[rationale]
in 2019, councils and governments around the UK began to declare a climate emergency, aiming to stay within the 1.5 degree limit for global temperature rise set by the Paris climate agreement.
in 2021 the IPCC reported that at current rates of emissions there are only 9 years of carbon budget remaining if we are to keep within 1.5 degrees.
in 2023, the IPCC added that only “deep global GHG reductions this decade” will keep the world within 1.5 degrees of warming. but globally, carbon emissions have never been reduced.
across the 12 months up to May 2024 the average global temperature was 1.63 degrees higher than the pre-industrial average. but because of how the IPCC calculate the data, until the pattern has persisted across a decade, not a year, the 1.5 degree target is still a possibility.
yet in a recent poll of IPCC scientists, only 6% thought the world would stay within 1.5 degrees. 77% said they expected a rise of 2.5 degrees or more this century.
if the 1.5 degree limit has not been breached, it inevitably will be, by 2030. at this point the climate emergency will be over, and we will enter a new reality, that of climate collapse.
everyone knows this. but no one can say it. we lack the language to say it.
paff mobilises art to ask the question: what lies after the emergency?
[overview]
paff will take this question to people around the UK in the places where they live.
for five years, up to 2030, it will travel the country, bringing artists together with everyday people to anticipate the end of the emergency and to shape the future beyond the emergency as it emerges. paff will bring a show to town, and work with local artists and people to make the future together. paff will then move on to the next place, taking the new work with it.
[three demands]
paff makes three demands: of ourselves, not of the government – they cannot save us.
the demands are paff’s prescription for how to live through the emergency, and after the emergency.
TELL THE TRUTH
the earth will not stay within the ‘safe limits’ set by the COP process. we will pass 1.5oC warming by 2030, with exponential warming beyond that.we know what will be lost, but what will we need to take with us?
ART NOW
none of the disciplines or ways of knowing which we currently have can tell the truth about or respond to runaway climate change. it is literally ungovernable. only art can imagine this reality.
LOVE ONE ANOTHER
the journey beyond the emergency will take us right to the edge, and then over the edge. knowing this, there is no need to be afraid: fear will increase the losses. only love can save us.
[principles]
– towards a new aesthetic that will take us to the end of the emergency and anticipate whatcomes after. we don’t know what it is yet: developing the aesthetic is the work.
– it will be a radical aesthetic: both from the margins (inclusive, emerging), and from the roots(earthed, organic, carbon-based)
– co-construct the conversation about after the emergency with people who are currently excluded from the conversation about the climate emergency – the marginalised and unentitled – so they own it, because they stand to lose the most by it.
– paff must be out there in the world, not in institutions set aside for art. la beauté est dans la rue.
– fear nothing but do not dilute the truth. look unflinchingly over the edge, then look away, dance, and heal. then go back and look over the edge again. then repeat…
– the art that is made will not save us, but the making of the art could help heal the wounds we and the earth will suffer. this art contains hard truths, but it is also art which heals.
– not climate art. art for after the emergency. indeed, art that signposts its climate credentials may be less art than it could be, and may inadvertently be part of how we plot our course to destruction (a lot like the path to net zero).
– making in the knowledge that that which is made will be broken – one way or another
– to change the culture together, one place at a time.