Climate bill comes due for delusional leaders disconnected from reality

Our whole lives, we’ve been told that our planet is “at the tipping point” from human actions. It almost feels like a universal experience of growing up when you begin to realize that it wasn’t an exaggerated phrase thrown around by adults, but rather a real and critical threat to our survival as a species. That, of course, continues into the United Nation’s most recent Environment Programme report, where the new best-case scenario for temperature rise over the decades to come was shifted to 1.8°C. At the moment, we as a society have already experienced our first 1.5°C rise (with the pre-industrial period of 1850-1900 as a baseline) over the course of a year from 2023 to 2024. For some clarification, the degree rise from this period is not stagnant, but still begins to spark alarm signals in anyone who knows a thing or two about climate change and how quickly temperature changes can spiral out of control. A tenth of a degree Celsius may not seem like a lot, but each miniscule increment in temperature can have a variety of effects on the world around us-from acidification and bleaching of beloved scenery like Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to the “250,000 additional deaths per year from undernutrition, malaria…and heat stress alone,” (UNEP, WHO).

Here’s the problem though: we can only expect that “best-case scenario” limit of 1.8 degrees if the world as a whole eliminates a majority of its CO2 emissions. The current implemented practices are no longer (and perhaps never have been) enough, with a potential 3.2°C endpoint if the world continues on this path. The 2015 Paris Agreement-which was supposed to keep temperatures limited to this critical 1.5°C mark-has been partially followed ever since its signing by 195 countries over a decade ago, but it is now about how countries can “limit how long temperatures remain above 1.5°C” (Reuters), rather than staying under it. So, what are we doing wrong? There isn’t one specific place to point the blame, but a lot of it lies within governments and large corporations as a whole. While it does obviously help to reduce, reuse, and recycle, most CO2 emissions come from corporations and the ultrarich. It’s infuriating that the same people urging us to make a change in the world in our daily lives are actively worsening that same world, and people seem to just be content with it happening. We can’t be tolerant of that, however. As nice as it feels to “do your part” in the climate crisis, we have reached the point where that isn’t enough. Change needs to come from within the system itself, not just from the average citizen.

This dreary warning is even more worrisome upon consideration of the fact that President Donald Trump submitted a request to remove the United States from the Paris Agreement in January of last year, which was set into effect on Jan. 27 of this year. He would have done it right away, if he could, but Article 28 of the aforementioned Agreements required that a one year notice was given to withdraw. After all, Executive Order 14162 was not the first time that the United States left the Paris Agreements: since its signing in 2016, the US left under order of President Trump’s first term in 2020, only to rejoin under President Biden in 2021. President Trump’s supposed excuse for the withdrawal during his first term had been due to “unfair economic burden imposed on American workers, businesses, and taxpayers” (Department of State), even though that same article quotes the 19% growth in economy over the same 12 year time period that had a 13% greenhouse gas reduction. However, anybody who is familiar with President Trump should recognize that it simply boils down to whatever benefits the elite the most. One can only hope that “cleaning up the climate” will be at the top of the to-do list of the next officeholder.

With all of that being said, how does this reflect on the world as a whole? Well, to sum it up…poorly. And to give a more expansive answer…poorly. Yes, that’s all that really needs to be said to describe how we as a species have dealt with the self-induced problem that is global warming. We have been warned of the drastic impacts that the continued usage of fossil fuels could have on our planet since the 1950s. One of the grandfathers of the atomic bomb itself urged fuel companies to begin (or, at the very least, consider) considering alternatives like the alluring nuclear power. That seemed like a problem for the future, though! Only, we are now in that future. It’s absurd that, at the same time these dreadful announcements regarding the climate are being released, we have countries like the United States actively working backwards to somersault our beloved planet into our own grave. I once heard someone describe all of this as “only a problem for humanity itself,” that “other species have at least evolved to deal with the changing world…yet we rely on our own inventions to save us,” and that sums it up incredibly. Now, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been good change. There are countries like Denmark with over 88% of their energy coming from renewable sources (and projected to be 100% by 2030), Lithuania (which plans to be a clean energy exporter by 2030), and Portugal (75% renewables, goal of 93% by 2030, 100% by 2040) to name a few. Even smaller or more impoverished countries, like Luxembourg and Djibouti, have managed to shift towards renewable energy, with the latter having grown from 0 to 67% in five years (climatecouncil.org). 

We can’t only focus on the positives, though. Larger countries, such as India, China, and the United States, commit a large portion of the carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere worldwide, with 52.3% of global levels coming from just these countries. Things have to change, and they have to change fast, much faster than they have been. Humanity—the United States in particular—needs to stop electing decrepit politicians who won’t live to see the next 10 years. We have gotten to the point where Congressional seats can go missing for months at a time, only to show back up as if nothing ever happened. This is, quite frankly, absurd. Why should people who won’t be impacted by a change be the ones to decide if it takes effect? If nothing changes, we’ll just be a small foot in the history books written by whichever species succeeds us on a recovering earth: “Humans inhabited the Earth for several thousand years, but did not die of natural events or disease. No, they died from their own folly and ignorance.”

by Autumn Bowers

Published October 5, 2026

Oshkosh West Index Volume 123 Issue 1