Climate researcher Mujib Latif called on politicians to finally think globally and be willing to commit.
What happens to a climate researcher if he warns in vain for decades about the dangers of climate change, when greenhouse gas emissions rise and rise because politicians are lukewarm at best? The famous climatologist Mujib Latif still struggles to explain it, but his tone becomes harsher. He oscillates “between apocalypse and hope”, he writes. Latif speaks frankly of the facts. For example, it is practically impossible to achieve a goal of 1.5 degrees. Or international climate agreements: “Frankly, I no longer have any faith in voluntary agreements, which aim at a lowest common denominator and contain no sanction options.”
This relentless honesty is what makes the book so important. Scientists have overshadowed climate policy for too long because they understood the hard work of politicians and even celebrated small advances. For Latif the only thing that matters are the numbers, which give no reason for optimism: greenhouse gas emissions are constantly increasing, apart from a brief halal truce.
Latif candidly describes what will happen to people if they fail to change things: “If a rapid turnaround towards sustainable development doesn’t work, societies in some regions of the world could be in danger of collapsing this decade. “
Although climate change is the central theme of the book, Latif takes the problem even further: polluted air, polluted seas, overfishing, species loss and over fertilization – humans destroy the foundation without which they cannot survive in the long term. Latif is convinced: “We live in a wrong economic system”, and he shares the opinion of many intellectuals. What he lacks above all is the desire to participate globally.
However, he concludes his book with a list of positive developments, because “without optimism and enthusiasm we will lack the motivation to face things energetically and improve them.”Klaus Jacob
good mujib
Countdown
Herder, 222 p., € 22, –
ISBN 978-3-451-39271-9
