Individual pledges on the climate crisis will never be sufficient

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Now or never: Cop26 (AP)

It’s bad enough being part of a generation that unknowingly and then knowingly has been trashing the planet. I really don’t also want to be part of a generation that knowingly did nothing to fix it.

We know a lot of what needs to be done and the cost; we know where most of the resources (financial and technical) to do it are in the world. Cop26 must be about apportioning this in a top-down way and not about individual pledges that, when added together, come nowhere close to what’s needed.

A successful conference outcome will be having every need allocated and backed by action and monitoring agreements. Nothing less.

Ashley Herbert

Huddersfield

Net zero referendum

Imagine a scenario where the British public was given a referendum on whether or not the people of a fictional country – let’s call it Colonia – were allowed to drive cars, fly in aeroplanes or burn coal to generate electricity. The people who live there would have no say whatsoever in the governance of their lives.

Now imagine that the referendum extended to whether or not Colonia and Colonians should continue to exist. This is the very problem of a referendum today on net zero: it is not us who will benefit or suffer from the outcome of that referendum, but those alive 50 or 500 years from now. These people, just as the imaginary Colonians, are at the mercy of those holding the referendum today. The decision affects them but they have no say in that decision.

It would inevitably cause us pain to prevent our descendants from enjoying a world broadly as pleasant to live in as the one we enjoy today. And are we really ready and able to sacrifice and endure that pain, when it is not we who necessarily benefit?

We exist in a colonial relationship with our descendants: we make the decision that affects their lives, and they cannot have a say in how we decide, yet we must sacrifice for their benefit. Today’s decision about tomorrow’s planet, by referendum or otherwise, is not made for us, but is made by us. If we screw up, it is our descendants who suffer. We better make the right choice and we need to do it now.

Ian Henderson

Norwich

Clock’s ticking

Fear not. The clocks have just gone back an hour, so it’s only 61 minutes to midnight.

Dr John Doherty

Stratford-upon-Avon

Palliative care, not premature death

No doubt, Dr McLaren (“‘I am not a killer’: Doctor who helped 43 patients die reveals why he does it”, News, 31 October) is sincere and compassionate in his work but his justification is fatally flawed.

This is “the most gratifying work [he’s] ever done”. Of course, relieving suffering is right and his desire for instant results understandable. But his method is wrong. Patients need quality palliative care, not a premature death.

McLaren argues his patients have already been killed socially and subjectively. But he contradicts himself when he attests to Mr Ferrarotto’s “humour to the end” and he neglects patients’ instrumental and intrinsic value. My happiest memories of work are a hospice placement. There were tears and joy, laughter and despair, hope and suffering, dignity and disability. The patients even taught me how to play dominos. Each was fully alive until the end.

Finally, McLaren states that patients should be allowed to take back control of their life, “over himself, over his body and mind, the individual is sovereign”. If sovereign, which of his patients chose to be terminally ill? In reality our sovereignty is limited, and for the sake of protecting the vulnerable, so should our autonomy.

Dr M Davis, GP

Birmingham