TellUs: The UK officially declares a climate emergency!

The UK officially declares climate emergency

Back in May this year (2019) the UK officially declared a climate emergency but how exactly did this come about and what does this entail?

How has this come about?

Let’s start with a bit of background information on climate policies in recent times, to gain a wider understanding. The most successful UN climate conference to date was held in Paris, in December 2015. This meeting is often referred to as The Paris Agreement or Paris COP21. Here environmental issues were discussed to global leaders and targets were set for countries; in order to cut countries greenhouse emissions, to limit the global mean surface temperature to below 2^oc (refer to my previous blog to learn more about these terms). Most countries signed this in April 2016. Although the UK were seemingly reaching their carbon reduction targets, scientists were and are adamant this won’t be enough to limit temperatures.

A recent push for a climate emergency came from protesters and activist groups. In particular the Extinction Rebellion stood out, a non-violent resistance group that protest against climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and the risk of social and ecological collapse. Them and others led extensive protests in London, spanning over about eleven days in April 2019. They barricaded off roads, sat on-top of trains, glued themselves to the Waterloo bridge and even the ground, camped outside and so forth. This caused London to come to a pretty abrupt standstill that was felt throughout the whole city. The Extinction Rebellion and those who stood with them had three aims (these are summarised below). 

1. They wanted the government to declare a climate emergency; communicating and working also with other institutes to communicate this urgency. 
2. Commit to a net-zero greenhouse gas emission by 2025.
3. Create a citizen assembly for climate action.

What does a climate emergency entail?

Due to the reasons above and some more that haven’t been mentioned, at the beginning of May the UK Parliament declared a climate emergency. The first country to do so. The first thing you maybe asking is… what does a climate emergency even mean? Well, here’s the thing. There is actually no single agreed definition for climate emergency and therefore it falls as an ambiguous term. Another issue that occurs then is who determines how much is enough that is being done, or is anything being done at all?

We are to assume that projects and policies associated with net-zero carbon and science-based target setting will be used to react to this emergency, with a focus on other companies to take more eco-friendly approaches. However this is only a theory, as nothing specifically has been said about this.

Also there seems to be a desire to bring current 2050 targets that the UK are on set for, forward, potentially by decades to 2030. The Extinction Rebellion are requesting this by 2025 however this seems unlikely, as the government have again not stated any specific actions to do this that I have heard of yet. This doesn’t however mean it won’t come!

It has also been argued that this climate emergency is being used as a symbolic political tool. The reason being is that from the outside it looks to be a huge, progressive leap forward in terms of climate action. Firstly it is the first country declaring an emergency and people are screaming for action from the rooftops; so is it just a way to keep people hushed? The reason I say this is because little government action regarding changes hasn’t seemed to have happened, with no written and legal legislation even coming into play. Considering the current climate crisis and that its need for change has been referred to as “war footing”, meaning that to make a change it would have to be the pinnacle and central government aim, this idea proves fairly true in current times.

Future hopes

To conclude I am remaining hopeful and optimistic as much as I can. However I am aware how crucial it is for action to be taking place right now and worry that this is just a government publicity stunt, if anything to shut protesters up. I am keen to do a future blog on the UN conference in Paris and will also keep up to date on the climate emergency in the UK and worldwide and let you know if anything changes and/or comes into play. Check out my last blog in which I go over the basics on what it is we are acting on environmentally (climate change, the average earth temperature and the greenhouse effect).

I hope to found this blog useful, let me know your thoughts on this government climate emergency situation in the comments below with another other topics you’d like me to cover. Thank you for reading!