Information Booklet

Introduction

The Global Assembly is a gathering of people from across the world to discuss the climate and ecological crisis.

What is a citizens’ assembly?

A citizens’ assembly is a group of people from different walks of life, who come together to learn about a certain topic, to deliberate on possible action, make proposals to governments and leaders and generate ideas to galvanise wider change. Members of a citizens’ assembly represent a miniature version of the place in question (say, a country or city, or in this case the world), based on demographic criteria such as gender, age, income and education level.

What is the Global Assembly?

The 2021 Global Assembly consists of: a 100-person Core Citizens’ Assembly; local Community Assemblies that anyone can run anywhere; and cultural activities to engage more people.

Later this year, there will be two major United Nations conferences of world leaders: the Conference of the Parties on climate change (COP 26) and the Biodiversity Conference (COP15). In the lead up to these COP negotiations, the Core Assembly is bringing together a group of 100 people, representing a snapshot of the population of the planet to learn about the climate and ecological crisis, to deliberate and share their key messages to be presented at COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021. This year, the Global Assembly will deliberate on the following question: “How can humanity address the climate and ecological crisis in a fair and effective way?”

Introduction to the learning materials

This information booklet is part of a series of resources that will support the learning and deliberation phase of the Global Assembly. The purpose of these learning materials is to provide information and data so that you can form your own opinions on the climate and ecological crisis.

Our hope is that this document is a springboard to ongoing lines of inquiry that you will follow for perhaps years to come; and we actively encourage you to challenge any elements contained within and bring those questions or conclusions to the Global Assembly.

The climate and ecological crisis is a complex topic and the result of many interconnected historical, social, economic and political factors. Although it can sometimes seem like a very modern problem, the roots of it go back many generations and at least two centuries.

This booklet is an introduction to some of the most important themes related to the climate and ecological crisis. To create these materials, a committee of experts was brought together to contribute their knowledge and wisdom. Details about the drafting process of this information booklet are available on the Global Assembly’s website.

There are many windows into the climate and ecological crisis and we have done the best we can to give a snapshot into the dominant themes, facts, and figures in a way that is concise and readable.

There is no pressure to read it all in one go. It is intended as a reference guide, and we hope it will be useful for you in your engagement with the Global Assembly, to support your learning and deliberation on the climate and ecological crisis.

To complement this information booklet, further resources such as: videos, animated presentations, artistic creations and testimonials of lived experience will be available on the Global Assembly website. Contextualisation of this information booklet and translation in several languages will be available on the Global Assembly wiki. 

More detailed meanings for the words highlighted in bold can be found in the Glossary section at the end of the booklet. Throughout this booklet temperature is given in the measurement of degrees Celsius (°C). Please refer to the glossary for translations to Fahrenheit (°F).

Executive summary

What will the world be like in the year 2050?

Every child born today will face the consequences of human-induced climate change and degradation of nature. It’s no longer a question of ‘if’, but ‘how much’. The extent to which people alive today and future generations will be affected depends on what we do now. Although a certain amount of warming and biodiversity loss are ‘locked in’ for the future, there is still time to limit further changes in climate and the loss of biodiversity, and to avoid the worst possible impacts of the climate and ecological crisis.

The causes of this climate and ecological crisis are rooted in history, and can be connected to the worldviews that have shaped the way that many societies operate today. Humans are part of nature and extremely dependent on nature to survive.

Climate change, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, and air and water pollution are highly interconnected. The quality of life of people living in all parts of the planet, and the prospects for current and future generations, depend on the action that is taken today to address these issues. Switching to renewable energy systems, conserving and restoring ecosystems and finding new, and better, ways to relate to nature will all be extremely important steps in the years to come. A recent survey has found that a majority of people in all regions of the world support action against climate change, even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect daily life.

Key points:

• Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, are causing the world’s temperature to increase. Rising global temperatures are affecting our climate and weather patterns in some ways that are irreversible – but some of the worst future consequences can be avoided depending on action taken today.

• As a result of pollution, climate change, destruction of natural habitats and exploitation, one million species of plants and animals are now threatened with extinction.

• Climate change and the loss of biodiversity threaten food and water security and human health.

