The world’s
governments got together in Germany over the past two weeks to discuss global
warming, and as a result, they, well, talked. And issued some nice press
releases.
Discussing an
existential threat to the environment, and all who are dependent on it,
certainly is better than not discussing it. Agreeing to do something about it
is also good, as is reiterating that something will be done.
None of the
above, however, should be confused with implementing, and mandating, measures
that would reverse global warming and begin to deal concretely with the
wrenching changes necessary to avoid flooded cities, a climate going out of
control, mass species die-offs and the other rather serious problems that have
only begun to manifest themselves in an already warming world.
The 23rd
Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), or COP23, wrapped up on November 17 in Bonn. Fiji was actually
the presiding country, but the conference was held in Bonn because Fiji was not
seen as able to accommodate the 25,000 people expected to attend. The formal
hosting by Fiji, as a small Pacific island country, was symbolic of a wish to
highlight the problems of low-lying countries, but that this was merely
symbolic was perhaps most fitting of all.
These
conferences have been held yearly since the UNFCCC was adopted in 1992 at the
Rio Earth Summit. Two years ago, at COP21 in Paris, the world’s governments
negotiated the Paris Accord, committing to specific targets for reducing
greenhouse-gas emissions. Although capping global warming at 2 degrees Celsius
(as measured from the 19th century as the Industrial Revolution took off around
the world) has been considered the outer limit of “safe” warming, a goal of
halting global warming at 1.5 degrees was adopted at Paris. The catch here is
that the goals adopted are far from the strength necessary to achieve the
2-degree goals, much less 1.5 degrees.
Before we
explore that contradiction, let’s take a brief look at the self-congratulatory
statements issued at the Bonn conference’s conclusion.
Agreement that summit participants
like to talk
“In Bonn, the
support for climate action from countries, regions, cities, civil society, the
private sector and ordinary men and women was clearly on display. Together, we
have done the job we came here to do, which is to advance the implementation
guidelines of the Paris Agreement and prepare for more ambitious action in the
Talanoa Dialogue of 2018.”
The German
Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety
provided this message:
“One key
outcome of the conference is the Talanoa Dialogue. Talanoa is a Fiji term for a
conversation in which the people involved share ideas and resolve problems. As
the sum total of the current climate targets under the Paris Agreement is not
yet sufficient for limiting global warming to well below two degrees Celsius, agreement
was reached in Paris that the international community would have to raise the
level of ambition over time. The Talanoa Dialogue is the trial run for this
ambition mechanism.”
And the
United Nations itself, on its UNFCCC web site dedicated to COP23, had this to
say:
“The ‘Talanoa
Dialogue’, inspired by the Pacific concept of constructive discussion, debate
and story-telling, will set the stage in Poland in 2018 for the revising
upwards of national climate action plans needed to put the world on track to
meet pre-2020 ambition and the long-term goals of the two-year old Paris
Agreement. … With so many climate action pledges and initiatives, a further
strong message from all sides at COP23 was the growing need to coordinate
efforts across policy, planning and investment to ensure that every cent
invested and every minute of work contributed results in a much greater impact
and boosts ambition under the national climate plans.”
Again,
discussion is better than no discussion, and at least no country other than the
United States came to Bonn to push coal, isolating the Trump administration
further as the U.S. is now the only country that intends to stay outside the
Paris Accords. And let us acknowledge that a baby step forward is far better
than a giant
leap backward, as the Trump gang wishes to attempt.
The main
takeaway of COP23 is that people will get together and talk some more. The “2018 Talanoa Dialogue”
is said by the United Nations to be “an inclusive and participatory process
that allows countries, as well as non-state actors, to share stories and
showcase best practices in order to urgently raise ambition — including
pre-2020 action — in nationally determined contributions.” Beyond that, there
was a bit of money committed — the German government pledged €110 million to an
insurance fund, an adoption fund was replenished with US$93 million of new
pledges, and the World Health Organisation said it would commence a “special
initiative” to help island countries that has a goal to “triple the levels of
international financial support to climate and health in Small Island
Developing States.”
It you feel
less than overwhelmed by the above, it would seem a reasonable reaction.
The world’s biggest advertising
conclave?
A commentator
for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle certainly was less than
overwhelmed, referring to the event as a “massive advertising offensive.” The
commentary published by Deutsche Welle, a most sober mainstream news
organization not known for flamboyance, summarized
the COP23 outcome this way:
“The
negotiations in Bonn sound more like agenda points run through by a working
group of midlevel importance than the work of the largest multination
conference ever held in Germany. Two years after the international climate
accord was signed in Paris, the task at hand in Bonn was to establish just who
was required to do what in the fight against climate change and how their
contributions could be measured. Binding agreements were not on the agenda. …
It would also be in poor taste to ask about the carbon footprint left by the
conference — especially as most of the electricity used to run Bonn’s charging
stations is derived from the region’s lignite coal power plants. Such a query
would only upset the mood of those inhabiting this taxpayer-funded parallel
universe.”
