Going deep
CLIMATE BREAKDOWN ECOLOGIST
There are natural solutions to the climate crisis, writes Charlotte Latimer
The 1.5 °C limit on global warming that must be met to prevent climate breakdown requires not only a reduction in greenhouse gases, but also a negative-emissions strategy. Instead of funding resource-heavy technological solutions, carbon can be drawn down from the atmosphere using the power of Nature. In April 2019 a group of activists and scientists, led by George Monbiot, launched a Natural Climate Solutions campaign to draw attention to the dual role Nature can play in preventing both climate breakdown and ecological collapse. The campaign is supported by organisations like The Nature Conservancy and the United Nations Environment programme, and signatories include activist Greta Thunberg, writer Margaret Atwood, marine biologist Asha de Vos and actress and UN Goodwill Ambassador Dia Mirza.
There are three areas of work. The first involves allowing unused land to rewild. On the micro-level, if you stop mowing your lawn you create a wild meadow that will support bees and other insects. The second could be more difficult: protecting and restoring forests and other ecosystems, such as mangroves and peatlands, that may be under threat from development or require funding or other resources. The third involves changing the way we use the land and the sea to produce food and other commodities, and allowing them to recover.
In every part of the world, Natural Climate Solutions look different, and the diversity of the work is astounding and exciting. Citizens must pressure governments and business to look at the way land is being used and think about how Nature can be restored in ways that support local communities. Citizens can campaign against and boycott products and production methods they feel are unsustainable.
De Vos and Monbiot both cite the 1980s ban on commercial whaling by the International Whaling Commission as an example of how public opinion and pressure can change our relationship with the natural world. In her TED Talk, de Vos explains: “We only have whales in our waters today because of the Save the Whales movement of the 70s … It was ultimately a test of our political ability to halt environmental destruction.” She goes on to explain that it is not just because of a love of animals that researchers
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and scientists want these creatures to be saved: “Whales are ecosystem engineers. They help maintain the stability and health of the oceans and even provide services to human society.”
In the UK there is great scope and possibility for new systems and values, but it is essential that there be huge scrutiny of government policies and actions. De Vos, who is based in Sri Lanka, is interested in taking Natural Climate Solutions beyond concept stage and suggests creating a Natural Climate Solutions toolkit to help inform countries about the outcomes they could achieve. “For example,” she explains, “unused aquaculture ponds? Revert them back into mangroves (which they once were), because mangroves are nurseries for fish and other species, but also more mangroves will help us regulate our climate better.”
The campaign will continue to build awareness of this approach through images, films and articles in the lead-up to the UN Sustainable Development Summit in September 2019, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Beijing in October 2020, and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in November 2020.
Ecological and environmental collapse are already happening, and transformative action must start now if any change is to happen at all. The Natural Climate Solutions campaign supports the demands of Fridays for Future that action must happen now, and those of Extinction Rebellion – to tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, to act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025, and to create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice – and continues to champion methods of working with Nature to prevent climate breakdown and ecological collapse. “We’ve had a great response,” says Monbiot. “We’ve already done a lot to make people aware of this amazingly neglected field. I think it is likely to keep rolling and growing.
Charlotte Latimer is a writer and teacher and a development officer for Tower Hamlets Council. www.naturalclimate.solutions/the-science
Photograph by François Baelen www.linkou-underwater.com
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