When the Earth overheats

Nov 20, 2007
When Earth overheats
SCIENTISTS of the United Nations climate panel, who have just released their concluding report on Earth in peril from its inhabitants, must wish they were industrialists and government leaders. They would then have the executive authority to take remedial action on climate deterioration, to go with the conviction borne of scientific certainty. But if they were politicians and business leaders, each with agendas not fully theirs to define, they would be liable to temporise until looming disaster becomes their successors' problem. The United States refused to even ratify the Kyoto Protocol because compliance, according to the Bush White House, would damage the nation's industrial competitive advantage. China, as a designated developing nation, is not subject to the emissions caps. It wishes to be permitted to industrialise untrammelled by modern-age environmental remits, although it is beginning to see that its role in planetary protection will soon be as pivotal as America's.
This broadly is the inertia gap that will continue to exist between the scientists' scary scenarios of climate change and the will of nations and their wealth-creators to ameliorate, not so much undo, the half century of damage to Earth's natural rhythms. No government regards as extreme the scientists' assertion that unrestrained burning of fossil fuels and forests would raise temperatures and sea levels, and damage climate systems that sustain agriculture and water supplies. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said in unveiling the panel's report at the weekend that all humanity must take responsibility for the ravages that come with climate disruptions. A clearer perspective came from the head of the panel, Mr Rajendra Pachauri, who said it would be too late to ward off catastrophe if governments did not act in the next several years.

Concerted action is still possible, though not highly probable. An indication could come next month in Bali, when some 180 nations will discuss ways of achieving emissions controls beyond the Kyoto standards. China, India and Brazil - the developing bloc's fastest growing - have a role not less vital than America's. A coal burner, like China, can be allowed flexibility to comply but it should come within the global framework. Asean is setting an example by including climate protection among its goals. Meantime, old industrial nations and emergent economies could be more inclined to discipline their industries and consumer habits if they are psychologically primed to think they are controlling the release of greenhouse gases to secure their people's future, not so much the health of the planet. One is self-serving, the other sounds like a platitude. Politicians can still be brought around.