“If anyone thinks that what I and the science are saying is advocating for a political view — then that says more about the person than me. That being said, some are certainly failing more than others.”
It was the TV equivalent of clickbait. A CNN moderator kept steering the conversation back to how unseemly, how vile and wrong it was for the leader of the free world to belittle a 16-year-old climate activist on Twitter, while the legal expert on the panel kept trying to steer the conversation back to the real issue: the climate crisis, and how a discussion about cyberbullying, as unpresidential it might seem, pales in comparison to the seriousness of the ongoing climate emergency.
The clickbait won out in the end, of course. CNN is supported by advertising revenue, after all.
The climate emergency is not going away, though. And it won’t go away any time soon.
CNN’s legal expert had a point, a point not lost on Greta Thunberg herself when, in the midst of a particularly nutty week of Twitter fights, an international climate conference and a divisive UK election, she vowed on her Facebook page that she’s never supported any political party, politician or ideology.
“I communicate the science and the risks of failing to act,” she posted. “And the fact that the politics needed don’t exist today, neither to the right, left nor center.”
Never mind the Twitter fight that started it all, or the fact that TIME magazine this past week named Thunberg its person of the year for 2019 — or the fact that voters in the UK overwhelmingly elected a prime minister who, during the election campaign, couldn’t even be bothered to show up to a leaders’ debate about the climate crisis.
The week also saw out the international climate conference in Madrid, at which Ursula von der Leyen, newly installed president of the European Commission, tackled those critics who say politicians’ efforts to combat the climate crisis amount to a lot of hot air, but little actual action.
Thunberg herself has been criticized by some of her detractors for doing a lot of complaining but not posing any concrete solutions, which some might argue is a heavy burden to place on the slender shoulders of a small-for-her-age 16-year-old — but we live in a social-media world, and the social-media world is thus. On social media, anything goes.
Von der Leyen, who represents the New Europe — as opposed to Merrie Olde England — has promised to deliver a sustainable European investment plan, representing some €1 trillion of investment, over the next 10 years.
In March, three months from now, the European parliament — of which Britain will no longer be a member — will propose the first European climate law that promises not only
to chart the way ahead but be irreversible — “written in stone,” as it were.
The plan is too little, too late, detractors say, but it’s something. It’s certainly more than anything coming out of the US and Canada, or the UK for that matter.
The New Europe has decided to go it alone, as the US is no longer considered a reliable partner — for obvious reasons.
Von der Leyen accepts that the transition from fossil fuels to renewables will be costly, as the economy shifts and entire industries will need a new way of thinking, which is why the European Commission is attaching actual dollar figures — euros, to be precise — to the transition.
The climate law will encourage people to take a hard look at how they produce and consume, work and live.
“We must protect those who risk being hit harder by such change,” von der Leyen wrote in her op-ed piece for The Guardian. “This transition must work for all, or it will not work at all.”
That means helping those regions in Europe that will need to take the biggest steps — i.e. the post-industrial wastelands of the East and rural industrial regions in the West — “so that we leave no one behind.”
Europeans are mindful of what’s at stake, von der Leyen insisted. Many European citizens have already changed their lifestyle — choosing bikes and public transport over cars, renouncing single-use plastics and coming up with sustainable alternatives for bringing produce to market, to cite just a few examples.
Nine in 10 European citizens have demanded decisive climate action, von der Leyen noted. “Our children rely on us.”
It’s being called the European Green Deal, “(our) contribution to a better world.”
Thunberg herself, while not wearying of the fight just yet, is choosing her spots. She turns 17 next month, but she’s losing interest in the politics of climate change.
“As often as I can, I try to say no to having meetings with politicians,” she told TIME magazine, in a video interview from La Vagabonde, the wind-powered catamaran she crossed the Atlantic on during her month-long journey to the CoP25 climate conference in Madrid.
“It’s just small talk, basically. And of course they want to take selfies. I’m a bit tired of selfies right now.”
