Remember, Remember COP26 last November?

It is six months since COP26 and the world appears to be in a rather different mindset, with an understandable focus on the war in Ukraine, international supply chains and inflation. But the steadily ticking clock of climate change and the need to control greenhouse gases does not pause because the political and economic environment has changed. It does appear that many world leaders have conveniently forgotten this fact?

The outcomes of COP26, such as they were, have been neatly summarised as:

"Cash, Coal, Cars and Trees”

The richer countries are struggling to front up with $100 billion p.a. in cash that was promised to the developing world and the demands of surging energy costs and food prices, as well as increases in military spending, will do nothing to facilitate this. The war in Ukraine has highlighted the dependency of many European countries on gas from Russian sources and several are reported to be considering the short term re-introduction of coal as a substitute. There has been a dramatic rise in demand for electric vehicles and with production constrained by limited supplies of key components, manufacturers are failing to meet this demand. Volkswagen is reported to have sold out of electric cars in Europe and USA for the rest of 2022. And progress on tree policies, an important cornerstone of the COP26 policy, has been stalled by COVID and politics. 

It is not a promising picture.

At VetSalus we have not been stalled at all!

Progress on our online sustainability course for veterinarians has been rapid. This is being produced in collaboration with our partners at Vet Sustain and it is set to go live in July. The course will provide a much needed resource to bring veterinarians and their teams up to speed with many aspects of climate change and sustainability. And a follow up programme focusing on animal health and carbon is already being planned.

There is often a conflict between urgent and important actions. The urgent and important things generally get done. But all too often, the important matters get squashed in the rush to do urgent but less important things. We can all hope that the war in Ukraine is short lived; it is certainly an urgent and important concern. But the need to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases is important and increasingly urgent work.

VetSalus views the development of our online course as a small but important contribution to the war on climate change.

Please keep an eye out for more specific updates on our website (www.vetsalus.com). If you would like further information on the course or to register your interest, contact us by email [email protected]  .