How to tackle global warming - and how not to

Abandoning meat is now the latest advice for saving the planet: A “major new study” suggests that a “huge reduction in meat-eating” is “ ‘essential’ to avoid climate breakdown,” as The Guardian puts it.

This follows claims from the Humane Society that “your diet could save the planet” and the German Green Party’s proposal for a national weekly vegetarian day. Even the UN’s former top climate official believes “the best solution would be for us all to become vegetarians.”

Our current climate conversation embodies two blatantly contradictory claims. On one side, experts warn that promised climate policies will be economically crippling. In a new report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) states that achieving net-zero in 2050 will likely be “the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced.” That is a high bar, surpassing World War II, the black plague and Covid.

The World Bank’s self-proclaimed “new course” towards focusing on global warming over poverty reduction is an alarming development for the planet’s poorest.

The planet’s biggest provider of non-private financing to developing countries will increase climate-related aid by one-third, meaning that by 2020 these efforts will amount to about $US29 billion ($38bn) a year. Every single dollar that the World Bank spends will “take account of climate change”.