Dreamscape I

Image © Karsten Würth

I’m at a theatre, sitting in the grand circle, stage right-ish. The theatre itself I can’t identify but 20th century, could be the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, the Olivier in London, perhaps even Amsterdam’s Nationale Opera & Ballet. However, this isn’t a theatrical performance but some sort of economic / scientific / environmental forum.

The lone speaker, standing beneath a single spotlight on the vast stage is bringing proceedings to a close. She thanks us all for attending and - almost as an afterthought - asks us to show our appreciation for the companies who are making possible the country’s transition from carbon to wind and solar power technology. This she suggests that we do “in time honoured fashion” by standing and hopping up-&-down on one foot for one minute. (!?) Along with the rest of the audience, I start to hop and, although it’s quite tiring, I don’t want anyone to think I have a problem with sources of renewable energy.

But there is a dissenter in the row behind me, who announces her presence with a loud exasperated tut. Still hopping, I turn around to see two women, sitting down, handbags on laps. Never much good at estimating anyone’s age - whether in real life or in dreams - but I reckon they are very late 60’s, early 70’s. One of them glares at me - to be fair this hopping business is stupid - and barks, “Pathetic. You all drove here in your cars to get here, didn’t you?”

And then I wake up.

My dream started with me in the auditorium so who knows how I got to the theatre but, in real life, I don’t have a car, so the woman was technically wrong in her statement. Perhaps if my dream had continued, I might have picked her up on that point but, in my experience, people like that - boomers who think it’s their god given right to drive everywhere - aren’t interested in trivialities like facts.

Here’s another fact the woman from my dream wouldn’t be interested in. In 2023 global greenhouse gas emissions reached a record high of 57.1 GtCO2e with G20 countries accounting for 77% of those emissions. This was reported two weeks ago by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in their annual Emissions Gap Report. That figure of 57.1 GtCO2e is meaningless to me but a graph on page 5 of the report shows that as recently as the year 2000, total GHG emissions were 41.5 GtCO2e. There is almost no doubt that emissions for 2024 will exceed those for 2023, making this year the hottest on record. Our planet is literally on fire.

COP29, the United Nations Climate Change Conference is being held in Baku, Azerbaijan from 11th - 22nd November. At COP21 in 2015, the Paris Agreement was ratified by 195 participating countries. The objective of the treaty was to limit the rise in global surface temperature to 1.5°C and to do so by cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by the year 2030. The recent UNEP Emissions Gap Report has this to say on that aspiration:

It remains technically possible to get on a 1.5°C pathway, with solar, wind and forests holding real promise for sweeping and fast emissions cuts. Nations must collectively commit to cutting 42 per cent off annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 57 per cent by 2035 – and back this up with rapid action – or the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal will be gone within a few years. A failure to increase ambition in these new [alternative technologies] and start delivering immediately would put the world on course for a temperature increase of 2.6 - 3.1°C over the course of this century. This would bring debilitating impacts to people, planet and economies.

This isn’t a dream. We all need to wake up.