December
09 , 2005
Global Warming
or Terrorism: Which Is a Bigger Threat?
Sponsored by the UN, attended
by almost 10,000 representatives from 189 countries,
environmental groups, scientific organizations and
businesses, is in progress in Montreal, Canada.
Inaugurating this November 28-December 9 conference,
Canadian Environment Minister, Stephane Dion called
for a “more effective, more inclusive long-term
approach to climate change”.
Several observers interpreted his observations as
an appeal to the United States, the leading consumer
of oil and gas and emitter of greenhouse gases,
whose President, George Bush, had decided in 2001
to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol that had been
enthusiastically endorsed earlier by his predecessor,
Bill Clinton. Bush’s argument: the restrictions
in the protocol would adversely affect economic
activities in the country.
While the conference had just started in Montreal,
President Bush in a major speech at the US Naval
Academy in Maryland rejected strongly the demands
for early withdrawal from Iraq saying “America
will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins
so long as I am your Commander-in Chief”.
Conspicuous by its absence in his statements is
any mention of the conference in Montreal. Being
the Republican President, the interests of big businesses
and corporations hold a special place in his scale
of priorities.
The Kyoto Protocol agreed to in 1997 commits industrial
states to cut their combined emissions of greenhouse
gases by 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012. The protocol
became a legally binding treaty on February 17,
2005 for all the 38 industrial and over a 100 other
states who have ratified it. The treaty suffered
a massive blow in 2001 when the US responsible for
about quarter of the world’s emissions, pulled
out.
President Bush maintains that the treaty is fatally
flawed, partly because it does not require developing
countries to cut down emissions. China and India
fall into this category, although they are two of
the world’s biggest producers of greenhouse
gases. Both have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which
acknowledges that developing countries contribute
the least to climate change but will quite likely
suffer the most from its ill effects.
The Protocol is based on the findings of over 2,000
scientists from around the world who have conducted
since 1988 the most extensive enquiry into world
climate changes and have declared unanimously that
human-caused global warming has already set in and
would continue to go from bad to worse unless drastic
measures were taken to reverse the trend.
Chairman of the UN-supported Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, summed
up their findings in the apocalyptic prediction:
“We are risking the ability of human race
to survive”. The top British scientist, Sir
David King, had gone further by calling the climate
change, “The biggest danger humanity has faced
in 5,000 years of civilization.”
Scientists working in Antarctica have confirmed
that levels of greenhouse gases are higher today
than at any time in the past 650,000 years. They
have also confirmed that humans are responsible
for the increase.
The world temperature has already increased by one
degree Fahrenheit, sea levels have gone up by 4
to 7 inches, record heat wave in 2003 left 35,000
dead across Western Europe, many more in South Asia
and elsewhere. The monsoons, which brought rains
to the farms of South Asia with almost clockwise
precision, have turned quite erratic. The world
is experiencing more hurricanes, tornadoes, downpours,
heat waves, droughts and blizzards. In their wake
come flooding, landslides, power-outages, crop failures,
property damage, disease, hunger, acute poverty
and even loss of life.
Weather pundits were surprised at the torrential
rains in California and elsewhere in the US last
January. One after the other, several tornadoes
smashed the coasts of Florida. Hurricanes, one after
another, including the monstrous Katrina kept smashing
life and property around the Gulf of Mexico. On
the other side of the globe, the northern areas
of South Asia have been buffeted with unusual snowstorms
claiming many lives. Even an arid area like Balochistan
was subjected to torrential rains.
Bush administration’s opposition to the restrictions
in the Kyoto agreement does not emanate from any
super-power arrogance but from the compulsion of
a Republican government to place the interests of
big businesses ahead of any other consideration.
American people are by nature and tradition quite
charitable. Their current administration, however,
looks at such issues through a partisan prism.
The principal reason for the US government reluctance
in endorsing the Kyoto Protocol is probably the
loss of some $400 billion, according to one estimate,
for the US industries and corporations by a slowing
down of their activities.
President Bush no longer enjoys the support of all
parts of the country on this issue, like his bellicose
policy on Iraq that has lost people’s general
endorsement. His popularity has sunk deep. No wonder
his ostrich-like conduct on the climate issue has
been rejected by nine eastern states who are ready
to sign an agreement setting Kyoto style legal limits
on greenhouse gas emissions from power houses. New
York and New Jersey are among these rebel states.
In California, Governor Schwarzengger is forging
ahead with legislation to cut emissions from cars
by 30 % within a decade. Not only that, 187 mayors
from US towns and cities have pledged to adopt Kyoto
targets. And, many carmakers have already put on
roads hybrid cars.
Mr. Bush believes in staying the course, no matter
what. He appears obsessed with the war on terror,
so the climate issue will have to take a seat far
in the back. But, the people at large have not taken
leave of their senses.
