How many climate disasters will it take?
Will national governments and business leaders act now on climate or wait until they are personally affected?
The news from virtually every part of the world is astonishing.
Canadian wildfires are already burning, causing several communities to evacuate before wildfire season has even started. Some had continued from last year, through the Canadian winter, slowly burning underground—the so-called zombie fires.
Canada isn’t alone. Aided by el Niño, but worsened by climate change, we are seeing extreme weather-related climate events globally. In both Mexico City and Bogotá, serious water shortages are invoking memories of 2018 Cape Town, when the city nearly ran out of water. (The end of Cape Town’s water crisis can now be considered a successful story of city action, but its Day Zero strategy won’t be easy for Mexico City and Bogotá to replicate in the short term.)
An extraordinary hurricane season is predicted for the Atlantic, and massive floods are threatened in China. And then there is India, where temperatures last week neared 50°C (for our US readers, that’s 122 Fahrenheit). These conditions are extremely dangerous for human beings—and of course they are exacerbated by the climate crisis.
Unequal impacts in India (and everywhere)
But these extreme weather events don’t impact all citizens equally. A striking visual essay from the New York Times clearly showed that, in New Delhi, a child from an upper middle class family was not exposed to the same health risks from poor air quality as a child from a low income background. The wealthier child benefitted from air filters in her home, school, and vehicle, while the lower income child mostly spent his day outdoors, subject to the full impact of the polluted winter air of New Delhi. The impact of higher temperatures is much the same, hitting lower income residents harder as economic inequalities aggravate climate injustices.
Indian mayors are already showing great climate leadership and having an impact beyond their city boundaries. For example, Mumbai has been instrumental in persuading 42 other cities in the State of Maharashtra to commit to the Cities Race to Zero campaign. With the support of C40 Cities, they have been developing an energy transition roadmap at the city and the state level. In 2023, Chennai launched its Climate Action Plan, committing to reducing carbon emissions and setting a roadmap to becoming carbon-neutral by 2050.
However, decisive climate leadership from the national government is still lacking—fossil fuels are still receiving more subsidies than renewables, and the structure of the subsidies is all but progressive.
Not “how much” but “for whom”
It is hard to understand the reason national governments remain stubbornly slow at committing to climate action, especially in light of the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events and, more widely, of the harm to our economy.
It may be because it is not the scale of climate impacts, but their distribution, that matters. Perhaps once those with political influence will start to feel the effects of the climate crisis first hand, action will accelerate. Historically, this wouldn’t be a first. It took the so-called Great Stink of London to finally push the British Government to address raw sewage in the Thames, because the impacts were no longer felt simply by the lowest income residents, but Members of Parliament. In the words of The Times of London, on 18 June 1858:
"Parliament was all but compelled to legislate upon the great London nuisance by the force of sheer stench"
At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Governments from all political sides acted promptly to shore up the economy, with conservative governments passing legislation that was as urgently needed as it was unthinkably progressive. It shouldn't take a crisis to push business and political leaders to follow the science and act on climate, but if it does… well, someone tell them to just watch the news.
❌ Canada’s ad regulator tells pro-fossil fuel advocacy groups to stop lying to the public
Oil advocates were found by the Advertising Standards Board to be spreading lies through a massive advertising campaign, and despite being told to stop, they have continued to do so. This is what we mean when we say we know who the arsonists are.
🌟 2023 C40 Annual Report highlights
In 2023, despite facing significant challenges such as widespread climate misinformation, rising investments in fossil fuels, and global temperatures exceeding 1.5°C for the first time, cities within the C40 network have steadfastly pursued impactful climate action. With a foreword from the C40 Co-Chairs, Mayor of Freetown Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, learn about the challenges and progress made throughout our network of cities.
🍊 Fancy some mandarin in your orange juice?
A Financial Times story covers the skyrocketing price of orange juice futures, as orange production continues to be severely disrupted by severe weather events globally. This is prompting companies to consider using different, more climate-resilient fruits to “preserve the naturalness and image of the product”.
📚 What are we reading?
: Adrift, by Lisa Brideau. Set in a world “precariously balanced at a climate tipping point,” it is about a woman named Ess, who awakens on a sailboat moored in Haida Gwaii to discover she has no memory of her previous life – and with a note instructing her to start over, and to not look back. The book follows her quest to find answers. Well written and compelling.
: Furies, a feminist short-story collection featuring work by Margaret Atwood, Susie Boyt, Helen Oyeyemi, and others. The writers’ wrath and creativity have powered me through the week.
: Since starting Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s memoir Wind, Sand and Stars on a friend’s recommendation, my mind has been flying over the Sierra Nevada, the Andes and across the Libyan desert.
