Guterres' climate apology

Antonio Gutteres recently published a touching climate apology to his great, great grand-daughter. He fears that she’ll be reading it in 2100 with "disappointment and anger" if we can't change our current path, estimated by some modelling as leading to an unliveable 3.3°C global warming above pre-industrial levels. It’s a personal apology that confronts the unfolding tragedy with a reaffirmation his long-standing commitment to climate justice.

We’ve all experienced apologies as a short performance[1]. I apologise and it’s over, unlike verbs such as consume which involves deciding on and getting the ‘what’, before using and then throwing it away. This hollowed-out version diminishes the power of the apology as an instrument of change. We are tired of the politically expedient apologies of politicians, or the apologies tempered by 'but' that minimise the responsibility of those who hurt us.

Guterres’ apology reflects the potential of a sincere apology “to anchor our moral lives, promising that our actions never drift too far from our values.”[2] We use them as a tool to mend life's wear and tear on our relationships, to rebuild trust from the personal through to the political level. In the opening line of his book on apologies, Aaron Lazarre labels them as one of the “most profound human interactions”[3] At their best, they are characterized by the dramatic emotions we demand from our Netflix series: contrition and guilt, anger and self-justification, empathy and sorrow for the harmed and the culprit, right through to a soaring sense of hope and renewal. 

Guterres promises his future loved one that he "will not relent", capturing the personal challenge he faces. It’s easy to assume that as a global climate leader, Guterres operates in a motivating feedback loop that eludes the rest of us. My armchair environmentalist is quick to pick up on this; "Sure, it's OK for him. His public struggle for climate justice comes with a decent salary and global jet-setting to meet really interesting people over delicious lunches and dinners." Meanwhile, the efforts of us mere mortals go unnoticed and unrewarded. We could probably value being "unsung heros" if we knew we'd get our 15-minutes of fame or a free flight to New York at some point. Knowing that that's unlikely makes it hard to act on our good intentions. And so we externalise our responsibility and expect that "they should do something", while we placate ourselves with the small daily pleasures of consumption, convenience and inaction that accumulate into environmental destruction.

But my armchair environmentalist is not just driven by petty jealousy. It also wants to protect me from owning up to my addictive lifestyle, from leaving the comforts of the status quo and confronting my climate fears. Whether Head of the UN or somone in suburbia, we face similar internal barriers to acting on our good intentions. And it is here that Guterres’ use of the apology is helpful. It can be turned inwards to remind ourselves of our responsibility to something greater than our simple desires.

While Guterres’ commitment to "stand for climate action" is trumpeted in The Times, it is borne out in his daily actions as a professional, citizen, consumer and loved one. These are roles we all have. My actions, insignificant compared to Mr Guterres', are still an essential piece of the complex systems driving climate change. And to my loved ones – and myself - they are also an effective, practical way to alleviate climate anxiety and adapt to the new reality awaiting us. Amongst my loved ones, I can act as heroically as Guterres.  And when my armchair environmentalist is having a tantrum – “I WANT more” - I can momentarily pity myself for the relentless task of doing the right thing before taking up the yoke again.

If we continue on our current path, Guterres may well have to make a political climate apology at the end of his UN Presidency, perhaps on the occasion of his opening address to COP31 in November, 2026: "I stand before you to admit that we - the United Nations, the governments it is made up of and the corporations it has partnered with - have failed to provide the political will and leadership required to ensure a liveable climate future for humanity. On behalf of us gathered at this, the 31st attempt to address climate change, I offer my deepest apology to all of humanity, now and in the future." He and his speechwriter will come up with something powerful as his last attempt to goad the world into action.

Guterres pre-empts this future apology by calling now for “the political will to forge a peace pact with nature and transform how we grow food, use land, fuel transport, and power economies." Political will in democratic systems is not just practiced by those in power. It is derived from the political will of those who can vote, donate and support political parties. The political will to address climate change reflects a public discourse that starts in families and among friends about the relentless individual commitment we need to ensure a liveable climate future for those we love.

What a tragedy, for ourselves and our loved ones, if we fail to heed the example of Guterres. We are all capable, within the contraints of our individual lives, of contributing to a liveable climate future. The Climate Interactive workshops end with a powerful minute of silence in which participants are asked to imagine how it would feel to live in a world where we've achieved a liveable climate. We need such times in our daily lives when we imagine the joy that comes from doing the right thing for the climate future of those we love - including ourselves. The apology, a tool we are all familair with, provides us with this moment of reflection.

Together, we’ve got this. 

Footnotes

[1] L. Austin coined the term ‘performative sentences’ in which “the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action.” The term ‘speech act’ was used by Searle in 1969.  

[2] Nick Smith. (2008) I was wrong. The Meanings of Apologies. Cambridge University Press. P. 10

[3] Aaron Lazarre. (2004). On Apology. Oxford University Press.