Have you noticed the UK’s falling emissions?

In my box of climate communication tools for workshops and talks, I have an activity where I get people to guess the trajectory of Britain’s carbon emissions. I have a series of columns of different sizes that represent Britain’s emissions, and I invite people to put them in order. I used it at a conference for science teachers a couple of weeks ago.

Most of the time, people make an ascending staircase. Sometimes they add a small dip at the end, but they almost always underestimate just how far our emissions have fallen. If you put them in the correct order, they make the pattern we see in this newly updated graph from Carbon Brief:

Generally speaking, people don’t seem to be aware of this progress. The general perception is that things are getting worse and worse, and indeed they are when it comes to global emissions. But the fact that emissions are falling in the UK – and have been for my entire lifetime – isn’t common knowledge, which is why I keep putting it in my talks.

It’s important because it means that all climate action in the UK happens in the context of finishing a job that’s already well underway. We have a headstart, thanks to the hard work of others, and we get to build on existing success. That’s good news.

When I say this sort of thing, the greenest person in the room will then out themselves with a quibble – what about outsourced emissions? It’s not fast enough. Current policy will blow that momentum. Some sectors aren’t pulling their weight. We’ve picked the low hanging fruit and future emissions cuts will prove harder. Et cetera. These are all legitimate questions, and I’ve written about all of them. None of them trouble the essential fact of falling emissions.

It’s worth pausing to ask why environmentally minded people are uncomfortable about this success – and I include myself in that too. Why the instinct to poke holes in it and deny progress? Maybe it’s because we’re wary of those trying to take credit for it. I presume it’s mainly because we want everyone to know how serious the climate crisis is, and how urgent. We don’t want to risk complacency. Perhaps people will think the problem is basically solved, at least here in Britain. Other people need to take action, but we’ve done our bit.

That’s not what I see when I talk about it. I see the opposite – people feel hopeful and encouraged. Their actions will be meaningful because we’re already going in the right direction. We get to accelerate the change. We get to finish the job and take pride in our contribution.

If you’re serious about climate action, you will still have to take a stand in certain contexts and on particular issues. You might make a few sacrifices along the way. But that larger story of falling emissions keeps the harder aspects of climate action in perspective. We’re winning this thing – shouldn’t more of us know that?