Knowing the times: Climate justice

Some of the content from Josh’s talk are below including 5 points on the urgency of the climate emergency.

1. No resource shift is more important than capping fossil fuels and scaling it down to practical non-existence by the middle of the century. Fossil fuels currently supply around 80% of the world’s energy, and account for three quarters of greenhouse gas emissions. When burned they release carbon dioxide which heats the atmosphere. No government has yet been willing to target that industry.

2. While the Paris Climate Agreement set a target of 1.5 degrees, current government policies are speeding us towards 2.7 degrees of heating in the coming decades. At such temperatures, 30-50% of species are likely to be made extinct, and 1.5 billion people will be displaced, with major declines in the yields of staple crops and disruptions to food supply chains.

3. Deforestation, the loss of trees and vegetation, changes ecologies, causes soil erosion,desertification, fewer crops and flooding. 70% of global deforestation is done in order to grow animal feed, the vast majority of it for beef. The potential ecological benefits of simple dietary changes are extraordinary.

4. 93% of all carbon is stored in the ocean. Marine plants can store up to 20 times more carbon than land-based forests. But warming ocean temperatures are reducing the oceans’ ability to absorb carbon. Losing just 1% of the oceans’ carbon stores is the equivalent to releasing emissions from 97 million cars.

5. Commercial fishing is emptying and polluting oceans. Not only are governments not curbing this destructive industry, they are artificially helping to sustain it. Governments are subsidising the fishing industry $35 billion per year. According to the United Nations we could solve world hunger for only $30 billion.