He Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just issued one of its insistent, repeatedly ignored and increasingly urgent calls to react. His latest report confirms once again that even in the best of scenarios we are headed for a warming of 1.5º to 2º Celsius that will force us to take measures to mitigate its consequences, especially in the regions of the planet that will suffer this phenomenon above Average, like ours. But even more: he projects that with the current emission reduction measures we are headed for a range of 3.2º C with devastating consequences. The good news, yes, is that we can still act to avoid it. But it has to be now.
As the practical and concrete demands and consequences of what the abstract means to reduce emissions are taking shape in the form of initiatives, resignations and commitments to be taken at a collective and personal level, the temptations to delay decision-making are growing or to point to another. Another activity, another country, another economic sector.
The report of the UN experts warns that we cannot play with the variable of time. To prevent the worst forecasts from coming true (and the two degrees that are increasingly difficult to miss would be bad enough) it would be necessary to increase current efforts and do so without any delay. The cost should not be an excuse either: any cold analysis shows that the price to pay for inaction is higher than to act responsibly and at the right time.
In addition to the inevitable reduction in the use of fossil fuels and raw materials, emission reduction measures affect every aspect of our economic system and our daily lives. Along the lines, for example, of the European Union’s attempt to force equipment manufacturers to guarantee repairs for a certain number of years, instead of falling into the waste of systematic replacement. It is at stake to choose between energy transitiondifficult as it is to assume, or the economic decline with even worse consequences. Although a horizon of reasonable austerity in energy consumption seems increasingly closer.
Among these problems to be faced is that of the local environmental impacts from the extraction of raw materials and the production of clean energy (from the mines necessary to make the technologies necessary for mass electrification a reality to wind or solar farms) against its overall benefits. A dilemma in which damage mitigation will always be necessary, but also taking a broader view. Immobility is something that we cannot afford, not even for reasons of short-term political calculation. Decisions such as the set of measures needed to manage drought that we are going through and to prepare ourselves for which we will suffer more and more often, cannot be at risk of the convenience of an electoral calendar, nor of parliamentary strategies, water wars or shortcuts to dialogue and consensus.