Mission impossible

The pandemic has shown that the impossible can be made possible. It was unthinkable to develop vaccines in a time frame of less than a year. But adversity forced an invention and innovation (“Vision on how to come to grips with climate crisis,” Gulf Today, May 17).

The timeline generally for a vaccine is 10 years and here we have so many vaccines and vaccine candidates in less than a year.

Should we then believe the leaders when they say that climate change is not easily tackled? That they wait for 2035 and 2050 as timelines to reduce and zeroise carbon emissions? Why not today? Is it because the industrialists don’t stand to profit from environmentally positive measures?

Why can’t policies be made overnight, the way lockdowns are imposed overnight and vaccines developed over a year? Is it because climate change is perceived as less dangerous than Covid? Or the threat of climate change is spread over a span of many years and thus the leaders are looking at gains at a horizon of 6 months?

Do we have to be dying in thousands from the effects of climate change for serious action to be taken?

The article says, “Ministers have faced criticism for making a number of moves that appear to be out of step with its climate efforts, including refusing to rule out more fossil fuel exploration in the North Sea, cutting back on measures to boost electric car uptake and energy efficiency in homes, and displaying inertia over plans for a new coal mine in Cumbria.”

Abdul Aziz
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