Why Aren't Governments Doing More to Combat Climate Change?

 by  Jiali Hicks

Over the years, we’ve developed alternative and greener ways of generating energy, but governments are still not willing to give up fossil fuels. Why?

When climate change and global warming first emerged as an issue in the 80s, many people had their doubts. It didn’t get any better when the oil industry started reinforcing this doubt, using the same tactics tobacco companies used and saying that the science was ‘too complicated’ and shouldn’t be trusted. Now, those facts are unequivocal. Climate change is not just something that could happen in the future anymore; we are witnessing a spectacle in the present. 

We see it. We breathe it. We live it.

And yet the industry is still able to interfere with laws and evidence-based information that would curb the consumption of fossil fuels.  

They invest hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigning misinformation and targeting multiple stakeholder groups to delay the enforcement of new legislation that could put them out of business. So basically, they spread lies that could cause the deaths of billions of people and the downfall of modern society to maximise their own, personal gains. Oh, the wonders of human greed!

So why is this still happening? And why is it still legal?!

 These questions have been bugging me for the past few weeks now and everytime I think about it, it feels as if my head is being hammered to a pulp. I just don’t understand why we are risking the lives of so many people in order to make such short-term wins, and such personal wins at that. But after ranting to my friends and my family and (mostly) to myself, I think I’ve come to a conclusion that some of you may have already thought of. Why do governments still allow oil companies to carry on like this? 

Money and power.

We’ve seen, and history has seen over and over again, people or parties with good intentions and perhaps utopian ideals being corrupted and exploited in the face of wealth and control. 

If you’re wondering why lobbying still exists (the legal bribery of governments by businesses), it’s money! Why are new laws not being passed to tackle the effects of climate change? Money! Why are we not sufficiently funding researchers to develop sustainable ways of production? Money, money, money.

It seems so trivial. And naive. And stupid, actually. 

And it makes me really sad.

But let’s not focus on the negatives. This is exactly the kind of thinking which we don’t want to spiral into! I have many times before, and trust me, it’s not fun. How are we ever going to get anything done if we just sit around like a bunch of miserable sheep awaiting the shepherd dog to herd us into the next pen.

So what can we do? What should we do? 

We can do a lot of things actually. We can limit car usage; we can eat less meat; we can reduce food waste; we can take shorter showers; we can do everything that businesses tell us to do to try to keep our emissions to a minimum. But how much will that actually help? And do we really want to live like that? 

What we should do is put pressure on governments and businesses to change. Our carbon footprint as individuals is not that much, but the industrial carbon footprint or the agricultural carbon footprint? Now that’s a different story. Industrial manufacturing makes up 21% of total global emissions, agriculture 24%, and electricity and heat production 25%. (Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data, 2022) Transportation is a meagre 14%. If we stop relying on fossil fuels to produce our electricity, we could potentially cut our emissions by a quarter! And reducing fossil fuel reliance in the industrial sector reduces it by nearly another quarter. 

What we should do is demand governments provide sufficient funding in the research and development of renewable energy sources. One of the arguments today for continuing fossil fuel usage is that these new, renewable technologies have too many potential problems and are too expensive to manufacture (there is it again, money!). But recently, energy sources such as solar and wind are becoming increasingly cheaper to make and actually, more energy efficient. However, politicians still use these disadvantages as an excuse and refuse to invest in these technologies. This, in turn, affects the attitude of consumers as we find comfort in the familiar. If they say it’s a bad idea, then it has to be…

No, it doesn’t! We already know about the dire consequences of fossil fuels. We know the damage it will create and can see the damage it is already creating. If problems arise with renewable sources, they will be nothing compared to the problems we face now with fossil fuels. The cost of inaction utterly dwarfs the cost of action. If we invest more time and money into the development of these new technologies now, they will be produced much quicker and much safer than they are currently. 

Let’s take the Montreal Protocol, for example. Scientists discovered that CFCs, which were found in aerosol hairsprays, caused a hole to form in the ozone layer, which was bad. Really bad. But fret not, because leaders all over the world signed a piece of legislation that banned the use of these chemicals, which meant businesses could no longer profit off of them. It wasn’t 100% successful (but nothing ever is) as the newly developed chemicals, HCFCs, posed different environmental problems, but it made a drastic change and was a huge relief. 

What if we did the same thing for fossil fuels? Of course, it may be more difficult, as oil is the main source of income for certain developing countries (though, that money doesn’t usually go to the people of the country but to the owners of the companies that already have significant wealth). And not every country has the same opinion on this. But what if we made it a national law? What if the UK said no to unsustainably produced goods? What if we said no to fossil fuels? It may not be global, but it would make a huge difference.

Because we alone are not able to change much. But if we come together as a society and we fight for governments to take political action against climate change, then we have the ability to initiate tremendous transformations in the way our world is run, and the direction it is heading towards. We can ensure the livelihoods of our generation and generations yet to come.

Why should I spend my time studying for my GCSEs, when there’s a risk that this world that I live in will become lethal to me in the future? When I don’t even know if my efforts will amount to anything?

I hope we are able to say that we live in a world that is not governed by personal gains and that our political system favours humanity over wealth. But right now, I don’t think we can.