Rebuilding Our Minds on Climate Change to Make Better Decisions
The bigger the community, the greater our chances to save the planet will be.
The world is more than ever concerned about the challenges of the Climate change. The 2022 summer has been one of the hottest of the last 100 years and temperatures faced will become probably the new normality for the next summers. Beyond scientists and climate advocates, citizens around the world are now recognizing that global warming is happening with its devastating consequences: fires in temperate zones, extreme drought in tropical zones, ice melting in polar zones, wildlife and fauna destruction in equatorial zones….
It is time to act.
Act quickly, as we are not sure about the time remaining BUT above all, act wisely by touching concrete impactful points. And this is not easy with the overwhelming information available about climate change scattered among truncated tweets, partial debates, focused thematic documentaries… Rationalizing our minds in this context starts first by understanding what is generating the climate change and the global warming consequences.
What is climate change?
The United Nations views it as “long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns” mainly due to human activities of burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. These last “generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures”. Nowadays, studies states that each year the world emits 50 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases representing its highest level since 2 millions years. This complex situation made countries to agree on limiting global temperatures rise to 1,5°C in order to maintain a normal life for humankind. This is one of the key takeaways of Paris agreement and one of the best beacon for everybody who is joining the fight of climate change.
Mapping the sources of greenhouses gas (GHG) emissions to better contain the 1,5°C temperature rise.
If an objective is defined then we should find the means to reach it. A cartography of the main source components of GHG appears to be a good basis to understand which are the most polluting industries before engaging any analysis or developing ideas / proposals or action plans. The best proxy I have identified in this way is the following diagram of Hannah Ritchie, Max Roser and Pablo Rosado (2020).
The diagram gives a comprehensive breakdown of the 50 billions tonnes of GHG per sources. It clearly appears that “Energy” sector is the main driver of GHG emissions (73,2%) as it is powering many others industries. “Agriculture, Forestry & Land use” are the second emitter (18,4%) followed by “chemicals & cements” industry (5,2%) and “Waste” (3,2%). In a snapshot, we can see the dependency of our civilization to a carbonized energy which is growing steadily since the second industrial revolution and the main advances it has brought. As things progress in the time, the needs of the society’s stakeholders evolve, generating more activities and so, more GHG emissions. To give a little view of this phenomena, Data showed that in the last 30 years, the growth in GHG emissions has reached significant levels among most of the sector: Industry (+203%), Aviation and Shipping (+107%), Electricity and Heat (+83%), Transport (+78%), Manufacturing and Construction (+58%)…
Although the above cartography gives a comprehensive GHG mapping per sectors, it should be accompanied with an end-to-end view of the impacts generated throughout a production process. In fact, to deliver their final products or services, the sector’s producers are implementing logistical value chains spanning from sourcing the raw materials to shipping the deliverables to the final customers. This is generating GHGs at each step of value chain. Moreover, as our world is now more globalized than ever, activities from any sector are interconnected to others. This implies that when a given sector is activating its production process, it is triggering also a production process of an other sector connected. The GHGs are then emitted on both parts.
The figure below based on data of the meta-analysis by Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018), published in Science gives a good example of the comprehensive impacts of the food production. Adding the 4 categories of its value chain, helps to understand that food production generates one-quarter of the annual world’s GHG emissions.
It becomes clear that matching the Paris agreement long-term goals (including limiting the temperature rise to 1,5°C) means to simultaneously decarbonize the upper sources and to control their intrinsic growth.
How?
In this long way to save our planet, everyone has a role to play
One of the major issue of our civilization will surely be the fighting of the global warming. Overcoming this generational combat implies building synergies spanning from supranational agreements and guidelines to active changes in citizen’s way of living passing by a bold firm’s involvement. Well connected these synergies can deliver the best of their value to make the right change for the climate. It is important to deconstruct the idea that it is other’s business not ours and to enlighten everyone on the positive role she/he can play.
The below list of stakeholders (not comprehensive) could be considered as a starting list of roles:
Supranational organizations
They are the world’s organizations aiming to work for a better life on identified themes (Peace, Poverty, Climate change, Education, Culture…). They have a global mandate, given by the member’s countries, which helps them to define common guidelines to be applied. In a context of climate change, United Nations (UN) and its system (UN agencies, UN funds…) are the main actors. UN action encompasses the organization of global conferences on climate (including COP21 and its Paris Agreement) and the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The objectives defined with these actions are assigned to countries and assessed regularly at UN level.
Countries
Close to 195 at world level, Countries have at their hand the power to make and drive the perfect impulsion of change in their territories. Countries’ governments define every year the public policies that will rule their life and deliver the political ambition of their Leaders. As the climate change is a major challenge, they generally devote a huge ministry to coordinate their whole climate action. As an example, France has taken an interesting turn by grouping under the ecological banner a wide range of states ministries and secretariats to better coordinate the climate action.
There is an opportunity to go further by assigning to each ministry, where applicable, a task linked to climate change. For example, the ministry of education can include in school programs, a couple of courses raising awareness about the challenges generated by the climate change for the current and future generations. The young generation will then become more conscious and keen to work for better tomorrows.
Firms
Firms are the engines the economic tissue of countries. Whatever their size or their industry, they are creating a value added that empowers the economic flows and contributes to wealth of a country. As stated upper, their processes of production generate the major part of GHG emissions. It is then crucial for them to be more compliant to the standards of a greener production. For most of them, a sustainability framework has been internally developed and is monitored by specific departments like Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability departments. These last report the firms’s actions with regular indicators. A survey of European firms gives a good snapshot of what is at stake for them.
Firms bear a critical role in the limitation of GHG emissions. They need to reinvent themselves across their whole organization and value chain cycle to deliver greener services / products and innovative solutions to achieve the ambition of Paris agreement.
Associations
Profit driven or not-to-profit, associations are a group of people working towards a common objective. There is a wide range of associations operating under the climate change issue. Their actions range from raising awareness on the impacts of global warming to active actions expected to deliver quick results.
The positive aspect recognized to associations is undoubtedly the collective successes resulting from the gathering of people’s work. Indeed, “Alone we go faster, together we go further” as a famous African proverb recalls.
Citizens
Either adult or young, climate advocate or not, direct victim of climate effects or not, Citizens are at the forefront of one of the biggest challenge of humankind. Every small actions made at people’s level can give, when added to the other ones, a big change for the humanity. That’s why it is important firstly for all, to gain a knowledge of impacts of climate change and what is leading to these impacts. Then, an identification and the implementation of new ways of living could be a vector of positive dynamic in GHG emissions’ limitation.
There is a growing perception that people have seized what is happening with the global warming especially with the recent environmental hazards faced by all the planet areas. They are joining a world community of change makers fighting to save our planet. That’s amazing. The bigger the community will be the greater our chances to save the planet will be. In this long walk, it will be important to build our mind by knowing the fundamentals of climate change and how to implement targeted actions delivering wide impacts.
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