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Climate Disaster on the Horizon [1]
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Date: 2022-11-20
Young climate activists protest at the COP27 climate summit.
On November 8, the COP27 climate summit convened in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el Sheikh. In his opening address, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned humanity is in a “highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.” He fears “We are in the fight of our lives and we are losing . . . And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.”
The isolation of the Egyptian conference locale made it exceedingly difficult for climate activists to mount protests, which may be a reason it was selected. Egypt also has a history of civil rights abuses. Climate groups characterized heightened security measures by the Egyptian military and the police as an authoritarian crackdown on political dissent.
President Biden addressed the annual conference and tried to reassert American global climate leadership based on its re-endorsement of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord and the Biden Administration’s climate incentive funding and tax breaks. But anti-climate Republicans took control of the United States House of Representatives putting them in a position to block future climate initiatives and funding for already approved programs. It is becoming clear that other countries that with the political divisions in this country they cannot trust the United States’ claims about addressing climate change.
While commentators keep stressing that the Democratic Party and the United States avoided a “Red Wave” in the mid-term elections, global climate is the big loser.
Republican elected officials, who received major financial support from fossil fuel companies and rightwing foundations, are expected to try to slow down efforts to cut emissions by cars, factories, and power plants. In addition, Donald Trump, who pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord when he was President from 2017 to 2021, has announced that he “will run for President in 2024.
Anticipating that Republicans would take control over the House of Representatives and set its agenda, oil and gas industry lobbyists led by the American Gas Association began working behind the scenes to torpedo already approved climate legislation. They will work with House Republicans to undermine oversight of fossil fuel companies by the Energy Department and stop funding rebates for low- and moderate-income families to install climate friendly electric-powered heat pumps, water heaters, and induction stoves. They are also lobbying state legislatures to stop local governments from banning gas-fueled appliances in new homes
The Democratic Party’s margin in the Senate for the last two years, 51-50 with Vice-President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote, was already precarious. It is still not clear which party will have a majority in the newly elected Senate. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat whose personal wealth and campaign finances are deeply tied to coal mining interests, recently denounced President Biden as “offensive and disgusting” when Biden pledged to shut down highly polluting and non-competitive coal fired electrical power plants. Coal is already being phased out nationally because it cannot compete with natural gas as a fossil fuel. Manchin is outraged because the West Virginia economy is dependent on coal and he prefers to ignore the ravages coal mining is causing to the state’s landscape and the health of its people.
The New York Times touted an agreement at COP27 to establish a “loss and damage” fund to help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters as a major breakthrough. For decades, the industrialized world, including the United States and other wealthy countries, had blocked the proposal. However, the agreement did not actually establish the fund, set payment rates, or create any means for enforcement. All the wealthy nations agreed to was formation of a committee to figure everything out and make non-binding proposals. Nothing may come of the promise because the United States and the European Union are demanding that China pay into the fund while the United Nations still classifies China as a developing country. Under the current guidelines, China, instead of being a payer, eligible for climate compensation
Hardly mentioned at the Climate Conference or in the U.S. media is the inconvenient fact that the United States still owes an enormous climate debt. The United States and other wealthy nations have continually refused to take responsibility for the damage they caused to the environment and demands by poorer nations, many which bear the harshest burdens of climate change. Their concern is that accepting responsibility for the damage that they caused would open the industrialized world to virtually unlimited legal liability.
While avoiding taking responsibility, at the 2009 COP15 conference, the United States and other wealthy countries that fueled greenhouse gas release for the last two hundred plus years did pledge to provide $100 billion in aid to help poorer countries adapt to climate change. Because of its emissions’ history, the United States owed the fund $40 billion but so far has only paid only $7.6 billion.
In 2021, at the Glasgow climate summit, countries pledged to strengthen the 2015 Paris Climate Accords to limit a global temperature increase to no more than 2.7° F (1.5° C) above preindustrial levels. The draft for a report the by National Climate Assessment outlines how the effects of climate change are already “far-reaching and worsening” and “the things Americans value most are at risk.” According to the draft, Americans should anticipate that “More intense extreme events and long-term climate changes” will “make it harder to maintain safe homes and healthy families, reliable public services, a sustainable economy, thriving ecosystems and strong communities.” One reason for recent devastating fires and droughts is that the United States has warmed 68% faster than Earth as a whole over the last 50 years.
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