Scientist Rebellion: Tell the Truth

This is the first of a series of blog posts that I am writing during the Global Scientist Rebellion, March 25th-28th 2021

Global Heating Reality

According to the Met Office, the UK faces sea level rise above 1.1m placing large swathes of the country below sea level, 5°C hotter drier summers, and 4°C hotter wetter winters under ‘business as usual’ emissions¹. This will impact our housing, health, infrastructure, food supply chains, ecosystems, and completely change how we live.

It cannot be overstated that this is an Emergency.

Small island developing states and densely populated regions in countries including Bangladesh face being completely enveloped by rising tides. Whilst the UK has a disproportionately large emissions history, it won’t face the same fundamental threat to its continued existence as many other countries.

Unless we limit warming below 1.5°C, large areas of the tropics and subtropics will be regularly exposed to dangerous levels of heat stress².

At Mock COP26 last year, youth activists spoke about their fear for survival (links to the amazing youth delegate statements available here).

In the Face of Emergency

The UK is hosting the UN COP climate change conference later this year. COP is widely considered the largest and most important annual climate conference that takes place, and is where negotiations such as the Kyoto protocol and Paris agreement have been made in previous years.

COP26 held in Glasgow in partnership with Italy is a particularly important one, because it takes place in a ratchet year (meaning negotiators can drive ambition for faster decarbonisation). It is the first ratchet year to take place since the 2018 IPCC report on 1.5°C warming, so there is strong scientific evidence supporting the need for a much faster reduction in CO2 emissions.

Despite claiming climate leadership, the government continues to fail by supporting projects that increase emissions . For example, supporting airport expansion at Leeds³, Southampton⁴, and Heathrow (despite a court ruling expansion illegal due to breaching Paris agreement commitments⁵). They still haven’t ruled out building a new coal mine in Cumbria.

The latest UK economic budget references ‘climate’ 70% less than the last budget⁶. The Financial Times noted that “there were few concrete measures to ensure that post-Brexit Britain will…achieve its target of net-zero carbon emissions”. Dr Gambhir (Grantham Institute) described the budget as: “poor on specific green measures and felt almost like there was no net-zero target or declared climate emergency in the UK. This didn’t feel like a budget that was fit-for-purpose in driving an acceleration towards net-zero in any way.”⁷

We need climate leadership that reflects the emergency we face! Scientist Rebellion are calling all scientists and academics to expose the reality and severity of the climate emergency.