Why this disastrous WWI defeat should serve as a warning about climate change

Columnists
By Ian Johnston
Published 7th Jul 2024
THE SCOTSMAN

Historical society members dressed in First World War uniforms take part in a ceremony at Nimy Bridge, Mons, on the 100th anniversary of the battle 

(Picture: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

In war, hard reality cannot be avoided. The same is true in the fight against climate change

Climate change is an existential threat. It is already a matter of life and death – as shown by the loss of life in record-breaking heatwaves, powerful storms, and other forms of extreme weather around the world – and eventually, if we are particularly stupid, humanity’s very survival could be in doubt. So it is unsurprising that some people talk about the ‘fight’ against climate change, while others have called for the world to go onto a “war footing”.

However, it’s clear that the vast majority of people do not even remotely think they are in a war. There is certainly very little sense that the population as a whole is prepared to make significant sacrifices in order to defeat our nebulous enemy, even as the signs of its growing strength multiply.


In times of war, food supplies are a crucial consideration. And climate change is starting to have an impact on agriculture, with knock-on effects on prices and global supplies. For those hoping the people saying this are the usual, easily dismissed Just Stop Oil-type activists, I have some bad news. It’s actually coming from hedge-fund managers.

Adam Davis, co-founder of global agricultural hedge fund Farrer Capital, recently told the Financial Times that climate change had helped drive up prices for a long list of food commodities. “Wheat is up 17 per cent, palm oil 23 per cent... sugar 9 per cent and pork 21 per cent.” And Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC, also told the paper: “There’s a material impact from climate change on global food prices… It’s easy to shrug off individual events as being isolated, but we’ve just seen such a sequence of abnormal events and disruptions that, of course, add up to climate change impact.” Repeated abnormal events, he added, would result in “a permanent impact on the ability to supply food”.

Are we listening? Are we paying attention to this? If that’s not worrying enough, a new report by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries – again, the very epitome of hard-headed financial types – highlighted another alarming problem: many of the computer models used by financial services have been “significantly underestimating” the risks with “real-world impacts of climate change... largely excluded”.

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“Some models implausibly show the hot-house world to be economically positive, whereas others estimate a 65 per cent GDP loss or a 50-60 per cent downside to existing financial assets if climate change is not mitigated, stating these are likely to be conservative estimates,” it added.

One of the authors of the report, climate scientist Professor Tim Lenton, warned of the growing threat of climate tipping points – “thresholds which, once crossed, trigger irreversible changes, such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet... Once tipped into a new state, many of these systems will cause further warming – and may interact to form cascades that could threaten the existence of human civilisations.”

We are heading towards multiple tipping points on climate change – Professor Tim Lenton

However, before you surrender to despair, he added that there were also “a variety of positive tipping points in human societies that can propel rapid decarbonisation, in areas including transportation, agriculture, ecosystem regeneration, politics and public opinion. This concept could unlock the stalemate – the sense that there’s nothing we can do about climate change.”

So there is still hope. We are far from beaten yet. However, if we are to win, we may need to start thinking about climate change as a war and learning lessons from the real ones.

In 2014, to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, the BBC broadcast a drama-documentary of British soldiers’ first battle, at Mons in Belgium, called Our World War: The First Day, based on their first-hand accounts. In a scene before the main battle begins, a German cavalry officer is captured. As he is being led away, he tells the young British officer escorting him: “I wish you luck, Lieutenant Dease.”

Conveying the confidence of the well-trained, professional British troops as they prepared to face Germany’s largely conscript army, Maurice Dease – who, along with Private Sidney Godley, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in the coming fight – replies: “Thank you, but I don’t believe in luck.”

“Believe in luck, Lieutenant Dease, or believe in God because you are not ready for what’s coming here,” the German says as he shakes his enemy’s hand. Despite great courage, the British are comprehensively defeated by sheer weight of numbers and forced into a long retreat. Had intelligence about the strength of the enemy been better, perhaps things might have been different.

A decade on, the programme’s emotional impact has stayed with me. In the years since, I’ve covered climate change as an environment and science correspondent and a general news reporter. The warning signs – in the shape of extreme weather – have grown, the optimism that global warming can be kept to within 1.5 degrees Celsius, as recommended, has looked increasingly ridiculous, and global carbon emissions have continued to rise.

The reassuring tone of complacent politicians who downplay the risks has been undercut by the rising tone of desperation from scientists, who have demonstrated over the past 40 years that their ‘intelligence’ about the threat posed by climate change is accurate.

We think our defences are strong, and that we will defeat the approaching enemy, a few still doubt it even exists. But our confidence seems based on a mixture of poor intelligence – like the financial institutions’ flawed models – or ignorance of the science. I fear the day may be coming when we will be forced to finally admit to ourselves that we must “believe in luck or believe in God because we are not ready for what’s coming here”.