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According
to a study released on Nov. 17 by 31 scientists of the Global Climate
Project (G.C.P.), the world is on course for the worst-case scenario
coming to fruition, with average global temperatures rising by up to six
degrees Celsius by the end of the
century.
Temperature
increases would be much greater in the upper latitudes and at the
poles. In accordance with chief climatologist James Hansen’s view, 3CTC
maintains that a two-degree Celsius
rise would be disastrous!
This
trajectory has been set in motion because carbon dioxide emissions from
capitalist industry, transport and relentless deforestation have
increased dramatically since 2003. Since the economic downturn, the
rate has slowed only slightly. Overall, the annual rate is threefold
that of the 1990s. Between 2000 and 2008, global emissions rose an
astounding 29%!
The
team used satellite and national inventory data to track CO2 emissions
as well as models to estimate carbon sinks. It should be noted that
this is hardly a radical group of scientists. The G.C.P. was set up by
the UN to present information to world policy makers.
Almost
all of the increase was due to the boom in the Chinese economy. The
study also found that for the first time since the 1960s, the
combustion of coal has overtaken the combustion of oil as the major
fossil-fuel source of CO2 emissions.
Much of this coal was burned by China to manufacture cheap goods
for the West.
Forty-five
percent of Chinese emissions resulted from making products traded
overseas for the voracious consumer societies of the Northern
Hemisphere. China is thought by many to have
overtaken the U.S. as the world’s biggest
carbon emitter. Clearly, the gross maldevelopment
of that country must halt; the only solution is for the developed
nations to fundamentally change the priorities of their wasteful
economies.
The
portion of emitted CO2 that
remains in the atmosphere increased from 40% in 1990 to 45% in 2008.
This indicates that Earth’s carbon sinks are beginning to fail. The
authors of the study say that there is now a cycle of positive
feedbacks at work. Rising greenhouse gas concentrations are leading to
rising temperatures and a corresponding rise in carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, and so on and so forth.
The
lead author of the study, Corinne Le Quere,
stated that “carbon-cycle climate feedback has already kicked in,” and
this feedback has the capacity to amplify global warming between 5 and
30 percent. Earth is headed toward complete climate chaos if carbon is
not drawn down drastically and immediately.
Yet,
we see nothing but procrastination on the part of government leaders
and big polluters, who adamantly refuse to give up their hydrocarbon-based
economy. Politicians, the heads of established environmental groups,
and the media have all been trying to lower the world’s expectations as
to the outcome of the final round of climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark in December. UN Secretary
General Ban Ki Moon has stated that a binding
agreement is no longer a realistic goal and one will not be signed next
month.
Obama’s climate czar, Carol Browner, made it clear last
month that there will be no U.S. climate-protection
legislation forthcoming this fall. Deputy Special Envoy on Climate
Jonathan Pershing stated that Obama wants to
turn Copenhagen into nothing more than “a
framework for progress.” Stephen Chu, Obama’s Energy Secretary, recently commented that Copenhagen is “only one meeting. It’s
not the be all and end all.”
In
November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Singapore,
world leaders decided to put off, once again, an agreement on binding
emissions reductions. In a hastily organized unscheduled breakfast
meeting, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Danish prime
minister and chair of the upcoming climate conference, pitched a
deferral plan to reach a less specific “politically binding” agreement
in Copenhagen and put off for another
entire year a mandatory one to be formulated in Mexico City or Germany. Obama,
Hu Jintao of China, and Kevin Rudd of Australia were among the 19 leaders
who agreed to more foot dragging. This kind of delay will occur ad
infinitum as the future steadily
slips out of our grasp and the ruling rich race us toward climate
catastrophe.
Since
Kyoto, 1997, they’ve had scores of
meetings in round after round of moribund negotiations with zero results.
The conservative IPCC set weak targets to begin with and not one nation
has met theirs other than to make fake claims to that effect. If they
were true, there would be scientific evidence for greenhouse gas
emissions going down rather than skyrocketing.
Although
Obama will be attending the climate
conference in Copenhagen, it will not be for the
entire time. Apparently, he has better things to do, such as commit
more troops to Afghanistan—“the Good War”—in order to
gain control over the oil and natural gas reserves of Central Asia. For this reason, we must
not only demand decisive action in Copenhagen but also an end to the
ongoing Wars for Oil, the use of which got us into this mess in the
first place.
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