The rich West is ruining our planet

People stand among debris and ruins of houses destroyed by Super Typhoon Haiyan 

The rich West is ruining our planet
The industrialised economies have created climate change, but the poorest are paying the
price for it. We must do more to help

Rowan Williams, 29 Mar 2014 telegraph.co.uk

The storms that have battered parts of the UK this year and left hundreds of people facing the misery
of flooded homes and ruined land have again brought questions about the impact of climate change to
the forefront of the public consciousness. And this week the whole question has been put into still
sharper focus, as the world’s leading climate scientists publish a report on the subject putting our
local problems into a deeply disturbing global context.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading body of scientists in this
area, will be pointing out that, appalling as the experiences of recent months have been here, we have
in fact got off relatively lightly in comparison with others. It is those living in the typhoon-prone
Philippines or in drought-ravaged Malawi who are being forced not only to deal with the miseries of
flooded homes and prolonged disruption, but to make fundamental changes in their way of life.

We have heard for years the predictions that the uncontrolled burning of fossil fuels and the
consequent pouring of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will lead to an accelerated warming of the
Earth. What is now happening strongly indicates that these predictions are coming true; our actions
have indeed had consequences, consequences that are deeply threatening for many of the poorest
communities in the world.

The waves that destroyed railway lines in the South West and the record-breaking rainfall that flooded
homes and led to the Severn and the Thames bursting their banks show what we can expect as average
temperatures increase worldwide. Rising sea levels, absorbing glacial melt from polar waters,
exacerbate the severity of tidal storm surges; warmer air containing more moisture will lead to
increasing rainfall. The chaos experienced in Britain came as a shock to many; but for millions around
the world, this is nothing new. And there is a particularly bitter injustice about the fact that those
suffering its worst ravages – such as the pastoralists of northern Kenya or the Quilombolas of Brazil,
descendants of former slaves cultivating territories increasingly desolated by deforestation – have
done least to contribute to it.

Rich, industrialised countries, including our own, have unquestionably contributed most to
atmospheric pollution; the development of profitable heavy industry relied on what we now think of as
"dirty" energy sources, and involved environmental degradation on an unprecedented scale. Both our
present lifestyle in the developed world and the history of how we created such possibilities for
ourselves have to bear the responsibility for pushing the environment in which we live towards crisis.

To say this is not a plea for handwringing over a history that is what it is. But, as Professor James
Hansen, a former NASA climate scientist, has said: "Our parents honestly did not know that their
actions could harm future generations. We, the current generation, can only pretend that we did not
know." The new scientific mapping of what climate chaos is doing leaves us with little choice but to
face the unpalatable fact that, unless our societies and governments step up the urgency of their
response, profound injustice will be done both to the poor of today and to the entire global population
of tomorrow.

What we tend not to hear enough of in the UK is the first-hand experience of those who live with
devastating climatic insecurity. It is sadly easy to treat the scientific evidence as adding up to no more
than alarmist predictions which may or may not be realised. So it is vital that we hear the voices of
those on the front line, for whom this is a present, not a future catastrophe. A report published this
week by Christian Aid, Taken By Storm: Responding to the Impacts of Climate Change, gives us a
chance to listen to these voices directly.

It sets out various examples of how communities are being forced to adapt to a distorted climate. In
Bangladesh, rising sea levels have contributed to the salinisation of inland water and the loss of the
mangrove forests which historically have provided a buffer against increasingly severe storm surges.

In Bolivia, farmers living on the Illimani glacier have been forced into fierce conflicts over scarce
resources as a result of the irregular melting of their previously stable water source; many have had to
migrate.

There are, of course, some in the current debates around climate change who are doubtful about the
role of human agency both in creating and in responding to climate change, and who argue that we
should direct our efforts solely to adapting to changes that are natural and inevitable, rather than
modifying our behaviour.

This feels all very well in the UK, where we can adapt to some extent with better flood defences and
by banning building on flood plains. And of course adaptation and behaviour modification do not
constitute an either/or. But these options are not so readily available in the most vulnerable
communities around the world. People in these communities would agree that adaptation is crucial to
save lives, livelihoods and investments – and they have some good examples to demonstrate this; but
they are adamant that it won’t be enough on its own.

Current examples of climate change are the result of a global temperature rise of just 0.8C. Doing
nothing about levels of fossil fuel-based pollution sits uncomfortably with the fact that, if
temperatures rise by 2.5-5C above pre-industrial levels – something that many scientists believe to be
possible without modifying present patterns – many adaptation measures will simply be too late.

So the communities on the front line, the communities whose voices Christian Aid is seeking to make
audible, need the world to tackle the root causes and to do so urgently. A good place to start would be
ending the $523 billion (£314 billion) the world spends on fossil fuel subsidies (more than six times
the support given to renewables). But whatever the exact response, these two reports make it clear that
we have to stop subsidizing the degradation of the planet – and that this is not a question to be tackled
the day after tomorrow. The cost is now – as so many in the UK have discovered in recent months.

Dr Rowan Williams is chairman of Christian Aid