2023-04-25 23:02:45
Innsbruck (OTS) – What unites many climate targets, regardless of the level, is that they will not be achieved. This is because there is no pressure from society. Too few people are taking to the streets to protect the climate or are stuck there.
Protecting the environment gives you such a good feeling: if you disregard it, nobody can be held directly responsible. There is always someone who is supposed to be the even bigger polluter. The neighbor or China or the USA. Which immediately leads to the fact that you have to contribute little or nothing at all. When it comes to environmental protection, communities, cities, states and individuals are in “the best” company. One shows oneself willing, formulates improvements and intentions, as a public body one names climate goals, writes them down, only to then fail to comply with them.
That’s what happened following the Paris climate agreement in 2015, that’s what happened with almost all climate targets, at whatever level, and that’s what happened most recently in Austria, according to a report by the Federal Environment Agency. The reduction in greenhouse gases, as agreed between Austria and the EU, cannot be achieved, despite the expansion of renewable energy and the planned end of combustion engines. Instead of 2030, as agreed, it will be 2050. Shrug of the shoulders, brief excitement and continue with the program. Those in government will hardly be more ambitious, and the threatened fines worth millions will not change that. Because by the time they strike, those who caused them by acting too timidly will no longer be in office. For wealthy countries like Austria, missed climate targets are always a particular sign of poverty. Because it shows that a society hardly wants to change, even if the renunciation is not existential.
Without social change and changed consumer behavior, global warming will not be stopped. Not even if those in power were bolder. A more efficient use of energy and the gains achieved through climate protection are eaten up once more by larger apartments and heavy cars. What we achieve by increasing efficiency, we fritter away because we squander even more energy. This is not an Austrian phenomenon and is known in the richest countries as the rebound effect, who likes it sporty, or the boomerang effect.
The excitement shows why missing climate targets can still be dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders. This will subside tomorrow and grow elsewhere to the point of indignation and anger.
Climate stickers have announced their biggest wave of protests and want to block roads for three weeks in May. This is far more upsetting to society than global warming.
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