Optimism aplenty at summit
We know how to fix global warming, say climate conference delegates
SAN FRANCISCO: Mayors, governors, entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors and celebrities delivered a doubleedged message at the close of a climate summit in San Francisco: global warming is making the planet unliveable – but we know how to fix it.
“We are using the sky as an open sewer, it’s insane,” former US vicepresident Al Gore told the conference, noting that humanity belches 110 million tonnes of heattrapping pollution into the atmosphere every day.
“Will we change? That’s what the Global Climate Action Summit is all about.”
Over three days, thousands of delegates from the private and public sectors showcased policies and innovations aimed at reducing that flow of greenhouse gases.
Cities are converting to allelectric vehicle fleets and setting deadlines for banishing gasguzzling cars from their roads; companies have vowed to operate only with renewable energy, including a few smokestack multinationals in the developing world.
“Clean and green is profitable,” Mahendra Singhi, CEO of Dalmia
Cement Ltd in India, said.
Investors managing fortunes said they were purging coal, oil and gas from their portfolios; young entrepreneurs showed off energyefficiency apps and inventions.
Provincial and state governors in tropical countries vowed to empower indigenous peoples who have been managing forests sustainably
since before “sustainable” was even a word.
But all these efforts may be in vain, the delegates warned, if national governments fail to do their part.
“Now is the time for all leaders to step up and take bold action,” they said in an appeal framed as a Call to Action. The 196nation Paris Agreement, inked in 2015, enjoins nations to cap global warming this century at “well below” two degrees Celsius, and to strive for a ceiling of 1.5°C if possible.
But UN talks to implement the treaty, which goes into effect in 2020, have stalled over disagreements on money to help poor countries green their economies and brace for unavoidable climate impacts.
More urgent still is the socalled “ambition gap” between voluntary national commitments to curb carbon pollution, and what is needed to keep global temperature rises under 2°C.
Even if all nations honour current pledges – many of which depend on climate finance that does not yet exist – the world will heat up by an unbearable 3.5°C, scientists have calculated.
A climate summit convened by UN SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres next fall “is what is going to determine whether we can save the Paris Agreement or not,” said David Paul, the Environment Minister for the Marshall Islands.