"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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