Ouch! At
least the host Germans, and most others in attendance, wanted to do the right
thing even if words and actions are yet to synchronize. The public-policy
magazine Pacific Standard pulled no punches in reporting the embarrassing
antics of the United States delegation in Bonn. The article opened with this
passage:
“The United
States delegation held a side event at the COP23 climate talks in Bonn on
Monday, an affair run by fossil-fuel and nuclear-industry boosters that
reprised the same tune heard at the G7 and G20 summits this summer: According
to the U.S., using clean coal and nuclear energy is the only way to meet the
goals of the Paris climate agreement.”
The Pacific
Standard report went on to say:
“At the U.S.
panel, Barry Worthington, executive director of the U.S. Energy Association,
claimed that clean coal is needed to reach many of the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals, including universal access to energy, zero hunger,
and zero poverty. … Worthington also drew on the Trump administration’s
demagogic notion of an ongoing ‘war on coal,’ charging that international
development banks have an ‘anti-fossil bias’ that blocks investments for
financing coal plants in poor countries, potentially at the expense of public
safety. The U.S. side event also included pitches for liquid natural gas
exports from the U.S. to developing countries as a bridge fuel to help power
the shift to renewable energy, as well as for small-scale modular nuclear
reactors that can serve a similar purpose.”
Clean coal
and safe nuclear energy? Still oxymorons. Although fairness compels an
acknowledgement that the concepts of “clean coal” and “safe nuclear energy”
were championed by the Obama administration, which in fact was nearly as
enthusiastic as the Bush II/Cheney administration in throwing bottomless
sums of money at nuclear power companies.
At least the
Obama administration was willing to promote renewable energy as part of its
ill-advised “all of the above” energy program and did believe that breathable
air and drinkable water are good ideas, even if not willing to disrupt
corporate business as usual to achieve those ideas, or so much as hint that
resource consumption far beyond the Earth’s capacity might necessitate
consuming less. The Trump gang can’t be bothered to do even that. Searches for
any statement on COP23 on the official White House web site turns up not a
word. One can find statements about favorable editorials in Murdoch newspapers
but nothing on the climate summit.
Do you get half credit if the bridge
collapses when walkers are halfway across?
This about
brings us to the point where the latest dire reports of catastrophe that would
result from a failure to tackle climate warming is appropriate. We’ll get to
that momentarily, but first it would be useful to reiterate just what was
committed two years ago, none of which have been updated or improved upon
despite cheery press releases.
National
global-warming commitments made in time for the 2015 Paris Climate Summit
included these goals:
+ The United
States pledged at the time to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 26 to 28
percent in 2025, relative to 2005 levels; instituted new national regulations
on power-plant emissions; and announced a state-level cap-and-trade system
whereby states, rather than enterprises, will trade pollution permits.
+ China
intended to reach a peak in its greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030; intended to
inaugurate a cap-and-trade system in 2017; and pledged to have 50 percent of
its new buildings meet “green” standards by 2020.
+ The
European Union’s goal was a 40 percent cut in emissions in 2030, relative to
1990. The centerpiece of EU efforts is a failed cap-and-trade system that will
not be reformed until 2021.
+ Brazil said
it would cut emissions by 37 percent in 2025, relative to 2005, and intended to
achieve a 43 percent reduction by 2030. Brazil said it would generate 20
percent of its electricity from non-hydropower renewables by 2030 and pledged
to restore 30 million acres (120,000 square kilometers) of forests.
+ Canada
committed to cutting output of greenhouse gases by 30 percent in 2030, relative
to 2005, but this includes international “offsets” and failed to address the
Alberta tar sands. On a provincial level, Ontario and Québec will participate
in a cap-and-trade system.
+ Japan
intended to reduce emissions by 26 percent in 2030, relative to 2013 (the
equivalent to 18 percent below 1990 levels by 2030), reductions that would
include international “offsets” and “credits” for forest management.
+ India
pledged to reduce the intensity of its emissions 33 to 35 percent in 2030,
relative to 2005, and to produce 40 percent of its electricity from non-fossil
fuel sources by that year. This goal, however, is a commitment to only slow the
rate of emissions rather than cut them.
+ Australia
committed to a 26 to 28 percent cut in emissions, relative to 2005, reductions
to be achieved in part through land-use changes and forestation. But the
coalition government in power then and now repealed the Clean Energy Future
Plan, seen as a step backward.
Of the above
countries and regions, only India is rated by Climate Action Tracker, a
consortium of three research organizations, as compatible with a goal of capping global warming at
2 degrees. Every other one has been found to be insufficient, with the
United States joining Chile, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Ukraine as
“critically insufficient,” the worst category.
