Counter-point
AT THE CLIMATE CONFERENCE IN GERMANY, DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES REMAINED DIVIDED IN SPITE OF DIRE WARNINGS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING AND CARBON EMISSIONS
At the Bonn conference on climate change (COP23) the UN sought to draft an “operating manual” for implementing the Paris agreement with the aim of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius. The manual would provide instructions to countries on how to meet targets to cut emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Since current pledges cannot attain the two degree goal, states are impelled to make new commitments next year. Failure to do so could be catastrophic. A rise by three degrees Celsius could transform vast farmlands into desert, drive populations from areas where it is too hot to survive and inundate coastal areas and island states as the seas rise due to melting glaciers.
Of the 197 signatories of the Paris agreement, 169 have ratified it. During the first week of the twoweek conference, Syria became the final state to sign up to the climate change agreement. This is significant because Syria was a victim of climate change between 2006-10 when drought drove farmers off their lands and into the cities where their presence fuelled discontents which launched the conflict in that country.
One signatory state, the US has declared it intends to withdraw in 2020 when pulling out is allowed. Under the climate change-denying Trump administration, the US has been isolated and castigated. The US is not only the world’s second largest polluter, US emissions per capita are more than double those of China, the largest, and the European Union (EU), the third largest. The US is also the greatest carbon polluter in history. The Obama administration pledged to donate $3 billion (Dhs11.02b) to an international fund designed to aid countries hardest hit by climate change but when Donald Trump took office last January, only $1b
(Dhs3.67b) of that amount had been paid. He has refused to transfer the balance.
While China is responsible for one-sixth of the excess carbon dioxide warming the planet,
Beijing is adopting progressive policies that reduce emissions. Washington, which produces one-third, is not only rejecting the existence of climate change, it is revoking emissions cutting measures adopted by the Obama administration. The 28-member
EU, second to the US in historical emissions, is expected to report soon on progress in meeting emissions-reduction targets and describe how it plans to reach the bloc’s 40 per cent emissions cut by 2030.
Trump claims regulating emissions will mean job losses in the US, particularly in the coal, oil and automotive and manufacturing industries. Trump focuses on protecting the jobs of US coal miners although their industry is in decline and employs only 50,000 miners. By raising the plight of coal miners at a time natural gas is taking over from coal, Trump’s objective is to draw the attention of US voters away from outdated US power plants which rely on polluting coal and from big oil. Both generously fund political campaigns. Trump looks backward rather than forward.
If he did the latter he would give priority to developing nonpolluting renewables: wind, sun, and water power. The expansion of these industries will, in spite of Trump, employ far larger numbers of people than coal mining. Nevertheless, Trump dispatched coal lobbyists to Bonn with the aim of trying to convince others that “cleaner coal” is a better bet. His team was hissed and booed by activists.
To counter Trump’s policies, a new group of 20 US states, 50 cities and 60 businesses, dubbed “America’s Pledge,” travelled to Bonn to call for recognition as a participant in the effort to reduce climate change. Billionaire businessman and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed out that this group represents a GDP of $10b (Dhs36.73b), below only the GDPS of the US and
China. “If Washington won’t lead, then mayors and governors will.”
Former US Vice President Al Gore told the Bonn conference that if the US elects a new president in 2020, the country could rejoin the agreement within 30 days of its withdrawal on November 4th, 2020.
Gore who won an Oscar for his 2006 documentary about climate change, An inconvenient Truth, said even close allies cannot be expected to persuade Trump to cancel his plan to pull out of the Paris accord. Gore is right, for Trump global warming doesn’t exist, so, why should he waste energy and time combating it?
Conference host, Germany has also come under fire for failing to close the vast opencast coalmine near Hambach forest. This mine has become the target of 70 environmental campaigns round the world but this has not budged German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Germany’s emissions have not fallen since 2009, although the country has boosted the use of solar and wind power, because coal remains a key source for electricity plants following the decommissioning of nuclear fuelled facilities. Germany is also accused of hypocrisy because it spends more on foreign fossil fuel exploration than on renewables. Merkel’s delegate to the conference claimed Germany could put an end to coal mining by the 2030s.
European countries relying on natural gas as an alternative to coal and oil, have been warned that methane gas emissions at current levels will add 0.6 degree Celsius to global warming, and with emissions from other fossil fuels, could exceed the Paris pledge of two degrees Celsius. Methane is a far more powerful polluter than carbon dioxide.
Ahead of the Bonn gathering, scientists warned that carbon emissions are set to rise by 2 per cent in 2017, the first time in four years due to an increased use of coal for power in China following low rainfall that has reduced rivers feeding hydrolic plants. Worldwide emissions must peak by 2020 before falling rapidly in order to prevent global warming below the two degree Celsius risk level. This year is set to be the hottest on record.
In spite of this dire warning, developed and developing countries remained divided during the Bonn summit. The bloc of 134 developing countries demanded developed countries meet pledges they made previously. Developing countries also seek transparency from the developed as well as funding to combat climate change since pollutants causing global warming have been emitted by North America and Europe since the 1850s.