Climate pledges: “aiming” is not committing

Here’s an excerpt from this article by Sasja Beslik:

It is also normal now that business leaders talk about economic security while slowly paraphrasing what they have said on the climate crisis and their own responsibility just couple of months ago. Legal departments calling back all published documents on sustainability, to correct things and add “aim”. It sounds good, but does not mean a lot.

The verb “aim” is the new black in the financial industry. We aim but we don’t know if we really want this. We aim because aim means we don’t have to commit. Aim is cosy, nice, almost noble if you look at it from a language perspective. Like in aim to reach the stars, or aim to end global poverty.

What we aim at is to prevent the gradual extinction of entire civilisation as we know it. We aim, but we are not sure. We aim, given what we have to take into account and all the financial loss this aiming may create. We aim carefully, so not to rock the leaking boat. The notion that boat doesn’t really exist didn’t even cross our minds.

But we aim. It feels ok. We know it. We take the beating. And it is pretty much the end of it. Nothing more, nothing else. There is no meaning. Most likely never was.