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CLIMATE change is having a moment in the UK. In recent weeks, diverse voices have called for urgent action on greenhouse gas emissions. Partly in response, the UK parliament has become the first in the world to declare a “climate emergency”.

While we should welcome the fact that the urgent need to decarbonise has finally broken through in the public consciousness, there is a danger in going too far. As teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg says, the house is on fire – but our response should be to calmly exit the building and execute a rescue plan, not to run about in a panic while the entire thing burns down.

Such a plan comes in the form of a detailed report that the UK Committee on Climate Change revealed last week (see “UK government told to adopt world’s most ambitious climate target”). Yes, we do need to make changes across the entirety of society, rethinking everything from boilers to buildings. But examine the detail, and you will find that we don’t need to live in mud huts to go green – technological developments and smart choices over the next two decades will allow us to be more eco-friendly without truly radical changes to our behaviour.


“To reduce carbon emissions, the UK will have to use part of its farmland for planting trees”

Solving the climate emergency will also mean harnessing innovation in novel ways, such as repurposing oil rigs to harvest cobalt from the oceans to make electric car batteries (see “Cobalt for 500,000 electric cars could be harvested from the oceans”). We should see this as an exciting opportunity, not an apocalypse.

As the first nation to industrialise, the UK has a moral duty to decarbonise, but if that is too woolly a reason for you, think of the financial benefits of becoming a green technology leader. The future of modern economies is inescapably carbon-free, which is why China is now the leading producer of electric cars and solar panels. The only way the UK can compete is to leap ahead and start selling its products and services to the rest of the world.

Activists should be applauded for putting climate change at the top of the agenda, but we must ensure that dire warnings don’t obscure a message of hope. We can do this.