Heat and Sharing

The unbearable heat of recent days will soon pass. At least for a while, we will be able to breathe a sigh of relief. But for how long? What will follow? A catastrophic drought, a violent storm, another heatwave — or all of these one after another?

The worst thing would be for all of us simply to shrug it off and continue as if nothing had happened, or as if nothing were happening. We could call this indifference. Or complacency.

It is never too late to act. It is too late only if we fail to act.

But what can we do? Is it enough to drive electric cars and install solar panels on our roofs? Is the so-called green transition enough to save the world from the devastating consequences of global warming?

Undoubtedly, the green transition — a set of measures that lead us away from fossil fuels — is the right path. The question, however, is whether the climate crisis can be addressed primarily by developed countries, which have the resources for such a transition.

If, for example, everyone in Europe drove electric cars and used only green energy sources, would that save the global climate? No. The climate is a global, interconnected whole.

The so-called Third World, or the poorer part of humanity — and poor people also live within the richest countries — has neither the economic capacity nor any real incentive to move towards green energy sources. People who struggle every day to survive can hardly think about solar panels, electric cars, and the energy renovation of buildings.

How many people are we talking about?

“In 2024, approximately 673 million people were chronically hungry, while around 2.3 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity. In addition, 2.6 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2024. In 2025, approximately 808 million people are expected to live in extreme poverty, meaning people living on less than 3 US dollars a day.

The situation is similarly alarming across healthcare, housing and education. Approximately 4.6 billion people lack full access to essential health services, 2.8 billion people live in inadequate housing, and around 273 million children and young people are not enrolled in school.

We can therefore conclude that more than half of the approximately 8.1 billion people currently living on Earth are deprived of one or more basic goods, on which not only quality of life and human dignity depend, but often survival itself.” (Deprivation and Inequality)

Thus, more than half of the world’s population — perhaps many more — mostly has no real possibility of making a significant contribution to climate protection. Moreover, many are forced by poverty to use the dirtiest and most outdated energy sources to cook a meal, heat tea, warm their homes, or travel to a neighbouring town: kerosene, coal, firewood, and other forms of biomass.

That is why the climate crisis cannot be solved solely through technological solutions in the richest part of the world. As long as billions of people do not have access to reliable, clean and affordable energy, the green transition will remain incomplete, unjust and insufficiently effective. But even before that, they need food, drinking water, adequate housing, healthcare and everything else that makes survival and human dignity possible.

This is precisely where the importance of sharing becomes clear. If we truly want to reduce emissions and protect the climate, we must share knowledge, technologies, financial resources and essential goods with countries and people who do not have enough power to make such a transition on their own. Climate justice means that no one should remain trapped in poverty and dirty energy simply because they were born in a poorer part of the world — or in a poorer part of a wealthy country.

The practical realisation of the principle of sharing is the sharing economy.