BSB Insider ‘The geography of climate change’ Here, Sophie – one of our Press Room writers – addresses the serious issue of the current climate emergency. The year 2022 began in much same way as many other recent one, with the planet facing yet another uncertain year. It seems to be a recurring theme: humanity manages to minimise the weight of our past mistakes with the devastation of our new ones. Unfortunately, this does very little to lessen the urgency of the issues we face, a major one of these being the climate crisis. Last October saw the conclusion of the highly anticipated 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), widely dubbed a failure due to the lack of a substantial outcome following nearly two weeks of discussion. Though progress was made, with the finalisation of rules concerning emission reporting and carbon trading as well as agreements to “phase-down” the use of coal and prevent deforestation, many activists still had qualms about the pace at which change was being carried out by the world’s governments. The ambitions of the previous summit, the 2015 Paris Accords, were far from on track, with the target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C by 2030 seeming further
66 • The British School of Brussels
out of reach than ever before. Generally, the main fault of COP26 lay in the inability of its participants to enforce crucial change; the climate crisis requires radical action, so why not act radically? Unfortunately, things are not so straightforward. There are several reasons why our governments are hesitant to take the initiative, the majority of which are economic: the financial burden of decarbonising, resourcing renewable energy, and restricting major corporation production, is simply too much to shoulder. This, at least, is what most Western nations claim to be the impediment to change; however, such a sentiment is not exactly reflective of reality. The cost of sustainable technology is constantly dropping, it is now cheaper -and easierthan ever to reduce emissions. It is entirely possible to stimulate economic prosperity whilst keeping emissions in decline; however, this only remains true as long as we have enough time to implement change. The closer we edge to the end of the century, the more difficult it becomes to tackle the multiplying consequences of global warming. If we continue to waste time, the damage caused by the crisis will become infinitely more expensive to reverse than the crisis itself.
