Should we give up on climate action? The answer is still ‘no’

The progress made so far shows that it’s anything but a lost cause

- DAVID FICKLING

Bad-faith nihilism encourages us to lower our climate ambitions.

(ISTOCKPHOTO)

Perhaps it’s time to give up on climate? That's what all the serious people are saying. The targets we set to limit our carbon pollution are unachievable and universally fail. So let’s just stop pretending and “drill, baby, drill.”

A “pragmatic way forward” for the energy transition is to conclude, in essence, that it’s not happening, according to an April essay by energy historian Daniel Yergin and others. Current ambitions are “unrealistic and therefore unworkable,” a think-tank set up by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair argued. In the more pungent words of President Donald Trump, climate action is a “con job,” and should be abandoned.

This contrarian chorus is so noisy and persistent that it’s easy to miss how dramatically wrong it is—especially when some ambitions, like the promise to keep warming below 1.5° Celsius, are being missed. In truth, however, evidence of nearly three decades of climate diplomacy shows that when we set ourselves an objective, more often than not we will hit it. That should stiffen the spines of the politicians gathered at the CoP-30 climate meeting in the Brazilian city of Belém.