The whole world will call today to save the planet - except the USA
16.2.2005
From: A collection of sources including Haaretz, Walla, YNET
The world plan to combat global warming - rejected by the US - goes into effect today, in the shadow of the UN's warning that this is a tiny first step. The Kyoto Protocol, signed by 141 countries, aims to stop the increase in temperatures caused by the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This increase could cause droughts, floods, an extreme rise in sea levels and the destruction of thousands of species by the year 2100.
The Kyoto Protocol sets binding legal goals for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the rich countries, by 5.2% below the level registered in 1990. The countries must meet this goal by the years 2012-2008. The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, which is emitted by the burning of fossil fuels in reactors, factories and cars, and also due to increased cutting down of trees - which reduces the rate of transformation of carbon dioxide into oxygen.
But even the modest goals of the treaty are in danger due to President George Bush's announcement in 2001, about the withdrawal of the USA - the world's largest polluter - from the Kyoto Protocol. Bush argued that implementing the protocol was too expensive; He also criticized the fact that the treaty does not apply to the developing countries, including China, which is also one of the most polluting countries. After the withdrawal of the US, the protocol was significantly strengthened when the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, signed it at the end of last year.
The supporters of the convention, who will celebrate today mainly in Kyoto, find it difficult despite everything to show excessive enthusiasm. Many countries, including Spain, Portugal and Ireland, stand far beyond the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. There is a legal dispute between the UK and the European Union after the UK lowered the cut targets for the industry. Italy complains about the costs involved in implementing the protocol, while the UN says that the fight against climate change will be long and difficult.
"Kyoto is undoubtedly only the first step," says Klaus Toepfer, head of the United Nations Environment Program. "We will have to do more to combat the rapid rise in temperature on our wonderful planet. It will be hard work."
Most scientists are concerned about the increase in greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution. 1998 was the hottest year since the weather began to be recorded in an orderly manner, in the 60s. In second and third place are the years 19 and 2002. Even if the Kyoto Protocol is fully implemented, the UN estimates that it will contribute to a reduction of only 2003 degrees Celsius in the expected increase in temperatures until 0.1. This is a zero rate compared to the UN's predictions for an increase of 2100-5.8 degrees until the year 1.4.
There is almost total agreement that the fight against climate change after 2012 depends on US policy. "Kyoto will not succeed if the US is not part of it after 2012," says Beau Keilen, a British climate researcher. "Countries like China will have no incentive to join the protocol if the US is exempt."
The President of France, Jacques Chirac, yesterday called on the developed countries to reduce gas emissions to a quarter of their current level, by the year 2050 - far beyond the goals set in Kyoto. Chirac said that "our first goal this year will be to return the US to the international effort to combat climate change".
global warming
The West does not understand that it is on the brink of an abyss
By George Monbiot (The Guardian)
After more than 13 years of stormy negotiations, the Kyoto Protocol, designed to combat the destructive climate changes, will enter into force today. But no one really believes that the treaty itself will indeed solve the problem. The validity of the protocol will expire in 2012, and the Americans have so far tried to torpedo the attempts to agree on a new treaty to replace it. In addition, the largest polluter, the USA, announced that it refuses to participate in the convention, and the developing countries are also not included in it - including China, one of the most prominent polluters. The minimal rate of reduction required by the treaty in the emission of greenhouse gases is also not sufficient to stabilize the ecosystem.
But even this modest and faltering agreement is threatened by our complacency. Today, while the Earth is warming at an alarming rate, it seems that almost no one in the West really cares about the meaning of the irreversible steps we are taking in regards to the environment. why? Why is the western world terrified of terrorism, but calm in regards to the collapse of the conditions that allow our existence on earth? One of the reasons is that industrial development is considered in the West, almost indisputably, as a blessing. Several thousand people in the rich world have indeed died from floods and heat waves in recent years; But our general feeling is that the wasteful consumer society we live in is a blessing.
What usually doesn't interest us is that the high quality of life in the West - which also involves increasing use of fuel and environmental pollution - affects many in the third world. Climate scientists meeting this month at a conference in Britain heard that an average rise of just 2.1 degrees Celsius, likely to occur this century, would cause water shortages affecting 3 billion people. This will lead to the death of tens of millions around the world. But we are ripe: we are told that the people of the Western world will have the money to continue buying large quantities of food, even when food prices skyrocket due to global shortages. The rich causing the distress will, at least for the time being, be among those able to ignore the shortage.
Another reason for our complacency is the existence of a well-oiled mechanism, financed by the money of the industrialists, whose entire purpose is to reassure us. The same mechanism sends people known as "skeptics" to the media every day, who completely deny the obvious consequences of climate change. Their constant presence on major stations such as the BBC would have caused less resentment, if in every discussion on AIDS there was also someone claiming that the HIV virus does not cause AIDS.
However, the main thing that prevents us from recognizing the seriousness of the problem is the fact that the necessary steps to combat global warming go against the basic views of many of us, from the right and the left. The economic ideologies that have developed in modern times, whether communism or the belief in the free market, are based on the assumption that the earth has unlimited resources, which can sustain human development indefinitely; Growth, no matter under what conditions, is the solution.
In a world where resources are undoubtedly limited, in a planet that is approaching an ecological holocaust by leaps and bounds, we must urgently get rid of such views. Advancement and technology, with all their goodness, have pushed us into the mouth of an abyss. We must look at reality with open eyes, without ideology, and understand how we are going to save ourselves.
