Earth Day 2021.
At the Leaders' Climate Summit,
countries will present their new climate commitments,
like net-zero emissions by 2050.
They will call these hypothetical targets ‘ambitious.’
But when you compare our insufficient targets
with the overall current best available science,
you clearly see that there's a gap.
There are decades missing.
Of course, we welcome all efforts to safeguard
present and future living conditions,
and these targets could be a great start,
if it wasn't for the fact that they are full of gaps
and loopholes, like leaving out emissions from consumption
of imported goods, as well as international aviation,
shipping, and the burning of biomass.
Using baseline manipulation, excluding most tipping points
and feedback loops, and ignoring the global aspect of equity
and historic emissions, as well as making these targets
completely relying on future fantasy-scaled,
currently barely existing negative emissions technologies.
The point is, or as we say in Swedish,
the sum of the cardamom,
is that we can keep cheating in order to pretend
that these targets are in line with what is needed,
but while we can fool others and even ourselves,
we cannot fool nature and physics.
The emissions are still there,
whether we choose to count them or not.
When leaders now present these very insufficient targets,
they admit that they are surrendering
on the 1.5 degree targets,
surrendering on their promises and on our futures.
Still, as it is now, world leaders get away with it,
since the gap of awareness is so immense.
And this is the heart of the problem.
We understand that the world is very complex,
that many are trying their best,
and that this isn't going to be easy.
And of course, these very insufficient targets
are better than nothing, but we cannot be satisfied
with something just because it's better than nothing.
We have to go further than that.
We must believe that we can do this, because we can.
I don't know about you, but I sure am not willing
to give up, not in a million years.
We will keep on demanding and fighting for a safe future.
Every fraction of a degree matters, and will always matter.
You may call us naive for believing that change is possible,
but at least we are not so naive
that we believe the things will be fixed
by companies and countries making vague, distant,
hypothetical targets without any real pressure
from the media and the general public.
The gap between what we are doing
and what needs to be done is widening
by the minute, and the gap between the urgency needed
and the current level of awareness and attention
is becoming more and more absurd.
And the gap between our so-called climate targets
and the overall current best available science
should no longer be possible to ignore.
There are several decades missing.
This gap of awareness, action, and time
is the biggest elephant that has ever found itself
in any room, and unless we address this,
we cannot achieve any real changes,
and no real solutions will be found.
Let's call out their [BLEEP],
and please, mind the gap.