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UN meeting our last chance to save our planet
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HUMANITY has just about run out of time to address climate change.
Scientists have pointed out that a rise in temperature of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels will put the Earth in dangerous, uncharted territory. Yet we currently are on a path toward an increase of 4 degrees or more this century. The last chance for action has arrived.
That chance lies in Paris in December 2015, when the world’s governments meet for the 21st annual United Nations climate-change meeting.
But this time will be different. Either governments will agree to decisive action, as they have promised, or we will look back at 2015 as the year when climate sanity slipped through our fingers.
The politics of climate change may be changing for the better. Here are six reasons why the stalemate might soon end.
First, the world is waking up to the calamity that we are causing.
Second, the world’s citizens do not want to go down in flames. Public opinion has so far succeeded in blocking the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would accelerate the production of Canada’s oil sands.
Third, more severe climate shocks may lie ahead. Many scientists believe that a big El Nino could make 2015 the hottest year in the Earth’s history.
Fourth, both the US and China, the two largest emitters of CO2, are finally beginning to get serious. President Barack Obama’s administration is trying to stop the construction of new coal-fired power plants, unless they are equipped with CCS technology.
China, for its part, has realized that its heavy dependence on coal is causing such devastating pollution and smog that it is leading to massive loss of life, with life expectancy down as much as five years in regions with heavy coal consumption.
Fifth, the Paris negotiations are finally beginning to attract global attention from both the public and world leaders.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for political leaders to attend a special summit in September 2014, 15 months ahead of the Paris meeting, to launch intensive negotiations.
The UN expert network that I direct, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN), will issue a major report in July on how each of the major economies can successfully decarbonize the energy system.
Finally, technological advances in low-carbon energy systems, including photovoltaics, electric vehicles, CCS, and fourth-generation nuclear power with greatly enhanced safety features, all help make the transition to low-cost, low-carbon energy technologically realistic, with huge benefits for human health and planetary safety.
The control of climate change is a moral imperative and a practical necessity — far too important to be left to politicians, Big Oil, and their media propagandists.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is professor of sustainable development, professor of health policy and management, and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also special adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2014.www.project-syndicate.org. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
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