"If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon." - Naturalist Sir David Attenborough, Speaking at the COP24 Conference
The two-week 24th annual Conference of the Parties (COP24) ending this Friday has already been overshadowed by doubt and division as it focuses on setting new rules for countries to follow to try and stamp out the vague protocol laid out by the 2015 Paris Accords. A major point of controversy is the joint motion by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Kuwait in lessening the consideration of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report that finds climate change to be accelerating closer towards 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century as opposed to keeping emissions below 1.5 degrees, at which point the report predicts a catastrophic decline in environmental conditions. Global temperatures have risen less than 2°, yet tangible warning signs are already beginning to appear: melting ice caps, increased range and intensity of tropical diseases like dengue, climate refugees from sinking islands, and the disruption of the life cycles of countless nonhuman organisms.
“In Kiribati, an island republic in the Central Pacific, large parts of the village Eita (above) have succumbed to flooding from the sea.” - NPR
“A new report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) … finds a variety of increasingly severe effects as soon as a rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius arrives — an outcome that can’t be avoided without emissions cuts so steep that they would require societal transformations without any known historical parallel, the panel found.” - The Washington Post
More clearly needs to be done to curtail emissions and slow down climate change, and the United States’ backtracking from its commitments under the Trump administration betrays a serious and consequential ignorance on this issue. Within two years this administration has shown its willingness to shun decades of scientific consensus and peer-review, public opinion, its own climate report, and a series of historic international agreements set in motion by previous presidents.
“As we have made clear in the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and other bodies, the United States has not endorsed the findings of the report.” - U.S. State Dept. Spokesman
While climate denial might seem to be the culprit, the reality is much more disheartening; every nation has signed on to the Paris Accords, including the United States, recognizing that climate change is an existential threat that will come to impact all nations, and that action needs to be taken immediately and staggered as technological and economic factors enable more efficient transition. It’s not that there are any delusions about the problem, but when it comes down to the solution, things get really hairy over the prices each unique economy and nation must take on to do their part.
The disagreements that loomed over developed and undeveloped countries (a complicated system of finger pointing in which developed countries, for having polluted in their developing phase, are haggling over how much they get to tell developing countries not to pollute/must provide assistance if a transition is expected to happen in those countries) in the past, such as the failed and sparsely supported Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen led to a practically nonexistent enforcement mechanism to get all the countries on board, that also essentially allows countries to self report their progress and set their own individual goals. This is a major reason why the U.S. hasn’t withdrawn, and why Saudi Arabia is even part of the agreement - it has no legal basis and operates solely on the goodwill of all countries. COP24 aims to fix the vagueness of the optimistic Paris Accords and hammer out some rules, but the obstruction of Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States, and many other developing nations will likely hamper down any international standards.
Meanwhile in Paris, the “Yellow Vest” protest movement have taken sometimes violently to the streets in protest against the Macron administration gas tax increase, attacking the tax as a simple added cost of living rather than an incentive to reduce emissions. The cost per gallon in France is equivalent to $6 because of a ~60% tax, and not enough tax money is going to incentivizing renewables. The measures demonstrate the need for efficiency and trust between the government and the working/middle class when carrying the burden to its citizens.
“Some governments are intent on having ambitious plans for meeting the Paris climate conference goals, but they have to survive politically long enough to put them in place. Macron and the French government have skipped over the part involving the workers and the community.” - Vonda Brunsting, Researcher at Harvard
“France’s suspension of a fuel tax increase after violent protests signaled the perils that governments in wealthier countries may face in setting policies to fight climate change.” - New York Times
The future isn’t entirely dubious, as climate change becomes an increasingly popular issue among political activists and the public. Technology will also expand our ability to efficiently and even economically combat the issue. The development of renewable, fission, and fusion energy and carbon storage/nitrogen retention will combat the progression of man-made climate change, and more immediate dangers are reduced by coastal engineering and more effective disease containment. Technological advancement is volatile, and could prove to be a powerful force in preventing, mitigating, and promoting awareness against climate change.
