As we saw in Chapter Four, public concern and political attention on climate have been limited. In this chapter, I will look at what this has meant for climate action. How do existing efforts to tackle climate change measure up against what the science suggests is needed?

A few years ago, I was invited to speak at the awards ceremony for a leading UK university. They had run a competition to identify and reward ten innovators from across the university who were ‘saving the earth’. There were some brilliant projects. The student union had developed a scheme to encourage final-year students to donate pots, pans and other household items to new arrivals, saving resources and a trip to Ikea. The university's engineering department had been at the forefront of research into new forms of solar power. But when I spoke at the ceremony, I made myself unpopular. I was very kind to the winners, but I also pointed out that they should also compile a list of the ten most significant ways in which the university was wrecking the earth – through investing in research into oil and gas extraction, for example, as most of our leading universities still do.

Feelgood fallacies and stealth strategies

This story shows the first fundamental problem with climate action to date. This is a problem that I have come to think of as the ‘feelgood fallacy’. There has been an overwhelming focus on encouraging low-carbon solutions – like developing renewable energy, or offering grants for electric vehicles. These are valuable things to do. I have worked on many projects to promote renewable energy, for example, and I support them strongly.

But all this positive activity masks a deeper problem. Very little has been done to curb carbon-intensive activity, like new sites for fossil fuel extraction, increasing demand for aviation, and growing meat consumption. The politicians I have spoken to are nervous about addressing these issues. Environmental campaigners have often told me that they worry about arguing for changes to aviation or meat consumption, because they worry it might alienate people.