Climate change is mostly being driven by an excess of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) , the most important human-produced greenhouse gas, is produced when humans burn fossil fuels for energy and transport, and when forests are destroyed. In the past two centuries this has caused the planet to warm by 1.2 degrees Celsius (°C) or 2.16 degrees Fahrenheit (°F). Scientists have found that global warming of 2°C (3.6°F) will be exceeded during the 21st century, unless there are significant reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. Although it doesn’t sound like a lot, this means the loss of lives and livelihoods of several hundred million people.

Rising temperatures means the Earth is now experiencing more frequent and intense heat waves, forest fires and crop failures. It also means big changes to rainfall, with much more rain in some places and less in others, leading to droughts and flooding.

Human activities on Earth are having a devastating impact on plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms. As a result of pollution, climate change, destruction of natural habitats and exploitation, one million out of the Earth’s eight million species of plants and animals are now threatened with extinction.

A lack of species diversity weakens ecosystems, making them more vulnerable to diseases and extreme weather and less capable of providing for the needs and wellbeing of humans.

• Biodiversity loss is less severe on land that is managed by indigenous peoples.

Much of the world’s biodiversity exists on the traditional and ancestral lands of indigenous peoples. Indigenous cultures have managed to live in harmony with nature for millennia, and possess valuable knowledge for conserving and restoring ecosystems and cultivating biodiversity. However, a long history of colonization and marginalization means that many of these communities have been forced or impelled to leave their livelihoods and ancestral lands, or become climate refugees due to climate change related disasters. As a result, these unique cultures, knowledge systems, languages and identities are also under threat.

• Not all countries are equally responsible for climate change, rich countries have historically generated more greenhouse gases.

Burning fossil fuels is linked to economic development. As a result of this, rich countries like the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and countries in the European Union have produced the largest amount of greenhouse gases over time. Now, as the world population grows and countries like China and India follow the same development path as rich countries, more and more people are dependent on burning fossil fuels every year.

• Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we will not be able to limit warming to less than 2°C (3.6°F). This will have significant impacts on human wellbeing.

Living with climate change means living with uncertainty. One of these uncertainties is around the idea of a ‘tipping point’. Climate tipping points are a ‘point of no return’, when the combined effects of climate change result in irreversible damages that would ‘cascade’ across the world, like dominos. Once a tipping point is reached, a series of events is triggered, leading towards the creation of a planet that is inhospitable for many people and other life forms. Science cannot predict with any certainty when a tipping point might be reached.

• In 2015, world leaders met in Paris and agreed to limit global warming to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C.

• According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 1.5°C of warming is likely to be reached by 2040. However, the 2°C target is still very dependent on the level of CO₂ emissions produced over the next several decades.

• If all the current pledges (nationally determined contributions) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are met – and we don’t know yet if they will – this is likely to result in at least 3°C (5.4°F) of global warming, despite the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit warming to well below 2°C.

• Many of the commitments of the Paris Agreement by poorer countries may not be implemented because they are dependent on financial support from abroad. So far little international support has materialized.

Countries are expected to increase their commitment every five years. Since Paris, some progress has already been achieved. However, things are not moving fast enough to limit warming to 1.5°C. At the current rate, warming will reach 1.5°C by 2040, or earlier, and continue thereafter to increase if additional actions are not taken now.

• Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of people in 50 countries across the world now believe that climate change is a global emergency.

• To keep the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C within reach, the 2020s need to be the decade of significantly reducing emissions globally.

World leaders will meet in Glasgow later this year to talk about what to do about the climate crisis, and in China to talk about the ecological crisis. It is vital that governments start to recognise the interactions between these two crises, and develop mutually compatible goals, targets and actions.

Now that the goals of the Paris Agreement have been set, the Glasgow COP26 should be about creating a more detailed roadmap of how to achieve them. Some important considerations will include how to agree on more effective near-term emission reductions. For example, transitioning away from fossil fuels,​​ improving the use of energy, limiting deforestation, and converting net-zero pledges into action.

What is the climate crisis?

In this section, we explore the phenomena known as “climate change”. What is it? What’s causing it? And why is it urgent?

Climate change is linked to the long-term warming of the planet. This happens because large amounts of greenhouse gases are being released into the atmosphere.

The atmosphere is an invisible layer around the Earth which contains many different gases. “Greenhouse gases” are a specific group of gases that can change the thermal balance of the atmosphere and warm the Earth. The main greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide (produced by burning fossil fuels and deforestation), methane and nitrous oxide (both produced from energy and agricultural practices).

