Climate Change Needs Problem Solvers Like You

“We are the greatest problem solvers to have ever existed on earth”

Sir David Attenborough, COP26

Addressing delegates at the UN Climate Change Conference of Parties 26 (COP26), the annual climate change conference held this year in Glasgow, Sir David Attenborough urges leaders to take action in his usual frank, but inspiring way. Will commitments and actions stemming from this conference start to reduce atmospheric carbon? Or will they keep rising for decades to come?, he asks of our leaders.

Being hailed as the greatest problem solvers on earth is fortuitous, given that we are also the greatest problem creators. We are the very cause of human induced climate change, the reason that the earth’s climate is changing so rapidly that it’s now affecting the very foundation upon which humans have been able to flourish during the relatively stable climate over the last 10,000 years.

This year’s climate talks are critical, especially after the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found what scientists have been predicting for decades: that “Climate change is already affecting every inhabited region across the globe, with human influence contributing to many observed changes in weather and climate extremes”. Unfortunately, regardless of any commitments made this week at COP26 or even if we immediately bottom-out global carbon emissions, the climate will continue to change and sea levels will rise, due to the delay in the climatic response from emissions already released.

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