The recent report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted a virtual Armageddon of global warming in the years to come, by the end of the century at the latest, if humanity fails to put their collective heads together to avert this disaster. The report was in the making for six years, involving more than 800 scientists around the world. And their main finding is that it is “extremely likely” that humans are the dominant cause of global warming, with carbon dioxide emissions the main factor. The report, being the fifth major assessment of the UN Panel on climate change, expands on the last one issued in 2007 with new evidence that things are only getting worse.
Amplifying on this, Qin Dahe, co-chairman of the IPCC working group that compiled the report, said, “The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice have diminished, the global mean sea level has risen and the concentrations of green house gases have increased.” And unless the rise in global temperatures is kept down to two degrees by the end of this century, which seems a herculean task as the rise might reach 4.8 degrees, the world might be crossing the threshold of managing the impending disaster. As it is, according to the report, each of the past three decades has been warmer than any preceding decade since 1850, and the past 30 years have been warmest since 600 AD.
The annual report of the World Meteorological Organisation has also warned against global warming. As reported in Britain’s Financial Times, it said, “The first 10 years of this century were the hottest in 160 years and filled with more broken temperature records than any other decade as global warming continued to accelerate.” This is reflected in rising sea levels, melting of Arctic ice, and the world’s glaciers, thawing of permafrost releasing methane — which is even more toxic for the atmosphere than CO2 — acidification of oceans damaging coral reefs and sea life and so on. All these changes, as we are already seeing, will increase the frequency of disastrous occurrences like tropical cyclones, bush fires, floods and the likes.
The obvious question is: what is causing global warming? As mentioned earlier, it is largely caused by increased carbon emissions into the atmosphere by reckless use of fossil fuels to fuel the ever-expanding global economies. The CO2 thus emitted is trapped into the atmosphere, increasing global temperatures. As sea levels rise further, some of the low level countries will be at high risk of becoming uninhabitable or sinking altogether, which could lead to massive internal and external migrations. And such mass migrations, particularly to other countries, might lead to a highly dangerous global situation, with some countries raising barriers to keep out the environmental refugees. Besides, increasing frequency of droughts might lead to nasty conflicts around water shortages and shrinking arable land. Therefore, global warming is not only going to upset the ecosystem, but it is also likely to create military conflicts between neighbours and in the world at large.
Another factor causing global warming is the shrinking of the world’s forests due to land clearing for agriculture, urban development, timber exports and so on. The forests are the world’s natural carbon sinks as this is, in a way, their oxygen. With the forest cover shrinking all over the world, the carbon emissions have nowhere to go but into the atmosphere. To these two will be added the thawing of permafrost releasing methane gas that will make things even worse.
What can be done to mitigate the situation, if not actually reverse it? So far, despite all the international conferences on the subject, there is no real progress. There is some wrangling over specific targets to reduce carbon emissions, with developed countries urging developing economies to commit to them. That would amount, more or less, to them accepting a permanently lower level of development for their people, who are already among the most deprived in the world. The developing countries have, by and large, no viable options for economic development without using fossil fuels. Their argument is that the world is in such a mess environmentally because the United States and the developed countries of the west recklessly exploited global resources, including fossil fuels, over the last two centuries or more. And they still are not slowing down. Looking at the new sources of oil and gas being extracted, like from tar sands in Canada and shale rocks in the US and elsewhere, the discourse on climate change seems strong on rhetoric than action.
The only effective way to deal with global warming, and keep temperatures from rising over two degrees, is to reorient economies from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind etc. It seems so simple, yet there are many problems. The most important is the vested interests of the global oil industry with its enormous resources to impede, delay or sabotage any real movement away from fossil fuels. Second, for renewable energy sources to become competitive there is need for greater investment in new technology, both by the industry and the governments. And this is not forthcoming, even in the midst of all the scientific evidence of the impending disaster.
Indeed, the sceptics and climate change deniers are not even convinced by the science of climate change. They deny that humans have anything to do with climate change, if it is happening at all. For them it is nature taking its own course, as it has done all through the ages. Some even suggest that it is a political conspiracy by the Green and Left forces to bring down the capitalist system. However, over many years now, most scientists have arrived at the conclusion, as reflected in the recent UN report of the IPCC, that global warming is real and the humans, by and large, are responsible for it.
While the world needs to address this impending disaster urgently with all the measures at its disposal, there is need to recognise that as long as the governing model of limitless economic growth remains the norm, with greed and conspicuous consumption its guiding principle, we seem to be headed towards inevitable disaster. It is simply not sustainable, because planet does not have limitless resources to support bottomless human greed. Therefore, even with all the mitigating measures, we might still end up exhausting the nature’s bounty. There is a need, therefore, to work in harmony with nature than to confront and seek to overpower it, wherein lies the path to destruction.
We need to downsize our plunder and vandalism of the planet to conserve its resources and partake of them with a sense of humility, equity and shared enterprise. And that will require a new international economic order to avert the impending Armageddon from global warming. We don’t have much time and hence the need for urgent collective action.
The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at [email protected]