The news that last month was the hottest January on record offers further evidence that the international community is a long way from getting to grips with the pressing threats posed by climate change.
Temperatures in January were about 1.75°C above pre-industrial levels, indicating that the world is likely to breach the 2015 Paris Agreement’s target of keeping increases below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
The El Nino weather system in the Pacific, which involves cyclic increases in temperature caused by changes in water circulation patterns, has ended, so scientists thought January 2025 might be cooler than the same month last year, which also set a record. But this was not the case.
Climate change conundrum
“We have no understanding of why it's got so high, and the scientific community doesn't understand. It might be that we've triggered cascading tipping points,” said Prof Mike Berners-Lee, a climate researcher at Lancaster University in the UK.
Prof Berners-Lee, author of There is No Planet B and How Bad are Bananas: The Climate Footprint of Everything, outlines why the world has failed to deal with climate change, and what is needed to get to grips with the issue, in a book to be published next month, A Climate of Truth.
“Our species is operating in a different context, now, from the one we always used to be in. We haven't learnt to adapt to it,” he told The National. “We're very powerful compared to the ability of the planet to put itself back together again.”
A worsening crisis?
Prof Berners-Lee said people around the world “haven’t got anywhere with the climate crisis”, with the use of fossil fuels increasing. "We’re making the climate crisis worse by a larger amount every year than we did the year before. We’re accelerating into the problem," he added.
Scientist believe efforts have so far fallen short of what is needed to prevent severe effects from climate change, despite most of the technology needed to achieve net zero being available already.
Dr Delf Rothe, of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg in Germany, and author of Securitising Global Warming: A Climate of Complexity, said renewable energy sources such as solar power were becoming more competitive and “could take over” from fossil fuels.
“That’s very positive,” he said. “[But] my perception is it’s not sufficient, because there are not enough cuts in energy use in total. As long as energy consumption is increasing, due to digital technology, artificial intelligence and so forth, the degree and speed of the transition isn’t sufficient.”
Figures from the International Energy Agency show that in 2022 global electricity demand rose by 2.4 per cent, while in 2023 it increased by 2.2 per cent. Without relying on technology such as carbon capture and storage – where emissions are captured from industrial plants and stored underground – or direct air capture, where carbon dioxide is taken from the atmosphere and stored, Dr Rothe said there had to be “some political steering” so growth in energy consumption was phased out.
Need for action
Countries often put off making the “really difficult decisions” about dealing with climate change, said Dr Phillip Williamson, an honorary associate professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in the UK.
“Then the crunch comes and there are costs involved and there’s quite vocal opposition,” he said, adding that people in effect say they “believe in net zero, but not yet”.
“The climate disaster might happen sooner,” he explained. “The climate science isn’t sufficiently well defined. The uncertainties are that natural systems can have a life of their own.”
Prof Berners-Lee said climate breakdown was only one of myriad environmental problems facing the planet.
He said the world was in the midst of a polycrisis, because of the “haemorrhaging” of biodiversity, plastic pollution, especially microplastics, and loss of land fertility. The key thing needed to deal with climate change is “reducing the rate at which fossil fuels are taken out of the ground and used”, Prof Berners-Lee said.
He added that changes in people’s diets – with a reduction in the quantities of meat and dairy foods consumed – were also important.
If the necessary changes are to be made, he said more truth was required in politics, business and the media. Obscuring the truth could prevent the necessary action from being taken.
“We have this post-truth [culture] in the UK, and US. We’ve been pretty careless about the truth and we don't need to be,” he said.
He called on the public to highlight instances of “greenwashing”, when a product or service is described incorrectly as being environmentally friendly. “There’s so many people saying, 'The problem is so big.' [People ask] is there anything meaningful they can do? I say, 'Yes there is, if you insist on high standards of honesty,'” he said.
While Prof Berners-Lee said there were failings in the world’s approach to climate change, he lauded efforts in the UAE to transition away from a reliance on fossil fuels.
“I was there a few months ago,” he said. “It’s transitioned in quite a remarkable way. It stands to become a global role model on what it looks like to transition away from fossil fuels while having a vibrant economy. There is so much opportunity to grow further in the desert using new technologies and take us away from fossil fuels.”
