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Over
180 delegates to the UN Conference on climate change are meeting in Milan, Italy
between Dec 2-12 to discuss evidence for global warming, the prospects for
ratification and implementation of the Kyoto Treaty and international efforts to
rein in a rise in global temperatures. Yet, with the assault on multilateral
initiatives in recent years by the Bush regime, even the modest expectations of
this meeting face sabotage. The US is aggressively maintaining its opposition to
Kyoto and attention is now focused on whether Russia will save Kyoto by
ratifying it next year or finally scupper it by refusing to sign up.
Kyoto
must be ratified by at least 55 countries, including those responsible for
causing 55 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions in 1990, in order to come
into force. With the United States refusing to ratify the protocol, that minimum
can now only be reached with Russian participation.
The
signs do not look good. Vladimir Putin himself has recently expressed doubts as
to whether implementation of Kyoto will have any effect on global warming, and
his economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, has argued the treaty would "doom
Russia to poverty, weakness, and backwardness."[1]
Gloomy
Forecast
While
delegates to the UN meeting will put a brave face on things arguing that many
countries that have signed up will implement the Kyoto targets regardless of
whether it will formally enter into force, prospects for a genuine global
multilateral response to slow - let alone to reverse - climate change look worse
now than ever before.
The
Kyoto Treaty
commits signatories to reduce levels of carbon dioxide emissions by 2012 to 92%
of 1990 levels. By the UN’s own admission, Kyoto itself is “a
peanut” in terms of longer term initiatives needed to combat the trends in
global warming, which almost all scientists now agree is being directly affected
by the actions of humankind.
Yet,
despite containing such modest goals, all the evidence indicates not only that
developed countries will have enormous difficulties in meeting the Kyoto
targets, but that in fact energy consumption across the world will rise
significantly in the next 25 years with a corresponding rise in carbon
emissions. Conservative estimates predict a rise of 8% in emissions from the
highly industrialized world between 2000-2010.[2]
Those
with profits to be made are banking on even higher consumption trends. Randy
Broiles, global planning manager for Exxon's oil and gas production unit,
recently predicted 40% growth in energy consumption across the world by 2020,
and a corresponding increase in carbon emissions of 50%[3].
Broiles attributed a fair proportion of this rise to increased car use. There
are now 15 cars for every 1,000 people in the world, Broiles said, but
ExxonMobil expects that number to rise to 50 cars per 1,000 by 2020.
Unsuprisingly, ExxonMobil remain upbeat about such forecasts: "The oil
resource base is huge -- it's huge -- and we expect it to satisfy world demand
growth well beyond 2020," Broile assured us.
End
of Life on Earth?
Compare
these figures with the scientific projections made for global warming. Most
scientists now agree that the rise in the world’s temperature will continue
dramatically throughout the next hundred years. Top end predictions indicate the
temperature could heat up by as much as 7-10oC by the end of the twenty-first
century. If this worst-case scenario does indeed come about, the consequences
will be catastrophic. In the words of environmental campaigner, George Monbiot,
we will be looking at the possibility of “the end of the circumstances which
permit most human beings to remain on earth.”[4]
Just
how serious the effects of such a rise in global temperatures are starkly
outlined by recent scientific research into past as well as potential future
events. For example, one recent study indicates that the cataclysmic event that
caused a mass extinction of the earth’s species in the Permian Age 250 million
years ago – an extinction event far greater than that which killed off the
dinosaurs 60 million years ago - was not in fact the effect of a meteorite
hitting earth, but of a rapid and massive change in the earth’s temperature.[5]
According to professor of palaeontology Michael Benton, the temperature rise was
caused by carbon emissions from volcanic eruptions in Siberia that heated the
world up sufficiently to unlock the frozen methane gas deposited around the
polar seas. This in turn heated the temperature up even further, so much so that
the result was the death of plant life and the mass extinction of animals.
Altogether, 90% of the earth’s species were wiped out. It took the world 150
million years to recover and to become as bio-diverse as it had been before such
disaster struck.
Other
studies indicate what may happen to the global ecological system if the glaciers
melt. The World Wildlife Fund predicts the world’s glaciers could completely
melt by the end of the century if temperatures rise by 4oC in that time.[6]
Glacial waters effectively control global ocean currents, and ocean currents are
of major importance in regulating the globe’s temperature because they move
warm surface water away from the tropics and return cold water to them via the
ocean floor in a conveyer system.
