I can admire Julian Cribb’s optimism that an Earth Systems Treaty might still save a habitable environment, but I struggle to share it. As Cribb observes, “It is clear the world’s governments have neither the skills, the brains nor the moral integrity to work their way out of such a crisis – and remain obedient to their fossil fuel overlords.”
Material self-interest carries huge social inertia in the face of the need for major change.
The measured steps we rejected thirty years ago are now much bigger and steeper. We need major changes, globally implemented, urgently.
Democracy, relying on the support and consent of the majority of voters, will surely only vote for such a level of major change when the need for it becomes compelling. By then it could well be too late: the melting ice may have stopped the AMOC Gulf Stream, freezing Northern Europe; the permafrost melt might be releasing the stored methane that the arctic tundra holds. Our climate could be changing irreversibly.
I wish Cribb well in his pursuit of a global treaty, but I wish more fervently still for governments with the moral integrity that he calls for to lead the action we need.