COVID 19 is not a ‘black swan’ – a singular, unexpected event. It is the first in a series of what NYT’s Tom Friedman referred to as a ‘herd of stampeding black elephants’ – multiple, predictable and economically catastrophic events. Events that everyone knows are coming but our political and business leaders have consciously chosen not to deal with.
Choices have consequences….
On top of the countless human tragedies, there will be many long-lasting social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps none will be more profound though, than the death of free market fundamentalism and the return of the State.
Gilding explores why COVID-19 presents a blindingly powerful economic case for change, highlighting the fatal flaws that underpin the dominant, ideological and quasi-religious approach to regulating our current markets.
It was always going to come to this. Whether it was a pandemic triggering a shutdown, a climate emergency bursting the carbon bubble, a populist backlash against inequality, wars over water or countless other possible triggers, this moment has long been inevitable.
COVID-19 is just like a match thrown on a tinder dry forest floor on a hot windy day and starting a wildfire. The match isn’t the key – it’s where it lands.
For decades the climate debate has focused on policy and international climate negotiations - on the assumption that the market wouldn't change until policy forced it to do so. This assumption is now wrong.
In this column Paul Gilding explores four critical factors that are coming together, putting the market on the verge of radical shift that will rapidly spread through the global economy. As a result, enormous value will shift between industries, the economic prospects for many countries will be transformed and the trajectory of climate action will change.
This November 2019 Nature article penned by acclaimed climate scientists , warns that there is mounting evidence that climate tipping points such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or West Antarctic ice sheet, are more probable than previously thought. The article implores politicians and economists to act on emissions before committing the world to long-term irreversible change.
Authors: Timothy M. Lenton, Johan Rockström, Owen Gaffney, Stefan Rahmstorf, Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen & Hans Joachim Schellnhuber.
More than 11,000 scientists from more than 150 countries have drawn on 40 years of research to declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.
I called this column ‘choosing extinction’ because that is the path we are on today. There is considerable debate whether that extinction applies to us humans, or ‘just’ to millions of other species. But either way a mass extinction event is on the way, unless we choose to stop it.
In an article in the science journal Nature, Paul Gilding explains why he welcomes the climate emergency and what it means for the climate advocates.
With over 1,000 ‘climate emergency’ declarations, civil disobedience intensifying and fear rising, the ‘climate emergency’ has firmly landed. But what does it mean if climate change is ‘an emergency’? This new Breakthrough report examines the evidence and explores the reality beyond the rhetoric.
It has always been clear that fixing climate change would require a massive industrial and technological transformation, with widespread social and economic consequences. The recent UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on 1.5 degrees however deeply challenges dominant assumptions about the speed and scale involved. This has profound implications for many industries and policy makers, but perhaps most dramatically for the future of the multi-trillion-dollar fossil fuel industry…