However, climate change as a political issue is still slowmoving. Conflicts in international negotiations where each country still acts in their sole interests. Inefficient and counteractive taxations. Protests against them. Misinformation and lobbying by corporations. In the fight to preserve our climate, the major pitfalls come down to our collective inability to think as a species over our immediate individual interests. It’s tough to present compelling imagery and evidence of the vast destruction that will beset our planet, but An Inconvenient Truth (2006) does an excellent job of exposing the warning signs, future consequences, and political/technological obstacles against climate action. The message propagated by Al Gore and other climate advocates should be clear - that we are fighting climate change not in our own interests alone, but for those that will be/are being dislocated by the climate, affected by increased disease ranges and severe natural disasters, and potentially unpredictably severe crises 100 years in the future, long after none currently living remain.
What other factors may influence the outcome of the COP24 conference? Can the world function without U.S. leadership in this sector, or is this the beginning of a larger anti-climate movement? Should climate change be a much larger issue, and if so, how can more attention be brought to solving it? What will be the tipping point for climate action - will it finally be orchestrated as a united coalition as aspired for the past half-century, or must individual nations, companies, states, or people take a global issue?
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With each country vying for its own short-term self-interest each country maintaining sovereignty over its own territory, the future of climate change seems bleak. The U.S, as one of the main polluters of the international community, has an obligation to cut back on carbon emissions and I do not think it's very wise on the Trump administration's part to back out of the Paris Accords.
Climate change demands attention now. It's threatening ecosystems and global biodiversity. Ecosystem services have been essential to economies around the globe, and while long-term, fighting against climate change in a sustainable manner will benefit everyone. Currently, according to the Guardian, the Extinction Rebellion protest has spread to 35 countries, and protestors are practicing civil disobedience to show policymakers their frustration at global warming and biodiversity loss. They said they're trying to use the Poland talks to gain coverage and traction.
On a different note: it's understandable that developing countries are frustrated by the hypocrisy of the industrialized nations: while the industrialized nations themselves rose to economic power from cheap energy, now that these countries are in a position to flaunt renewables, they expect other developing nations to cut back on carbon emissions. I believe that if we cannot directly invest in other nations, we should, in the least, provide low interest loans or cut trade deals in exchange for our investment in foreign renewable energy.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/10/extinction-rebellion-goes-global-international-civil-disobedience-climate-talks-poland
How do you disagree with decades of research and science? And it isn't even a good argument-it's literally that it's just cold in places. Being cold/snowing doesn't dismiss the overall heating of the world over the last few decades. And it sucks how Trump has blind support from the right. Furthermore, the amount of pollution the US does is ignored by Trump and his team of idiots. There is already visible evidence of the effects of this pollution, but that's none of my business.
It's sad that the leaders of our country aren't doing enough to save our climate. It's easy to "disagree" with climate change when you won't be alive to deal with its consequences, and it's not fair that my generation's future is at risk because previous generations decided to ignore this problem. The way things are going, I'm not optimistic about our climate. Greed and immediate self interest are getting in the way of the cooperation that's necessary to save our planet. I can only hope that we start to prioritize climate change before we pass the point of no return.
A global rise in temperature of two degrees is a big difference, and causes innumerable problems for our near future, but the indirectness of the consequences causes the issue of climate change to be pushed to the back of people's minds. The average politician and their constituents do not actually see the ice caps melting or notice islands sinking with their own eyes (neither have I but the drought the past few years was pretty awful) and people are far removed from these environmental problems. People don't care about things they don't experience or understand, but people do care about their economic standing. The most immediate and effective method to save the environment is to develop renewable energy sources that are cheaper than their non-renewable counterparts. This does not necessarily mean that gas prices rising to $6 in France to quickly deter gas usage is justified, but instead renewable energy can be gradually diversified and made more durable so that there is more profit to be made investing in renewable energy than fossil fuels. Corporations just need the incentive to develop these superior solar panels and windmills faster.
