Now that they can no longer pretend the climate crisis isn’t real, big emitters and their enablers are making all of the right noises – and taking none of the right actions
For climate change in Australia, 2021 was the year of the bullshit absolution narrative. The wide grin of a promise of good, with a bag of sinister held behind the back. This was 2021’s grubby climate through-line.
The first tactic deployed to protect the fossil fuel industry, organised denial of the science proving the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global heating, was terribly impactful. Though we’ve stamped that out, the space has been filled by a more effective and insidious problem: climate delay. This refers to a suite of spurious arguments used to justify not reducing emissions at all, or reducing them at as slow a rate as possible. You’ve heard these before – they include pleas to wait for better technology, redirecting responsibility to others or emphasising the downsides of action.
