Climate for climate change still hazy

US President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, announced on August 3, proposes a 32 per cent cut in carbon emissions from power plants in the United States by 2030 on 2005 levels. This is higher than the initial proposal of 30 per cent, though states will only have to comply by 2022 rather than 2020 as originally proposed, and will be able to submit their plans on meeting the targets by 2018 instead of 2017. Indeed, the US is already halfway to the target as carbon dioxide emissions from power plants had fallen by 15 per cent between 2005 and 2013. Nevertheless, the new plan, which will significantly boost wind and solar power generation and force a switch away from coal power, is a landmark development; nothing on this scale of reduction had been announced earlier. Understandably, it has run into a squall of opposition from some of the American States and power plants, which have vowed a l'outrance legal fight against it on the ground that it will be economically damaging.

The corporate world and some of the American States are, however, divided. According to a report in The Guardian, 365 business enterprises have written to 29 State governors asking for strong support to the new policy on the ground that that it will benefit the economy and create new jobs. The ranks of the supporters include Ceres, a network of investors, Unilever, l'Oréal, levi Strauss, Staples, the renewable energy company SunEdison, and Trillium Asset Management, which manages $2.2 billion in assets.

The development is understandable. Increasingly, large sections of people are realising that, unless halted resolutely, climate change or global warming will assume even more serious proportions than now. The US-based Council on Foreign Relations' issue brief entitled ‘The Global Climate Change Regime’ cites the American Meteorological Society as saying that there was a 90 per cent probability of global temperatures rising by 3.5 to 7.4 degrees Celsius in less than a hundred years, with even greater increases over land and the poles. The result of the shifts would be widespread disasters in the form of rising sea levels, violent and volatile weather patterns, desertification, famine, water shortages, and other secondary effects including conflict.

Unfortunately, progress in coping with global warming has been slow. The limited Kyoto Protocol on curbing greenhouse gas remains comatose; The Copenhagen meeting of 2009 produced little. The historic accord in lima, Peru, on December 14 last year, doubtless saw the representatives of the nearly 200 participating nations committing their respective countries to reducing fossil fuel emissions by March 31 this year and drawing up plans detailing how much emission each would cut by 2020, and the domestic policies it would follow to that end. It further stipulated that those failing to keep the deadline would have to produce their plans by June.

The lima Accord, as the agreement is called, however, lacks legal sanction; nor does it bind countries to reducing emissions to a particular level. It depends on countries honouring their commitments, which may not happen in all cases. All eyes are now on the Paris summit to be held from November 30 to December 11. While past disappointments have bred pessimism, the demand for purposeful action is growing with Pope Francis calling for a radical transformation of politics, economic activity and individual lifestyles, and a quick and united global response to the challenge. In a 184-page papal encyclical, issued on June 18, he blamed relentless exploitation and destruction of the environment, excessive faith in technology and political shortsightedness for climate change.

The Pope has made it clear that he hopes that the encyclical would influence energy and economic policy and stir a global movement. The green movement is growing. But will it grow strong enoughIJ Even if it does, will not be too late to save the planet unless Governments act strongly nowIJ