My Gut Tells Me That Man Won’t Take Climate Change Seriously Until It’s Too Late To Save The Planet

La Perle Du Lac

I grew up in working class family. In one or two of our homes I had my own room; in others I didn’t. Kids don’t know they’re poor ’til much later. I knew by the time I had to go to a state university because the scholarship for the Ivy League school wasn’t enough. The tuition at Stony Brook was cheap and I was able to put myself through college selling pot. 

I was poor ’til my late 30s— and then very quickly, like in the wink of an eye, I went from poor to rich… corporate job. The starting pay was more than my father had ever made in his life— a lot more. And that job came with a big expense account for t&e… travel and entertaining, my two favorite things. And you know what? If you didn’t spend the whole amount, they reduced it for the next year. And if you went over the amount, they increased it for the next year. I was like a kid who woke up in a candy store.

I went from worrying if I would have money for gas if I ate or not, to… not having to look at the price on menus. Menus in the best restaurants in the world. It took a little getting used to and I had tinges of guilt sometimes. But I got used to it. After all, I told myself, I worked hard— first into the office, last out everyday. And I drew a line— I never used the company jet… not once. But for restaurants…  yeah, and I got fat as a pig, unhealthy fat. When everyone around you is telling themselves they earned it, it gets pretty easy to tell yourself the same thing. I earned it; and, besides, it wasn’t like I was taking government money. Oh, wait… the company wrote off all those restaurant meals as a cost of doing business, so, yeah, it kind of was government money. 

I travelled more than anyone in the company other than our VP of international whose primary job it was to travel. So I was in Geneva and once I ate at a beautiful restaurant on the lake, La Perle Du Lac, a typical kind of restaurant I would get fatter in every day on the company card, although this one was more about the elegant ambiance and prestige than the food per se. The food was good; not great. La Perle dates back to the ‘30s. Who goes there? Rich locals, rich tourists and people with credit cards that were paid by organizations— businesses or government bureaucracies. And that’s why La Perle Du Lac is on my mind today.

Attracta Mooney, a top Financial Times writer whose beat covers the intersection of Climate and finance, interviewed Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the UN’s World Meteorological Organization, over lunch on the covered terrace at La Perle. They talked about the increasingly dangerous Climate situation the world is in. Saulo, one of the most high-profile climate scientists in the world had been head of Argentina’s meteorological service before taking the UN job and moving to Geneva.

“Last year, wrote Mooney, “was the hottest on record and 2024 is on course to be even warmer. These temperatures and ever more extreme weather events around the world make clear that climate change is no abstract concept, Saulo says. ‘The climate is changing . . . These records are another demonstration that the warming is here. It is a part of our daily lives. This is a red alert for all of us.’ Yet even in the face of the overwhelming evidence, governments and businesses around the world have been slow to act. Politicians on the right have pushed back against robust climate policies, while businesses that pledged to be climate champions just a few years ago have rolled back targets. Now there are growing concerns about whether the world can cut emissions fast enough to achieve the goals of the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement to limit global temperature rises. Saulo and the WMO are at the heart of answering at least some of this question, with the organisation’s data used to understand just how quickly the world is warming.”

It’s a 20-alarm fire and some people get it— but not many people in power. Mooney noted that “While UN secretary-general António Guterres has warned the world is on the “highway to climate hell,” Saulo is more measured. Her job is to balance diplomacy with scientific rigour. ‘The climate crisis is a combination of climate change and inequality… It is a big, big challenge.’ First, we have a smaller but more immediate challenge on our hands. With both of us only speaking rudimentary French, Saulo reaches for her phone to look up écrasé— crushed— as we attempt to decipher the menu. A native Spanish speaker and fluent in English, she is trying to learn French, but ‘there are so many exceptions that you can become crazy,’ she laughs. The restaurant, which specialises in French food and is popular for business lunches, has no vegetarian main-course options. Like many others concerned about climate change, Saulo says she is reducing her meat consumption. Farming and land use changes, including cutting down trees to create grazing land for cattle, account for about a fifth of planet-warming emissions. Cattle through their belches are the single largest agricultural source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. ‘I am trying to eat less meat, but for an Argentinian, it is difficult to become veggie all of a sudden. I’m doing my best,’ she says. ‘We should all go in that direction [of reducing meat consumption]. But a little bit of meat is something I cannot yet get rid of.’ Today, the 60-year-old is tempted by the main dish option from the cheaper menu du jour of entrecôte Parisienne, requesting it well done, while I order burrata followed by fera, a freshwater whitefish popular in restaurants in Geneva, from the à la carte menu. She declines wine.”

