If the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s projections are correct, there will be many more dead to celebrate in the near future, because the people of this planet are not doing nearly enough to solve our global emissions problems.
Failure to reduce emissions, the group of scientists and other experts found, could threaten society with food shortages, refugee crises, the flooding of major cities and entire island nations, mass extinction of plants and animals, and a climate so drastically altered it might become dangerous for people to work or play outside during the hottest times of the year.
[snip]
If governments are to meet their own stated goal of limiting the warming of the planet to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius, above the preindustrial level, they must restrict emissions from additional fossil-fuel burning to about 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide, the panel said. At current growth rates, that budget is likely to be exhausted in something like 30 years, possibly less.
Yet energy companies have booked coal and petroleum reserves equal to several times that amount, and they are spending some $600 billion a year to find more. Utilities and oil companies continue to build coal-fired power plants and refineries, and governments are spending another $600 billion or so directly subsidizing the consumption of fossil fuels.
By contrast, the report found, less than $400 billion a year is being spent around the world to reduce emissions or otherwise cope with climate change.
And what are the biggest emitters in the world doing about this?
Not much. The US is seemingly about to elect another passel of science-deniers who refuse to even contemplate the idea that the planet is being harmed by greenhouse gases. The EU is at least paying lip service to the idea, signing an agreement October 24 to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the 28-nation bloc to at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. China
plans to launch a national emissions trading scheme in 2016 in a bid to reduce its impact on climate change and make its economy less reliant on polluting fossil fuels.
Under the scheme, big emitters such as coal plants and factories will be given a cap on their CO2 emissions. If they emit more than they have permits for, they must buy additional permits in the market.
That’s a nice start, I suppose, but given China’s seemingly endemic corruption (the US has it too, but it’s hidden in political contributions to PACs) I wonder how real that action will be.
As Charlie Pierce says from Iowa today, in response to Republican claims the scientists are lying,
this is a pretty bad time in history for one of our two political parties to be insane, and for our politics to be so cramped and childish as they are. Superstorms on the seaboards, and dengue fever, possibly coming to a cornfield near you. This is one helluva hoax the science guys have going on.