Today's heroes of Climate change

Champions of the climate are David Attenborough, James Lovelock and many more. They were yesterday’s eco-warriors. After the global reach of Greta Thunberg, we now need insiders to pick up the baton.

My heroes today are Mark Carney and Dave King. Mark Carney has been made UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. Dave King coordinates the Cambridge University Centre for Climate Repair. I chose Mark Carney because he believes that existing fiscal structures can be brought to bear in reducing the impact of climate change; and Professor Sir David King, because he is researching into what may turn out to be humanity’s last resort to mitigate climate change.

Why are not Extinction Rebellion (XR) on my list? Well, it is true that they have given the cause a boost of publicity at the expense of offending some reactionary sectors of society. But they refuse to focus their energies on productive measures and lack any coordinated energy for what can be done. They promote what should be done over what can be done. They permit perfection to be the enemy of the good as Voltair warned in the eighteenth century.

Whilst aiming at 2030 to find effective solutions, XR advocates a complete change of human behaviour as the route to a quick fix. As if it is a badge of honour, they stubbornly reject working with the established order and refute both practical actions and technology. Whilst all the time, claiming they speak the truth.

The truth is that the climate needs urgent help from governments and industry. These players can have a huge effect on outcomes. We see this from the major sectors from which harmful emissions come.

Governments can legislate for change, incentivise useful investments and make it expensive to continue the use of fossil fuels. Industry can search for and implement better methods and materials. Many leaders in high-tech corporations are open to such measures given the commercial motivation.

What we need to do is lobby for the right legislation and boycott the key polluters, but most of all decide on our persistent targets and press the messages home.

We might not persuade the Australian government to insist that Indian and Chinese customers buy a carbon capture plant with every delivery of coal, but we could try! We may be tilting at windmills to ask Germany to build more of these instead of importing Russian gas. We will not be able to wait for the provision of gigawatts of nuclear power (outside China), but we could insist on energy storage capacity to accompany other renewable schemes.

As a specific example, BP, a prime target for XR demonstrations, have asked for government to charge up to $200 for every ton of CO2 emitted. Justin Trudeau’s government in Canada is already setting the pace down to this path. We should thank BP for their leadership on carbon taxes, and tell the government they would be pushing on an open door by setting such policies in train here in the UK.

We need every resource and radical action including at the personal level. But rather than advocating massive behaviour change, we need careful targeting which ‘goes with the flow’ to achieve the most in the short time we have left to make a difference.