Doom-monger eco-activists like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion are ‘paralyzing’ the fight against global warming with apocalyptic messages, new UN climate chief warns
>
Even the new UN climate chief has something to say about eco-activists causing another year of chaos with their controversial public demonstrations.
Professor Jim Skea is the newly elected head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate-focused body.
He thinks Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion are “paralyzing” the fight against global warming because they don’t motivate the public to protect the planet.
The physicist, from Imperial College London, also said global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels is “not an existential threat to humanity.”
His comments come as Just Stop Oil protesters who invaded Lord’s field and threw orange powder into the air during the Ashes deny causing disruptions in court.
In the photo, activists from the group Just Stop Oil block a road in London. The group works to ‘ensure that the government is committed to halting new licensing and production of fossil fuels’
Jim Skea, professor of sustainable energy at Imperial College London, has been elected the new head of the UN’s climate expert panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Professor Skea, elected chairman of the IPCC last week, spoke to the German news agency DPA.
“If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, it paralyzes people and prevents them from taking the necessary steps to get to grips with climate change,” he said.
In another interview with Der Spiegel, Professor Skea discussed the goals of the Paris Agreement, the famous climate pledge passed in 2015.
The Paris Agreement aims to keep the increase in global average temperature below 2°C (3.6°F) and to continue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F). to limit’.
He said ‘we should not despair and go into a state of shock’ if global temperatures were to rise by this amount.
“The world will not end if it warms up more than 1.5°C,” he told Der Spiegel. “However, it will be a more dangerous world.”
The academic believes it is critical to offer “positive” ways for humanity to tackle climate challenges and not just “messages of gloom that can generate a sense of existential dread about the future of the planet.”
A climate activist waves an Extinction Rebellion flag during a demonstration in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, July 29, 2023
“We need to point out that people have choices to make and a say in their own future,” Skea told AFP earlier this week in Nairobi, where elections for other IPCC leadership positions are also underway.
Skea, a 69-year IPCC veteran, said governments have many ways to reduce global warming emissions.
“It’s like someone goes out to do a job — they’ve got the toolbox with them, now they have to get the tools out of the box,” he said.
Professor Skea is not the first prominent climate figure to denounce the tactics of the notorious climate activists.
Veteran eco-warrior Swampy, who made his name with a series of environmental protests in the 1990s, said he “wouldn’t do it like that” if he were protesting the use of fossil fuels that warm the planet.
Swampy, whose real name is Daniel Hooper, says that while the protesters disrupting traffic or sporting events are “clearly courageous and passionate,” he thinks real change will come by working with people from “different walks of life.”
“The kind of direct action I would take would be to hold companies accountable for causing environmental damage,” he said while appearing on Good Morning Britain last month.
A Just Stop Oil protester jumps on the table and throws orange powder at the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield
“That particular action doesn’t hold people accountable, but they talk about it.”
In recent months alone, Just Stop Oil activist groups have staged disruptive demonstrations at Wimbledon, the Ashes and the World Snooker Championship.
Meanwhile, Extinction Rebellion recently blocked holes in a Spanish golf course with water in protest at “elitist leisure activities” during extreme drought this summer.
Earlier this year, Extinction Rebellion activists poured black paint that looked like crude oil from plastic buckets marked “End Coal” outside the Home Office.
Both Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion regularly organize protests by blocking the roads, causing frustration and delays for the general public.