Saulo when the entrecôte Parisienne is fantastique

Her best? I really do not think so. You either eat meat and contribute to destroying the planet Or... you don’t. Today. Right now. It's not that hard. It took my one day in 1966 or '67 and I never ate meat again. Boom! Finished. They could have picked another restaurant. I certainly hope that at the very least the UN’s World Meteorological Organization doesn’t reimburse for meals that include meat. “Even as the conversation traverses the ravages of global warming,” wrote Mooney, “Saulo is bright-eyed and quick to smile. She points to co-operation between countries on weather monitoring as a source of optimism— and a lesson— when it comes to tackling climate change.”

Between their yummy courses they talked about “climate change and the slowness of the world’s response. Greenhouse gas emissions need to fall by 43 per cent by 2030 compared with 2019 levels in order to meet the 2015 Paris agreement to limit global temperature rises to well below 2C and ideally 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. But, other than a small decrease during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, emissions continue to rise. The lack of urgency from governments and business clearly frustrates Saulo. ‘We cannot remain doing the same things when we know people are dying,’ she says. Climate change is an ‘existential crisis’ for some countries, especially small islands which risk being submerged by rising sea levels. But it is also affecting every country around the world, she argues, pointing to examples of floods in Germany and heatwaves around the world that have resulted in deaths. ‘We have to do something. It’s not about sitting at home and looking at this [climate change] as if it were a movie. This is not a movie. This is real life. You cannot turn off the TV and pretend nothing is happening. You are in the middle of the story,’ she says.” 

Saulo has previously criticised allowing the economic interests of a small proportion of the world to determine the future of the planet. When I ask if it is frustrating that the business sector seems to have more sway over our global response to climate change than scientists, she is unequivocal: “It is, of course. The economy cannot be detached from public wellbeing. The economy is also part of society. It is not only about numbers. It is about people also.”

All of a sudden, one of the many birds loitering on the terrace flies dangerously close to my head as it eyes up our main courses. The Argentine is happy with her entrecôte. “This is really good,” says Saulo. “It is different but still good.” Dripping in butter and pan-fried, my fera fish— which I have defended from the bird, though the breadsticks were less fortunate— is delicate and tasty. 

Saulo says we need to start adapting to a warming world where wildfires, heatwaves, floods, droughts and other extreme weather events are more intense. “We have to get used to this. We need to get real,” she says, pointing to the 28 disaster events in the US alone where costs ran to at least $1 billion each in 2023. 

…Even without large-scale disasters, people will need to adapt to hotter temperatures. In Geneva, as in much of Europe, homes rarely have air-conditioning. “But it is becoming warmer and warmer,” says Saulo. Switzerland is heating up at almost double the rate of the rest of the world. 

In future, cities will need more green spaces to help with cooling, she says, adding that we might also need to rethink when and how we holiday. This summer, many parts of southern Europe have struggled with extreme heatwaves, with days hitting 45C. 

The waiter arrives with a trolley laden down with impressive desserts, but we regretfully decline. Instead we order tea and coffee, which come with a plate of petits fours. 

In a few months, Saulo will travel to Baku [the Petro-Mafia capital of Azerbaijan] for the UN COP29 climate conference. These annual summits, which are attended by tens of thousands of people, have become too big, she argues, but they are still important meeting points at a crucial time. “All of the scientists are telling us the time window is very small [to prevent the worst impacts of climate change],” she says. 

When asked if the world can still limit the global temperature rise to 1.5C above the pre-industrial level, the goal of the Paris agreement, Saulo circumvents the question. “We should keep the ambition… although it may look difficult, we should move in that direction,” she says. 

We need to urgently cut greenhouse gas emissions, she adds. And that means the world must stop subsidising fossil fuels and shift to renewable energy. “It’s happening, but the room for improvement is huge.” [It is? Saulo is eating an entrecôte. And global oil production has reached record levels, due to increasing demand, particularly in developing economies. In 2023, global oil production hit new highs, driven by output from countries like the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Biden was president in 2023. Trump says he will increase drilling.]

Still, she is hopeful that businesses and governments will soon step up, driven by concern for their families but also the profits they can make. “The business sector has huge opportunities in renewable energy. And I do believe that, in the end, decision makers will be concerned about climate and how the climate will affect their families, their grandsons, granddaughters, and they will start to care about that in a way that still is profitable for them.” 

There are also other signs of hope, she adds, most recently the election of climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum as president of Mexico. “The expectations are huge on her,” she says.  

After decades spent teaching, Saulo is also putting her faith in young people. “I have seen many incredible examples of the role of education and children understanding that their decision matters.” 

We leave the restaurant and take the sticky 10-minute walk back towards the WMO’s office, seeking the shade of trees and buildings as we go. When it comes to tackling climate change, Saulo insists that she is still hopeful. “I’m more optimistic than pessimistic.”

There are no politicians with the guts to just say no when it comes to fossil fuels. Trump would be worse— even much worse— but the U.S. pumped more oil and gas in Biden's presidency than ever in history.