Climate, numbers, targets and anxiety

November 25, 2025

Let us be clear: unless we, humankind, act urgently and radically, we will soon experience societal collapse. We will certainly experience existential anxiety as we starve, seek shelter and battle over dwindling resources.

I agree that numbers and targets are unhelpful, but not in the sense that the author intends; they allow our leaders to pretend to act while kicking real action down the road, and to create false comfort in the face of the worsening crisis. They allow us to count “land not cleared” as a reduction in CO2 emissions; to include future “carbon capture” at scale in the decarbonisation mix; to undermeasure the significant methane leakage associated with fossil gas use; to use tricky “carbon accounting” to grossly underestimate (and conceal from the public) the massive impacts of data centres, cryptocurrencies and AI

“Net zero by 2050” as a plan or policy is so discredited as to make it criminally irresponsible. Net zero as a concept is gone: we need to be aiming not just for real zero but in fact for sub-zero. And we need to get there as if we are fighting World War III, not leave it another 25 years for our children and grandchildren.