November 29 2015
COP 21: A COP-OUT?
Tomorrow the much anticipated conference – COP 21- on Climate Change starts in Paris, the scene of these brutal attacks on innocent people a few weeks ago.
Of course the word ‘innocent’ is a relative term. I believe we all are somehow implicated in causing terrorism, which has its root today in oil extraction and consumption, the atrocious act of forcing crude oil out of the earth where it has been buried for millions of years and squandering the product in a time span of seconds on a geological scale. Violence to creation always bounces back on all of God’s creatures, especially on its highest form, us, God’s images. As the torture of nature accelerates, expect much more violence, augmented by the increasing scarcity of water, fertile land and forests. If all else fails, the ultimate outcome is a global war.
For 10 days we will be inundated with detailed information on the dangers we face from our overuse of carbon products. If the previous 20 conferences – called COP, which stands for Conference of the Parties- are any indication nothing much will be accomplished: in other words another COP-OUT.
In the year 2000 I had the opportunity to attend COP 11 in The Hague, lodging with my brother who lives there. I went as an accredited member of the press, representing the regional daily newspaper for which I wrote a weekly column for 10 years. Then Canada had a real image problem, while the USA went BUSH in a presidential election that was decided by four of the seven judges of the highest court.
We know that in the USA the Republican Party, which has a majority in Congress, denies the occurrence of Climate Change, so the nation which is the largest polluter in the world – 17 tons of Green House Gases per person, versus a global average of less than 5 – will not come on board with any resolution. China, as a nation, is the next highest polluter, and together with India comprise between 35 to 40 percent of the world’s people. Both nations want to see their people achieve higher living standards, so, instead of them cutting back on carbon products, they will accelerate their use. Both India and China argue they have the right to modernize like anybody else. That inevitably means large increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed “uncompromising commitment on climate change,” providing it doesn’t affect India’s ability to raise hundreds of millions of people up from poverty. One analysis found that if India sticks to its growth plans, its carbon dioxide – CO2 – emissions will increase three-fold over the next 15 years. China’s emissions will keep soaring, too. The world’s biggest emitter has promised only that emissions will peak by 2030. In the next 15 years, its greenhouse gas emissions are expected to rise by one-third.
In other words if you live long enough you will experience hell on earth.
The question is whether the USA is even able to reduce its carbon foot print. Where the architectural make-up of Europe was determined prior to the Carbon revolution, with densely packed populations in small areas, and thus a natural for mass transportation, the USA was developed on the basis of unlimited use of carbon fuel, with suburban and exurban housing development, geared to individual automotive transportation, making the use of subways and trains almost impossible.
Already voices are emerging that the conference should forego a top-down approach that has guided the effort since 1992 to be replaced by a bottom-up model, relying on voluntary commitments by individual countries (and people?) to rein in their contributions to climate change.
True, the UN has no power to enforce restrictions on fossil fuels. Individual jurisdictions have more power, but can they enforce it? The only way is by upping the cost, which will hurt the poor. A bottom-up approach in the fight against climate change could be an important step forward, but politicians everywhere have a short vision: they want to be reelected. With economic activity – and thus tax income- already weak, a further charge on consumers will be far from popular. So brace yourself for higher temperatures and the resulting disasters.
In my opinion the entire Paris enterprise, where some 50,000 delegates and press people will gather, is an exercise in futility, because well in advance of the Paris talks, the UN announced that the amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere has locked in 2.7 degrees Celsius warming at a minimum, even if countries move forward with the pledges they make to cut emissions. Hence, even the 2 degree Celsius goal is already unattainable, which, by the way, has already been reached in Canada. In effect, the countries are vowing to make changes that collectively still fall far short of the necessary goal. We, the world at large, are much like a patient who, upon hearing from our doctor that we must lose 50 pounds to avoid life-threatening health risks, take pride in cutting out fries but not cake and ice cream.
I live in Canada so I am keen to find out what Canada will promise, which is not the same as what they will do. At least there is a lot of willingness there, initiated by the newly elected Liberal Party. So far it looks like they will pledge to reduce the 2005 level by 30 percent, the same the previous government had I mind, but the bad news is that the pledges will still be short of what is needed, guaranteeing at least a 3 degree warmer world. That would mean higher temperatures than at any time in the last three million years, with potentially dramatic effects of intense heatwaves, flooding and climate refugees across the world.
All the big shots of the world will be in Paris, provided they can guarantee safety. Barack Obama will be there. Justin Trudeau will be there. Everyone who’s anyone will be descending on Paris in the coming week to strike a global deal to fight climate change. The rhetoric is remarkable: “We are at a turning point now,” declared UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. We are at “a moment of remarkable transformation.”
