By ROBERT HUNZIKER
An impressive display of world class scientists recently (Nov. 27th) held a UK National Emergency Briefing, informing the world of impending climate change disaster scenarios that can no longer be ignored. A war-time footing is necessary. Ten of the UK’s leading experts briefed politicians, business leaders, faith, sport, and the media in a marathon session.
The British are dead serious about the deleterious impact of climate change and intend to alert the public to this existential threat to civilization. Eighty-one (81) Members of Parliament and fifty-two (52) Peers attended the session headed by the UK’s chief scientific advisor, explaining why the UK must take emergency-level action like a war-time scenario. There were 1,200 invite-only attendees at the session. A 45-minutte documentary of the event is in the production stage.
Opening remarks by Professor Mike Berners Lee, Lancaster University, Sustainability Expert, Chair of the session: “For an understanding of the root causes of the most serious crisis that will ever impact our species we need people. We need to trust them because they are telling us the truth…. The information that we’re going to be looking at is extremely serious, urgent, and it affects us all here in the UK. That is why we’re calling this a National Emergency Briefing…. In the words of James Baldwin: ‘Nothing can be changed until it is faced.’ COP30 recently ended without any progress on fossil fuel emissions, in fact, the words ‘fossil fuel’ were stripped from the proceedings. We desperately need to reset the narrative on climate change and wipe out misinformation.”
The original video of the event d/d November 27th runs 3:05. Herein a sampling of excerpts of the first five speakers suffices to emphasize the critical nature of the subject prompting this emergency briefing. These excerpts are a combination of direct quotes as well as summaries of statements.
Excerpts of First Four Speakers:
Chris Packham, UK Naturalist: We are the only known life forms in the universe, and we’ve got nowhere else to go. This little blue planet is where we will either live in harmony with the environment or we will destroy ourselves and much of other life too… Do we want it on our conscience that we waste everything? Why are we unbelievably pulling back from addressing the greatest crises to ever threaten our species, climate breakdown and biodiversity loss… climate denialism is a mainstream thing again thanks to well-oiled machines of the rich, powerful, and influential lobbyists from the fossil fuel and other industries. A dangerous wave of misinformation and lies fills our lives. But worse, it fills the lives of our decision-makers… the people who shape policy. For example, the petro states said “no” and thrashed COP30 because of the crazed consensus requirement that allows oil to say “no” and abort any movement against CO2 emissions. Fossil fuel companies are some of the biggest contributors to our politicians, especially the less scrupulous. And the media is failing to explain to the public “the gravity of our predicament.” We must listen to the science… if politicians ignore science, billions of lives are at risk. Politicians in the audience today must listen to the scientists and act accordingly.
Nathalie Seddon, Professor of Biodiversity, Oxford Martin School: Nature is not simply nice to have. It’s not a luxury. It’s critical national infrastructure. When we destroy and degrade it, we expose this country to escalating risks, e.g. floods, fires, heat waves, insecurity and economic instability. When we protect and restore it, we can build resilience. The living creatures that support our entire life system are breaking down. We are facing a national emergency not only because the climate is changing but because the living systems that regulate that climate, protect homes and feed our people are breaking down here in one of the most nature depleted nations on Earth. The facts are sobering. Only about ½ of UK biodiversity remains. Only 14% of rivers in England are in good ecological health as the result of chemical pollution, sewage discharge and erosion, and agricultural runoff choking the arteries of the landscape. When rivers fail, so does resilience to droughts, etc.. Only 7% of our woodlands are healthy, only 3% of our lands, and 8% of our waters are effectively protected for nature. Over 5 million properties in England are at risk of flooding. Additional national concerns due to degradation, misuse, and abuse of nature are itemized in this speech skillfully transitioning the errors of society and government to the need to follow public opinion, which strongly supports protecting nature and redirecting public funds from inadvertent harmfulness to positive embracing of nature within government policymaking.
Kevin Anderson, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change: Let me start by framing the problem as I see it. And it’s very much that CO2 concentrations in the environment in the atmosphere that are rising at unprecedented rates… across the last 800,000 years, CO2 varied by 100 parts per million but over the past 10,000 years it only varied by 20 parts per million. This gave civilization a very stable climate. Now, in a blink of geologic time we’ve increased, since 1850 from 280 to 424 ppm or +134 ppm in less than 200 years, burying 9,800 years of the perfect climate system, not too hot, not too cold. That is gone. Therefore, we must eliminate, not cut, fossil fuels or temperatures will continue to go up. We are headed for 2C by midcentury and 3C to 4C by 2100. The planet system cannot handle it. We are looking at systemic collapse of economies within a collapsing climate system. 1.5C is no longer a viable target because of failure to cut emissions, which is a very depressing admission. There is new evidence that we are warming up much faster than science expected, which adds to the urgency of taking action now.
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The full 3:05 session UK National Emergency Briefing is on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/2-PFKT1SNc4
