WE ARE TACKLING CLIMATE CHANGE THE WRONG WAY

By: Amayelle Dieng

Davide Bonazzi

“5 little steps to reduce waste,” “3 tips to reduce pollution,” “how to reduce your personal carbon footprint?” In recent years, ecological awareness has awakened and very quickly spread. Everyone has a trick on how to adopt an eco-responsible way of life and, looking at all these infographics, if everyone got involved, the climate crisis would be behind us.

However, after a few months of lockdown under COVID and the resulting drop in consumption, it is clear that high temperatures are back before the recovery of pre-COVID life. If we, as individuals, are not the cause of pollution, a bigger question arises: who is polluting?

A 15-year study by the NGO Carbon Disclosure Project and the Climate Accountability Institute showed surprising results: 100 companies are responsible for 71% of carbon emissions.

Encouraging or hopeless? This result shows that only 100 companies would need regulations to stop the climate crisis. But it also shows that it only took 100 companies to destroy the planet. And who are these companies? Mainly, oil companies, many of which are located in Asia.

It’s obvious that climate change is a global affair, but we will never solve it through wishful thinking about how everyone should change their ways (without even mentioning the classism embedded in such narratives). To win back the planet, we need to make structural changes.

For example: STOP BEING THE CONSUMERS.

This graph shows the top ten companies contributing to the Carbon Emissions