One way to picture this is to imagine a small, enclosed room on a very hot day. The scorching sun is beating down on the roof, but inside the room there are no windows or doors for the heat to escape from. Because it has nowhere to go, the heat builds up in the room. Similarly, when there are too many greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, excess heat is created.

Since people in rich countries started to burn fossil fuels around 200 years ago, global surface temperatures have risen by 1.2°C (34.2°F). Although it doesn’t sound like a lot, this small difference is already having far reaching impacts on the lives of many. Rising temperatures means people are now experiencing more frequent and intense heat waves, forest fires and crop failures. It also means big changes to rainfall, with much more rain in some places and less in others, leading to droughts and flooding.

The main greenhouse gas emitted by humans is CO₂. Human activities have also degraded or destroyed many of the parts of nature that use CO₂ and remove it from the atmosphere, such as forests and soil.

Floods, droughts, heatwaves and hurricanes happened before climate change too, but climate science tells us that climate change makes these kinds of extreme “weather events” more likely or intense, putting millions of people in all regions of the world at risk of losing their homes, being killed or injured or not having enough food to eat or clean water to drink.

Scientists say that unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, this situation will soon become too severe to meet the Paris targets ⁠– this is why what we are experiencing now is a climate and ecological crisis.

Figure 1: Change in global surface temperature (annual average) as observed and simulated using human & natural and only natural factors (both 1850-2020).

What is the ecological crisis?

What impact are human activities having on the other species we share our planet with? In this section we take a look at why biodiversity is so important for human health and flourishing, and the role of indigenous communities across the world.

Humans are part of a web of life that is much larger than our species alone. Human health is intricately interconnected with the health of animals, plants and the shared environment. As a result of how humans – particularly people in the world’s richest countries – interact with nature, some animal and plant species are becoming extinct. The pace of extinction is much faster today compared with the rest of history.

Biodiversity refers to all the varieties of life that can be found on Earth, such as plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms. Each individual species has a specific role to play in the health of the ecosystem. However, as a result of pollution, climate change, invasive alien species, destruction of natural habitats and exploitation (such as overfishing), one million of the world’s estimated eight million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction.

There are many reasons for this. Forests across the world are home to the majority of the world’s different tree, bird and animal species, but every year huge patches of forest are destroyed when the land is converted for humans to use for agriculture, or other activities.

The food system and agriculture are one of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss, with agriculture alone being the identified threat to 24,000 species at risk of extinction. Currently the world's entire food supply primarily depends on very few plant species. In the last centuries, there has been a focus on producing more and more food at lower and lower costs. This intensive agricultural production has come at the expense of the Earth’s soil and ecosystems, making soil gradually less fertile overtime.

Current food production depends heavily on fertilisers, pesticides, energy, land and water, and on unsustainable practices such as monocropping (farming of only one crop intensively) and heavy tilling (disruption to the soil structure with tools and machinery). This has destroyed the homes of many birds, mammals, insects and other organisms, threatening or destroying their breeding, feeding and nesting places, and crowding out many native plant species.

A lack of species diversity weakens ecosystems and makes them more vulnerable to diseases and extreme weather, and less capable of providing for the needs and wellbeing of humans. Many important drugs used for treating illnesses like cancer are natural or are synthetic products inspired by things found in nature.

The world population is increasing year on year, which means more and more people will be reliant on ecosystems to meet their basic needs. Loss of biodiversity is anticipated to accelerate in coming decades, unless urgent action is made to halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems and to limit climate change. This is why it is referred to as a crisis.

The role of indigenous people in conserving biodiversity

On average the trend of biodiversity loss have been less severe in areas held or managed by indigenous peoples and local communities.

It is estimated that there are more than 370 million indigenous people spread across 70 countries worldwide. Living responsibly and in reciprocity and harmony with nature is a core value of many indigenous cultures, and these values are often distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.

Spread across the world from the Arctic to the South Pacific, indigenous people are the descendants - according to a common definition - of those who inhabited a country or a geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived. The new arrivals later became dominant through conquest, occupation, settlement or other means.

