with the Paris

agreement (the do everything option); and The impact new disruptive business models could have on your business and your

competitiveness (the revolution option). Such disruptive business models include the circular economy, leasing, the sharing economy, and value added propositions adopted by companies such as Uber and Airbnb.

8. Does your organisation understand and can it manage the risks associated with any business transition caused by the change of disruptive events caused by climate change?

9. Do your staff have the skills base and understanding required for any change process?

10. Will you be to attract financiers to invest in your business in a low carbon world?

11. Will you be a winner or loser in the global transition to a low carbon world?

References, Examples & web links

Martin - Options do nothing – revolution

Martin - First adopter – laggard

Ambition & Targets - Net Zero The Environment Agency announced in 2019 that it would be Net Zero by 2030 . begging the question of all organisations of when then intend to be Net Zero.

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

Do you need to make that overseas journey? The coronavirus has effectively cancelled international travel. In this article Charles Clover of the Blue Marine Foundation explores what this might mean for the futures of our work overseas.

What universities can doo Teaching Virtually all UK Universities will be teaching overseas students – many from

countries like China – who are pivotal in the changes that are required

o University divestment from fossil fuels 50% of UK Universities have divested from fossil fuels Is your university in this group? Oxford University and its approach to divestment

Large geographic scale collaborations to help restore and recover wildlife Yorkshire landowners collaborate to combat climate change Dorset Super Nature reserve Yorkshire Water & Environment Agency – Source to sea Wilding - Knepp Castle & Rewilding

3.2 Personal Commitment to influencing a Bigger Audience in Our Own Time

Introduction

Armed with the personal and professional experience of the topics outlined earlier many people choose to spend some of their spare time doing more, engaging with communities, networks, NGOs and others to try and get the message more widely distributed.

Mechanisms - Methods

Communication: e.g. Newsletters, letter writing, engaging the media

Organising larger meetings and public awareness Explaining the various issues either overall or single issues in detail. Running awareness raising events, presentations or courses.

Volunteering e.g. for a Wildlife Trust, Repair cafes

Joining / creating local Green groups or social networks e.g. Ledbury Solar Co-operative Group, Transition Network

Local Government & Politics: Green Policies and their implementation – in the context of Local Parish, Town, District and County Councils, for example:

How will declaring a climate emergency make a difference? What are the things we want to influence? (see below) Lobbying your MP Planning: Remove people and assets from risk zones – flood/sea level/coastal

erosion/contaminated land

Taking direct action: With Extinction Rebellion

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

Others?

Project topics

Transport Infrastructure (especially in towns) – pedestrian and cycle paths Car share schemes

Local Energy use and supply e.g. Ledbury Solar Co-operative Group Wildlife (Biodiversity) Rethinking action covering on larger areas than we own personally

Food security Grow your own, allotments Community gardens Rethinking food distribution – local delivery

Flooding Green infrastructure. Mitigation against the worst effects, encouraging natural flood management solutions

(biodiversity friendly), awareness, holding ponds etc

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

4. The Bad News- The climate emergency put succinctly

If you are not extremely worried by the Climate Emergency then you don’t understand the Climate Emergency

Introduction

2019 will go down as the year that many people woke up to the Climate Emergency. The impact of Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion campaigns have played a large part in raising awareness. They have constantly asked politicians to act on the scientific evidence. They have also called for ‘the truth’ to be told. Well the ‘truth’ is not good news.

This section deliberately tries to describe this succinctly. There are other sources that describe this step by step. But beware, Richard Pagett puts it like this: ‘We should do this of course but only because it is the right thing to do, not because we believe it can make any difference at all.’ This is not a great motivation for action and organisers should be very aware of this.

This section provides you with different sources of evidence that taken together provide a compelling and depressing narrative. The reason why this is being reframed as a ‘climate emergency’ is described. This section also describes the types of evidence of exceptional and record breaking events from around the world, reports from the scientists, quotes from people experiencing climate change at first hand and finally two short narratives from two people with a long standing experience of the issue.

Why is it a climate emergency?

Climate change is taking place and CO2 levels are rising steadily and the world is experiencing a warming of 1 degree Celsius currently above what would be expected. This is fuelling the current events we are experiencing. The Paris Agreement sought to keep the increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030 but the likelihood is that we won’t achieve this and it will go much higher. The reality is that senior observers are highly sceptical that we will be stop climate change at 1.5. The two narratives below explain why. This is very serious and the consequences will be profound.

