WHEN people 50 years from now look back on the headlines of the past few weeks, they won’t understand why we didn’t act with more urgency. Even in a best-case scenario, they will be living with impacts of climate change that we can scarcely comprehend.

They will have every right to be furious at us.

In recent days, the news has been full of stories about wildfires raging across parts of Europe; reports of July being the hottest month on record; the warning from the UN secretary-general that we are moving from global warming to global boiling; predictions that the gulf stream could be close to collapse; and fears that the earth is in ‘unchartered territory’.

The warnings about what is happening to the climate and the implications for the planet we live on are stark.

We can’t pretend ignorance – not about the fact of what is happening or the man-made causes of it. There should be a strong political consensus around the need to act, and no dispute that the question is how we make the necessary changes, not if.

And yet, everywhere we look, depressingly – alarmingly – the opposite seems to be the case.

Alongside the stories of looming climate catastrophe are headlines showing that the merest attempt to stem the causes of climate change, clean up the air we breathe, or reduce the waste polluting our streets and seas, is being turned into a political football.

Those who believe we should be doing more, not less, on climate change are accused by many Tories, amongst others, of ‘Green wokery’ – ‘woke’ being the culture war insult of choice hurled by those who have lost the argument.

At a time when the challenges humanity faces are enormous, potentially existential, and the need for long-term solutions has rarely been greater, our politics seems woefully small and short-term.

Pushback against measures like the Low Emission Zones in Glasgow and London and the Deposit Return Scheme – initiatives already operating successfully in many other countries – is bad enough.

But Rishi Sunak posing in Margaret Thatcher’s old Rover promising to scrap measures designed to encourage people into lower emission cars and greener forms of travel shows him to be deeply unserious.

And the Tory promise to ‘max out’ North Sea oil and gas is the most lamentable leadership failure of all.

It undermines efforts to tackle climate change.

And it also is a dereliction of our duty towards the northeast and those who work in the sector and its supply chain.

As the Scottish Government’s own analysis shows, the North Sea is a declining basin.

By 2050, even if technically feasible new fields got the go-ahead, production will be a tiny fraction of what it was at its peak.

Even without a climate emergency, there is a need to make a just transition to renewables as quickly as possible to ensure new jobs are created.

No one is arguing that existing oil and gas ‘taps’ can or should be turned off immediately – but in the face of a climate emergency, as the planet quite literally burns, it is surely not responsible to turn more fossil fuel ‘taps’ on.

Those arguing for fields like Rosebank to get the go-ahead say it will improve energy security and lower costs. These claims are deeply dubious.

Most of what is left in the North Sea is oil, not gas – and 80% of North Sea oil is already exported.

Untapped supplies of North Sea gas are more limited, and even if the quantities were sufficient to drive down costs, there is no guarantee the gas would stay in the UK – it will be traded on the international markets by the private companies who own it and sold to the highest bidder.

Claims about security and cost are overstated.

But the impact on the environment of burning more fossil fuel is not – that is substantial and very real.

New exploration also risks slowing down a just transition to renewables.

There are limited and scarce supplies of investment, skills and materials.

The more of these taken up by new oil and gas development, the less there will be for the scale-up of the renewable technologies that will provide long-term benefits for the environment, and in jobs, supply chains and energy security.

Time is running out for politicians to get serious about climate change.

All the polls show that’s what the public wants, which renders recent political manoeuvring even more senseless.

Understandably, people do worry about who will pay the short-term costs of transition (in the longer term, cleaner energy will deliver savings).

The challenge for politicians then is to lead the transition with purpose and at pace, while ensuring that those who’ve done most to cause climate change bear a fair share of the cost.

It’s time to stop the short-term, cynical, political game-playing and find the courage and unity to act, no matter how hard the decisions needed might be.

If we fail to do so, then future generations – assuming they still have a planet to inhabit – will not forgive us.

And nor should they.