Trust issues and the IPCC report on the climate emergency

Trust thought for today - reflecting on 'trust' in relation to the IPCC report and our collective ability to deliver net zero at a dramatically increased pace. Sorry. Long and boring. This is more about me getting it off my chest than you reading it!

Report here: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

1. The growing evidence of our experiences means trusting the IPCC findings is less a leap of faith and more grounded in our own experience, which will help catalyse action. Also the benefits of low carbon products & services are making sense in more traditional personal benefit, and cost areas too, as well as changing social and cultural norms. Which will also help.

2. We know not to trust many business to keep their climate promises as the antics of fossil fuel companies, many car makers and those using petrochemicals for all sorts of products have taught us. What will this well-placed mistrust do for the confidence needed in the innovations required to get us out of the hole we have dug?

3. Can we trust that governments and regulators step up to use and enforce regulation to shepherd the positives in and the negatives out with things like carbon taxes, incentives for renewables and real funding on imaginative alternatives? And we will vote those back in who take the hard, but probably unpopular route?

4. It will be too hard and too costly for many to make the necessary changes to our homes, food and fuel use without government help. Will they help? How will they fund and do that with so many other priorities? Can we trust the decisions they make? Will we even know how they are judging the priorities? (Given the UK climate chief saying it is all incredibly important and btw we will also fund new oil and gas exploration, it doesn’t look likely they will take the high but unpopular ground!)

5. We have to trust that the large and small, inconvenient, perhaps costly changes to the way we are used to living is going to make a difference or we won’t bother. How will the ICPP and others measure and communicate progress to help us see things are working, and our efforts are not in vain?

6. How will all the new green & circular economy transition affect livelihoods in the developing world, as well as they UK as we buy less stuff, fewer clothes, fruit & veg from abroad? What will these people do instead if we get it right? Who will help them? How do we do this well, and who do I trust to tell me the truth about that? No-one at the moment.

So this fantastic feat of collaborative research is both galvanising and depressing. All I have done so far today in response to this new information is turn the lights off in my office which I have been resisting for years as having it bright cheers me up. Tho mainly veggie, I will have to give up the dairy, boo hoo. Perhaps we will be allowed solar panels which were refused when we last asked.
On balance, at the moment, for me it’s just depressing, maybe tomorrow I will be more galvanised!