Fig 2. Image: Carbon Brief

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

The Types of Evidence

The evidence of exceptional – record breaking - events

The strongest Caribbean hurricane for 50 years - Hurricane Dorian–with winds of 200mph over the Bahamas. The largest Typhoon – Hagibis - for 50 years over Japan. Hurricanes are getting stronger – NOAA 2020Wildfires on a scale seldom seen before in the Arctic, Amazon, Africa, California and of course Australia with its firestorms. Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef and elsewhere.

The record breaking winter storms of 2019-2020 in UK. A period with the most flood warnings in a single day, a period of 50+ days with continuous flood warnings and record flows in the Severn and Wye. It is the exceptional duration and strength of these events that has captured the headlines.

ReportsThere have been a stream of reports and statements (11,000 scientists) that have continued to pour out not least the one from the IPCC on the Oceans.

The effects of climate change on the ocean - Ralph Rayner Youtube https://youtu.be/WKGmxTV40_A

Four quotes:

August 2019 Alaska’s sea ice has melted The exceptionally warm summer has left no sea ice within 150 miles of the Alaskan coast. Long-time Arctic researcher Jeremy Mathis told Mashable "I’m losing the ability to communicate the magnitude [of change]. I’m running out of adjectives to describe the scope of change we’re seeing."

Meanwhile, Greenland’s glaciers are suffering losses at levels that were ‘not anticipated to melt like this until 2070’ Thomas Mote, professor of geography and atmospheric science at the University of Georgia, writes Greenland lost 12.5bn tonnes of water in a single day at the start of August.

John Englander on unstoppable sea level rise Very clear not least on solutions and ‘intelligent adaptation’.

‘Climate change is not as bad as you think it’s worse’ (2018) – Sir James Bevan CEO of the Environment Agency

Two narratives from Rob Hopkins and Richard Pagett which summarise the problem succinctly

Rob Hopkins Founder of the Transition Towns Movement describes the Climate Emergency and what is happening now like this in his new book What Is to What If (Publisher: Chelsea Green, 2019)

‘I’ve come to believe we desperately need (positive) stories like this – Stories of How Things Turned out OK – because if there is a consensus about anything in the world at this point, it seems to be that the future is going to be awful. And with good reason. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that the world’s temperature warmed by 1 degree Celsius over the

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

past century. To avoid 1.5 degrees, they say we would need to cut emissions by 45% by 2030, and to zero by 2050. And their findings are pretty conservative. Others argue that even staying below a 2 degree increase would, in reality, for ‘developed’ nationals such as those for the EU, necessitate cuts of 12 percent a year, starting now, far beyond the EU’s current target of 40 percent by 2030. The longer our inertia persists, the steeper and more demanding that task becomes. As Jim Skea, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III, stated when the report was released, ‘Limiting warming to 1.5 C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented change.’ And of course we can already see the impacts of climate change and other ecological destruction …’

Richard Pagett: A friend and environmental consultant for over 40 years he has practised in over 160 countries around the world puts it like this. Warning: this really does put what we do in context

Action on climate change ‘We should do this of course but only because it is the right thing to do, not because we believe it can make any difference at all.’ The problem is this. Using UN figures:

The global carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion (a good proxy) is 25, 417.78 M tonnes of which the UK is responsible for 389.75 Mt (1.5% of the total). In fact we (UK) are in 14 th place behind the likes of the obvious folks such as China, US, India but also Iran, Saudi and Indonesia. In terms of per capita emissions we are 13th, well behind the worst which is Saudi, but also behind S Korea, Japan, Iran, and Italy and so on. The physics of global warming is such that it acts on the whole amount, not country contributions. So, the challenge is, say, even if we become zero emitters, before you finish this email, lobbing off a 1.5% chunk of emissions from the 25+ Mt is just insignificant noise. It would have absolutely no effect.

Now, Extinction Rebellion wants to do it by 2025 and the UK Government by a couple of decades later. So what, 1.5% now or in 20 years’ time is irrelevant. That is assuming it could even be done. Technically perhaps but politically I doubt it. (I covered this in my CIWEM conference paper a few years back).

Now, the way the world works is that there are a lot of poor people and the main tactic (actually it is the only one) is to lift people out of poverty through economic growth. Now, to do that it will consume natural resources on an unprecedented rate. Remember all those years ago I said, in that CIWEM conference (and repeated in my book) that the UNEP (2011) stated that 60% of all ecosystems services had been used unsustainably or degraded during the previous 25 years, so not a great deal left for the rest of time. Now, when you lift people out of poverty, the next lot (the middle class for want of a better expression) are also lifted. These middle classes (China has brought up 600 million during the past few years) want a lot of “stuff” because they are now beyond subsistence level. We simply don’t have the natural resources to support that.

