AT PENPOINT
The world is at an inflexion point at the same time as the world’s biggest polluter is in denial mode. The 30th Conference of the Parties, known as COP30, is taking place in Belém in Brazil, with the biggest change from COP29 being the return to the Presidency of the USA of Donald J. Trump.
Trump did three things which militated against the purposes, indeed the basic assumptions, of the Belém meeting. First, he reopened drilling for oil, with the cry, “Drill, baby, drill!” Second, he once again withdrew the USA from the Paris Agreement of 2015 at COP21. Third, he said during his address to the UN General Assembly last month that climate change was “the greatest ‘con job ever perpetrated on the world/”
The withdrawal from the Paris Agreement may be the most problematic, because it merely piles on the uncertainty. It was largely to assuage US concerns that the Paris Agreement was reached, but when Trump was elected to his first term in 2016, he withdrew the USA. That meant that the global effort to stop climate change by pulling back greenhouse gas emissions was to go ahead without the world’s greatest GHG emitter (both historically and currently). In 2021, the USA returned to the Agreement, after Joe Biden beat Trump, but now it is withdrawing once again. Indeed, so strongly does Trump feel about the wrongness of all attempts to stop climate change that he has not sent an official US delegation to COP30.
The reopening of drilling might explain the roots of his antagonism to climate change. Polluting activities (like drilling for oil) are conducted by the rich, which is Trump’s core constituency, not to mention the oil interests, which want to make money, even at the cost of the environment. One of the great debates in environmental circles is about development versus the environment. India is at the forefront, followed closely by China, as well as other Third World countries, which are wary of placing caps on their GHG emissions, because they wish to industrialize further. Trump is arguing in favour of those in the developed countries who wish to develop the USA further.
That is perhaps why he is one of those who deny the science of global warming and climate change. It is worth noting that he and other deniers do not adduce contradictory scientific evidence, but merely attack the scientists who say climate change is happening, and the scientists who say it is. The oil industry is as assiduous in climate change denial as the tobacco industry ever was in saying smoking did not cause illness. However, the tobacco industry has given up that effort after some highly publicized court trials in the USA.
Trump seems to have changed tack a little. During his first term he said that global warming was a Chinese conspiracy to stop America becoming great again. In his latest broadside, Trump did not blame anyone in particular, though he was clearly blaming the scientists. However, the denial makes him show his age. Only an old man has the temerity to tell scientists there wrong. A US Senator once famously said, “Don’t try and confuse me with the facts.” Another said, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics.” This was before climate denial, but the spirit is the same.
The problem with denial is that it kicks the can down the road. No country has yet gone under the waves, though several island-nations are threatened. The USA itself is experiencing extreme weather events, like forest fires and hurricanes, with greater feequence/ So is Pakistan, with two of its worst ever floods coming in the last three years. The weather is not changing. It’s just getting worse.
It is not a matter of one invention, or a rejiggering of the world. There has to be a revolution in human affairs, a transformation of the way people live and think. It has to be a comprehensive solution, with the environment one component. Everything must be subject to reimagining, including politics, international affairs, the economy, education, the justice system. In short, everything. Without that, we should be ready to give our next generation an unlivable world. Those old science fiction films and books about people battling hostile planets will come true, but about the Earth.
Trump and other climate-change deniers reject the consensus of the scientific community. Denial is not just a form of wish fulfillment, but is also a means of denying the calls for climate justice. That is the concept that those who caused the damage are the ones who should pay for the costs of combatting it, mitigating it and protecting against it.
One of the problems has been that the effects of climate change have fallen most heavily on Third World countries which are already struggling, and whose governments have already not provided that much infrastructure. The loss of a road in Europe may mean the loss of the best route between two places, but that of one in Africa may mean the loss of a lifeline for the terminus community, as well as access to schools and hospitals.
It is worth mentioning that the world has changed since the first COP in 1995, but not really for the better. In 1995, global C02 emissions stood at 23.5bn tonnes; 30 years later, the level has reached a new record of 38bn tonnes. Then, 85 percent of total energy consumption came from oil, gas and coal. Today, that has only dropped to 80 percent. More worryingly, whereas all accepted 10 years ago in Paris that the rise in global temperature must be kept well below 2°C above preindustrial levels so as not to lose control of the “weather machine”, in Europe, according to the Copernicus observatory, the 2.4°C mark has already been passed.
It can be seen that the world is in danger. The speed at which climate change is occurring means that the world powers, or rather the adults in the room, have failed. The problem remains that no one country will be able to tackle the problem. However, no solution will be possible without the USA.
There is something, not so much of a movement, but of a vague realization, that the world order led by the USA has failed. The solution? Replace it. One of the thorniest issues is climate justice. The countries that have benefited the most should pay the most. Besides, they are the ones which have the money. The countries which have got the short end of the stick are in the Third World. Besides, they are mostly heavily indebted to the developed countries.
These debts were mostly incurred in the name of development, but functioned a bribes to the elites of the borrowers, who embezzled the money, to toe the lender’s political line. One result was they countries are now heaviiy indebted, see no way of repaying that money, while remaining underdeveloped. They are willing to accept climate finance as loans, and thus indebt themselves even further. Only the money isn’t there. Lenders are now expressing concerns about whether the money will be used wisely, and whether it will be embezzled.
One possibility is of the present world order being replaced. The holding of COP30 in Brazil gives its President, Luis Ignacio ‘Lula’ Da Silva a prominent role. BRICS, of which Brazil is one, will have to play a prominent role, as will the European Union, though even put together, the efforts on emissions will not suffice without the USA on board, and doing its (very considerable) bit at dragging back GHG emissions.
Even that is essentially a band-aid, because even if GHG emissions are brought to a sudden halt, it will be hundreds of years before the GHG already in the atmosphere decline sufficiently for the environment to begin recovering. That is to suppose that the invention of a solution will not cause polluters to assume they have impunity.
It is not a matter of one invention, or a rejiggering of the world. There has to be a revolution in human affairs, a transformation of the way people live and think. It has to be a comprehensive solution, with the environment one component. Everything must be subject to reimagining, including politics, international affairs, the economy, education, the justice system. In short, everything. Without that, we should be ready to give our next generation an unlivable world. Those old science fiction films and books about people battling hostile planets will come true, but about the Earth.
