Leader

NST Leader: Climate issue

Is the world serious about global warming? We think not. Here is why.

Climate scientists tell us that there are only eight years left for us to do all that is necessary to keep the global temperature at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. But we are doing everything that threatens to turn the heat up to 3°C.

The fire on ice in the Arctic Circle last year is one signal of how climate change is turning the world topsy-turvy. We are rich when it comes to human-induced global warming but not so in cooling it. Except when we want to be frivolous.

Athens in Greece has become the second city after Miami in Florida, the United States, to appoint a chief heat officer to keep the temperature down in the Greek city. Not a cool idea at all.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) better tell Athens and Miami that the heat that happens there doesn't just stay there.

A world that is serious about climate change will address the root cause, which is, to put it bluntly, our industrial lifestyle. We must change the way we make and use energy. And the way we live.

But instead, carbon trading seems to be the rage. If there is such a thing as creative destruction, this market is it. There, utility and manufacturing companies — monstrous carbon emitters — buy permits that allow them to pollute the atmosphere.

Europe is hosting the world's largest carbon emission-trading system in the world. According to The Economist's calculation, nine-tenths of the global trade is done there.

Last year, around €1 billion worth of emissions allowances changed hands a day, as well as lots of options and futures contracts, says the weekly. Little wonder, China wants a slice of the bad market. Carbon trading is putting all the pluses in the wrong places.

Neither can ambitious targets save us. Some countries are waxing lyrical about their zero carbon emission by this or that year. Target-trading, anyone? But actions are headed south. Consider Britain. Some three months ago, its carbon emission reduction target was 68 per cent by 2030.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson, wanting to lead the world to a cool Earth, upped it some notches to 78 per cent by 2035. Note how he cleverly added five years to the original target set in 1990. To be fair, Johnson didn't set the target. His scientists did. But the prime minister was more than happy to set a lead for other world leaders. "Global Britain" can't just help it.

Only thing is, Johnson is not leading by example, says Kate Blagogevic, Greenpeace UK's head of climate, in an op-ed in The Guardian. None other than Johnson's climate advisers are pointing to the wide gap between the rhetoric of his targets and actions. Lord Deben, the chairman of Johnson's Climate Change Committee, put it to the newspaper thus: "Targets are remarkable and set an example to the world. But the policy is just not there. It is very clear we need to step up very rapidly."

With 98 days left to go for COP26 in Glasgow, "rapidly" takes on an entirely new meaning. Deben may not realise it. He has not only spoken for Johnson, but for the rest of the world in slow-mo. Rapidly isn't a word the world is used to, at least when it comes to curbing climate change.

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