°climo #10: Beware the language of climate emergency

Ed Miliband, former Leader of the Opposition and one-time Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, declared on the Today programme that the British government needs to be on ‘war footing’ to address climate breakdown. Such securitised language is clearly intended to capture public attention, even to scare people into action. But whilst the need to tackle the crisis is undeniable, as is the requirement for extraordinary measures to limit warming to 1.5°C, politicians should remember that public discourse on climate does not exist in a vacuum. 

It is both possible, and necessary, to recognise that climate breakdown should be the priority of governments worldwide whilst also acknowledging that other, though not unrelated, issues – inequality, rampant authoritarianism, looming conflicts in the Middle East – both exist and require solutions. For some people these problems are, understandably, of primary concern. In these circumstances the existential language of emergency and ‘war footing’ might appear reasonable, but the growing prevalence of this discourse can, in the long term, only serve to hamper the ability of governments to gain public support for addressing both climate breakdown and the remaining issues. If every issue can be declared an emergency, genuine threats cannot be prioritised. 

More ominously, the legitimation of this heightened public discourse could be used by those who have more nefarious intentions. In the current political climate, it is not difficult to imagine a government declaring an ‘immigration emergency’ to legitimise internment camps, or for democratic processes to be suspended whilst ‘emergencies’ are attended to.

This is not to minimise the threat posed by climate breakdown, nor to suggest that emergency solutions are not required. However, politicians and others who contribute to the public discourse on climate must be aware that their words have influence. It would be naïve to think this power can be limited to those issues which genuinely require radical solutions.

Ollie, 22, Durham