Tag "Kyoto Protocol"
‘The devastation of human life is in view’: what a burning world tells us about climate change
But of course climate change is not an allegory.
Close enough, in fact, that we are already beginning to feel its effects ourselves, when we do not turn away.
Five of the 20 worst fires in California history hit the state in the autumn of 2017, a year in which more than 9,000 separate ones broke out, burning through almost 1.25m acres – nearly 2,000 sq miles made soot.
The second force is also contained in the story of the wildfires: the way that climate change is finally striking close to home.
Fires that far north are increasing more rapidly than in lower altitudes By accidents of geography and by the force of its wealth, the US has, to this point, been mostly protected from the devastation climate change has already visited on parts of the less developed world.
Much more fire, much more often, burning much more land.
American wildfires now burn twice as much land as they did as recently as 1970.
At three degrees of warming, our likely benchmark for the end of the century, the US might be dealing with 16 times as much devastation from fire as we are today, when in a single year 10m acres were burned.
One child who didn’t make it was found close to two miles from his home, in a gulley traced by train tracks close to the waterfront, having been carried there, presumably, on a continuous wave of mud.
But it is not a fatalistic scenario; in fact, it’s a whole lot better than where we are headed without action – north of 4C by 2100, and the perhaps six or even more degrees of warming in the centuries to come.
A Fair Climate Deal? Accountability First!
A Fair Climate Deal?
Unlike its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement not only involves greenhouse gas emission targets for developed countries but also for emerging and developing countries such as China and India.
First, accountability (or responsibility) relates to past and current levels of greenhouse gas emissions (polluter pays principle).
Every country is allowed to produce the same share of global emissions as in the past (hence the proportional reduction of emissions is the same for every country) – sovereignty.
Thus, citizens in these three countries have very clear ideas about what constitutes a fair distribution of the costs.
Which countries are responsible for climate change?
For example, per-capita annual emissions in the United States are currently twice as high as in China.
Summing up CO2 emissions by country since 1850 suggests that the United States, which accounts for just over 4% of the world population, is responsible for almost a third of global warming, just slightly ahead of the EU 28, which makes up 6.5% of the world population.
With a population share of 18%, China is responsible for less than a sixth of historic emissions.
Are countries’ efforts towards fighting global warming distributed fairly across countries?
Trump has no sense of the backlash that’s coming
Two factors will especially hurt the U.S.: First, the world has been dealing with the U.S. as an unreliable partner on climate change for more than two decades, and leaders still well remember the other times the U.S. reversed course on its promises; second, the world has never been more aligned in favor of action, making climate change a much bigger factor in the U.S. relationship with its allies in non-climate related issues — from trade to defense to immigration — than it once was.
Trump officials might have taken note of the consequences of U.S. inconsistency with the 1997 Kyoto climate treaty.
International backlash ensued.
Some in the Bush administration, which like Trump’s was split on how to handle Kyoto, came to regret how it was handled for the damage it did to the standing of the U.S. in the world.
Russia’s ratification became pivotal to the treaty entering into force, and in turn, it used its ratification to gain Europe’s backing to enter the World Trade Organization, even while the U.S. still had outstanding concerns.
The United States is far better off maintaining a seat at the head of the table rather than standing outside.
For example, climate change and renewable energy became building blocks in the U.S. relationship with India, leading eventually to a bilateral commitment on climate change in the run-up to Paris.
and China engaged in a climate summit where they signaled their “highest political commitment” to Paris, just as Trump pulls out.
Former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy offers China as an example: “The South China Sea.
The rest of the world is likely to weary of the U.S. constantly taking away the ball when it comes time to negotiate tough issues like trade and terror, which Trump has sought to champion.
