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Despite threats by both the US and Russian governments to derail the entire process, agreement was finally reached at the UN Conference on Climate Change in December, 2005 to extend and broaden commitments to reduce carbon emissions when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.(1)
The conference—hosted in Montreal, Canada—was hailed as a success by the Conference President, Canadian Environment Minister Stéphane Dion. Dion said, “Key decisions have been made in several areas. The Kyoto Protocol has been switched on, a dialogue about the future action has begun, parties have moved forward work on adaptation and advanced the implementation of the regular work program of the Convention and of the Protocol.”(2) According to the Friends of the Earth, The Montreal Action Plan (MAP) initiates crucial negotiations on legally binding targets for industrialized countries and also sets in motion a wider review involving all countries, due to be discussed at talks next year.(3)
However, as a recent report by the International Energy Agency makes clear, there is still a huge gap between the aspirations expressed by the signatories to the Kyoto Protocol and the reality of global energy consumption trends.
The World Energy Outlook 2005(4) categorically states that if governments do nothing to change their policies, global energy consumption will rise by over 50 percent by 2030. Even if governments implement existing commitments such as the Kyoto Protocol, global energy consumption will rise by 30 percent by 2030.
This is mainly because developing countries such as India and China, which will see the biggest increases in energy consumption, are not yet committed to binding agreements to cut emissions. And despite the intentions expressed at Montreal, most developed nations are also failing to meet their targets. In other words, while the critical need to cut emissions was acknowledged by governments at Montreal, there is not yet any evidence that commitments to make such cuts will be realized.
Rapidly Disappearing?
Yet, all the signs indicate the effects of global warming are happening faster than the most cautious pundits have predicted. The Greenland ice sheet appears to be melting rapidly(5), recent research indicates the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa could double in size over the next century(6), while the release of methane from the Siberian tundra also appears to be advancing faster than many had feared.(7)
Such events dramatically reveal that the time scale for taking decisive action to prevent further rises in carbon emissions is short, and getting shorter all the time.
The 1992 Convention on Climate Change, to which the USA is a signatory, made a commitment to limit atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” It is generally accepted within the scientific community that “dangerous levels” of carbon emissions will be reached when global temperature rises by more than 2oc. There is less agreement about how much more carbon dioxide can be released into the atmosphere before a 2oc temperature rise is precipitated. Current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere currently amount to around 380ppm (parts per million). Some governments and corporations appear comfortable with the prospect that emissions can rise to around 550ppm before any remedial action is needed. Others estimate rises to around 450ppm will constitute the moment we have reached ‘dangerous levels’.(8)
Yet, the ‘Meeting the Climate Challenge’ report produced by an international task force organized by UK policy activists in January 2005 spells out our margin for error with chilling clarity:
“Climate science is not yet able to specify the trajectory of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases that corresponds precisely to any particular global temperature rise. Based on current knowledge, however, it appears that achieving a high probability of limiting global average temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius will require that the increase in greenhouse-gas concentrations as well as all the other warming and cooling influences on global climate in the year 2100, as compared with 1750, should add up to a net warming no greater than what would be associated with a CO2 [carbon dioxide] concentration of about 400ppm.”(9)
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The predictions made by the International Energy Agency indicate that we will reach the 400ppm threshold within around 10 years; by 2030, we will have completely exceeded it. A 30-50 percent increase in global energy consumption could trigger rising global temperatures of anything up to 60c by the end of the twenty first century, capitulating us irreversibly into chaos.
If the Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic polar ice caps, and fragile ecosystems like the Kalahari and Siberia are already facing rapid destabilization as a result of rising temperatures, the effects of relentless continued rises on such environments will be catastrophic. The melting of the ice sheets will eventually cause sea levels to rise by anything from seven to 30 meters, wiping out cities like London, New York, Miami, Bombay, Calcutta, Sydney, Shanghai, Lagos, and Tokyo. Massive release of the Siberian methane may precipitate mass extinction across the planet as temperatures become too high for life to be sustained.
At the global level, the temptation to bury our heads in the sand in the face of such potential devastation appears irresistible. According to a recent report by the German Advisory Council on Global Change(10), we need not only to implement the Kyoto agreements, but to go much further if temperatures are to be kept at safe and sustainable levels. Their report says that industrialized countries will have to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 20 percent by 2020, and by up to 60 percent by 2050, while rapidly developing countries like China will need to take similar steps to switch to sustainable energy sources. This is a shift that requires a political will notably absent from global decision makers, who fail to even deliver on the commitments they have made under Kyoto. Yet, we have to take decisive steps wherever and whenever possible, without waiting for the ‘big brother’ of global government to tell us to do it.
Such initiatives are emerging. In defiance of the Bush administration, seven northeastern US states have recently created the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, in which participating states have agreed to curb emissions starting in 2009, with cuts in emissions starting in 2016(11). The UK government has commissioned a review of future energy policy, due to report in 2006, in the light of the need, in Tony Blair’s words, for a “frantic” debate about future energy sustainability. Much of that debate will focus on the role of nuclear energy as a potential source of ‘green’ energy, but environmentalists argue scaling up nuclear energy involves huge storage and clean up costs, as well as an open invitation to terrorists, and want to see far more emphasis on conserving and saving energy as a way of meeting emissions targets.(12)
Clearly, it will only be possible to prevent the unmitigated disasters runaway global warming will cause if we act decisively and radically now. That in turn depends on a willingness to see beyond our own immediate needs and to plan for a sustainable future, for ourselves and for future generations. It still remains to be seen whether or not we are capable of such decisiveness, and as the time for action grows shorter, the chances of failure exponentially rise. Failure shouldn’t be an option, given the potentially horrendous consequences it entails, but only time will tell whether we have the will and resources to collectively avert such an outcome.
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