The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis

by Christiana Figueres

Denying climate change is tantamount to saying you don’t believe in gravity. The science of climate change is not a belief, a religion, or a political ideology. It presents facts that are measurable and verifiable.

By 2050 at the latest, and ideally by 2040, we must have stopped emitting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than Earth can naturally absorb through its ecosystems (a balance known as net-zero emissions or carbon neutrality). In order to get to this scientifically established goal, our global greenhouse gas emissions must be clearly on the decline by the early 2020s and reduced by at least 50 per cent by 2030.

The goal of halving global emissions by 2030 represents the absolute minimum we must achieve if we are to have at least a 50 per cent chance of safeguarding humanity from the worst impacts.

Climate change has long been misunderstood as an environmental issue affecting the survival of the planet. The truth is, the planet will continue to evolve. It has done so for 4.5 billion years, going through dramatic transformations that for the most part did not support the existence of humankind. We currently enjoy unique environmental conditions that do support human life, but we forget that modern civilisation as we know it is only about 6,000 years old.

The planet will survive, in changed form no doubt, but it will survive. The question is whether we will be here to witness it. That’s why climate change is the mother of all issues.

Optimism is not soft, it is gritty. Every day brings dark news, and no end of people tell us that the world is going to hell. To take the low road is to succumb. To take the high road is to remain constant in the face of uncertainty.

But the fashion industry has an enormous carbon footprint. Textile production is second only to the oil industry for pollution. It adds more greenhouse gases to our atmosphere than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Estimates suggest that the fashion industry is responsible for a whopping 10 per cent of global CO2 emissions,26 and as we increase our consumption of fast fashion, the related emissions are set to grow rapidly.

Since the dawn of agriculture, humans have cut down approximately 3 trillion trees, or half the trees on Earth. As a result, almost half the land on our planet has been severely degraded from its natural state. In 2018 alone, 12 million hectares of forest – equivalent to 30 football fields a minute – were razed, a third of which was pristine primary rainforest.

A linear model of growth rewards extraction and pollution. We need to move from that model toward one that regenerates natural systems. We are going to require a clean economy that operates in harmony with nature, repurposes used resources as much as possible, minimises waste and actively replenishes depleted resources.

But GDP is a poor marker of what human beings need in order to thrive, as it is all about extracting, using and discarding resources. As a marker of success, it does not effectively take into consideration the impacts of pollution or inequality, or prioritise the value of health, education, or even happiness. It also places no value on the actions that regenerate degraded lands or that bring ailing oceans back to health.

Before we can work to correct the imbalance of power and decision-making, we have to acknowledge that it exists, often but not always based on structural unconscious bias. Right now that is still lost on many.

Nations with greater female representation in positions of power have smaller climate footprints. Companies with women on their executive boards are far more likely to invest in renewable energy and develop products that help solve the climate crisis. Women legislators vote for environmental protections almost twice as frequently as men, and women who lead investment firms are twice as likely to make investment decisions based on how companies treat their employees and the environment.

History has shown that when approximately 3.5 per cent of the population participates in non-violent protest, success becomes inevitable.102 No non-violent protest has ever failed to achieve its aims once it reached that threshold of participation.