So, even if one fixes the “climate emergency”, there is a much deeper “emergency”, that of depleting natural resources (no more commercial fishing by 2050 seems well accepted as being likely these days, which will affect 1 billion livelihoods). This is on today’s consumption rate, yet we will add a further 1.5 billion folk during the next couple of decades. So, we have not even begun to appreciate the calamity that is coming.

And this is where the “climate emergency” thinking becomes rather unstuck ~ the common refrain is if we all our bit and reduce x and y a little bit etc. it all helps. I am afraid it is empty rhetoric. It is pure Eurocentric thinking. It has no real traction anywhere else in the world (and as you know I have worked in 160+ countries). Recollect that in Bonn a few months ago, the new IPCC report was not “welcomed” by delegates but “noted”. Saudi and some other key emitters refused to accept

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

“welcome” and it has to be done by consensus (which has bedevilled climate summits from Copenhagen onwards). You may recall at Katowice last year our national treasure David Attenborough addressed the assembled world leaders ~ they barely applauded ~ it was embarrassing. Forget Glastonbury, it is irrelevant on the world stage.

So, if 65 million folk (that is us in the UK) do their little bit, in overall terms, it has almost no effect. It is the right thing to do of course and I will continue to do all I can (as you may recall I personally created a 20-hectare indigenous forest ten years ago to offset my unavoidable carbon emissions). I don’t see many “believers” even coming close to that.’

Just have a think - Planet of the Humans … critical assessment of the film – clear indications of progress and the need for solutions

5. Notes

Note 1. Sustainability

The ideas set out in the guide are not new and many have evolved since the 1980s and can be found in a huge literature. Many ideas like capitals (natural, social, economic), social equity and one planet living have been incorporated into this thinking. Phrases like ‘harvest, don’t mine’, ‘live off the interest, not off the capital’ and respect nature, craft and skill in every product’ can help guide us.

A convenient way of translating the idea of sustainability into practice for projects is as follows:1. Plan for the future 2. Looking for plans and projects with multiple benefits that cover social, environment and economic outputs 3. Actively engage people working collaboratively on solutions 4. Set out processes that over time can be managed adaptively

Note 2. Why I have produced this guide? Three main prompts

Climate change has been understood for many years and it is easy to turn-off and habituate to the constant flow of bad news, extreme events and reports warning us of the dangers. However, 2019 will go down as the year many people finally woke up to the sheer scale of the problem we face; this is seriously bad news. It is an emergency and leaves us very little time to act.

Each year I organise a conference called – Coastal Futures. The Coastal Futures conference draws a large audience (400+) of professional and technical delegates, who work on coastal and marine environmental issues, as well as those following the event on social media. I wanted to respond to the gathering momentum for a renewed response to the climate emergency. This included both ensuring the programme structure highlighted the need to inject fresh momentum for action but also to encourage the entire audience to do more.

The third reason was through my long term engagement with a local Transition Network group whose activities span many topics of action and a desire to explore what individuals can do. To develop this further I undertook a one question survey with marine activists in Cornwall which lead to an overview of the range actions that individuals take (Table 1). 299 inputs from 93 individuals

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A Guide to Individual Action on the Climate Emergency

highlighted the need for both action on personal choices but also to seek to multiply action on a wider scale.

Note 3. Change and the realities of the Covid-19 emergency – a Wakeup Call

The idea for this guide was envisaged as a response to the climate emergency before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of much of our day to day thinking. The guide is in essence about how we as individuals think and prepare for change. As such many of the ideas covered in it have a strong resonance with how people can act in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. This is very much a first draft to prompt comment and the final version may have many more explicit examples drawing upon our first-hand experience of the coronavirus.

The covid-19 pandemic has highlighted various points including: An illustration of how governments act in a command and control way – and how individual freedoms are quickly affected e.g. our ability to meet or travel The importance of science and experts in helping plot a way through the epidemic Acting promptly to warnings Highlighted that working from home can be productive and that online meetings can save enormous amounts of time that were previously required for travelling The importance of pedestrian space and cycle routes in cities Food security: The importance of local producers and delivery and grow you own. Cuts in air pollution from traffic have been a very obvious benefit especially to city dwellers Highlighting the importance of exercise and access to green space

The Covid-19 emergency has prompted many people to envisage what changes might arise in the way we view the future – ‘the new normal’ – click here to see a selection of these

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