Like the previous comments have said, what seems like small changes in temperature to us are actually amplified for the ecosystems on earth which have each independently evolved to survive in their unique habitats. A slight change can disrupt the carefully achieved balance of these environments and result in a loss of scientifically important organisms as well as economically valued natural resources. If Trump is truly a business man or even a regularly thinking person, he should be aware of the importance of long term plans instead of simply focusing on present day issues. There is no point in trying to save the coal industry only to have it collapse a few years later because of the disastrous effects it will induce. According to an interview on NPR, Daniel Kammen states that clean energy, such as solar or wind, are actually good for the economy and help to increase jobs. He also introduces the point that by stepping out of the Paris Agreements, Trump prevented what would have been a boom of expansion for American clean-energy companies overseas and a definite benefit to our economy. Thinking long term, it would be better to quickly step down from coal and start subsidizing renewable energy, thus creating a whole new sector of jobs for those who might have been working in the coal industry. Whatever changes we decided to make, they need to happen quickly and in great amounts so that we can prevent the predicted damage to our world from years of neglect from being too destructive.
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/09/675139550/former-u-s-science-envoy-the-tone-of-climate-talks-is-now-quite-grim
The unfortunate thing is that there are not enough powerful people in the government to counteract those that oppose global warming. The key problem that lies at the center of this issue is the way in which anti-regulation companies want to continue to and even increase the amount of production. This has created a snowball effect that is already very widely known as there are still those that continue to support those that support their agendas. Unfortunately for the future generations like us, there seems to be a continuous disregard for clean energy companies that Sheryl talked about earlier. The only real way to counteract this seems to be a large support for clean energy companies and attempt to take back some of the leeway that has been given to companies that aren't environmentally conscious.
The short-sightedness of many political leaders, at least for the US, is due to the short-term goal of reelection. The issue of global warming spans much more than a 2, 4, or 6-year term. Politicians, then, can always put off the issue for the next term, and focus on more pressing matters, including improving economy, or more generally, an issue that would greatly impact their chances of reelection.
In the US, it's also much less likely for a long-term goal to be accomplished because of the frequent elections in Congress. The constant influx of new members have introduced many different policy agendas, and the constant disagreement in Congress creates a shaky resolve in accomplishing long-term issues. In the context of foreign relations, it's uncertain what the next elected leader would do -- anyone could decide to pull out, and the group effort weakens.
In the US, Congress is seldom proactive because it rarely deals with "hypothetical issues" and focuses more on reacting to pressing issues. This could also be the case in the context of foreign leaders, who have more pressing issues to deal with rather than solving a problem that is hypothetically catastrophic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/04/26/that-time-that-congress-was-proactive-in-1926/?utm_term=.87f7552e1b6a
The world can function without the U.S's support regarding long-term plans to reduce the harmful effects of climate change. However, the United States is a leading producer of greenhouse gases, and even if the rest of the world somehow manages to fulfill all their obligations under the Paris accords, the United States would still be contributing to the problem massively. Therefore, the world should not have to function without U.S. support. Climate change should be a much larger issue, especially in countries whose leaders downplay the harms excessive global warming can cause. In the case of the United States, individual citizens actually have power to decide whether their leaders should focus on combating climate change. The American people voted for a man who is skeptical that global warming really is happening, but if the public realizes the full scale of potential devastation caused by global warming, then climate policy would become a much more important issue during elections. I unfortunately do not think we as a species will take collective action until hundreds of millions of people suffer from the effects of global warming. Though some individuals, organizations, and governments are taking comprehensive steps to reduce their impact on global warming, tackling climate change is not a priority for most people because the short-term effects are not always apparent. People in developing countries, the United States especially, will not like to give up their current luxuries to pursue a vague, long-term plan whose effects will not be seen until many years in the future.
