Western world & politics of climate change

Increasing environment related uncertainties like hurricanes, violent thunderstorms, windstorms, draughts and flooding caused by abrupt climate change are confronting and threatening human existence on planet earth today.

Experts have warned that continuous emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane progressively trap heat in the atmosphere thereby causing global warming. As its disastrous consequences rages across the globe, most developed nations fiddle.

The United Nations and it various organs have been at the forefront of combating global warming. Its agency has been organizing series of summits and conferences aimed at bringing the developed, developing and less developed nations together to arrive at a workable framework for action on climate change. The basic consensus is that there is need to cut and cap the emission of greenhouse gases. The industrialized countries have more responsibility in reduction of carbon emission yet they have been foot-dragging over the years.

In the year 1992, about 193 nations ratified the voluntary framework convention on climate change which was presented in Rio, Brazil. The industrialized nations pledged to reduce their CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by year 2000. The failure to meet this goal necessitated the proposal to impose legally binding limits on developed nations. The treaty which was later known as Kyoto Carbon Emission protocol required developed nations to reduce their emissions by about 5 per cent from their 1990 levels by 2012.

Due to the lip service being paid by many industrialized nations the Kyoto Protocol is far from being actualized even as 2012 draws to an end. Realizing this, 194 parties to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) met in South African city of Durban last year to propose a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, launch Green Climate Fund, and produce a protocol that will be binding on all members. It was in this regard that many environmentalists were looking forward to the 18th climate change conference at Doha Qatar. Now, the Doha conference has come and gone.

At the end of the two weeks conference (8th December, 2012), the 200 countries that participated succeeded in extending the life of the Kyoto Protocol to 2020. The “loss and damage” principle was also incorporated into the treaty thus empowering vulnerable countries to seek financial compensation from country exceeding their emission limitations or ignoring their reduction commitments. However, Doha conference failed to reach a pragmatic framework for action due to the reluctance of major industrialized nations, some flaws in the Kyoto Protocol itself and the categorization of nations according to their development.

Whereas developed countries like America, Japan, Canada, Russia and New Zealand are reluctant to their commitment, other high carbon emitters like China, India and Brazil though committed, are constrained by their categorization as developing nations. Also, there are some concerned parties that are not signatories to the Kyoto Agreement. This low commitment by developed countries is definitely going to erode the trust and engagement level of less developed and developing countries. In the final analysis, such state of affairs will not augur well for humanity as a whole due to rising sea levels, more air pollution, increase in the range of infectious diseases and disruption of natural ecosystem.

Though developed nations have the knowledge, technology funds and policy options needed to curb emissions and thus reduce temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius they are reluctant to do so due to economic and political reasons.

For instance the EU is reluctant to strengthen its legal limitation of atmospheric pollution because of serious lobby by coal and oil industry. It is known that about 40 percent of greenhouse effect is attributable to fossil fuel combustion.

Already, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that the gap between the required emission level and what is promised by countries is widening. Going by the World Bank projection, global temperature is likely to reach 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

The truth is that when the deleterious consequences of global warming manifests, it does not differentiate a president’s house from a peasant. Neither will it respect developed country to the detriment of developing countries.

Does it mean that western world is not mindful of the risk posed by global warming and its implication for humanity existence? I think they do. However, they are confident of their developed infrastructure, their disaster preparedness, mitigation and containment capacities. But it is not like relying on the strength of horsemen, or military equipment for war victory? Is it not like conserving water in broken cisterns?

The developing and less developed countries should strive to improve their governance, evolve enabling legal framework, minimize vulnerability of the poor and gradually develop sustainable private sector. 

They should also build their capacities to contain or mitigate disasters by careful identification of risks prevalent in their climes. Perhaps this will strengthen their negotiating power in future conferences as they jointly implement “loss and damage” principle.

It is not known how long the West will continue this climate change politics. One clear fact is that the other parties are waking up and smelling the coffee. They will increasingly adopt various coping strategies. The consequences may not help the over 7 billion world population confronted daily with the realities of global warming.

But God rules in the affairs of men. He can change the hearts of the superpowers, or harden their hearts in order to fulfill the end time prophecies.

Environment & Development with MacDenis Igbo @DSBNews

 

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