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Action needed
There needs to be an honest discussion of the options, based on the science of climate change and the science of policy making, with the following steps.
Accept that serious errors have been made concerning climate change
Emission cuts could have been gradual, but the lack of action means they must now be radical
Attribution: CICERO Center for International Climate Research- International agreements were made to eliminate fossil fuel use, and were made for good reasons.
- Wealthy countries have avoided discussing that the implications of these agreements are radical changes in lifestyles.
- Cuts in emissions have consequently been inadequate.
- Children were promised a livable planet, as were people living in precarious climates, but adults in wealthy countries have continued reckless excessive use of energy.
If policy decisions made since the Paris Agreement (e.g. expansion of airports, campaigns against airport expansion and for taxing private jets) are compared with decisions that should have been taken (e.g. closure of most airports), it is clear that decision making has been fundamentally flawed. Decision makers, campaigners and wider society are acting as if they are unaware of the urgency of action, despite the wide availability of the scientific basis.
Facts and fairness dictate that it is emergency (not routine) action that is needed - and that the choices for the UK include a linear pathway to Net Zero 2029 for a limit of 1.5°C, or Net Zero 2034 for 1.6°C, requiring respectively 25% or 10% annual cuts in CO2 emissions.
- Discuss the very rapid elimination of fossil fuel use, including
- a mass programme of insulation, ending leisure aviation within months, much reduced vehicle mileage, and restructuring of the food supply.
- a rapidly increasing carbon tax.
- Take personal action.
- Disseminate accurate information.
- Challenge what is out of line with the science: inadequate government action, misinformation and poorly thought out policy proposals.
- Maintain a positive attitude.
Decision making based on facts and fairness versus greed and deceit
What kind of future do people want to build? Do they want one where the powerful take what they want, and will stop at nothing to get it - one based on greed and deceit (i.e. repeating the gross injustices of the past such as slavery and colonialism) - or do they want a world based on facts and fairness?The comments on this website are written for those people who aspire to make policy decisions on the basis of facts and fairness (some might prefer the wording of "Truth and Justice"). Those who choose to do otherwise should, for transparency, state clearly their motivation and attempt to justify it.
An effective climate policy needs the following steps.
Assess past progress against the action that was promised
Emission cuts could have been gradual, but the lack of action means they must now be radical
Attribution: CICERO Center for International Climate Research- International agreements were made to eliminate fossil fuel use, and were made for good reasons.
- Wealthy countries have avoided discussing that the implications of these agreements are radical changes in lifestyles.
- Cuts in emissions have consequently been inadequate.
- Children were promised a livable planet, as were people living in precarious climates, but in wealthy countries, the reckless excessive use of energy has continued.
It has to be concluded that progress towards the aim of an emergency ending of fossil fuel use has been poor.
Assess who is responsible for the poor progress towards eliminating fossil fuels
Is it just one section of society that has prevented the use of fossil fuels being ended - e.g. politicians, or fossil fuel companies, or billionaires, as is sometimes suggested?Examining the evidence shows that all sections of society have failed to face up to the size and speed of changes needed - and that includes the media, and climate campaigners.
See document 189: Climate inaction and delay: Shambles or conspiracy? for details and sources.
Consider why failure to discuss ending fossil fuels is so widespread: psychological denial
The science and maths are fairly simple, international agreements have been made, the need for an emergency end to fossil fuel use is clear, and declarations of Climate Emergency have been made.So why is there so little discussion about ending fossil fuels. Is it just a simple misunderstanding? This does not seem to be the reason, since (in the author's experience) well-meaning people are very resistant to being corrected. Instead it seems to be largely a form of psychological denial termed implicatory climate denial [1] by climate psychologists, also termed mitigation denial [2], exacerbated by groupthink, overconfidence, and other cognitive biases, and by pseudoscience.
Overcome climate denial and other misthinking
For example, Zack Polanski, Leader of the UK Green Party said in a 2026 newspaper interview "People can still be environmentalists if they drive, fly and eat meat" [3]. This is not consistent with emergency action to end fossil fuel use, and adds to the existing abundant climate misinformation, confusion, complacency and delay.
Improve decision making
Things that appear to be obvious are not necessarily true. Despite appearances, the squares marked A and B in the optical illusion are actually the same shade of grey!
See here
Attribution: Edward H. Adelson: Checker shadow illusionIt is easy to draw wrong conclusions. Things that appear to be obvious are not necessarily true, (as in optical illusions such as the one shown). The process of science has been developed to avoid wrong conclusions by reducing cognitive biases and denial e.g. by the use of placebo controls in drug trials to negate optimism bias.
