Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of the most important science communicators, once said that “science is not concerned with our opinions or beliefs. What is true is true, whether we believe it or not.” The phrase is simple and summarizes the great mistake of our time: believing that reality is optional. The climate, however, does not negotiate. While we postpone decisions, the planet heats up. While we discuss goals, forests burn, soils dry, migrations increase. And, when nature reacts, it is already too late for speeches or summits without consequences.
In this disaster scenario announced many decades ago, Europe’s role is decisive. No other continent combines economic power, democratic legitimacy and climate ambition. But Europe cannot limit itself to legislating: it needs to lead. Its strength must be not only regulatory, but inspirational, uniting science, technology, diplomacy and investment to show that prosperity and sustainability are compatible. The European Ecological Pact must be exported not as a moral imposition, but as a proposal for a green economy that creates wealth, reduces inequalities and restores hope.
But the world is not the same and even in Europe and developed countries we live in the dilemma between the “end of the month and the end of the world” where there are those who can and those who cannot keep up with the pace of the transition. But the time for complacency is over and it doesn’t wait. To be able to do what science implores us to do, we need to reconnect democracies to their double legitimacy: of values, rights and justice but also of results, effectiveness and impact. When the political center stops knowing how to talk, the extremes occupy the space for dialogue, transforming fear into electoral capital and ignorance into the basis of public policies.
Outside Europe, at various summits between the European Union and Africa there is always talk of “partnership between equals”. But the truth is that the cost of non-sustainability continues to fall on those who contributed least to the problem. Africa, responsible for just 4% of greenhouse gas emissions, is today the youngest continent in the world, with an average age of 19 years and faces a future in which the development model of the industrial revolution — based on extraction, consumption and waste — is no longer viable. If we want a fair, balanced and habitable planet, we will have to transition to a sustainable, inclusive and circular model, where people living in developing countries have the same quality of life as those living in developed countries. To achieve this, development cooperation between Europe and Africa, Latin America and Asia must be based on mutual respect, co-responsibility and a true partnership for development.
But while the world literally burns and drowns, multilateralism and international cooperation disappear and Europe plays its future on three boards: the economic and commercial one, where it tries to balance between China and the United States; that of foreign policy, where he seeks his own voice in a multipolar world; and defense, where the war in Ukraine exposed weaknesses that many preferred to ignore. However, the world’s foolishness has limited itself to highlighting that the real European challenge lies within its doors, between countries and institutions that look around and see different realities, incompatible priorities and mismatched futures.
The challenge of climate change is not just environmental. It’s civilizational. It forces us to review the way we produce, consume and live together. It forces us to choose between fear and responsibility, between selfishness and cooperation, between populism and democracy. Science may not care about our beliefs, but the planet is already paying the price for our blindness.
Guest Professor UCP/UNL/UÉ