Opinion | Climate change: Selfish humans are the biggest threat to their own existence

When individuals, communities, companies and states want to deal with climate change, they first have to recognise their shared fate and interdependence. Diversity is, after all, what makes life possible

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Men haul their fishing net on a boat in Bacnotan, La Union, Philippines. Protection of the environment depends on humans seeing past their own interests and working together. Photo: Reuters

Published: 3:30am, 11 Feb 2023Updated: 4:22am, 11 Feb 2023

Why is it so difficult to tackle climate change? The Club of Rome’s 1972 report “Limits to Growth” already projected how human activity was going to change the planet, heating up the climate through carbon emissions that would raise sea levels, change weather and damage food, water and natural resources.

Most people do not understand how their individual activities change the planet. Scientists worked hard to provide more evidence, but economists thought they had a perfect market solution. If carbon markets can help price carbon costs and benefits, emitters could pay those who are willing to sequester carbon at the right price.

Unfortunately, carbon markets are still nascent in most countries and are so fragmented that their impact is limited. People don’t trade carbon if they don’t understand it.

Dealing with climate change is complex. It is tough because everyone is connected or interdependent in this world. This leads to collective action problems. People find it difficult to work together because of different values, objectives and circumstances. Each expects the other to act, whereas if everyone does not cooperate, nothing will change.

Like a network of individuals bound to each other, one virus can down take the whole network. This inability to act is called the tragedy of the commons, in which people’s selfish actions destroy the commons, or what is considered public good.

When the corporate world adopts environment, society and governance (ESG) standards to improve corporate social responsibility, it forgets that all three are linked together. Fundamentally, poor human governance is the evil that creates environmental destruction and social injustice.