If the climate threat is so urgent, why not talk about it?

As the world prepares for a second Trump term in the White House, the issue of climate change, strangely absent during the run-up to the US election, has once again become a salient talking point in the global media.

Last time he was in office, Donald Trump rolled back climate regulations and pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement, and according to Carbon Brief, a second term could lead to an additional 4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent of US emissions compared with the outgoing Joe Biden’s plans.

Trump has called climate change a “scam”, in stark contrast to defeated presidential contender Kamala Harris’s stated belief that it is an “existential threat”, while Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 stipulated a record US$369bn for clean energy investments and greenhouse gas reduction. So why were the Democrats so shy about communicating all this?

The fear factor

Some analysts have suggested the Party was afraid of alienating voters who’d picked Trump at the last election. So instead of communicating the facts and making their case, the Democrats went quiet on the key issue affecting future generations. Their silence may even have been viewed with suspicion by those unconvinced of the urgency of action. If it’s so important, why not talk about it?

The truth is that whether we’re discussing the Democrats and the Republicans in the US, or Labour and the Conservatives in the UK, or the EU as a bloc, we are seeing nowhere near the urgency required to tackle this – yes – “existential” threat.

In the UK, research found that British police arrest environmental protesters at nearly three times the global average, with only Canada and Australia arresting protesters at a higher rate. Rather than tackling the issues provoking the protests, it would appear, states are instead focused on punishing dissent.

“While criminalisation and repression does not look the same across the world, there are remarkable similarities,” the report’s authors, Oscar Berglund and Tie Franco Brotto, clarified. “It is increasing in a lot of countries, it involves both state and corporate actors, and it takes many forms.”

For example, police violence in countries such as Peru and Uganda equally stifles protest on the climate. In Europe, France stands out as a country with relatively high levels of police violence (3.2 per cent) and low levels of arrests (also 3.2 per cent), the authors pointed out.

“This repression is taking place in a context where states are not taking adequate action on climate change,” they wrote. “By criminalising activists, states depoliticise them. This conceals the fact these activists are ultimately right about the state of the climate and environment – and the lack of positive government action in these areas.”

“Growers need to be supported”

Fresh produce businesses should be the ones to benefit from action on this issue, with sustainably grown fruit and vegetables at the heart of most experts’ plans to tackle the climate crisis.

Last summer, environmental charities in the UK, the Soil Association, Sustain and the Wildlife Trusts, published a report arguing for a doubling of the land used to grow fruit and vegetables using nature-friendly farming.

Report co-author and Soil Association senior policy officer Lucia Monje-Jelfs commented: “British fruit and veg is in crisis. Our diets are costing the NHS billions every year and the countries we import from are being hit by the impacts of climate change. We should be increasing our homegrown produce. But instead, many growers fear for the survival of their businesses, and our fruit and vegetable consumption has fallen to the lowest level in half a century. If we scaled up agroecological horticulture, boosting access to healthy and sustainable food across the country, we could help to reverse the public health disaster, slash farming emissions, and restore wildlife. The next government must act to support the country’s growers.”

Vicki Hird, strategic lead on agriculture for the Wildlife Trusts, added: “Growers need to be supported in this period of change and must be treated fairly in the marketplace so that the transition to nature-friendly growing can happen for the long term.”

Having already slashed its green prosperity plan from £28bn a year to under £15bn, the UK government has pledged nearly £22bn for projects to capture and store carbon emissions from energy, industry and hydrogen production. Green campaigners warn that such investments would “extend the life of planet-heating oil and gas production”.

Fresh produce businesses can’t make the same mistake of falling silent on the climate crisis and the steps required to address it. Instead they should be shouting their own achievements from the rooftops, while urging others to join them.