
Rachel Johnson 7pm - 10pm
21 January 2025, 12:52
President Trump was sworn in yesterday and has signed an order to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement for the second time.
The uncomfortable fact is that the Paris Agreement was dead in the water long before this. It took 30 years to even get a mention of fossil fuels at the COP climate conference, and in 2024 the world breached the safe limit of 1.5 degrees that politicians committed to in 2015. The results of this are clear as day.Just ask a Californian as their state continues to burn.
Last week, a stark warning was issued by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (not generally known for their climate ‘doom-mongering’). They warned the global economy could face 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090. More significantly, they also stated that in the not unrealistic scenario of 3C or more of heating by 2050, there could be more than 4 billion deaths, socio-political fragmentation, failure of states and extinction events. The lead author of the report, said there was no realistic plan in place to avoid this scenario.
It stands to reason that we would see a 50% fall in GDP if half the world's population has been killed in 25 years time, but the fact that it is the impact to GDP that gets the headlines, underlines where media billionaire priorities lie.
So what can we as ordinary people do in order to protect our families, force our leaders to confront this crisis and face down Trump? We don’t have billions of dollars to buy political influence and we don't own media corporations to affect the will of the public.
In April, Just Stop Oil will be outside parliament to demand the government work with others to phase-out the burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030. We need an international treaty, applying pressure to countries world-wide, just as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty did.
We will be taking non-violent disruptive action because we know it works. In 2024, Just Stop Oil won its first demand of ‘No New Oil and Gas’. History shows us that putting our bodies in the way of business-as-usual can achieve unthinkable things and we know that society can shift very rapidly. Now we need your help.
In the future we will all need to know that we did everything we could to avert this crisis. It’s time to step-up.
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James Skeet is a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil.
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