Our President, Professor Jules Pretty, gives an update on the climate crisis, and sets out what each of us can do to help
Photo: University of Essex
The Essex Climate Action Commission
Professor Jules Pretty OBE
Jules Pretty is Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex. He is the author of many books, including The East Country, The Edge of Extinction, This Luminous Coast and The Earth Only Endures. Jules has been the President of Essex Wildlife Trust since 2019.
The Essex Climate Action Commission Place-based and regional commissions are becoming new leaders in galvanizing change towards net-zero counties and cities in the UK (www.pcancities. org.uk). The Essex Climate Action Commission has recently appointed Professor Jules Pretty as its new Chair, following their publication of more than 100 recommendations for a commitment to Net Zero by 2050 (www.essex.gov.uk/ climate-action). This sets out radical changes needed in Land Use and Green Infrastructure, Energy, Transport, the Built Environment, Waste, Community Engagement, and the Green Economy. All recommendations were accepted with unanimous cross-party support in the County Council in November 2021. We saw that the COP26 in Glasgow made some notable progress on limiting methane emissions, electric vehicles and green finance, and yet was unable to foster agreement on leaving all fossil fuels in the ground. It did, however, just manage to “keep +1.5o alive”. Place-based commissions are building partnerships and platforms for collective change, and have focused on the need to cut emissions by 50% this decade, followed by two successive further 50% cuts by 2040 and then 2050. This would be sufficient to begin to return carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere back towards 350 ppm, the safe space for humanity, last experienced in 1990. But it will be very hard, perhaps the greatest challenge faced by humanity. It looks bad, but there is still time. Just enough. If each of us were to adopt ways of living that only produce one tonne of carbon dioxide and equivalent other greenhouse gases, then this would prevent the worst of the crisis.
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WILD SPRING 2022
Let’s look at the numbers. The world emitted 53 Gt (billion tonnes) of CO2eq emissions last year, an average of 6.8 tonnes per person worldwide. The UK carbon footprint is 7.7 tonnes each. If the total emissions were to fall to 10 Gt, this would be a safe place for humanity. This roughly equals to one tonne per person worldwide. This contraction and convergence model implies some growth in carbon emissions arising from increased consumption for the poorest countries: 1.65 billion people in 60 countries already have annual carbon footprints of less than one tonne per person, and 2.0 billion people in 31 countries emit between 1-2 tonnes per person.
So how can you do it? Thirty for 30: thirty carbon reduction options for each of us in five domains of food, home, mobility, stuff and leisure.
Try this: Choose one new behaviour per year.
Start where you feel comfortable. After one year, select another. Then tell someone else. And at the same time, try doing things that make us happy and live long: healthy food, being in nature, physical activity, togetherness with others, creative pursuits for personal growth, a spiritual or ethical framework and, of course, sustainable consumption. The good life is low carbon. It does not cost the earth. But then, of course, tell someone else, and persuade them to act too.
