The Climate Crisis Gerry OShea
A major row
erupted in 2019 between Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, and the French leader,
Emmanuel Macron, as thousands of fires engulfed the Amazon rainforest. Macron
angrily accused his Brazilian counterpart of “ecoside” for allowing the world’s
largest forest to be despoiled. He accused Bolsonaro of a despicable crime
against the planet.
Needless to
say, the Brazilian strongman was enraged and he countered by asserting that
Macron “was treating Brazil as a colony or no man’s land.” “Our sovereignty is non-negotiable,” he
exclaimed.
Sovereignty
is indeed the issue. Is Brazil the rainforest’s guardian or owner? Must the
world just grin and bear it while Bolsonaro demolishes this indispensable
carbon sink and vital repository of plant and animal life?
Most people
would agree that the Brazilian leader’s behavior is completely unacceptable,
but what about Australia, a highly-developed country, still expanding its coal
production, most of which is exported. The prime minister in Canberra claims
that their coal is somehow cleaner than what is produced elsewhere. In reality,
coal is by far the dirtiest fossil fuel, and it remains the biggest source of
climate-warming carbon dioxide worldwide.
America,
until recently overtaken by China, was the biggest polluter internationally.
Even at the COP26 climate meeting in Glasgow they declined to sign off on an
ambitious anti-coal plan because they didn’t want to annoy Senator Joe Manchin,
a key senate vote, who represents West Virginia where the black stuff is an
important driver of economic activity.
India is
surging ahead economically with growth driven by fossil fuels. They argue that
it is unfair to place restrictions on them as they try to cope with the demands
of a huge population. They refuse to embrace carbon neutrality, demanding,
instead, that others, led by the United States, with far more responsibility
for historical emissions, do more.
Indonesia and some African countries play the
same card. They claim that, considering their underdevelopment and the stripping
of their resources by colonial powers, talking about rigid climate goals does
not square with their legitimate plans for economic progress.
These were
debatable issues in the past, but now the future of the planet is at stake.
There is an imminent danger that like Nero of old we will be fiddling while
Rome burns. Territorial sovereignty cannot be understood as providing
permission to plunder collective resources.
According to
the prestigious World Meteorological Organization the accumulated heat from
greenhouse gas “has propelled the planet into uncharted territory with
far-reaching repercussions for current and future generations.” Another expert
described the crisis using more graphic imagery as “a deafening, screeching
smoke alarm going off in the kitchen.”
The UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, warned
that the last seven years have been the warmest on record. “From ocean depths
to mountain tops, from melting glaciers to relentless extreme weather events,
ecosystems and communities around the globe are being devastated.”
Every year
the world loses an area of tropical forest the size of Costa Rica. Over one
million plant and animal species face extinction in the near-term. It is
difficult even to imagine the awful extent of the ongoing destruction.
Scientists are nearly unanimous that emission
of greenhouse gases need to be cut in half by 2030, but instead of reductions
they are actually continuing to grow. Limiting the increase to the 1.5 degrees
Celsius threshold, a minimum sought by scientists, is no longer a realistic
goal. In fact, even if all countries meet the reductions they committed to previously
temperatures are still on line to rise by 2.7 degrees by the end of the
century.
The
Republican Party provides further cause for dejection. In 2008, John McCain was the party’s presidential
candidate and he proposed serious plans
to ease the climate crisis. Donald Trump’s period in the White House was a
disaster for conservation. He withdrew America from the Paris Climate Accord
and denuded the Environmental Protection Agency.
Disgracefully, the GOP, a major political
party, continues in a state of denial that is very difficult to understand. Their
depressing message: Our leader says it
is all a hoax – and he will likely be the party’s nominee for the presidency
again in a few years.
Still,
humanity will not concede easily as we saw from the enthusiasm and real
progress represented by the 20,000 delegates from close to two hundred countries
at the Glasgow summit. They agreed to reduce deforestation by 85% before 2035
and to a similar but less ambitious program for minimizing the use of coal. In
addition, they plan for a sizable 30% reduction in methane gas within this
timeframe. Experts there showed compelling graphs and professional studies that
prove the superior economics of using wind, wave or solar power over coal, oil
or gas.
Former Irish president Mary Robinson’s tearful
plea in Glasgow for outlawing fossil fuels to save the planet resonated across all
borders. Young people were tramping the city pointing out the serious positive
impact of a decarbonized atmosphere on human health.
There were
mild celebrations towards the close of the conference when China and the United
States, despite the frosty relationship between the two governments, agreed to
“enhance ambition” in the climate area and to find ways together to move
forward.
The capitalist
system requires long-term planning as well as accumulating annual profits. The
crisis is so threatening that recently the big banks, pension funds and asset
managers pledged no less than $130 trillion dollars to finance the development
of renewable energy, providing a strong optimistic message that there will be
abundant funding for saving the planet. Their money is on wind and solar power
as well as on new technologies.
There is
also great hope that a young generation has been activated on this issue across
the world. The votes of millennials and the generation after them were major
factors in the Biden victory in 2020. Climate was a litmus issue for many of
these voters.
Think of the
inevitability of worsening catastrophic weather-related events and how the effects
of these will influence congressional and presidential elections. Will younger
generations vote for a political party that is in complete denial about the
carbon crisis? In Europe, Green parties are exerting a big influence on
policy-making; the Democrats will benefit significantly from this issue in the
United States.
We are in
the early stages of new technologies that suck carbon from the atmosphere.
Major new developments are underway in this area with a realistic hope of
positive climate consequences over the next decade.
Finally, we
must recognize and publicize the central moral dimension of this crisis because
leaving a disintegrating and polluted world to future generations would be an
act of crass immorality. Pope Francis’ signature teaching in his encyclical Laudato
Si lays out in the clearest, clarion terms why we must protect what he
calls “our common home.”
The profound
wisdom of the pope’s message, seconded by an array of other distinguished faith
leaders, is being increasingly heard from
pulpits which will have a growing impact. That too provides a reason for hope.
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