Governments the world over appear to be influenced by the unhealthy interference of vested interests, and take positions not on facts but for short-term gains
There is now a growing resolve across the world to deal with the challenge of climate change, even though action thus far has been inadequate and delayed. The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have succeeded considerably in creating awareness worldwide on the scientific reality of climate change, and this was a major driver of the Paris agreement of 2015. However, if we do not meet the goal of reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) as quantified by the IPCC, then the current impacts that the world is experiencing would become progressively more serious, thus enhancing risks for all living species and ecosystems in the future. It may then be too late for us to deal with this challenge.
Hence, the time to act is now, and any further delay could lead to disaster. There is still, unfortunately, a powerful group of climate sceptics, who prefer not only to retain their doubts in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence but also spend significant resources in sowing doubts in the minds of the public.
President Donald Trump, during his election campaign, repeatedly pledged that he would have the US withdraw from the Paris agreement, in case he is elected as President. He has also stated on several occasions that climate change is a hoax, and even referred to it as a Chinese conspiracy. It is truly unfortunate that the leader of the most powerful country in the world ignores what successive Governments of the United States have accepted over the years.
The reports of the IPCC are accepted and approved by all the governments of the world. The most widely read part of each report, the Summary for Policy Makers, is actually approved and accepted word by word by every Government. The process of approval, therefore, becomes an extremely laborious exercise, generally requiring all night sessions in which delegations from countries as diverse as Saudi Arabia, the vulnerable small island states and nations of North America participate actively. The strength and merit of this process lies in the fact that governments accept and own the scientific findings of the IPCC and rigorous assessment of the world’s best scientists, after questioning and scrutinising the reports presented to them for approval in this intensive process.
The Administration of President George W Bush was also totally sceptical about human interference on the earth’s climate, but towards the end of his second term, President Bush did concede that climate change was a reality. However, he differed in his view from the scientific assessment of how to deal with the problem. Nevertheless, his Government fully approved and accepted the Summary for Policy Makers and all the other reports brought out in that period by the IPCC. In substance, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) completed in 2007 provided some compelling messages of human interference on the climate system as did, more forcefully, the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), which was approved and released in November 2014.
The US in several respects is very vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, some of which are increasingly in evidence already. Heat waves, extreme precipitation events, and extreme sea level rise related events are taking place with higher intensity and frequency across the US. The south-western part of that country is vulnerable to droughts, and projections indicate a serious problem of water scarcity in the future. California, for instance, has suffered from recurrent droughts over the past four years, and prospects for the future are particularly grim.
While the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement may not succeed in dampening the resolve and ambition to act in other countries, it does raise some questions of justice. Without doubt, at the international level, other countries can prove the culpability of the US as the major contributor to human-induced climate change. The Western media repeatedly highlights the fact that China is now the largest emitter of GHGs in the world. This clearly misses the point that climate change is caused not by the emissions of these gases in any period but the stock which has accumulated over time. It is the increased concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere which causes climate change.
In the very first conference on climate change in a developing country, ‘Global Warming and Climate Change: Perspectives from Developing Countries’, held in New Delhi in January 1989, this columnist had shown that since the beginning of industrialisation, the developed countries of the OECD had contributed 65 per cent of the carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe about 20 per cent, and the developing countries had contributed only 15 per cent. More recent estimates provided by the World Resources Institute show that between 1850 and 2011, the US was responsible for 27 per cent of cumulative CO2 emissions, the EU (consisting of 28 countries) 25 per cent, China 11 per cent and India barely three per cent.
The issue, therefore, is not one of climate scepticism on the part of the US President, but the fact that there is gross injustice in the biggest historical polluter in the world not accepting its responsibility and not doing what is morally and ethically correct. At the same time, the smallest emitters in the world, which include the small island states and low-lying countries like Bangladesh, continue to suffer the worst impacts of climate change. It is difficult to believe that President Trump is not aware of the overwhelming scientific consensus on human interference with the earth’s climate, but he is obviously acting on behalf of the powerful vested interests and lobbies which possibly funded his election campaign. Global voices need to be raised on this question, if we have to secure the future of the youth of the world and generations who have still to come. It is for this reason that the youth of the world must assume leadership and raise their voices against the injustice of the current system.
Governments the world over appear to be influenced by unhealthy interference of vested interests, and take positions on a serious issue like climate change not on the basis of facts but for short term gains for the benefit of a few.
It is crucially important that the people and Governments of various countries realise the moral and ethical dimensions of the problem and confront the US Administration with its historical contribution to the increased concentration of GHGs, and therefore its responsibility to take action for the youth of its own country as well as around the world. Because it is the younger generation that would become the worst victims of such climate change.
(The writer is former chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2002-2015)