We need to make democracy work in the fight to save the planet | AC Grayling

For centuries, humans have championed the democratic political system. But can it facilitate the radical change needed to stop the potentially annihilating effects of climate change?

Although individual action to protect the environment - consuming less, recycling more, reducing one's carbon footprint - might be a contribution if enough people did it, the battle to minimise human-induced climate change has to be a worldwide endeavour among cooperating states. The outcome of the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference was one of the most optimistic and encouraging steps hitherto achieved in that battle - that is, until Donald Trump said he intended to withdraw the US, the biggest climate polluter in history, from the agreement. The Paris agreement and President Trump's decision illustrate the two ends of the spectrum of effort and concern. Our planet cannot be protected from a warming atmosphere - with melting ice caps, rising sea levels, droughts, floods, famines and migrations of desperate populations - without vigorous joint effort by the world's states.