Hotheads fuelling a heating world
‘‘OUT of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made,’’ wrote Immanuel Kant in 1784. It is still true.
On Sunday, the 24th ‘‘Conference of the Parties’’ — the 180 countries that signed the climate change treaty in Paris in 2015 — opened in the Polish city of Katowice. The Polish Government chose the venue, presumably because Katowice is home to Europe’s biggest coal company. It was a thinly disguised show of defiance.
It’s not just Donald Trump who loves coal. It’s by far the worst of the fossil fuels in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, but Poland gets 75% of its electricity by burning coal and it has no intention of changing its ways. In fact, shortly before COP24 opened in Katowice, the Polish Government announced it was planning to invest in a new, large coal mine in the region of Silesia.
On the same day, 1500km to the west in Paris, municipal workers were picking up the debris after the third and most violent weekend of protests against President Emmanuel Macron. The demos are not as big as those of the great revolt of 1968, but they are certainly the biggest for decades even in this cradle of revolutions.
And what were the protesters (known as the ‘‘gilets jaunes’’ after the fluorescent yellow vests that French drivers must keep in their vehicles) protesting about? In Paris and in other cities, they were building barricades, torching cars and setting banks and houses on fire because Macron’s Government has raised the tax on diesel fuel by 6.5c per litre.
This was on top of an increase of 7.9c per litre earlier this year, and most French vehicles run on diesel, but the public’s reaction does look a bit excessive. The fact Macron justified it as a ‘‘green’’ tax intended to reduce fuel use only seemed to make the protesters angrier, and at least until the extreme violence of last Saturday the majority of French people supported them.
Poles clinging to coal despite the fact the fog of coal smoke that envelops Polish cities in winter kills thousands every year, and ordinary people in France rioting for the right to go on burning cheap diesel in their cars despite a comparable death toll from atmospheric pollution there, suggest the quest to cut greenhouse gas emissions before global warming becomes unstoppable faces even greater resistance than the experts feared.
Bear in mind that Poland and France are relatively welleducated countries that belong to the European Union, the region that has led the world in terms of its commitment to emission cuts. Neither country has the kind of climatechange denial industry, lavishly funded by fossilfuel producers, that muddies the waters and spreads doubt about the scientific evidence in the United States. Neither the Poles nor the French are in denial. And yet . . .
Now, it’s true that Poles have a large collective chip on their shoulder for historical reasons (their entire country was erased from the map for more than a century), so they often respond badly to being lectured by wellmeaning foreigners. It’s also true that Macron is arrogant and has a tin ear for public opinion. But neither nationalist resentment nor clumsy political leadership are in short supply worldwide.
Bear in mind also that the emission cuts promised in the 2015 agreement will not actually come into effect until 2020: we have a mountain to climb and we are not even in the foothills yet. Much bigger sacrifices than a few cents extra on the price of diesel or an end to burning coal will be required before we reach the end of this process, if we ever do.
The question, therefore, arises: can we really expect the relatively large (although still inadequate) cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases promised in Paris at the 2015 summit will ever gain the public support necessary to make them happen? If not, then our current global civilisation is doomed.
For the EU, the biggest distraction from the task at hand is the very high rate of unemployment in many Western European countries: officially just under 10% in France and Italy and 15% in Spain, but the true figures are at least a couple of points higher in every case.
In fairness to the French protesters, many of them have lost sight of the bigger issue because they just can’t make ends meet.
This unemployment is ‘‘structural’’, and it will not go away. Its primary cause is automation, a process that will only spread and deepen with the passage of time.
We are entering this critical period for dealing with climate change — the next five years are make or break — just as the world’s economy is undergoing a hugely disruptive transformation that will leave many people permanently jobless.
If you were designing a species capable of making this difficult transition, you would certainly prefer to start with one that was wiser, more cooperative, and less excitable than ourselves, the near relatives of chimpanzees. Something a little less crooked, at least. But this is the timber we have to work with.
Good luck.