Let’s not bury our heads in sand

The world is on fire. But who will put out the flames when we are so caught up in multiple crises and trapped in a habit of procrastination? These polycrises are related, each feeding on the other—much like a flesh-eating bacteria. We need to get our heads out of the sand and start behaving like adults, rather than pushing away the changes that we need to be serious about. Let’s do a reality check.

India was hit by almost one extreme weather event a day in the first nine months of 2026. These not-so-natural disasters killed 2,500 people and 68,000 livestock, destroyed public infrastructure worth crores of rupees and decimated 72,000 houses, crippling the lives of the very poor and pushing them deeper into debt and penury. This is the human face of climate change, as documented in Climate India 2026, a report by the Centre for Science and Environment and Down To Earth.

The world has failed to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C—the guardrail, science had set years ago. This breach will now intensify the climate emergency, with much worse impacts to come in the years ahead. This could also lead to irreversible damage, if tipping points are crossed, such as the projected dieback of the Amazon rainforest, the thawing of permafrost or the collapse of major ice sheets. This is according to the UNEP’s “Emissions Gap Report”. Then there is the dire warning from the Planetary Health Check that says not only are the world’s temperatures rising but also its ability to “sequester” and “soak” emissions is declining. In other words, the worlds' natural carbon sinks, the forests, oceans and soils, which today sequester roughly half the emissions released by humans, are under threat. This only means more bad news in the future.

And that is not all. The western world is up in flames—literally and figuratively—as people protest against the cost of living and governments grapple with mounting public debt and financial strains. As a result, these countries have even less interest or capacity to do what is needed—slash emissions, given their disproportionate use of the atmospheric space, and substantially increase payments for climate costs in the countries of the South. This means that the poor in the climate-vulnerable countries are pitted against the poor in wealthy world, even as the rich go laughing to the bank. This is where the rubber meets the broken, potholed road we call our world.

There are two undeniable facts we must confront. One, the world is not on track to contain the rise in temperatures because it has never seriously addressed the challenge of climate inequality. Wealthy countries have a disproportionate responsibility to cut emissions, not simply because they have greater resources to do so, but because they have amassed wealth by externalising and never paying for the cost of pollution. Think about it like the cost of clean-up that needs to be paid when industries pollute so that they can produce. That is what happened in the old world as these pollutants, namely carbon dioxide and methane and other gases, were released into the common atmospheric space. The problem was compounded by the fact that these gases have a long residence life; some emitted say 150 years ago, would exist still. Now, think of the atmosphere as a cup, which keeps filling and the dangers cascade.

This is why, it was agreed 34 years ago, at the Rio Conference where the original climate agreement was signed, that wealthy countries had the responsibility to take the lead in cutting emissions, so that there would be room for the rest of the world—including countries like China and India—to develop. To ensure that these countries could grow without pollution, finance and technology transfers would be provided. None of this happened. And now, the world is on the cusp of catastrophic impacts, because the rich did not cut emissions fast enough and emissions from the then poor countries have increased. This is climate injustice. It cannot be undone. Instead, it is the imperative that must drive solutions to combat climate change.

There is another inequity, which mirrors the climate inequity. The cry for change that is coming from what we consider the wealthy parts of the world is about social injustice. In France, where protests of the young are raging, there has been a huge cut in public spending in education; in Spain, the shortage of affordable housing has become a major source of discontent; and so on. But in all these countries private wealth has increased and is even more concentrated than ever. This is because wealth distribution—much like emission redistribution—never happened.

For real change, we must listen to the anger of the young, not dismiss it. Worldwide, they are saying aloud what we only dare to whisper. They can see the writing on the wall: they are caught between rising temperatures, uncertainty in jobs because of artificial intelligence and an economic model that seems to work only for the super-rich. Their anger is a mirror held up to us. Let’s for once embrace it so that we can change the present and their future. For all our sakes.