“We’re Digging Our Own Graves”
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson, addressed world leaders and delegates at the COP26 climate change summit today. He began with a captivating speech discussing climate impacts, with a plea that change needs to be made, as “if we don’t get serious on climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.”
Boris Johnson described the world situation as being on a lifeboat for humanity and explained that we need to push it into the water and take action to achieve a greener and more clean future. However, we are now just “pumping carbon into the air faster and faster” creating a “suffocating blanket of CO2,” as well as action, we need to make change. Boris made it clear that we are causing many adverse effects and if we experience even a 4-degree rise, we could lose many of our major cities, such as Shanghai and Miami, beneath the waves. He fears we are running out of time in this tragedy, stating that we are “1 minute to midnight on the doomsday clock,” reinforcing his concern for the potential inevitability of disaster.
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres conveyed a strong message to the world, that we are “digging our own graves” by failing to act fast enough and explained that he has had enough of the tedious cycle of “killing ourselves with carbon.” He stated that developed countries must lead the effort to keep the goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius alive, as G-20 countries represent around 80% of emissions. Guterres leaves an extraordinarily strong and impactful message behind: “Our addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink,” he said. “We face a stark choice: either we stop it, or it stops us. And it’s time to say ‘enough.’”
Sir David Attenborough explained our relationship with Earth is defined by a number, the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. He presented a graph which showed how carbon emissions had fluctuated throughout the years and explained that the times in which the graph increased and decreased dramatically were a “brutal and unpredictable world.” Although over time this movement stabilised and the climate would only vary by no more than plus or minus one degree. Sir Attenborough then explained that due to our burning of fossil fuels and other industrial activities, we have jeopardised this balance and “the stability we all depend on is breaking.” He also stated that “those who have done the least to cause the problem are getting the hardest hit,” referring to the developing countries that are experiencing the harsh reality of climate change, the global disaster that we are responsible for. Although Sir Attenborough was firm with his message, he shed some positive light to finish his speech, stating that our motivation should not be fear, but hope and our efforts should be to turn this global issue from “a tragedy to a triumph.”
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley pointed out that “regrettably some of the needed faces at Glasgow are not present,” asking to those in attendance “what excuse shall we give for the failure?” China’s President Xi Jinping, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided not to travel to Glasgow. As Mia Mottley put it, “when will leaders lead?”
Written and edited by Sophia Axon and Jasmine Ayres
