‘We’re not about to back down’: How climate experts hold out hope despite IPCC report | Rob Law, Joëlle Gergis, Rebecca Huntley, Joseph Moeono-Kolio, Bill Hare

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Let’s increase it

The latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has left many of us feeling hopeless and hopeless about the future of the planet. It is often said that work is the antidote to anxiety and despair. But the problem for most people is what action should be? Recycling, or the ride to work can feel futile when political leaders simultaneously announce a new coal mine the size of Sydney. This is why I still feel hopeful.

Over the past few years, it has seen a tremendous growth and diversity in the climate movement compared to when it began in the early 2000s. In the absence of federal leadership, communities across Australia are stepping in to fill the void. Over 100 jurisdictions across Australia have declared climate emergencies across urban, regional and rural communities. There are now thousands of different place-based and interest-based communities for climate action.

The powerful groups and individuals who have deliberately slowed climate action for decades have never been so vulnerable. All over the world, we are witnessing a massive shift in markets away from fossil fuels and the collapse of the empires that built their fortunes as the planet demise. This is because ordinary people keep finding new ways to appeal, whether that is through the courts, through boards of directors, annual general assemblies, or through the ballot box.

We can all raise our ambition in what we can do, some of us in small ways, some of us in big ways. We are constantly seeing the cascading effect of small verbs. This could be the decade when these ripples combine in a tidal wave of change – before real tidal waves destroy us all. Let’s increase it.

Rob Law is CEO of the Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance. He is also a co-producer of End Game Media, a podcast dedicated to the climate crisis, and a film composer

“There is still a lot of savings”

In the wake of the release of the latest IPCC report, it is all too easy to feel crushed by an unbearable barrage of facts. But as one of the scientists involved in the report, I would say that humans have the inherent goodness of changing this.

Over the past three years, 234 scientists from 66 countries have worked around the clock – during the continuing waves of the deadly coronavirus pandemic – to complete the most comprehensive report on climate change ever compiled. We’ve all volunteered our time, worked thousands of unpaid hours, attended meetings that involved tough time zones, while navigating the demands of our regular jobs and home lives during lockdowns.

Why did we do this? The answer is simply because we care. We care deeply about protecting our exceptional planet and all life on Earth.

Many of us realize that we are the generation most likely to witness the destabilization of the Earth’s climate; That the people alive today will decide the fate of mankind.

Being part of a group of scientists, from every corner of the world, working together to try to avoid catastrophe at this critical moment in human history, changed my life. You have taught me that when we walk behind a collective vision guided by strong leadership – no matter how difficult the challenges may be – anything is possible.

In the end, we really only have one choice – to stay in touch with people who restore our belief in the goodness of humanity, or fall into the abyss of cynicism and despair. It’s really that simple. You can choose to be someone who restores someone else’s faith in humanity, and do what you can wherever you can, even when everyone else feels lost.

Because once the despair is over, we have to remember that there is still plenty worth saving. How badly we let things go is still up to us – the end of the world is not a done deal.

Dr Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer at the Australian National University

“Hope is others”

Three years ago, inspired by the school strike for climate, I went through a personal and professional transformation that led me to full-time research, strategies, and activism in the field of climate change.

Upon entering this new world, my biggest concern was that I would find him frustrated. I knew that the science showing climate change was causing extreme weather events and that the disruption of the natural and human world was overwhelming. Expectations about the future are more than realistic. I prepared myself for a life to live under a cloud of despair and panic.

However it did not happen. Every day I meet people from the smallest community organizations to the world’s largest companies who share transformation stories like mine, who push, pull, scream, whisper and organize in person and online to address the causes and effects of climate change.

To keep working, I have to get up every day to make a conscious decision to be optimistic. I slept every day for more than a few reasons to be optimistic.

Jean-Paul Sartre once said, “Hell is other people.” He has never even visited Ikea (one of the many companies that have already signed up for RE100). He was wrong about many things. Hope is other people. Read the IPCC report, put it aside, and connect with others like you in the communities of common interest.

This is how to stay optimistic. And we know we can do it.

Rebecca Huntley is a social researcher and consultant. She is the author of How to Talk About Climate Change in a Way that Makes a Difference (Murdoch Books), and chairs the Australian Parents’ Advisory Board for Climate Action.

“The resilient peoples of the Pacific will not give in to despair.”

As a Samoan, the results of the IPCC were no surprise, but no less difficult to bear. The Pacific warning couldn’t be more urgent.

The resilient Pacific peoples, though, are not going to give in to despair, not with so much at stake. We are bent on the hope of fighting. We are already bearing the effects of climate change, so we have no choice but to hope and fight. Otherwise it will be our children and grandchildren who will pay and you will lose our islands and our culture. But we don’t have the luxury of giving up, getting tired and overwhelmed as we already do.

Our young people have always led the fight for the climate, and they know very well what is at stake. Their courage continues to inspire.

Nor have our leaders backed down, despite the sometimes condescending disregard for the climate crisis we face. Pacific leaders are a strong voice, and we will continue to pressure the world to raise its ambition, using every diplomatic, financial, and legal avenue available to us.

We come from the legacy of fighting the odds: against empire, colonialism, plague, slavery, nuclear testing, and now climate injustice. We’re not about to back down and lose hope, not now.

And so our battle must now become the battle of the world. Against all odds, we have persuaded world leaders to seek to limit heating to 1.5°C under the Paris Agreement – and the world has now seen the wisdom in that. They will continue to see the wisdom in our struggle and the hope that nourishes it.

Joseph Muno Kolio is President of Greenpeace Pacific

‘We can avoid the worst of it’

The power of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Red Code for Humanity report is alarming; His dire warning couldn’t be more clear. However, at the same time, she emphasized that the 1.5 degree maximum warming of the Paris Agreement was not lost, and with strong global action, we can still make it happen.

There has been no change to the time frame in which average global warming is likely to exceed the 1.5°C threshold set in the 1.5°C Special Report published in 2018, essentially the middle of 2030. So we still have a chance.

If we act quickly, from today, we can avoid the worst of it. We need to cut emissions by 50% globally by 2030 – Australia needs to cut 65% by 2030 from 2005 levels. In terms of sea level rise, an issue of great importance to Australians, if we limit warming to 1.5°C, this could limit Significantly from sea level rise to between 0.28 and 0.55 meters by 2100. In the very long term, a difference of 1.5 and even two degrees of warming could avoid a rise of up to three meters from sea level.

The report asserts that every ton of carbon dioxide we send into the atmosphere will add to the effects we already see: wildfires, heat waves, droughts, torrential rain and hurricanes. However, the report also shows that strong mitigation will have noticeable effects on air quality within years and significantly slower warming compared to the world with higher greenhouse gases over the next 20 years.

We await the Morrison government’s announcement to reduce the country’s emissions by at least 65% or more by 2030, mainly from fossil fuels, in light of this warning and to put Australia on a 1.5°C path.

Bill Hare, a physicist and climate scientist, is the managing director of Climate Analytics

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