Should all
the pledges made at the Paris Summit actually be met, the increase in global
temperatures will be about
2.7 degrees, according to Climate Action Tracker. The group calculates that
fulfillment of the national pledges would result in an increase in the global
temperature of 2.2 to 3.4 degrees C. (with a median of 2.7) by 2100, with
further increases beyond that. In other words, global warming would advance at
a slower pace that it would have otherwise should all commitments be fulfilled.
But there are no enforcement mechanisms to force compliance with these goals;
peer pressure is expected to be sufficient.
This is
reminiscent of a Group of 7 Summit a few months earlier, in June 2015, when the
G7 governments said they would phase
out fossil fuels by 2100, a case not of closing the barn door after the
horse has left but rather declaring an intention to consider closing the barn
door after waiting for the horse to disappear over the horizon.
In case you needed still more evidence
…
OK, we’ve
reached the point where we should summarize the latest scientific reports. In
just the past few weeks:
+ A report
published in Lancet reported that the health of millions of people across the
world is already being
significantly harmed by climate change, thanks in part to increased risk of
infections diseases. This risk, the Lancetreport declared, qualifies as “the
major threat of the 21st century.”
+ As carbon
dioxide increases, accelerating global warming, scientists fear that Arctic
melting will trigger
a massive release of methane, a gas more than 20 times more potent than
carbon dioxide in ability to causing atmospheric warming.
+ It is a
virtual certainty that human activity is responsible
for all global warming since 1950, according to the Climate Science Special
Report, a report prepared by hundreds of U.S. scientists. Humans are likely
responsible for 93 to 123 percent of Earth’s net global warming, the report
said, meaning that Earth might have cooled slightly in the period absent human
activity.
+ Hundreds of
millions of people would
face displacement due to their their home cities becoming flooded as a
result of rising sea levels triggered by global warming of 3 degrees, which
would be reached if current trends continue. Alexandria, Miami, Osaka, Rio de
Janeiro and Shanghai are among the many cities to be drastically affected.
+ Extreme
rains of at least 20 inches from a single storm are
six times more likely than they were in the 1990s, and will become another
three times more likely by 2090.
Those
represent just some of the most recent research. Earlier studies have found
that humanity may have already committed itself to a sea level rise
of at least six meters from the greenhouse gases already thrown into the
atmosphere and that several
more decades of global warming would occur even if all greenhouse-gas
production ceased today because the oceans will release much of the heat they
have absorbed from the atmosphere.
You can’t have infinite growth on a
finite planet
The bottom
line is that business can’t continue as usual. That means wrenching changes to
the economy in a system, capitalism, that offers no alternative employment to
those whose jobs would be eliminated. Conservatives see that seriously tackling
global warming would trigger significant disruption, so their solution is to
deny global warming, policies unfortunately being carried out by the Trump
administration. Liberals acknowledge the severity of the problem, but advocate
renewable energy and techno-fixes requiring technologies that unfortunately are
yet to exist in order to claim that any dip in the economy would be no more
than a statistical blip. That’s not realistic, either.
Already, the
demand for resources to support present-day
consumption is equal to 1.7 Earths. That indeed is not sustainable. And
although renewable energy obviously should be developed, with fossil fuels
phased out as soon as practical, those changes will only get us part of the
way, before mentioning that manufacturing the parts for wind and solar energy have
their own environmental concerns. Renewable
energy is not a shortcut to reversing global warming. Alas, there is no
alternative but for the global North to consume much less.
Illusions
that “green
capitalism” will save us must be abandoned. Capitalism requires constant
growth (infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet) and discourages
corporate responsibility because enterprises can offload their responsibilities
onto society. Thus every incentive is for more production. Maximizing profit
and environmentalism are broadly in conflict; the occasional time when they
might be in harmony are rare exceptions and temporary. This is because the
managers of corporations are answerable to private owners and shareholders, not
to society. Profit maximization trumps all else under capitalism and thereby
holds back ecological reform — this is reflected in the “maximization of
shareholder value” that is elevated to a holy cause and even a legal
requirement.
Consumerism
and over-consumption are not products of a particular culture nor the result of
personal characteristics — they are a natural consequence of capitalism and
built into a system that can’t function without growth. Problems like global
warming and other aspects of the world environmental crisis can only be solved
on a global level through democratic control of the economy, not by individual
consumer choices or by national governments.
There can’t
be infinite growth on a finite planet, and even if humanity begins to
strip-mine the Moon and the asteroid belt, that would merely postpone the
reckoning because the solar system is finite, too (assuming that off-world
industrialism could be made financial viable). What the planet needs is action,
not only words, and the later that action is put off the more painful will be
any attempted cure. Environmental crisis can no longer be disentangled from
economic crisis.