Recollect Copenhagen six years ago? That too was labeled as crucial, and it was a conspicuous fiasco. Nobody in the world can bind nations to cut down on energy use: they all want to provide more for their citizens, who are growing older and sicker, and they all need economic growth. But we can’t have growth and use less energy: we simply can’t have one without the other: the two are intrinsically related.
And then there are the poorer nations. They think their rich uncles in the West should pay for them to confront climate change because, let’s face the truth: We, the rich, created the problem in the first place. They’ve threatened to walk out if the developed world doesn’t fork over at least $100-billion (U.S.) a year. “Whether Paris succeeds or not will be dependent on what we have as part of the core agreement on finance,” declared South Africa’s delegate, who speaks for more than 130 nations.
The trouble is that the rich nations are already overbooked: they all run deficits, they all have awesome obligations. Look at Europe today: Totally divided about the refugee problem, with the ultra-right –almost fascist- parties gaining ground.
So what we will see in Paris is a lot of politics, a lot of positioning, and a lot of empty promises.
Here’s what I gleaned from a Margaret Wente column in the Globe and Mail:
“Even if all these problems were overcome and every nation lived up to its commitments, the effect on the planet would be negligible. Bjorn Lomborg, head of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, did the math in a new study published in the journal Global Policy. “If all nations keep all their promises, temperatures will be cut by just 0.05°C (0.09°F),” he stated in the news release. “Even if every government on the planet not only keeps every Paris promise, reduces all emissions by 2030, and shifts no emissions to other countries, but also keeps these emission reductions throughout the rest of the century, temperatures will be reduced by just 0.17°C (0.3°F) by the year 2100.”
The hard truth about global warming is that there is no public policy solution. The only solution is to quit using carbon based products. No technological breakthroughs on a massive scale are possible, nothing that we do will make much of any difference, not even if we figure out substitutes for fossil fuels, converting our entire global infrastructure to other power sources. That is the brutal truth.
About 80 per cent of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency estimates that global energy demand is set to grow another 37 per cent by the year 2040. As greenhouse gas emissions level off in the developed world, almost all of that increase will come from poorer countries such as China and India. By 2040, the IEA estimates, 75 per cent of all our energy will still come from oil, gas and coal – the major sources of greenhouse gasses.
The other hard truth is a simple human one. No one is going to give up the material comforts of life today for the avoidance of an uncertain disaster many years in the future. Any politician who fails to reckon with that will soon be turfed from office.
That’s the sad situation we find ourselves in.
Some, such as Margaret Wente, believe that sooner or later, human ingenuity will bail us out. Fat chance. How can technology that brought us this condition, will then cure us from it? The Pharisees once accused Jesus by saying that “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow –Jesus- drives out demons. (Matt. 12: 24). Jesus commented: “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined……… If Satan drives out Satan he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?”
The same applies to technology which is purely driven by carbon power. Human technology lies at the base of this curse which purely is driven by Beelzebub, the prince of demons.
Meanwhile, the planet burns.
Japan’s meteorological office announced that this past September was, by far, the warmest September on record, and records now show that October has also become the hottest recorded October. As a whole, 2015 remains easily on course to become the hottest year ever recorded.
The COP 21 bulletins will truthfully convey that we indeed are at a critical junction of history. It could quite well be that this coming Paris meeting, is the last of its kind. Why meet when no significant reduction in Carbon emissions is possible?
The trouble is that nations cannot solve this problem on their own. This is a world-wide problem that can only be solved when every nation on the earth participates in reducing GHG – Green House Gases. And that will not happen. The problem is too big, so big that it can no longer be solved, so, as an increasing number of people conclude: we have to adapt.
Adapting means that we write off Africa and the Middle East, the most affected regions of the world. In due course, perhaps in the next two decades they will become inhabitable. Already it is from there where the majority of the refugees originate. What are millions now will be scores of millions in the near future.
We now have many good-willing citizens who welcome these poor people, and that is to be lauded. But when the trickle becomes a deluge, what will happen then? Then the law of the jungle will take over: the way in which only the strongest and cleverest people in a society stay alive or succeed.
Jesus has something to say about that as well.
In Matthew 25, when Jesus was approaching the end of his ministry, he also saw how the end of the world as we know was shaping up. What does Jesus want us to do? “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in……I tell you the truth whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do to me.”
Our task is clear. No COP-OUT for his followers. We have to share our blessings with the poor – the refugees of all colors and faiths – of the world.