Corporations, financial institutions and socially conscious citizens must pull us back from the climate change abyss. They have the muscle to make renewables mainstream and reposition fossil fuels as the tobacco of the energy industry. At last week’s UN general assembly, more than 60 world leaders announced new climate targets, with 66 countries pledging to reach “net zero” carbon emissions by the middle of the century. But the US, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia and Brazil were not among them. UN secretary-general António Guterres is counting on the leadership of young activists to pressure governments to do more to address what he rightly calls the “climate emergency”. We agree that forward-thinking young people are the change agents for tomorrow. But corporations and financial institutions must act today. They should join the more than 1,100 institutions with $11tn in assets who have announced that they are divesting. The campaign to divest from fossil fuel has two legs: participants agree to divest from fossil fuel and invest in renewable energy. Many have divested (and many more must still do so) but relatively few have reinvested in renewables. This second step is critical to make clean energy more affordable, push us to the tipping point and lead to the outlawing of fossil fuel use. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, one of our most important levers in overcoming apartheid was the support of global corporations that heeded the call to divest. Apartheid became a global enemy; now it is climate change’s turn.
Yet energy companies are continuing to explore for new fossil fuel reserves that environmental scientists say we will never be able to use. By the time those reserves are tapped, global temperatures will have risen so high that the world as we know it will have ceased to exist. July was not only the hottest month on record globally but also the 415th consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th century average. If not checked now, climate change will wreck all progress people have made in their understanding of the values of equality, shared responsibility, human rights and justice since the second world war and lay to waste the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. Former UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s blunt warning that we can “delay and pay” for climate change or “plan and prosper” is a clarion call to action, but will those holding the reins of economic power have heard him? The rich and powerful must be persuaded to pay. They have caused most of the mess we are in. Their obligations are not legal; they are based in ethics and human values.
Sadly, the leaders of some of the largest contributors to climate change show little interest in human rights and justice. The prospect of what some are terming climate apartheid, in which the rich pay to protect themselves from the worst impacts while the poor take the full hit is becoming depressingly real. Companies must step into the gap. The financial sector, in particular, must reinvent itself by gravitating to sustainable investments in both developed and developing markets. If they don’t want to do it voluntarily, activists must insist that they do it. Boycotts, sanctions and divestment ultimately proved effective in South Africa because the underlying cause had a critical mass of support, both inside and outside the country. That required a mindset shift. This time, the whole world must recognise that attempting to perpetuate the status quo is to damn future generations to violence and insecurity, Real power lies not with those with the biggest bombs or bank accounts; it resides in the people who elect them to power, invest in their schemes and tolerate their trampling on the rights of others. We must use this power wisely.
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