Why saving the planet requires more honesty

Turning tides 

While I’d faced confrontation before, my decade of activism had until then felt buoyed by an unstoppable wave. A flurry of commitments followed in the wake of the Paris Agreement, which set out the 1.5°C threshold at COP 21. Climate action was suddenly cool: corporations were afraid of missing the boat and governments scrambled to appease angry citizens – who vocalised their dissent through movements like Extinction Rebellion and the youth strikes for climate. 

Even fossil fuel companies, the original architects of climate change denial and delay, were parroting the words splashed across our placards. The election of right-wing figures such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro was dismissed as a temporary setback. 

Yet, being booed on stage marked what I had been sensing as a real shift in the tide. These leaders weren’t even bothering to pretend that they cared; they were unabashed by the fact that their responsibility was to serve their shareholders, and their shareholders alone. 

We’re now midway through the “decisive decade” for climate, as Joe Biden put it during a 2021 address, and the world has changed – in some ways, unrecognisably so – but not in the direction we had hoped. The once-distant predictions of scientists are now part of our daily lives: wildfires visible from space; biblical flooding in Texas, Bavaria and New South Wales; record-breaking drought across the Horn of Africa. 

Each disaster is broadcast in real time to our smartphones, but climate and the environment have slipped down voters’ priorities, usurped by issues such as the cost of living, national security and, most recently, immigration. Trump 2.0 has led the largest roll-back of environmental protections in US history. And tech giants, shaping every corner of our lives, have quietly shelved their climate ambitions in favour of AI – ravenous in its appetite for energy and water. 

Shifting sands 

How did we veer so steeply off course? Maybe, in part, because this ‘momentum’ was built on shaky ground – punctuated by hollow buzzwords. Carbon capture has proven a costly distraction that prolongs reliance on fossil fuels. Offsetting has turned ecological destruction into a balance-sheet exercise. ESG is a glorified marketing tool. And vague net-zero commitments have allowed big polluters to kick the can down the road. These ‘solutions’, and the people who championed them, failed to recognise something critical: this is not a crisis of technology, but of power. 

Behind the glossy pledges, a handful of actors have been amassing ever more economic, political and cultural influence. Following current trends, Oxfam research published in January 2025 forecasts that there will be five trillionaires within a decade; meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely budged since 1990 – with 3.6 billion people (an estimated 44% of humanity) living below the World Bank’s $6.85 poverty line. Corporations have lobbied relentlessly to block regulation and funded elections to secure pliant politicians. Media conglomerates, owned by the same elites, have twisted public discourse and created scapegoats (trans people one month, small boats the next) to deflect attention from themselves. 

“In moments of crisis, whether a pandemic or climate disaster, you quickly learn how much you need your neighbours”

And, since I’m parsing blame, many of us working within the climate movement have failed to call out this power grab, or the defence of ‘economic growth’ behind which it masquerades. Those who challenge the status quo are quickly branded radical and naive (or even ‘communist’, as I was when Elon Musk turned me into a meme). 

The deep-seated disillusionment we see across the political spectrum today is born out of betrayal. Citizens were promised a greener, fairer world, but instead face rising bills, declining nature and widening inequality. Each broken promise corrodes trust. And what fills the gap when governments, corporations and international agreements fail to deliver? A dangerous vacuum: one now exploited by populist figures such as Trump and Nigel Farage, who thrive on division. 

If the past decade has taught us anything, it is that tinkering at the margins will not suffice. Real solutions must confront power head-on, asking: who holds it, who benefits, and who is left to suffer? That means discarding some dangerous myths. First, that those who profit most from the current system will be the ones to fix it; they have every reason not to. Second, the myth of individualism, spoon-fed daily through consumer culture and social media: the notion that we are selfish by nature, destined to compete rather than cooperate. And finally, the myth that your neighbour is your rival, or that you have less in common with someone seeking safety by boat than you do someone arriving by yacht.

Making waves 

In moments of crisis, whether a pandemic or climate disaster, you quickly learn how much you need your neighbours. The real work ahead must be collective: building movements, reshaping institutions, redistributing power. Individual action only becomes transformative when it’s joined up. We don’t need 100 perfect activists, but millions of imperfect ones, working together. That also means learning to cooperate across differences. Building a tent big enough to hold us all. 

Around the world, pockets of resistance are growing. In Switzerland, a group of women over the age of 64 sued their government for failing to protect them from deadly heatwaves – and won, establishing a precedent for climate justice grounded in human rights. Citizens’ assemblies, from France to Ireland, have shown that ordinary people, given information and deliberative space, can produce decisions far bolder than those of parliaments ensnared in partisan gridlock.  

Green populism is emerging in mainstream politics. Figures like Zack Polanski in the UK and Zohran Mamdani in New York are building platforms that channel anger into constructive energy; directed not at migrants or minorities, but at those in the business of turning us against one another. 

This latest wave of change is not vested in one leader or one institution, but is plural, participatory and accountable. It may be nascent, but it points to the possibility of a politics rooted in trust and shared ownership. A politics where democracy isn’t as flimsy as going to the polls once every four years or being asked to choose between a climate change denier and seasoned procrastinator, but an everyday practice. One that is rooted in collective stewardship of nature and our neighbourhoods. Where our social contracts bridge divides across communities – across cultures, religions and identities. Where we look out for one another in moments of crisis. 

It’s not too late to change course – but to do so, we must be honest with one another. Honest about how we got here, and where we go next. Honest about who will save us: not the billionaires, but the billions of us demanding change. Because while speaking the truth may be uncomfortable, if we do it together, our voices will rise into a tide too powerful to be silenced. 

Or even booed.