The NPR Politics Podcast - The Fight To Keep Climate Change Off The Back Burner

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

The world faces key deadlines for climate action in coming decades. But most of us are more focused on the short term — today, tomorrow, maybe next year. So what do we do about that? The NPR podcast Consider This takes a closer look.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. The world faces key deadlines for climate change in the coming decades, but most of us are more focused on the short term. Today, tomorrow, maybe next year. So what do we do about that? Our friends at the NPR Podcast Consider This decided to take a look. Here's Elsa Chang. Now, as a journalist, I can tell you, nothing motivates quite like a deadline. The tighter, the better. Unfortunately, though, when it comes to one of the biggest problems facing humanity, climate change, the timeline has always been on the longer side. Take this NPR story from way back in 1977. If the world depends on coal as the major energy source over the next 200 years,

the consequences could be disastrous. That's the conclusion of a panel of experts. Okay, sounds scary. But 200 years sounds like plenty of time for the world to take care of it, right? Of course, here we are 46 years later, and we haven't taken care of it. Now in 2023, the deadlines to avert climate disaster are measured in decades, not centuries. Here's UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the COP27 climate summit last year. The science is clear. Any hope of limiting temperature rise to 1.5

degrees means achieving global net zero emissions by 2050. But 2050 can still feel like a long way from right now. Governments have lots of other things to worry about at the moment, a war in Ukraine, inflation, a continuing pandemic. And in that same speech, Guterres practically begged world leaders, despite all of that, to keep their focus on climate change. We're on a, quote, highway to climate hell, he said, near the point of no return. To him, inaction is a collective suicide pact. It is a defining issue of our age. It is a defining issue of our age.

It is the central challenge of our century. It is unacceptable, outrageous, and self-defeating to put it on the back burner. And yet, for so many governments, it still is on the back burner, practically speaking. The consequences of climate change will play out over decades and centuries. Stopping it demands action now. So scientists and activists are using all kinds of strategies to grab the world's attention. To avert the worst effects of climate change, a lot has to happen in not very much time.

2030 is the deadline for the U.S. to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half. 2050 is the global deadline to get to zero emissions. But those deadlines can feel distant. Most of us are focused on today or tomorrow, maybe next year. We like to hit the snooze button, right? So what do we do about that? Rebecca Herscher from NPR's Climate Desk looked into it. This human relationship to time, our focus on the present, is one reason that a lot of experts will tell you that climate change is a tricky problem. Anthony Leisowitz is the director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. I that climate change is a tricky problem. Anthony Leisowitz is the director

of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. I consider climate change the policy problem from hell because you almost couldn't design a worse fit for our underlying psychology or our institutions of decision making. 2030 or 2050, it's too far in the future. You and I aren't thinking that far out and neither are most of our elected leaders. The president gets elected every four years, members of the Senate get elected every six years, and members of the House get elected every two years. So they tend to operate on a much shorter time cycle than this problem, climate change, which is unfolding over decades. But do not despair. This is a problem, yes, but it does not mean that humans or human societies are somehow incapable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions or protecting people

from the effects of a hotter earth. Jennifer Jaquette is an environmental scientist at New York University. We do all sorts of things that we're hardwired against. Scuba diving, sitting at desks, typing on computers, saving for retirement. We do all sorts of things that we weren't evolved to do. And why is it that we choose to focus on these evolutionary quirks for why we can't solve climate change? Jaquette and Leisowitz both say the key is to turn this weakness into a strength, reframe the future problem as a present one,

and find solutions that aren't always obvious at first glance. For example, says Leisowitz, climate-driven disasters are getting more common. These are real, and these are affecting Americans all across the country in incredibly powerful and visceral ways. That is obviously bad, but it also brings climate change into the present. It makes it a right now problem instead of a next decade problem. And there are also ways to make the benefits of addressing climate change feel more immediate. Jaquette says some of the incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act are good examples. If you will buy an electric car, we will give you a kickback. If you install solar panels on your house, we will make that profitable. They're trying to speed up the sort of benefits of cooperation.

