The Guardian newspaper was first published in Manchester in 1821. It is generally regarded as a centre-left paper that employs some very fine journalists.
Its online edition is one of the most widely read in the world and its combined print and online editions reach some 9 million readers. The paper’s environmental coverage is provided by a team of seven environmental writers and each month four million visitors go to the Guardian for its environmental coverage.
Its editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, is stepping down from his position in the next few months, after 20 years in the job. In an article he wrote in March, he pondered whether he had any regrets over the past two decades.
Very few was the considered opinion, save for this: the paper had not done justice “to this huge, overshadowing, overwhelming issue of how climate change will probably, within the lifetime of our children, cause untold havoc and stress to our species”.
There are many who would challenge this position as being overly optimistic. In This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein cites the warning of the International Energy Agency (IEA) that if we do not get emissions under control by 2017 the fossil fuel economy will lock-in extremely dangerous warming.
She quotes the IEA’s chief economist, Fatih Birol: "The door to reach two degrees is about to close. In 2017 it will be closed forever.”
Rusbridger says that the coming climate change debate is centred on two points. The first is what governments can do.
The next important international meeting on climate change will take place in Paris in December this year. Given that it is almost certain to go the way of Kyoto, Copenhagen and all of the other international conferences held since emission reductions was first discussed at an international level in Toronto in 1988, the chance of governments agreeing to anything meaningful is probably about zero.
The second point he raises is how we can prevent those who own and control the planet’s remaining reserves of coal, gas and oil from being allowed to dig most of it up.
With the aim of keeping these fossil fuels from being burned, the Guardian has launched a "Keep it in the Ground" campaign.
It will examine fossil fuel subsidies, lobbyists for the industry, name the worst polluters and who is funding them, and call on pension funds and businesses to take their money from the big risk fossil fuel companies.
The Guardian Media Group, the Guardian’s parent company, is leading by example, and has divested its entire £800 million portfolio (about $1.4 billion) from fossil fuels and committed to re-invest in socially responsible alternatives.
It is now publicly urging the world’s two largest charitable foundations — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Welcome Trust — to stop investing in oil, coal and gas companies.
All of the actions that the Guardian campaign is set to do are already being done by individuals and groups, small and large, around the world. But having a paper with the enormous reach of the Guardian campaigning against fossil fuels is an important step in the right direction.
Ultimately though, as Naomi Klein and many others have pointed out, climate change is not about curtailing carbon use — it’s about changing from capitalism to sustainable living.
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