The same efforts to avoid bias need to be applied to policy making. This is not merely evidence-based policy making, since it is easy for decision makers to find some piece of evidence that fits with their preferred course of action and ignore the rest. Instead, there is a need to apply the full rigour of science to the policy making process - which could be termed science-based policy making.
This means:
- honesty
- transparency
- pooling of evidence, and agreeing a fair summary of it
- acceptance of fallibility - that decision making is often flawed due to numerous cognitive biases, and that measures are needed to overcome these biases, to scrutinise decisions and remove errors
- aiming for a consensus of reasonable people
- including external scrutiny of decisions
- using shared decision making (SDM) to involve all parts of society
- resulting in a reasoned explanation of any decision, with enough detail included or referenced to ensure that any reasonable person would come to the same conclusion (reproducibility).
Consider the policy options
Some options such as ignoring climate change have already been ruled out by the Rio and Paris international agreement, though it is necessary in any information campaign to make clear why this was done.Most countries are signatories to the Paris Agreement of 2015, in which countries committed to limit global warming to "well under 2°C" (often taken to be 1.7°C), and "to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C", with equity between nations. So compliance with the Paris Agreement means aiming for a limit to global warming of 1.5°C, or if this is not achieved, a limit of 1.6°C or 1.7°C, with equity between nations. The higher limits would mean more climate deaths, refugees, damage to nature and higher risks of tipping points being reached.
The choices for the UK include a linear pathway to Net Zero 2029 for a limit of 1.5°C, or Net Zero 2034 for 1.6°C, requiring respectively 25% or 10% annual cuts in CO2 emissions. These options need to be discussed honestly.
See document 195: UK carbon budget calculations 2026 for details of carbon budget options for the UK, with sources.
Emergency action or gradual decarbonisation
To comply with the UK's Paris Agreement commitments, cuts in the UK's CO2 emissions need to be over 10% per year - see above - but this is not what is generally understood.The speed of change requires emergency action, not gradual decarbonisation. There is much denial about this, and yet it is only simple mathematics.
Rational collective action across society
Whether the UK's temperature target is 1.5°C, 1.6°C or 1.7°C, the policy actions are similar - they all require radical change. The difference is in the speed of change. Action needed are:- Discuss the very rapid ending of use of fossil fuels, including
- a mass programme of insulation, ending leisure aviation within months, much reduced vehicle mileage, and restructuring of the food supply
- a rapidly increasing carbon tax
- a ban on advertising high carbon products and activities.
- Take personal action, reducing fossil fuel use as fast as possible.
- Disseminate accurate information:
- explain that current affluent lifestyles are unsustainable, are at the expense of misery and premature death of some of the poorest people in the world, and will end one way or another, either through people organising radical change or through disorganised radical change being forced on us via the breakdown of societies
- explain the promises made in the Paris Agreement and the choices that the UK has to make
- anticipate shock and anger.
- Challenge what is out of line with the science:
- inadequate government action
- misinformation - whatever the source
- poorly thought out policy proposals
- advocates of climate action contradicting the IPCC and each other, e.g. the endorsement by Friends of the Earth of the UK Government's Net Zero 2050 timescale [4].
- Adhere to a code of practice - see document 196: Policy Making Code of Practice for details.
Use a checklist to ensure conformity with the science and the Paris Agreement
This should include- the degree of urgency of action: emergency (not routine) action
- a limit to global warming e.g. 1.5°C or 1.6°C
- staying within the appropriate carbon budget
- equity between nations
- including all CO2 emissions
- double digit percentage annual emission cuts: a pathway to e.g. Net Zero 2030
- credibly compliant policies
- avoiding false solutions.
Maintain a positive attitude
It is easy to become disheartened at the lack of progress in ending use of fossil fuels, but it is worth bearing in mind that most parents love their children more than their cars or their holidays, and will make enormous sacrifices for them - and the current lack of action is based on a flawed understanding of the climate situation, policy options and consequences.Also, in the author's experience, there is an increasing awareness that the 1.5°C limit to global warming is going to be breached within 5 years at current emission rates, and so a Net Zero 2050 strategy is clearly not an adequate response to the UK's Paris Agreement commitments.
References
| [1] | Wullenkord & Reese (2021) Avoidance, rationalization, and denial: Defensive self-protection in the face of climate change negatively predicts pro-environmental behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02724944210013 |
| [2] | Kevin Anderson (2023) Getting real: what would serious climate action look like? https://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/getting-real-what-would-serious-climate-action-look |
| [3] | Zack Polanski: You can fly, drive, eat meat and still be green (11 Jan 2026) The Times https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/zack-polanski-interview-environmentalists-green-party-flpkvw790 |
| [4] | Friends of the Earth: Climate denial: Court cases 2022-25 https://www.carbonindependent.org/139.html |
First published: 13 Feb 2025