SUMMARY RESPONSE ESSAY OF THE ARTICLE
“Scientists have just told us how to solve the climate crisis – will the world
listen?”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/06/scientistsclimate-crisis-ipcc-report
Aafreen Al Farouq | 16921288
“Scientists have just told us how to solve the climate crisis – will the world listen?” is an
article published by Simon Lewis, discusses the accomplishments made by climate scientists
in the face of war, epidemic, and growing inflation. Despite the despair of the world's woes,
the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offers some reasons for
optimism. According to the author, North America and Europe are the largest contributors to
the current situation, releasing by far the most carbon dioxide emissions. Furthermore, every
government believes that the world's wealthiest are to blame for the climate issue. I
absolutely agree with the author, since data shows that the wealthiest tenth of the population
consumes around 20 times more energy than the poorest tenth, regardless of where they live.
According to the report, the gulf is also the biggest in transportation, with the top tenth
consuming 187 times more gasoline than the bottom tenth. This is because low-income
people can rarely afford to drive.
Mr. Lewis agrees that "the average North American emits 16 tonnes of carbon dioxide per
year, compared to 2 tonnes for the average African," according to reports released today. This
clearly demonstrates that the affluent, which comprises a large portion of the UK population,
are driving the climate issue. According to research, a fifth of UK residents, together with
40% of German citizens and the whole population of Luxembourg, are among the top 5% of
global energy consumers, but just 2% of Chinese people and 0.02 percent of people in India
are among the top 5%. As a result, even the lowest fifth of Britons consumes more than five
times the amount of energy per person as India's bottom billion. Population expansion was
identified as one of "the most major drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel
burning" in the most recent IPCC report on solutions, published in 2014. Such perilous
misconceptions are no longer present. After seven years, the traditional "blame the poor"
arguments are quickly appearing to be a remnant of a previous era.
Mr. Lewis who is a professor of global change science at University College London and
University of Leeds writes in the essay that "every year that passes adds more reasons to stop
utilizing fossil fuels." For example, it was evident last year that gas prices would skyrocket,
affecting millions of people. We may now add that fossil fuels pay the Russian military and
its atrocities this year. Combine this with the elimination of urban air pollution and the
avoidance of heat waves, droughts, and floods for hundreds of millions of people. And we
paid for it by devoting a little percentage of GDP to new legislation. I agree with this
statement, however I disagree with the argument. I hope that in the near future, we can do a
much better job of lowering carbon emissions and fossil fuel consumption.
In conclusion, the author’s views mostly align with the writer views as both parties believe
that climate crisis is a first world problem and the world needs to wake up and take
immediate action. If we were to take no action our carbon dioxide levels will keep rising
which will then lead to global warming and by then it would be too late to take any action.
Climate change may appear to be complicated, but the IPCC has worked hard to simplify it
for us. There is still time to cut emissions in half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, which
would likely fulfil the 1.5°C objective. It's a message of hope. It's now up to you to make it a
reality.
REFERENCES
Harrabin, R. (2020, March 16). Climate change: The rich are to blame, International Study
finds. BBC News. Retrieved April 19, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/news/business51906530
The Jakarta Post. (n.d.). Indonesia's climate crisis. The Jakarta Post. Retrieved April 19,
2022, from https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2021/04/07/indonesias-climatecrisis.html
Children in Indonesia at 'high risk' of the impacts of the climate crisis. UNICEF. (n.d.).
Retrieved April 19, 2022, from https://www.unicef.org/indonesia/pressreleases/children-indonesia-high-risk-impacts-climate-crisis-unicef