Study: Over a fifth of average UK shopping basket exposed to high levels of climate risk
businessgreen.com/news/4124940/study-fifth-av...
businessgreen.comPosted Sep 13, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC
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businessgreen.comHello fellow Brits! Did you enjoy your recent experience of significant food price inflation?
If so, it's time to start getting hyped for a world with 50% more food demand, 30% less food production, and 25x the 'normal' level of crop failures (all projected around 2050)!
It's all very exciting.
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The UK isn't "accelerating" climate change, our total emissions are less than 1% the global total and falling. The UK just isn't all that important.
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2% if you correct for international trade, one of the most powerful and wealthy countries in the world, with massive capacity for technology and wealth transfer, and previously a global leader on climate but rapidly losing that position.
And ~36% of all emission come from countries with less than a 2% share each. If they all choose to fail, they're significant.
Every ton of emissions accelerates climate change, persistent UK government failures over the past decade make it worse. The recent wind auction failure torpedoes our climate plans as most rely on the availability of masses of renewable electricity and we've just collapsed the pipeline that was just about delivering what would be needed.
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The UK could be completely carbon neutral and it wouldn't make any noticeable difference to climate change. It sucks to hear but this isn't an issue we in the UK can solve.
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Britains impact goes beyond our domestic emissions though. Our role should be as a symbolic world leader, and backed by overseas investment in other countries.
Britains best chance to stay geopolitically relevant (and to erase some of our ghosts of the past in terms of the developing world’s perspective on our imperialism) should be to directly invest in green development across the developing world.
Not only will this benefit the world and assist our influence and relevance. But it would also massively boost our economy in the long term. We don’t do nearly enough overseas investment as a state since austerity. Plus we lost so much green technological development due to brain drain to China. When I was at Uni we lost 5 years of tidal tech development because the government stopped funding ‘green crap’. The research funding was picked up by China, moved to Shanghai, who are now leading the way.
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Surely appealing to China would be better. xi jinpeng could save the world with a flick of the switch and to be fair China are going gangbusters with climate mitigation.
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China couldn’t save the world from climate change by flicking a switch.
Actually if China turned off their coal plants, the world would be in much worse shape and many countries would probably end up emitting much more carbon because they would have to shift manufacturing back home. Energy demands would sky rocket which would cause more countries to switch back to coal and gas (because 90% of renewables are sourced from China. Along with a huge amount of batteries and semiconductors which are essential for smart tech).
Economic stagnation would also push more countries like the US, Germany, U.K. etc to invest in domestic raw materials (coal, gas oil).
Plus, as much as we hate China. Renewables development and expansion in the developing world would also grind to a halt (because they are directly responsible for 75% of it). And again the developing world would switch to coal again.
People like to treat China like the big bad (which in many ways they are of course). But considering:
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they are pulling over 1 billion people out of poverty 40x faster than the west pulled 250million.
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If China developed in the same manner as the west did, their emissions would be 3-4x higher per capita than they are now, and 4°C would be locked in.
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they are driving renewable and green development faster Than the rest of the world combined and they are installing renewables faster than the rest of the world combined. They are well ahead of their net zero target even with a recent expansion of coal. Which is compliant with a <2°C world if the rest of us hit our targets.
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China is literally supplying the vast majority of the renewable tech and components that the rest of us are using to decarbonise.
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37% of chinas emissions are directly linked to the west.
I don’t like China. But their development is a required evil to solve climate change.
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We're less than 1% of the population too, so we're about average as far as domestic emissions go.
The average per capita emissions, approximately 5 tons per person per year, are what has got the environment to where it is now, and where it is heading.
We absolutely are accelerating climate change.
Add in imported emissions and the fact that the average is heavily weighted towards developed countries and we're even worse.
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China has emitted more carbon in the last 8 years than the UK has since the industrial revolution.
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China has had at least 20x the people the U.K. has in that time too.
If China had emitted per capita what the U.K. has over that time. We would already be past the point of a 4°C increase. Imagine if they had emitted on the same trends as the US…
Honestly, we are only in the position we are of being able to mitigate climate change through sheer luck of fate. If China had got its shit together much sooner (and not been subject to so much outside destabilisation from the U.K, Japan, Portugal, France etc).
It’s crazy when you think about it.
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Do you know the world actually produces more food than needed and with a bit of effort no one would ever go hungry.
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The problem is that food is for profit. Sure we make enough food. Gonna get charged for their losses anyway
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That profit motive is probably why for the first time in history a huge chunk of the world never needs to about starving, and starvation itself is becoming increasingly rare.
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Well yes.
Food has always been for profit in some form or another. Even subsidence farming in the Middle Ages aimed to sell excess for profit.
The difference is now we have mass industrial mechanised farming, mass transport (which means it goes further without spoiling), and fertilisers. All of this is detrimental to our climate and environment to some degree (because we compensate for inefficiencies with overuse). But it absolutely has been a great thing for humanity.
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The people who conducted the study think it will be harder to grow tea and coffee as climates warm.
Thank goodness for experts.
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Not sure if this is sarcastic or not. But yes it would be, because it’s about climate shift, greater disruption of crops through storm intensity, and a greater threat of diseases.
It’s much more than just turning up the thermostat a click.
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Crop, disease, and weather belts will simply shift. Places will just grow new crops. Wine for example, will return to the North of England and all the 'vine streets' up there might be able to sell local wines again.
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[removed]
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Oh no, we might find out how big pricks all those people in the office with mugs saying "You don't wanna see me before my coffee" or similar actually are.
Millions of people withdrawing at once? You hate to see it.
Don't worry, we can make caffeine in a lab. That's how RedBull get theirs. Just add some coffee flavouring and we're good. Also, ignore the urea part, it's less yucky than it sounds, honest.
https://foodinsight.org/natural-vs-added-caffeine-whats-the-difference/