Sometimes I wonder…
We try and take an optimistic line in terms of the procurement with purpose actions we are seeing from many organisations, governments and individuals. But occasionally something comes along that stops you in your tracks and makes you wonder whether we’re really just wasting our time.
This article from the Guardian last week was one of those moments for me. Bill McGuire has a new book, Hothouse Earth, to promote. It will no doubt be read with interest by sweltering readers in the UK who have just endured record high temperatures and now face the prospect of drought to add to their discomfort. McGuire is emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, and a member of the UK government’s Natural Hazard Working Group, so he should know what he is talking about.
He believes there is now no chance of us avoiding a climate breakdown which will lead to storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves far worse than those we have experienced to date. We have in effect passed the point of no return. He is critical of experts who tell us that we have time left to bring emissions under control.
“I know a lot of people working in climate science who say one thing in public but a very different thing in private. In confidence, they are all much more scared about the future we face, but they won’t admit that in public. I call this climate appeasement and I believe it only makes things worse. The world needs to know how bad things are going to get before we can hope to start to tackle the crisis.”
The world has heated up by just one degree in recent years but that has caused extreme weather, well beyond most predictions. McGuire sees the potential for a rise of 2C to cause a breakdown in global society. And we are on course for emissions to rise by 14% by 2030 rather than the 45% decline needed to stabilise the situation. So whilst not giving up on carbon reduction approaches, he advocates actions to mitigate the effect of severe weather – such as designing houses to cope with hot and cold weather better.
Another recent and depressing article came from the New York Times. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is auctioning off drilling and exploration rights for chunks of its rain forest.
“The oil and gas blocks, which will be auctioned in late July, extend into Virunga National Park, the world’s most important gorilla sanctuary, as well as tropical peatlands that store vast amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere and from contributing to global warming”.
This backtracks on the commitments made by the country’s President just months ago at COP26 in Glasgow. But Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, the nation’s lead representative on climate issues says that the sole goal for the auction is to earn enough money to help the nation finance programs to reduce poverty and generate economic growth. “Our priority is not to save the planet”.
You can’t blame him for taking this view and if richer countries or the United Nations cared enough, then they could outbid the oil firms and buy the rights for themselves, I guess. But when that idea was pursued in Ecuador in 2007, the vague promises turned to dust. The goal was to raise $3.6 billion from the international community to protect a biodiverse region; it raised just $13 million and drilling started in 2016.
The likely outcome for the Congo is that more amazing natural habitats will be destroyed, more plant and animal species will disappear, and humans will continue on our seemingly inexorable path to destroy our world.
So is procurement with purpose worth the effort? Well, I hold on to these thoughts at my bleakest moments. Firstly, doing something must be better than doing nothing. Reducing emissions even in our own small way at personal or organisational level must be better for the planet than doing nothing. We might not be able to save the planet from terrible consequences – but we might be able to make the outcomes a little less awful.
And secondly, what will we say when our children or grandchildren ask us, as they struggle with 50C temperatures every summer, and the last orangutans swing around in their zoo enclosures, why we didn’t act earlier and more decisively? I want to be able to apologise, but then at least say, “I did try to do what I could”. The alternative, simply doing nothing, would be hard to explain.
So we must keep going, keep trying. We should accelerate our efforts and think harder about our personal contribution – and if we are in a position to drive procurement with purpose, then of course we should do so. The need is greater than ever.