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Action needed: Summary

The climate emergency has been caused by
  • poor decision making, leading to
  • the burning of too much fossil fuel.
To prevent the situation deteriorating further, the solution is reliable decision making:
  • honesty: tell the truth
  • face up to the truth
  • rational collaboration.
There needs to be
  • action across all sections of society: radical cuts in emissions in high emission countries
  • personal actions: radical cuts in emissions if personally high-polluting


Acknowledging the situation

There needs to be absolute honesty concerning

People need to face up to the truth and approach it with rational collaboration.

Timescale of cuts in emissions

The timescale for the emission cuts needed is given by the United Nations SR15 report, i.e. halving global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, except that for several reasons, reductions in the UK needs to be faster:
The decline in UK emissions could have been gradual e.g. 4% per year if it had been started earlier, but with the government inaction, it now needs to be rapid - at least 20% per year.

The type of target is crucial. There is currently a lot of discussion about the date at which the country will reach zero CO2 emissions (or net-zero), but this is an opportunity for prevarification if there is no discussion about how fast to reduce emissions this year, next year, and so on.

Action across all sectors

Urgent action is needed in all forms of energy use:

Urgent action is needed from all elements of society:


First published 2007
Last updated: 15 Sep 2023