Anyone who has read even a small number of business books over the past twenty years will have come across the story of the boiled frog. Allegedly if you throw a frog into a pan of boiling water it will leap out, however if you put it in a pan of cold water and heat it slowly it will not notice until it is too late and it is boiled to death. [I am not sure if any actual frogs were harmed in the discovery of this ‘fact’.]  The point of the story is that businesses need to be sensitive to small changes in their operating environment and respond to them early to prevent their extinction.

Sadly, it appears that the failure to take seriously initially small  changes in the environment that can lead to the downfall of companies (and frogs) can also apply to the entire human race. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1989. Ever since then broad awareness of the issue of climate change, its links to greenhouse gasses and their relationship to the activities of mankind has been growing. However for such a potentially existential threat the issue has rarely had any strong sense of urgency except amongst a relatively few scientists and activists. This is partly because there are powerful vested interests which depend on the continued emission of CO2. They have challenged the science at every step and monitor every utterance of members of the scientific community leaping on any failures to adhere to strict scientific rigour.

This has had an impact on how the findings of the IPCC are reported. If you read their reports, say, for example, the recent report “Global Warming of 1.5°C” which looks at the impact this would have to life on earth you are immediately struck by the  qualified nature of all of the comments. For example every key finding “is reported using the IPCC calibrated language” which has 7 levels of certainty, from “virtually certain” which has a 99% to 100% probability through to “exceptionally unlikely” with a 0 to 1% probability. Whilst I am sure this conforms with the best standards of scientific presentation it gets in the way of the communication of the startling nature of the findings.

As you read the document the very qualified nature of the language undermines the urgency of its message. You have to dig through all of the qualifications and probability-spreads to get to what is an incredibly scary message. Once you get to it a variety of psychological responses are apt to kick in to reassure you that the end is not nigh. Increasingly climate science activists are researching ways to make their message clearer looking at what the psychological barriers are as well as the plain disinformation of the flat earth climate change deniers.

For years scientists engaged in the multidisciplinary research into the causes and consequences of climate change have been frustrated by the lack of political engagement in the need for urgent and effective action. The Conferences of the Parties (COP’s) are annual United Nations Conferences to monitor progress on climate change. The Conferences, and indeed all of the work within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change seem to be exercises in horse trading and seeking agreement at the level of the lowest common denominator. What that means is that the targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are contained within “Nationally Determined Contributions” which unfortunately do not add up to what is needed to avoid 2°C increase in global temperature over pre industrial levels much less 1.5°C.

In 2017 the total of green house gas emissions which includes CO2 amounted to just over 53 GtCO2e, a record high. That is 53 gigatons of emissions comprised of carbon dioxide (CO2) and all the other green houses gasses, eg. methane, nitrous oxide, aerosols, etc. (e). According to the UN Environmental Emissions Gap Report 2018 in order to reduce this figure  to a level which is consistent with a 66% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5% there needs to be a reduction in GtCO2e emissions of 55% by 2030. That is 11  years away.  In order to have a 66% chance of keeping global warming below 2°C we have to reduce GtCO2e by 25%.

But that is not the end of the story. Emissions of CO2 alone need to be net zero by 2050 to have a reasonable chance of keeping global warming below 1.5°C.

If the fact that the currently agreed targets for emissions reduction are significantly less than is needed isn’t scary enough, reflect on this. We are not even meeting the targets we have set. This means that unless we do something now, i.e. today, the gap by 2030 will be greater and the likelihood is we will be sailing towards a 3°C or 4°C increase in temperature by then end of this Century.

My youngest son is 18 this year, in 2030 he will be 29 and hopefully in the early part of his career. If we are to achieve the kind of reductions in green house gas emissions needed the amount of oil and gas extracted from the the ground will roughly have had to halve. How prepared are Exxon, BP, Saudi Arabia et al for this. What economic impact will that have on the extractive, transport and financial sectors of the economy? Currently the financial strength of the oil industry is partly based upon the reserves of oil they have identified in the ground and have on their balance sheets. At least half of that “wealth” will have to be written off if we are to avoid 2°C never mind 1.5°C.

