Adapt or die – the new climate challenge

This article first appeared in the Eastern Daily Press here.

You’ve maybe heard about the latest annual climate CoP jamboree, that’s been going on in Azerbaijan.

It might seem very distant. This article is about how the climate question can suddenly feel a lot less distant. When it’s approached in the right way:

We need to shift from the abstractions of net zero to focussing on the concrete realities of growing climate damage.

I call this shift Transformative Adaptation.  

Remember: Two devastating hurricanes hit Florida in the space of two weeks killing at least 232, costing at least $42 billion in damages, and leaving millions without power.

The horrific and still ongoing floods in Spain have already killed over 200 people with many still missing.

A story that you may have missed is that the UK has seen the second worst harvest on record.

We all saw and felt the severe flooding earlier this autumn, even though East Anglia actually got off lighter than many parts of Britain.

It has never been more evident that we are now all on the climate frontlines. Transformative Adaptation is about how we deal with this fact.

Coupled with a recognition of the dire state of the climate is the further, devastating recognition that no one is coming to save us.

We will not find sufficient solutions through standard politics and international diplomacy.

The most powerful country on earth, a country of 334 million where the average person emits 15 tonnes of CO2 from fossil fuels and industry (about triple the amount of the average Brit), have just re-elected a climate-change-denying, fossil-fuel-supported, far-right-winger to their highest office.

Beyond Trump, there is also the dire state of the Azerbaijan climate conference, CoP29, which right now is coming to an end.

This “Conference of Parties” is supposed to champion diplomacy and support countries in finding solutions to tackle climate breakdown.

Instead, it has become tainted. To summarise the worst of it, the chief executive of the Conference has been filmed using his platform to promote new oil and gas deals, and the host country’s President has called oil and gas a “gift from God2, claimed criticism of fossil fuels are “Western fake news,” and stated that the country will increase fossil fuel supply.

All this has led to experts to conclude that the CoP process is “no longer fit for purpose.2  …My take?: that that is putting it mildly.

How then can we react to these two undeniable points; that 1) climate breakdown is here, now, and will get worse, and 2) that there is no realistic hope that contemporary politics will come along and fix this for us? 

It is easy to be overcome by the challenge, and to give into hopelessness.

But we must resist this temptation. Because if we were to give into it, then for sure the future would be awful.

Instead, we must be motivated by all that we hold dear to fight for a better world. And that better world starts at home.

We must now shift focus to adaptation: which means trying as best we can to adapt to and prepare for the coming climate impacts.

Climate breakdown is here to stay, and so we must learn how to make ourselves and those around us resilient to the worst.

In my village of Rockland St Mary (on the edge of the Broads), for example, dozens of us are stepping into this space.

We’ve created a substantial community orchard, featuring a range of trees, some suitable for hotter climates (though I wish we’d chosen more such trees).

We’ve created a 5 mile network’that gathers monthly to trade plants, seeds, produce, tips, and plans about how we can make ourselves and our community more resilient.

And many of us are seeking to grow a lot more food, and in a way that is nature-friendly.

This is only a start. But it IS a start.

Moreover: it’s fun. And it’s enriching. Being more part of a community feels good.

That’s why we had 80 people turn up (in a village of just 800) to plant the community orchard together.

And the really good news?: by getting serious about such climate adaptation, such local community action, we are not just protecting ourselves: we are waking ourselves and everybody else up.

Which is exactly what is needed.