The world is running out of time to slow down global warming.
Camilla Cavendish (Financial Times, July 29/30, 2023) writes about the need to overcome the toxic politics of climate emergency denialism that is polarising the electorate in different countries including the UK and the US: “The answer is surely to invoke a wartime spirit and make the fight against climate change a joint endeavour against a common enemy… If we are to tackle the warming climate, we must take the heat out of politics”.
We must do the same in Malta. Are we ready to come together against a common enemy?
There is a strong national consensus about the need to tackle the effects of global warming on our lives. A poll, taken between May 11 and 29, shows that 93 per cent of the Maltese consider global warming a very serious problem, five per cent a fairly serious problem and only two per cent, not a serious problem.
Eighty-four per cent think the national government is responsible for tackling climate change (77 per cent think it is not doing enough) while 68 per cent believe that business and industry also have a responsibility to mitigate the local negative effects of global warming.
Sixty-three per cent feel that we must also do all we can personally to change our lifestyles to help in the national effort towards clean energy and have a more nature-friendly consumption model.
Eighty-four per cent think that the government should accelerate the pace of the transition to a green economy, including insulating our houses and apartments better, and 91 per cent believe that more public financial support should be given to the transition to clean energies, even if it means reducing subsidies to fossil fuels while, at the same time, protecting vulnerable sectors of society from higher energy prices.
Our electorate is telling our main political parties that there can be a whole country climate action plan.
Climate action cannot be reduced to the responsibility of a single ministry or even the government alone. It needs a whole-country approach: the government, social partners and civil society.
It should be quite possible to converge nationally on a long-term action plan that transcends tribal partisan politics and narrow sectional interests. But will our tribal partisan politics allow us to pursue such a national climate action plan?
We build parallel – even similar – narratives, making sure not to make them converge, as if agreeing with each other is a sign of weakness if not betrayal.
The curse of short-termism
On July 28, David Spiteri Gingell, who has served as a government consultant with different administrations, lamented: “It is tragic how this country goes round in circles. In 2008, I chaired a committee of experts on climate change and mitigation and, later, on climate change and adaptation.
“We strongly recommended the setting up of a Malta Climate Change Agency… It was never set up.
Will our tribal partisan politics allow us to pursue such a national climate action plan?
“Now, if reported correctly, the prime minister at MCESD tasked the current principal permanent secretary with drawing up a set-up for a Climate Change Agency. Fifteen years later! Well, as they say, better late than never.”
Such a Climate Change Agency must be truly national, seek cross-party support, involve the social partners and civil society and tap the national consensus that exists to tackle the climate emergency.
It is no consolation that the short-termism in our politics is part of a global malady.
In The Long View (2023), Richard Fisher quotes historian Francois Hartog as saying that, since the late 1980s, we have entered the era of “presentism” where “only the present exists, a present characterised at once by the tyranny of the instant and by the treadmill of the unending now… In a time-blinkered age, all modes of thinking are shaped primarily by present-day concerns, meaning the long view is often seen only through the lens of satisfying current needs, increasing profit or winning political battles”.
Addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations on February 6, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “The climate crisis burns on… We need a course correction. The good news is that we know how to turn things around – on climate, on finance, on conflict resolution, on and on. And we know that the costs of inaction far exceed the costs of action. But the strategic vision – the long-term thinking and commitment – is missing.
“Politicians and decision-makers are hobbled by what I call a preference for the present. There is a bias in political and business life for the short term: the next poll; the next tactical political manoeuvre to cling to power. But there is more: the next business cycle – or even the next day’s stock price. The future is someone else’s problem. This near-term thinking is not only deeply irresponsible – it is immoral. And it is self-defeating. Because it makes the problems we face today – in the here and now – more intractable, more divisive and more dangerous. We need to change the mindset of decision-making. My message today comes down to this: Don’t focus solely on what may happen to you today – and dither. Look at what will happen to all of us tomorrow – and act.”
Tomorrow is going to be much worse. According to the Mc Kinsey Global Institute May 2020 report: ‘A Mediterranean basin without a Mediterranean climate?’: “Climate projections indicate that the annual number of days with a maximum temperature above 37 degrees will increase everywhere in the Mediterranean region, with a doubling in North Africa, southern Spain and Turkey from 30 to 60 by 2050.”
Our liveability, workability, infrastructure … all areas in our social and economic life are going to be disrupted. Even if we prepare and plan well, take the right decisions and implement them, it will be difficult to cope successfully with all the challenges of the climate emergency, let alone if we simply plod along doing business as usual.