COP 29 and the loss of 1.5C

by Indigo Rumbelow

Where were you when we passed 1.5C of heating?

As we pass by a global temperature rise of 1.5C, world leaders praise oil and gas as a gift from god, scientists declare record breaking heat, and thousands suffer climate disasters in towns still being advertised holiday resorts, myself and other climate defenders watched on TV from prison cells around the world (Azerbaijan, UK, USA, Uganda).

I am currently being held on remand in HMP Bronzefield, a privately run prison near Heathrow Airport. The director takes home north of £120,000 per annum, prisoners are fed on £2.30 per day and fights over food regularly break out. Those who vape and non-smokers are forced to share cramped rooms, and allegations of mis-conduct against guards are rife. Our days are stressful and unpredictable, despite this I remain resolute in my decision to do everything in my power to stand up against our criminal government.

I began this chapter of my life three years ago when with a small group we came together to make oil a toxic brand, build a campaign with a political voice capable of confronting fossil funded lies and stop the British government from licensing new oil and gas. On all of these fronts I feel we accomplished our aims, but despite this I am sitting with a sense of failure. The critical window of time to cut emissions, to avoid the greatest harm, has now closed.

Since the start of 2022, Just Stop Oil has delivered thousands of talks to tens of thousands of people and almost all of those talks began with this quote from the former UK Chief Scientist, SIr David King: “what we do in the next 3 to 4 years will determine the future of humanity”. He said this in 2020. I have done everything I can, given every ounce to create the change needed within this window of time. We may have won the battle to end new oil and gas, I fear we lost the war. The path to safety has gone and future dangerous levels of heating are baked in. Last week we were notified that 2024 will again be the hottest year on record, it is the first year in the last 3 million years to pass over 1.5C of warming. The last time CO2 levels were above 400 ppm (we are now at 422 ppm) temperatures were 2 to 3C warmer than pre-industrial times – this means that even if we stop emitting right now, we can expect temperatures to continue rising for decades, smashing the promises and pledges made in the 2015 Paris agreement. 

Despite the fact that this is the single greatest intergenerational betrayal known to humanity, passing over 1.5C of heating has barely made the news. Do not be fooled by this, these years will become infamous for failure and corruption. Just as today we ask where were you when planes hit the twin towers, the children of the future will ask Grandma, Grandpa what was it like before the floods came, when it snowed, when we passed 1.5C?

We are a pivotal generation, the memories of those alive today reach back to a time before fossil fuel addiction took hold, and reach into the future where the extent of the climate breakdown will become clear, let’s be frank, a future where billions will lose their livelihoods, their homes, their lives. But for now it is as if our civilisation has been pushed off a cliff , and as in a cartoon we are hovering in mid air waiting for the fall. Still here we are, legs running, making oil and gas deals at COP 29, expanding airports and roads and locking up those who dare to uphold international laws that say no government can just decide to kill millions and millions of people.

The campaign to ‘keep 1.5’ alive has been lost, it was in truth still-born. The struggle for climate justice is over. This is now a fight for survival where we battle over every 0.1C of heating, as millions of lives hang in the balance. I support the call of developing countries to be given funding of $1 trillion a year for adaptation. I also support the calls from small island states for a fossil fuel treaty to end the extraction and burning of fossil fuels by 2030, to commit to anything less is to detonate a carbon bomb upon billions of lives. Keir Starmer must support these motions at COP 29, or be the first prime minister to oversee not one but two genocides.

Indigo Rumbelow
Co-founder Just Stop Oil
HMP Bronzefield Nov 2024