Kenny MacAskill: Shameful politicking is hindering the fight against climate change

The reaction from some politicians to even the most modest steps to tackle climate change – like the workplace parking levy – has been shameful, but we cannot wait for someone else to make the problem go away, writes Kenny MacAskill.
Polar bear Nanook jumps into the water at the zoo in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, as a heatwave hits much of Europe (Roland Weihrauch/dpa via AP)Polar bear Nanook jumps into the water at the zoo in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, as a heatwave hits much of Europe (Roland Weihrauch/dpa via AP)
Polar bear Nanook jumps into the water at the zoo in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, as a heatwave hits much of Europe (Roland Weihrauch/dpa via AP)

As France basks in a heatwave and Scotland prepares for a sunnier spell, the effects of global warming are being felt.

Enjoyable as it may be for old Scotia, it’s causing alarm across the channel as a previous one cost thousands of lives amongst the elderly and vulnerable.

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This one’s anticipated to be even longer and ever more severe. Besides, it’s not just an increase in temperature but weather volatility, as the rain deluge that struck parts of Scotland earlier this week testifies. Just what winter will bring, who knows?

That’s why action on climate change is so essential. It’s the great unknown and challenges beyond our ability to cope that loom. France is struggling with swimming pools kept open and water fountains placed here, there and everywhere. But modern France wasn’t built to deal with temperatures like this and simply hasn’t the ability to fully cope.

Yet this is coming to other cities across the globe and London, in particular, will have challenges. The Underground’s unpleasant enough anytime but in a severe and prolonged heat wave it will be truly ghastly, if not downright dangerous. Air conditioning is hard to retro fit and simply increases temperature growth externally.

But that’s a minor problem compared to what’s being faced in other societies. I came across an article about Indonesia moving its capital from Jakarta.

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“So what?”, some might say, “Brazil and Australia have done likewise.” But this isn’t about moving parliament and government along with some civil servants. It’s about removing from the city entirely as it’s sinking below the sea.

Water extraction is lowering the city from within and rising sea levels are lapping over it from without. Abandon ship – or city, rather – is the call.

But how do you move a city of ten or 15 million people with all their possessions and the infrastructure it has. The short answer is that you can’t. The rich and powerful will embark and others will be left to fend for themselves. There the problem is water, as it will be in other low-lying areas, and affecting millions, not hundreds as in Scotland earlier this week. In other places, it will be life itself that’s no longer possible, with temperatures and humidity that humans cannot exist in – way beyond what Paris will experience.

That’s why action on climate change is so essential. People realise that with 70 per cent apparently agreeing there is a climate emergency. But what to do about it is far harder. It can’t just be done by driving a bit less and recycling a bit more. Those days have passed and even then, such measures were never adequate.

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It’s going to be difficult and come at a cost. We’re going to have to change how we live and pay a price. But, at the moment, no one wants to do that or is prepared to pay. Witness the parking levy. A modest proposal that will affect few but allow for some limited transport improvements.

Yet the political reaction has been akin to the Boston Tea Party. Shameful politicking by some parties and shameless pleading by unions and businesses. They should all know better, it’s akin to modern political Luddism.

Political leadership and courage are needed, yet they’ve been absent. Action on climate change requires a national conversation.

I’ve a modicum of sympathy for the Government, given the shameless behaviour of most parties on the parking levy. But it’s an indictment not just of political parties but us all. The truth is, we want action on climate change but for someone else to do it, and for it not to affect us, and certainly not to cost us, the hope being that a government can simply legislate it away, or science will ride over the hill to the rescue like the latter-day cavalry. That others will do it with the developing world switching off their carbon burning when the Western world has long since used up more than its fair share; and we still want our cheap flights and unrestricted car use.

I don’t know what it’s going to take to make us realise just how deadly the situation is. Maybe it will require some apocalyptic disaster of biblical proportions.

But that’s coming soon as not just heatwaves, but storms and tempests increase.

There will be other factors too from the effects on countries as in Indonesia to the entire planet as our ecosystem changes. Governments, whether in France or Indonesia, will struggle and others in the Third World will be entirely unable to cope with what befalls them.

It’s going to require political courage and so far, all we’ve had is political rhetoric. But we get the leadership we deserve.

And while we wait for a leader like Greta Thunberg, the world burns.