The US is key to the global climate even if we fail to follow the Paris Climate Accords. It is essential for the US to at least attempt to bring the carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases down. As we are one of the largest countries that are not in the Paris Climate Accord, the US needs to hold itself to the same standard that the accords have put on the rest of the world.
Unfortunately for us, as Victor said above, is that the people of the US seem to stray from ideas that have little effect on the present world. As there are almost no short-term effects of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, people don't want to support something that they are skeptical of in the first place. Trump and Congress have much more pressing matters in their minds right now such as immigration, police brutality, sexual misconduct and rape, and for the Republican party; getting ready to rule as a minority party.
Even though there is a extreme necessity for the support of climate change bills and such in congress, there is little chance that there will still be a change in the countries opinion on the matter.
It is extremely sad and unfortunate that the United States, under the leadership of President Trump, does not recognize climate change as a significant threat to the US and all of humanity. However, although denying climate change is the official federal policy of the US, local governments have taken it upon themselves to deal with the threat. States and cities are moving forward with their own plans for renewable energy and are dealing with the international community directly. Among the 200 countries present at the UN climate conference in Poland is Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Pedulo who is representing US mayors, illustrating the sovereignty of state and local governments.
Seeing mayors and governors act on their own accord to combat the threat of climate change is reassuring. While their actions and plans will greatly mitigate emissions in many regions of the United States, as long as the federal government fails to follow the Paris Climate agreement and continue to use dangerous energy sources, the threat of climate change will continue to rise.
Additionally, I do not believe that the US should be siding with Russia or Saudi Arabia in casting doubt to the findings of a respectable panel of highly qualified scientists. I think it is time that our president acknowledges basic science and facts.
I think those who don't believe in climate change are foolish because almost the entire science community would agree that it an issue. However because it is not a immediate threat to the country, people making legislation and decisions for countries don't feel the urgency to take action and attempt to reform their ways. Even though prevention is the best form defense, I feel like the only way countries are going to start taking the issue seriously is when it's too late, and by then we will be trying to fix the aftermath. However I think that the world does not need the US to be the leader in climate change, if they want something about this issue to be done, it starts within their own country. Countries can't just start trying to reform just because everyone else is doing it, they have to make their own decisions and tackle the issue with or without the support of others.
I think that not believing in climate change is as irrational as those who believe the world is flat or the moon landing was fake. There has an abundant amount of empirical evidence over the past decade proving that climate change does exist, and is a crisis. As mentioned before, even if the rise in the temperature is very minimal, the accumulation of these small changes have created a humongous problem that we need to deal with. A small increase in global temperature leads to sea levels to rise, ocean acidification and disturbing the habitats of animals who rely on the ocean. I think even without the US leadership other countries can solve the issue with climate change. To do this I think it is crucial to distribute the budget differently so it puts more money into the environmental sector.
It's insane that Trump believes that "snow in the Midwest" is proof against climate change. We have used multiple methods to measure the levels of methane and carbon dioxide in the air, and those measurements have been compared to rocks and ice cores that have been unexposed to the atmosphere for thousands of years. These tests, which have been conducted by countless governments and research groups across the world, revealing that these levels of 405 ppm are almost four times higher than they've been in hundreds of thousands of years. If Trump wants proof that greenhouse gases actually cause global temperatures to rise, he doesn't have to look farther than Venus, our neighboring planet. Although Earth and Venus are almost the same size and orbit in similar distances from the Sun, Venus' atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide and has a surface temperature of around 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists believe that Venus was very similar to Earth billions of years ago, before frequent volcanic eruptions increased it's atmosphere's content of carbon dioxide. This created a runaway greenhouse effect that boiled away its oceans and further increased the rate of CO2 being released, eventually turning the planet into a barren hell. Virtually the entire scientific community warns that the same process could start on Earth in the next century, especially if countries do nothing to curb emissions. We need to get careless, greedy idiots like Trump out of office soon, before there's nothing left that can stop it.
