Pass The Buck And Ignore The Problem
By Marianne de Nazareth
08 December, 2011
Countercurrents.org
What do the Cochabamba Summit, Cancún Agreement, Copenhagen Accord and the present Durban Summit have in common? Apart from being exotic locales for the world leaders to meet in, they also happen to be the venues for the United Nations world environment and climate conferences. They have also been the platform for the world’s most blatant form of hypocrisy apart from the recent wars for resources, staged in the name of engendering democracy.
From being the eye of the storm, the global climate conference has fizzled into a pleasant draught of ritualistic yearly media attention and noone expects the 2011 Durban Summit to be anything but ineffectual. The situation is a stalemate that cannot be resolved with the geographical North of the world calling for binding emission cuts from the BASIC countries. The U.S. alleges that it is being made out to be the villain despite the cumulative emission score of China alone surpassing its own. The coterie of developed (and most polluting) countries including Canada, Russia, Japan and Australia second this argument that repeatedly cites the ‘five times faster’ Green House Gas (GHG) emission rate growth in China and India. As far as the emission cuts go, the northern nations might possibly agree to an accord in the 2020 meet once the current economic crisis has ebbed.
The BASIC countries, headed by China and India, counter that they are the only ones to have voluntarily pledged for substantial reduction in emission intensity in 2009. Brazil and South Africa sniff money in the air with more than 190 countries of the world populating the COP-17 Durban Summit and want finance in return for accepting binding obligations. This group doggedly cites the historical responsibility of the northern countries, particularly the U.S.A., in polluting at least 75% of our atmospheric space for carbon and GHG emissions permanently. They categorically state that their per capita emission rates are still way lower than that of the developed countries. All these apparently prove their goodwill beyond doubt and absolve them from further action until other countries match up with them.
To add to the debate, the Kyoto Protocol, that set a modest binding emission cut of 5% on the 36 developed countries and subsequent reductions for the rest of the nations is set to breathe its last next year. And the northern nations are in no hurry to administer CPR. For one, the Kyoto protocol, though rather ineffectual in practice (Canada, France, Spain, Japan etc. have missed their Kyoto limits with impunity), is still a rather potential threat in theory. It provides the scope for finger-wagging at the rich countries and is biased in favour of developing economies. Some countries were even forced to save face with buying ‘carbon credits’. One only wishes that the atmosphere was indeed as flexible as economic transactions and credits made from dubious economics, fictitious energy-efficient developments and censored reports were enough to salvage it.
As the world’s leaders exercise their muscles in a healthy game of passing the buck, time might be running short for those who cannot participate. Evidence from Malawi, Ethiopia and Egypt show salinity has destroyed the soil in previously fertile spaces, decimated pasture lands and a drastic reduction in fresh water supply. But then, chances are that you haven’t even heard of the world’s poorest and hungriest countries and it is unlikely that their death by the dozens will splash across our media screens. Why jeopardize our purse or lifestyle for the sake of the faceless millions who are being affected right now? It is much easier to convince oneself that global warming is a fictitious construct based on bad science. If current media publications are anything to go by, this is the line of thought that not only the governments but most leading thinkers and scientists from the northern block seem to be pursuing too.
Marianne de Nazareth is Former Asst. Editor The Deccan Herald, Freelance Web & Print Journalist , Adjunct faculty St. Joseph's College & COMMITS
http://mariannedenazareth.blogspot.com/
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