Extreme weather, desertification and rising oceans are wreaking havoc. No wonder the school strikers call adults immature

Since August 2018 a Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, has sat outside her country’s parliament building every Friday rather than in a classroom. She is there to demand that the government takes climate action by implementing the 2015 Paris agreement. While some thought she would give up her strike, her resolve could not be broken by the cold, heat or disapproval from adults.

 The climate strikers should inspire us all to act at the next UN summit

António Guterres

Last Friday children in 72 countries joined what have come to be known as the school strikes against climate change. It is important to note that one of the pillars on which the strike hangs is the Paris climate accord globally endorsed in 2015 at the 21st conference of parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Taken alongside the UN sustainable development goals, the hope is that global temperature rises above preindustrial levels can be kept at 1.5C or “well below” 2C. It is also hoped that with the development goals poverty and hunger can be terminated by 2050. Are these attainable targets?

Negotiations on pathways of implementing the Paris climate agreement underscore the fact that there is a global agreement that countries must take action. But the indications of how this would be achieved are not at the level of ambition needed to counter, slow or stop the looming climate chaos. The problem with voluntary emissions reduction by nations is that such actions would only achieve the targets if the key polluters do their fair share of cutting emissions at source. This is not the scenario that is playing out, however. A special report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicated that the current ambition as set out until 2030 will likely result in a global warming of about 3C by 2100 and that this warming would continue. Unless the most polluting nations raise their emissions reduction ambitions, we are on track towards the literal incineration of the planet.

Extreme weather events are already wreaking havoc on many regions. Small-island developing nations are at extreme risk of being swallowed up by the oceans. Nigeria and other African nations are at risk of highly challenged agricultural systems and intensified poverty regimes. Even with the best socioeconomic improvements in our nations, the consequences of 1.5C or 2C temperature increase will mean elevated health risks, water stress, human insecurity, damaged livelihoods and lowered levels of wellbeing. Temperature rises will lead to increased desertification, higher ocean acidification and migration of marine species to higher latitudes.

The impacts on my home country, Nigeria, will be dire. Water stress will be higher in the Sahelian area and this will compel a higher rate of southward migration of pastoralists and farmers. Ocean acidification and coastal erosion, on the other hand, will force coastal communities to relocate into the hinterland. This is a scenario that will breed conflict.

The strike for climate action is a significant step by children and teenagers, especially because it is their future that is at stake. Thunberg has been clear in her many speeches to policymakers and leaders. She insists that nations must wake up and that their sluggishness is a mark of laziness and irresponsibility. At the UN climate change conference in Katowice in December, she pointedly stated: “You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children.”

One of the clear ways to apply that brake is to quickly phase out the dependence on fossil fuels for energy production and transportation. The truth is that the world must abandon fossil fuels within this century. The decline in use of this dirty energy must happen now. Rather than take this pathway, politicians lend their ears to fossil fuel corporations even in the corridors of the UN climate change conferences. Rather than cut emissions, the tendency is towards what is termed net-zero emissions.

This means a polluter can keep polluting once they buy a licence for the actions by showing that an equivalent amount is being absorbed by trees in a poor community’s forest or that similar amounts are absorbed by the oceans or are reflected back into space through geoengineering. Sadly, Nigeria keeps flaring gas in the Niger Delta – a major local contributor of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Our government’s deadline for ending gas flaring in 2020 does not appear achievable given progress on the ground.

When children call adults immature, we must be attentive. It is not an insult. It is a plea for us to think of the future of our children. They insist that if there is no future there is no reason to sit in a classroom. We must listen to the children. Children of the world must unite in this struggle to force adults away from short-term measures predicated on profit, political gains and their lack of concern for the planet and the future.

Nnimmo Bassey is director of the ecological thinktank Health of Mother Earth Foundation