Because cooperation is the only way to really address climate change at scale. That means individual people doing things like driving electric cars, sure. That was NPR's Rebecca Herscher. Now, there are different strategies for demanding that governments and companies cut emissions. You can vote, but bringing about change through the ballot box can be a slow process. So many climate activists are choosing other, more urgent ways to grab attention. That's what's happening in Germany. The country is struggling to replace Russian natural gas, which has been cut back since the invasion of Ukraine. And to fill the void, Germany is firing up old coal power plants and investing in new liquefied natural gas facilities.

Climate activists there have responded with protests that are impossible to ignore. Esme Nicholson has more. It's Russia on a cold, snowy morning in Berlin. At a highway exit on the western edge of the city, commuter traffic has come to a standstill as a dozen climate activists sit down on a pedestrian crossing and glue themselves to the road. One of them is Lina Janssen. We're here today because we can't just look and see what the government is doing right now. They're not taking overdue measures to protect future generations' lives. Janssen and a dozen others sit in front of four lanes of cars and trucks. Some of the drivers rev their engines out of frustration.

Others get out of their cars and shout in anger. Janssen admits she's intimidated, but... I'm more scared of how people will react when we fight for food or drinking water in a few decades. I want to circumvent this future. I don't want this. One driver, 48-year-old Jenny Prohler, says she's also anxious about the future of the planet, but that this is not the place to discuss it.

I have nothing against protests, but this is something else. The gall of these people. I'm trying to get my daughter to an exam. She's a law student and sitting in the bar this morning. Another activist, 33-year-old Theodor Schnarr, says he knows he's unpopular. According to a recent poll conducted for Der Spiegel magazine, 86% of Germans disapprove of protesters disrupting their commutes, but 53% agree that the government is not doing enough to tackle climate change.

Schnarr has been arrested and locked up twice for stopping traffic. As a biochemist, he says he's all too aware of the science behind the warnings about climate change. If we would compare the situation to war, we wouldn't go on as normal. And we are in a desperate situation. So we also should act like it and implement an emergency economy. This is one of the things that the German government should do. Germany's three-party coalition government is not skimping on spending. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a social democrat,

announced an extra 200 billion euro budget to help cover rocketing energy prices this winter. But this money is paying for fossil fuels replacing Russian gas. The Economy and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck, who is a member of the environmentalist Green Party, insists this is a short-term measure. The fuel of the future is not coal, gas or oil. Our task is to create a carbon-neutral economy. That's why this government will not tolerate nimbyism about wind parks. And it's why we expect everybody to do their bit

to help build a future free from fossil fuels. 46% of Germany's electricity comes from renewable sources. Habeck is confident he can double this in the next seven years. Christoph Beis from the NGO German Watch praises the government for passing ambitious legislation on renewable energy, but says it's taking too long to implement because of disagreements between the coalition's three parties. Germany is way behind on renewables and embracing electric vehicles because Green Party policies are being blocked and delayed by the libertarian Free Democrats. And that's just two of the three parties in government.

Bals says activists who violate the law must face the legal consequences, but he says Germany's highest court has sided with environmentalists before. Germany's constitutional court has already ruled that the previous government's lack of action on climate change was unconstitutional. So the same court may well view these protests as legitimate because they aim to protect greater legal interests, namely the fundamental rights of future generations. Police have conducted a number of raids against the group and are investigating whether a recent protest

delayed an ambulance from reaching a fatal collision. Schnarr insists they always let the emergency services through. We don't want to endanger people. We don't want to endanger ourselves. This is the very opposite of what our government is doing. But back on the highway, police struggle to unstick the activists and are unable to let through an ER doctor on his way to hospital. It's clear a sense of urgency and frustration is shared by all. That was Esme Nicholson in Berlin.

And that was an edition of NPR's podcast, Consider This. That episode was hosted by Elsa Chang and produced by Connor Donovan, Christine Arismith, and Mia Vincat. It was edited by William Troop, Amina Khan, and Peter Granitz. And the executive producer of Consider This is Sammy Yinnigan. We'll be back in your feeds tomorrow with the latest political news. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. our politics podcast.