It is disheartening that the President promotes the idea that climate change isn't a genuine world problem. The 2015 Paris Accords, that address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions that have been scientifically proven to be the source of increased global temperatures, clearly demonstrate worldwide concern for the climate. However, Trump has made clear his priorities do not match those of other nations in the Paris Accords. The influence of the US on global policy is significant, and without US support, or without the support of any nation, progress and reform will be difficult to see through. Climate change is a global issue, and it will take complete global cooperation in order to make any significant improvements.
Pragmatically, I think that it is virtually impossible to create the idealized "united coalition." There are too many competing interests between the various nations of the world to have a singular framework. It will be up to individual countries to figure out how to best counteract climate change given their respective economies.
There is a connection, I believe, between coordinated international change through the Paris Agreement and the U.S. government regarding implementation. In the U.S. government, Congress and the President put bills into law, but the bureaucracy is responsible for implementing the law in the various constituencies of our diverse country. Similarly, with the Paris Agreement, there can be targets set and certain specific policies created, but individually, countries will have to act as the "bureaucracy," passing relevant and enforceable laws (though, as we have learned, at least in the U.S., legislation takes time, and there will definitely be complaints about countries not working fast enough. If this issue was treated with the urgency of a "war," would legislation get through faster?)
I think that it is extremely important to consider climate change an extreme and prevalent issue in todays society. The effects of it seem clear across the globe and I think that moving or attempting to move towards renewable energy is extremely important. There is still vast amounts of energy across the sun, wind, and sea that we can attempt to harvest to make the world a better place. It is still frustrating that many do not even believe it is an issue or for some a real problem at all. With Trump at the age he is, I would think that he may recognize how the changes in climate have been through his life and how drastic the weather and slow rising temperatures may be. I think that it is an immediate threat as waiting will lead to outcomes that can't be easily reversed and even changing now will take a long time to switch out of coal and fossil fuel use into something more practical. Making this change should happen as soon as possible otherwise implementation of new policy may be too late.
I agree with Alex in that it would be very difficult to assemble a worldwide coalition that would fight against climate change with so many competing interests. These interests are what distract nations from making climate change a priority. I don't know if the issue is as much about nation leaders believing in climate change (with all the nations who are committed to the Paris agreement) as much as getting the leaders to realize how urgent the situation is and what is at stake. It seems many nations are satisfied to have their name down in the Paris agreement and aren't interested in committing themselves further. Hopefully they will start to prioritize climate change more in the future, but scientists might have to start reaching out to the people to push for action.
First of all, climate and weather are not the same thing. Politicians are either exploiting that misconception in order to get public support for their beliefs that are funded by fossil fuel companies or they were just raised with different textbooks. Either way, it's disheartening for our president to not know the difference.
As it has been mentioned several times in this thread, a global agreement for comprehensive climate change reform was never going to work. There are countries that depend on fossil fuels as the powerhouse of their economies, so to speak. I believe that the way humanity will effectively fight climate change is through making renewable energy sources more economically viable than fossil fuels. If the money is in the right direction, countries will follow.
Even in light of multiple, recent natural disasters, our world still has slow progress in improving climate change. It would be hard to deal with climate change without the U.S., one of the P5 countries in the United Nations Security Council and a resourceful country. Due to this country's influence in the world, our neglect in this issue may lead to the neglect of others countries or allies, preventing a more sustainable future and increasing the likelihood of more natural disasters and greater deaths due to climate change. However, as previous commenters mentioned, competing interests and fuel-dependent economies make a resolution difficult for countries to create and implement if signed. The severity and the close possibility of global warming should alert countries into drafting a solution that can be implemented to each countries' discretion (but still adhering to the basic principles of the resolution). Technology and other natural resources can be used in order to reduce carbon emissions, but with implementing these natural resources, countries must quickly find ways to use these methods without destroying them.
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