11,000 scientists warn on climate
BEIJING/NEWYORK: Forty years ago, scientists from 50 nations converged on Geneva to discuss what was then called the “CO2-climate problem.” At the time, with reliance on fossil fuels having helped trigger the 1979 oil crisis, they predicted global warming would eventually become a major environmental challenge.
The scientists got to work, setting forth proposals on how to attack the problem, setting the stage for the eventual creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s preeminent body of climate scientists. Their goal was to get ahead of the problem before it was too late. But after a fast start, the fossil fuel industry, politics and the prioritization of economic growth over planetary health slowed them down. Now, four decades later, a larger group of scientists is sounding another, much more urgent alarm.
More than 11,000 experts from around the world are calling for a critical addition to the main strategy of dumping fossil fuels for renewable energy: there needs to be far fewer humans on the planet. “We declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories frown around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet
Earth is facing a climate emergency,” the scientists wrote in a stark warning published Tuesday in the journal BioScience. While warnings about the consequences of unchecked climate change have become so commonplace as to inure the average news consumer, this communique is significant given the data that accompanies it.
CHINA, FRANCE DEFEND PARIS CLIMATE ACCORD
The Paris climate accord is “irreversible,” President Xi Jinping and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron said in Beijing on Wednesday after the US notified the United Nations of its intention to leave the deal.
Xi and Macron’s decision to put up a united front came in the backdrop of several leading powers expressing concern over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the accord amid growing international concern on climate change. In a joint statement, the two leaders reaffirmed “their firm support for the Paris accord which they consider as an irreversible process and a compass for strong action on climate.” Speaking at the Great Hall of the People, Macron said he “deplores the choices made by others” without naming any country or leader.
“But I want to look at them as marginal choices,” Macron said.