Offline: Living in an Age of Indecency

Abstract

Political leaders will declare COP26 a success—an important staging post, although not UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's promised “turning point for humanity”, on the way to decarbonising the planet's energy use. Historians will most likely look back and judge COP26 in Glasgow, UK, as a graveyard of opportunities. To be fair, the target set for COP26 was narrowly drawn—to keep alive the 2015 Paris Agreement. That landmark agreement committed nations to “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1·5°C above pre-industrial levels”. Note the words—“pursuing efforts”. COP26 can rightly claim that it did indeed pursue efforts. But this weak wording isn’t good enough. Average global temperatures are already 1·1–1·2°C above pre-industrial levels. Without deeper and faster decarbonisation, global temperatures will rise by 3°C by 2100—with seriously dangerous consequences for human health. Meanwhile, those campaigning for tougher political action, including many health workers on the front lines of public protests, have been accused of alienating their cause. Disrupting traffic. Paralysing cities. They are labelled well meaning, but ultimately unhelpful, misguided, and selfish. Eco-zealots and climate warriors who have broken the law and must be punished. So what now for climate activists? Continued resistance or pragmatic withdrawal? Defining the legitimate limits of political authority is a question every society must ask if it is to steer safely between anarchy and tyranny. Sophocles was the first to attempt an answer some 2500 years ago. In the contest between Antigone and her uncle, King Creon of Thebes, the Athenian playwright explored the rights of a citizen to challenge the power of the state. In Antigone, Creon claims that “Lawful authority must be obeyed in all things.” “Where all goes well”, he argues, “obedience is the cause”. Antigone sees her duty differently. Creon has decreed that Antigone's brother, Polyneices, must not be buried since he brought dishonour to his family. Antigone ignores his instruction, insisting that she will bury him according to a higher principle—her conscience. Creon calls her obstinate, proud, and insolent, ruling that she will be entombed to “live or die, as she may choose”. The outcome is a tragic series of suicides, with Creon praying for death as “a misguided man”. Antigone's reputation as an emancipatory heroine has grown steadily since the fifth century BCE. Her symbolic status has inspired the creation of new Antigones for every generation. Frédéric Gros recently celebrated her refusal to submit, her commitment to say no, in his fierce defence of mass non-violent disobedience (Disobey! A Philosophy of Resistance, 2021). Antigone is a “cultural icon of revolt”, “the muse of rebellion”. Gros calls his plea for “civic dissidence” within a “critical democracy” nothing less than “a declaration of humanity”. Bruno Latour, one of the most acute contemporary observers of the relation between science and society, suggests that the intersection between the twin dangers of a pandemic and an environmental emergency is not a crisis, but a mutation—“you no longer have the same body and you no longer move around in the same world”, he writes in After Lockdown: A Metamorphosis (2021). Yet despite COP26 and the public debate it has aroused, the scale of the challenge we face is still largely unacknowledged. As Dan Welsby and colleagues at University College London reported in Nature earlier this year, oil and gas production will have to fall globally by 3% annually until 2050 if the Paris 1·5°C goal is to be delivered. Countries heavily dependent on fossil fuels need to diversify their economies rapidly and urgently. Given the importance of China and the USA to global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—they contribute about 28% and 15% of emissions, respectively, with their nearest rivals being India (7%) and Russia (5%)—the failure of Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden to enact far-reaching reforms to transition their economies to net zero is unnerving. The disruptive extremism of groups such as Extinction Rebellion is therefore understandable, despite widespread public and political condemnation. As Gros argues, the responsibility to act in the face of jeopardy cannot be delegated to another. In a collision between the morality of protest and the morality of order, Antigone's lesson is surely that justice is more important than law.