Why We Are To Blame: A Personal Reflection

Views expressed are personal and based on my individual perspectives and experience. These thoughts do not represent the positions or policies of my employer or any affiliated organizations.

For more than a decade, I have been the archetypal sustainability professional: armed with greenhouse gas accounting expertise, setting science-based targets, and aligning corporate strategies with global climate goals. My PhD research focused on climate and development, and my career revolved around helping organizations navigate the transition to a low-carbon future. I was and is, by all accounts, part of the solution—or so I thought.

As we witness global temperatures breach the 1.5°C threshold for the first time in 2024, I find myself reflecting on my journey from a devoted climate action professional to a deeply conflicted observer. This isn't just another commentary on climate change—it's a confession from someone who has spent years in the trenches of sustainability and academic research, only to realize we might have been chasing the wrong star.

The moment of clarity didn't come as an epiphany but as a slow-burning realization. During countless conferences and strategy meetings, I watched as the 1.5°C target transformed from a scientific benchmark into something akin to religious doctrine. We had turned a number into a totem, and in doing so, we'd lost sight of the complex reality it represented.

The fundamental flaw wasn't in recognizing climate change as a critical challenge—it was in our approach to addressing it. We created an industry of alignment, a cathedral of carbon accounting, where measurement became more important than meaningful action. While we excelled at calculating our trajectory toward climate catastrophe, we failed to create compelling economic arguments for transformation. I even challenged my colleagues to write letters to their 2030 selves, detailing our hoped-for achievements in climate action.

I made a bold prediction then: we would end up congratulating ourselves for creating a cult of believers rather than a community of doers. I had ended most of the conversations with the phrase "I am either stupid or smart."

Looking back from 2024, that prediction carries a painful prescience. Our failure hasn't been in the science—the warnings about climate change were and remain irrefutable. Rather, we failed in our approach to acting on that science. We embraced a form of climate action that prioritized perfection over progress, absolutism over adaptation. The sustainability profession, of which I am a proud member, had inadvertently created a parallel universe where target-setting became a substitute for transformation.

The corporate world responded predictably. They hired sustainability teams, published climate commitments, and joined industry coalitions. But beneath this flurry of activity, the fundamental business models remained largely unchanged. We became experts at measuring, reporting, and communicating about climate change, while the actual work of reducing emissions took a back seat to the pageantry of pledges.

What troubles me most isn't that we tried and failed—it's that we have created an illusion of progress that may have actually hindered real change. By focusing so intensely on the 1.5°C target, we inadvertently promoted a binary view of success and failure in climate action. This approach left little room for the messy, incremental progress that characterizes most significant societal transformations.

The recent breach of the 1.5°C threshold isn't just a scientific milestone—it's a wake-up call about the limitations of our current approach to climate action. It exposes the gulf between our ambitious targets and the practical realities of transforming global systems. We've excelled at creating frameworks for change while struggling to implement the change itself.

This isn't an argument for abandonment or despair. Rather, it's a call for a more nuanced, realistic approach to climate action. We need to move beyond the false comfort of target-setting to the harder work of system change. This means embracing the complexity of the challenge rather than reducing it to a single number.

What might this look like in practice? First, we need to acknowledge that while global targets are important for coordinating action, local and sectoral approaches that account for specific contexts and capabilities may be more effective. Second, we must shift our focus from perfect solutions to practical progress, recognizing that imperfect action often trumps perfect planning.

We should also reconsider our metrics of success. Instead of focusing solely on temperature targets, we need to measure progress in terms of actual systemic changes: the transformation of energy systems, the evolution of industrial processes, the development of circular economy practices. These changes may not fit neatly into our current frameworks, but they represent real progress toward a more sustainable future.

The sustainability profession needs to evolve as well. We need fewer carbon accountants and more change agents, fewer target-setters and more system-thinkers. Our role should be to facilitate and accelerate transformation, not just to measure and report on it.

As I look back on my decision to step away from mainstream climate activism, I realize it wasn't an act of abandonment but one of realization. The path to meaningful climate action doesn't lie in better targets or more sophisticated measuring tools—it lies in fundamentally rethinking our approach to change.

The breach of the 1.5°C threshold shouldn't be seen as the end of climate action but as an opportunity to embrace a more honest, nuanced approach to the challenge. We need to move beyond the comfort of targets and frameworks to the messier, more challenging work of actual transformation.

This isn't a message of despair—it's a call for realism and renewed purpose. The climate crisis remains the defining challenge of our time, but addressing it requires more than targets and pledges. It requires honest reflection about what has and hasn't worked, and the courage to change course when our chosen path proves inadequate.

The time has come to admit that while our intentions were noble, our approach has been flawed. Only by acknowledging this can we begin to develop more effective ways of addressing the climate crisis. The question isn't whether we can still achieve our climate goals—it's whether we're willing to honestly confront what it will take to get there.