Yesterday the Archbishop of Canterbury claimed:
‘….history would judge current world leaders 'probably on this fortnight alone'.
'They could have been brilliant in everything else they've done, and they will be cursed if they don't get this right,' he said.
'They could have been rubbish at everything else they've done but if they get this right, the children of today will rise up and bless them in 50 years.'
Explicitly, he said that failure to act on climate change will allow ‘a genocide on an infinitely greater scale’ than that caused by the Nazis (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10153483/Archbishop-Canterbury-apologises-saying-climate-change-worse-NAZIS.html)
'People will speak of them (current world leaders) in far stronger terms than we speak today of the politicians of the 30s, of the politicians who ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany because this will kill people all around the world for generations, and we will have no means of averting it.' (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10153483/Archbishop-Canterbury-apologises-saying-climate-change-worse-NAZIS.html)
At the same time Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged that India’s carbon emissions would be ‘net zero’ by 2070.
Net zero, or becoming carbon neutral, means not adding to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-59125143)
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Arguably, both leaders’ claims are quite disconnected from reality.
Welby seems to misunderstand the meaning of genocide, which must be a deliberate act directed at specific national groups, rather than any failure to act:
“In 1944, Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) coined the term 'genocide' in a book documenting Nazi policies of systematically destroying national and ethnic groups, including the mass murder of European Jews. He formed the word by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. Noting that the term denoted 'an old practice in its modern development,' Lemkin defined genocide as 'a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.' https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/what-is-genocide
Modi seems to think (or at least news media editors seem to think) that any pledge on behalf of a nation to act in 50 years is meaningful. 50 years ago American troops were still occupying Vietnam, Bangladesh and eastern Bengal were flooded, the World Trade Centre was under construction, while John Lennon released the album Imagine. Today few young people will be aware of these events and even to those of us who were alive at the time they will likely seem remote. Yet they were, in different ways, far more significant than a vague declaration by a politician at a conference. How many people will recall Modi’s pledge in 2071?
And realistically, how many ‘children of today’ will ‘rise up and bless’ today’s world leaders in 50 years? Surely, they will have their own problems, goals and contexts.
Maybe this is harsh, but shouldn’t people in positions of power temper their hubris by using concepts, evidence and predictions in a measured way?
It is proposed that people in positions of power and authority should take care to use concepts, evidence and predictions in a measured way