One
of the most important such flows is the Gulf Stream. Some scientists are
predicting that global warming will lead to the Gulf Stream being cut off with
significant consequences for the world’s environment.[7] Not
only would the UK be plunged into temperatures more like those of Iceland, the
main rain band in the tropics would move south so regions like Central America
could lose up to 40% of their rainfall and the rainforests that go with it. A
cold North Atlantic may also weaken and even kill off the Asian monsoon, which
would bring disaster and famine to those regions dependent on that rainfall in
its wake. Moreover, scientists say once the conveyer system is switched off, it
could take hundreds of years before it was switched back on again and there
would be nothing we could do to change it.
In
addition to its effects on the Gulf Stream, glacial melt will cause severe water
shortages and flooding for billions across the world. This will have a
huge impact on irrigated farming systems and could spell the end of irrigated
farming in those parts of the world dependent on rivers fed by glaciers. Other
areas will face flooding as sea levels rise with massive refugee problems, as
such habitats have to be abandoned.
Blood
for Oil
The
American administration still refuses to believe the evidence from such
scientific studies. In an interview before the Milan conference, U.S. National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Chief, retired Vice Adm. Conrad C.
Lautenbacher Jr., blithely asserted that, "Climate science is at the
beginning of its life. I do believe we need more scientific info before we
commit to a process like Kyoto."[8] In this belief at
least, the US appears to lead the consumers and producers of the industrialized
and industrializing world, whose appetite for energy far outweighs any concern
about impending environmental catastrophe.
Despite
such an appetite, many studies appear to contradict ExxonMobil’s optimism
about the amount of oil available to meet this demand. In fact, it appears that
demand for oil is outstripping supply and that production of crude oil across
the world is soon about to peak.[9]
However,
this is unlikely to bring about the much-needed rationalisation of global energy
consumption if global warming is to be halted. Instead, as Monbiot argues, it is
more likely to lead to an ever more rapacious and ruthless search for global
reserves of crude.[10] We have already witnessed one ‘blood
for oil’ war in Iraq, and the possibility remains that other ‘oil fuelled’
wars will follow in Central Asia and the Caucasus. As the supply of crude oil
becomes restricted its price will also rocket, causing recession and
unemployment as the global economy, utterly dependent on oil, suffers major
withdrawal symptoms from its ‘fix’. ExxonMobil and the like will see
short-term profits soar, but all the time the planet continues to cook.
Few
Alternatives
There
are also few prospects on the horizon for alternative technologies capable of
substituting the central place of oil in the industrial economy, or for
countering the effects of increasing carbon dioxide in the environment – for
example, growing more trees.[11] In fact, it seems there is
only one solution to the problem of global warming: to drastically cut back on
our energy consumption levels.
Scientists
and environmentalists say the world will need to reduce energy consumption
levels by as much as 70% by mid-century if we are to credibly avoid the
projected rise in the world’s temperature and its potential effects. In
particular, environmentalists argue the global agriculture and transport sectors
– those most heavily dependent on oil – need to be completely restructured
in order to account both for the decline in oil supply and for the cuts in
energy consumption needed to counter global warming.
The
political will for such a decision and the enormous social and economic
reorganisation it would entail seems on current trends to be completely lacking.
Until it arises, initiatives like the Milan conference and its associated
politicking represent little more than whistling in the wind.
References:
[1]
U.N. climate conference opens amid new doubts about Kyoto going into effect,
ENN, 02.12.03: http://www.enn.com/news/2003-12-02/s_10904.asp
2
Poor world 'cuts climate gases' BBC Online, 29.11.03:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3246236.stm
3
Global Warming Gas Seen Increasing Dramatically, Reuters, 21.11.03: http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/22902/story.htm
4
George Monbiot, Sleepwalking to Extinction, the Guardian 12.08.03:
http://www.monbiot.com
5
George Monbiot, Shadow of extinction, the Guardian 01.07.03: http://www.monbiot.com;
The Day the Earth Nearly Died, BBC Horizon, 05.12.02: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/dayearthdied.shtml
6
Billions Face Water Shortages as Glaciers Melt-WWF, Reuters, 28.11.03: http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/22961/story.htm
7
The Big Chill, BBC Horizon, 13.11.03: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/bigchill.shtml
8
U.N. climate conference opens amid new doubts about Kyoto going into effect
ENN, 02.12.03: http://www.enn.com/news/2003-12-02/s_10904.asp
9
End of Cheap Oil Poses Serious Threat
to World Economy, Experts Say, Environmental Media Services, 06.01.03:
http://www.ems.org/oil_depletion/story.html
10
George Monbiot, The Bottom of the Barrel, the Guardian 02.12.03:
http://www.monbiot.com/
11
‘No Solution’ Found in More Trees, BBC Online, 28.11.03: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3246938.stm
*
Kate Prendergast is a British freelance writer with a PhD in
archaeology. Your emails will be forwarded to her by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
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