THE world is feeling uneasy these days.
The enemy, among other enemies, is climate change.
That is why we will not stop talking about what world leaders are doing or not doing to mitigate nature’s reaction to greenhouse gas emissions in climate change, besides about the pain of other problems, such as raids by the Islamic State, bickering over ownership of islands, the endless quarrels over borders.
But most of all, the world climate is hurting, now growling in earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis, the El Niño, the terror of, God forbid, the earth frying starting at the seabed.
Climate change is a world problem but the world’s efforts to alleviate the climate mess are most effective coming from the world’s biggest users of fossil fuels in industrialized countries, like the United States and China. Besides there are other commercialized giants who should take up seriously in firm commitments the promise not to over-use fossil fuels, instead reduce it. And the matter should be on top of the list of universal problems.
In the United Nations Group of Seven (G7) summit held last week in Germany, which took up the problem of Russia over Ukraine, the member nations also took up the climate change problem and for UN to make climate change an “international security threat.” But the step is like the steps taken through the years in the annual climate change summits, that the developed nations promise to slow down their use of fossil fuel and help decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
But these are promises to set deadlines in the cleaning up.
Of the UN climate change conferences, there have been over 20 annual summits on climate change, beginning with the climate change summit in Berlin in 1995. The last in 2014 was in Lima, Peru. Last week in the G7 2015 summit, the group of seven promised to “wean their energy-hungry economies off carbon fuels….”
Let’s clean up energy, summits say.
But, said the G7 summit report, the discussion of the climate change “stopped short of agreeing any immediate collective targets for reducing greenhouse emissions.” This, even if in the summit of seven major industrial nations, host German Chancellor Angela Merkel in her speech said goodbye to fossil fuels, or “Auf Wiedersehen.”
As the G7 summit closed last week, it was hoped that the coming 2015 climate change summit in November this year in Paris will be more effective.
But how practical are the promises of countries to work on it? The promises are not fulfilling enough from summit to summit this year and in the next. Rich countries and big gas “emitters” like the US, Canada, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, France, Japan start gas reduction, with China and Russia promising nothing much.
Meanwhile, less developed countries, like the Philippines, continue to live in the atmosphere of fear when the bathroom shakes, the streets get flooded, the tornado blasts, the hills slide and bury people, the sea surface rises in temperature.
The US and China will lead the way to the Paris summit on climate changes late this year as hope rises.
In the coming summit, France will look forward in de-energizing societies, hopefully for a Green Economy in the 21th Century.
So, on to the 22nd climate change summit this November in Paris until the next promise in the next climate change summit?
The dream is “decarbonisation” of the economy in the world, from electricity generation to renewable resources by 2050 and start now, hopefully in bigger electric de-energizing stakes.
But, are we on time?
(ecuizon@gmail.com)