Comprising less than 5 percent of the world's population, indigenous peoples protect 80 percent of land-based biodiversity. For example, in Cusco, Peru, a community of Quechua people are currently conserving more than 1,400 native varieties of one of the world’s staple crops – the potato. Without this safeguarding of species diversity, many of these varieties might have gone extinct forever. 

There are still so many species of plants, animals and insects which are undocumented or unknown by science. Most of this biodiversity likely exists on the traditional and ancestral lands of indigenous people. Indigenous cultures have managed to live in harmony with nature for millennia, and possess valuable knowledge for conserving and restoring ecosystems and cultivating biodiversity.

Yet across the world, indigenous communities have had to leave their livelihoods and ancestral lands due to a loss of land because of large-scale development projects, or become climate refugees due to climate change-related disasters. For example in Alaska, the US state with the largest indigneous population, rising sea levels and increasing wildfires has forced the relocation of some of these communities.

Due to centuries-long history of marginalization and colonization, indigenous peoples are nearly three times as likely to be living in extreme poverty compared to their non-indigenous counterparts. The crisis in biodiversity is also entangled with the future of these unique and diverse cultures, knowledge systems, languages and identities.

Why are we in a climate and ecological crisis?

In this section we explore how some of the dominant ‘worldviews’ of the past centuries have shaped an attitude to nature that underlies the climate and ecological crisis today.

The climate and biodiversity crisis is a complex problem and the result of many intersecting political, economic and social issues. One of the factors underlying the difficulty in meeting this challenge is some of the “worldviews” underpinning the climate and ecological crisis.

A worldview is a bit like a pair of glasses we use to see the world around us. Our worldview represents our core values and beliefs, and it shapes how we think and what we expect from the world. It’s influenced by our own personal experiences, the beliefs and values passed to us from our families and teachers, and the beliefs and values of the culture we grew up in. Our worldview affects how we see and act in the world.

Today “economic growth” is often used as a marker of progress and an indicator that standards of living are improving. However, the idea of economic growth is often coupled to a worldview that humans dominate and exploit nature. This “worldview” is at the heart of many high-polluting nations, and many believe has its roots 400 years ago, in a time period that’s known as the Scientific Revolution. Intellectuals of the time wrote about how mankind was superior to nature, and how it was the right of humans to dominate over nature. The ideas that were first spread around this time were extremely influential over the following centuries, and helped to inform the laws, technologies, ways of life, customs and cultures that are still present in rich countries today. Many of these ways of life have since been passed on to, or imposed on, other countries across the world.

Since the Industrial Revolution, advancements in science and technology distanced people living in rich countries further away from their direct dependence on nature. Millions of people moved to the city and started working in factories, where they operated machines, instead of making things with hand tools and working on the land. In this period new technologies like the steam train, the automobile and the electric lightbulb rapidly transformed people’s lives – much like how mobile phones, personal computers and the internet have changed life today compared with 50 years ago. Through new technologies it was possible to dominate and extract from nature in a way that had not been possible before.

The Industrial Revolution allowed for the mining of fossil fuels on a mass scale. Burning fossil fuels has been the dominant source of energy for over 100 years, and this has driven economic development. As a result of this, rich countries like the US, the UK, and the countries in the EU have produced the largest amount of greenhouse gases over time. Now, as countries like China and India follow the same development path as rich countries, more and more people are dependent on burning fossil fuels every year. With its rapidly growing economy, China is currently the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Historically the US has been the largest emitter, meaning that it has emitted the most amount of greenhouse gases over time. Within the five top contributors to emissions, the US also has the highest CO₂ emissions per person.

Human beings are biological animals, and Planet Earth is our habitat. Rather than being separate from nature, we are actually part of nature and dependent on it for our survival. Microorganisms in our gut aid digestion, while others compose part of our skin. Pollinators such as bees and wasps help produce the food we eat, while trees and plants absorb the CO₂ we expel and produce the oxygen that we need to breathe.

The climate and ecological crisis is a multidimensional problem, and it is impossible to find one single narrative about why this is happening, or why there has been a failure to address it. What’s more, it is very difficult for people to comprehend the scale and implications of the climate and ecological crisis, and this limits people’s ability to act as decisively and urgently as is necessary.

Ways of living that are detrimental to nature and emit carbon are deeply embedded in modern societies. Some call the climate and ecological crisis a “crisis of relationship” between humans and nature. In order to transition to a more sustainable future, they say we need to “make