Humanity has just about to run out of time to address climate change. Scientists have pointed out that a rise in temperature of 2º Celsius above pre-industrial levels will put the Earth in dangerous, uncharted territory.
Yet we are currently on a path towards an increase of 4º Celsius or more this century. The last chance for action has arrived.
That chance lies in Paris in December 2015, when the world’s governments meet for the 21st annual United Nations climate-change meeting. But this time will be different. Either governments will agree to decisive action, as they have promised, or we will look back at 2015 as the year when climate sanity slipped through our fingers.
In 1992, the world’s governments adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), promising to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic [human-induced] interference in the climate system” by reducing the rate of emission of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. But, although the treaty was entered into force in 1994, the rate of emissions of greenhouse gases, including CO2, has actually increased.
In 1992, the global combustion of coal, oil and gas, plus cement production, released 22.6 billion tonnes of CO2 into the air. In 2012, the most recent year for which comparable data is available, emissions were 34.5 billion tonnes. Humanity has accelerated, rather than controlled, human-induced climate change.
This is now the greatest moral issue of our time. Global fossil-fuel use gravely threatens the poor, who are the most vulnerable to climate change (though the rich are the main cause), and future generations, who will inherit a planet that has become unliveable in many places, with food supply subject to massive shocks.
Yet, for the many powerful interests, climate change remains a game, with the goal being to delay action for as long as possible. The giant fossil-fuel companies have continued to lobby behind the scenes against the shift to low-carbon energy and have used their vast wealth to buy media coverage designed to sow confusion.
Even so, the politics of climate change may be changing for the better. Here are some reasons why the stalemate might soon end.
The world is waking up to the calamity that we are causing. Though the global propaganda machine churns out a daily stream of anti-scientific falsehoods, the public also sees prolonged droughts, massive floods and lethal heat waves.
More severe climate shocks may lie ahead. This year could prove to be a major El Niño year, when the waters of the Eastern Pacific warm and create global climate disruptions. A big El Niño now would be even more dangerous than usual, because it would add to the overall rising trend in global temperatures. Indeed, many scientists believe that a big El Niño could make 2015 the hottest year in the Earth’s history.
Both the US and China, the two largest emitters of CO2, are finally beginning to get serious. President Barack Obama’s administration is trying to stop the construction of new coal-fired power plants, unless they are equipped with clean technology. China, for its part, has realised that its heavy dependence on coal is causing such devastating pollution and smog that it is leading to massive loss of life, with life expectancy down as much as five years in regions with heavy coal consumption.
And the Paris negotiations are finally beginning to attract global attention from both the public and world leaders. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for political leaders to attend a special summit in September 2014, 14 months ahead of the Paris meeting, to launch intensive negotiations.
Technological advances in low-carbon energy systems, including photovoltaics, electric vehicles and fourth-generation nuclear power with greatly enhanced safety features, all help to make the transition to low-cost, low-carbon energy technologically realistic, with huge benefits for human health and planetary safety. And the world is increasingly being receptive to these new technologies.
A sum of these factors is bringing about change in the sphere. But, still, disguising voices remain strong enough to change the direction of the winds. That is why we need a concerted action.
Surely, the control of climate change is a moral imperative and a practical necessity. It is far too important to be left to politicians, big oil and their media propagandists.
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