By the time my son is 59, unless something spectacular happens to the economy that means he will be a long way from retirement, the world will have to have stopped altogether using fossil fuels. So in less than the working life of one person, the energy source which has powered the worlds industrialisation at an ever rapidly accelerating rate since at least the mid 19th Century, and shows no signs of stopping at the moment, will have gone. 

Some may think, well how bad can a 1.5°C increase be given that we are already two thirds of the way there [the climate has increased already 1°C above pre-industrial levels] or even 2°C or 3.2°C which is what we are on track for based on current plans. Well if you are measuring the height of Everest you have to be a measurement nurd to worry about 2 or three inches. But imagine you are in a swimming pool with your feet stuck to the bottom and the water is up to the middle of your chin, a one and a half inch increase would be very unpleasant, two inches very, very unpleasant and three inches terminal.

David Wallace-Wells published a book earlier this year reviewing the implications of climate change chillingly entitled “The Uninhabitable Earth“. He reviews the elements of chaos that are already starting to be unleashed by climate change and how they might evolve to 2100 and beyond. He talks about: the numbers likely to die from heat exhaustion; those who will be effected by hunger as key food producing regions are impacted; those drowned by, what now might be called, freak storms and sea level rising; wildfires which have dreadful direct impacts and also add to the problem of carbon in the atmosphere; dying oceans; and sadly much more.

To be clear some of these impacts will only occur if we do nothing and peak in centuries if not millenia to come. However, have in mind that we have put more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere since the IPCC in 1989 was set up (30 years) than we did in the whole of the period from the mid 19th Century to then. Also, if the world becomes uninhabitable in 80 years time it is of academic interest to know how much more uninhabitable it has become a thousand years after that.

Wallace-Wells occasionally seems to be a bit lose on the timescales, however if you calibrate back to what is contained within the IPCC reports his picture is one which communicates in a less qualified, but non the less accurate, way that global warming is here and now and set to accelerate in its impact on the world well within the lifetime of our children, and that impact will be at best very significant. I think I have slipped into IPCC calibrated language, for “very significant” read “awful”.

A more frightening yet picture has been presented by Prof Jem Bendell of the Institute of Leadership and Sustainability at the University of Cumbria. He conducted a literature review of the science surrounding global warming. He seems to have used the IPCC reports as his starting point but then looked into the latest work of the scientists engaged in producing those reports and considered what they have to say. His paper “Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy” is not for the feint hearted. To give you a clue he states the purpose of his paper to be “…to provide readers with an opportunity to reassess their work and life in the face of an inevitable near-term social collapse due to climate change.”

Professor Wendel founded the Institute for Leadership and  Sustainability, which provides sustainability themed MBA’s. In 2012  the World Economic Forum (Davos) declared him a young global leader for his work on sustainability. I am trying to say he does not look like someone who is out on the fringe. You need to decide whether his paper is a cri de coer attempting to communicate the implications of a message which is so carefully wrapped up in scientific probability-speak that its urgency is lost or someone who has lost perspective and is set to induce panic. He seems to be trying to move from “There is a high probability that the current combustion may lead to an increase in incidents of temporary or permanent inspiration and expiration failure” to just shouting “The theatre’s on fire. Get out.”

I am conscious that all of this paints a very pessimistic picture. There are however signs that what some have labelled “peak indifference” may have passed. The emergence in the past couple of weeks of Extinction Rebellion shows that there is a growing sense of urgency amongst a growing number of people around the world. Some of the most active members of this group are people who have been intimately engaged in the work of the IPCC and have lost patience with its failure to gain the political traction it requires. Real progress is being made with alternative energy sources. Political leaders who continue to deny climate change are being circumvented by their fellow citizens like Trump in the States. A good summary of the positives is provided by Nicholas Stern in his excellent book “Why are we Waiting?.”

For years now the political elite in this country have been obsessed with Brexit, and for the avoidance of doubt it is the single most stupid economic decision we have made since the war, however it is time to wake up and smell the burning. There is no easy option. Serious, difficult and comprehensive changes are needed right now. We are starting late. We have 11 years to avoid a catastrophe on a scale we have never experienced. We may well be at a tipping point. It is time to jump.

Climate change is set to become THE political issue of the next decade. If it does not a generation will have failed not the anonymous descendants of humanity but our children.