For once, I’m going to talk about good news, in an unexpected area.
Most American progressive activists seem to have given up any hope on
global warming. The Christian apocalypticism we see working through
every day’s events, especially since 9/11, is mirrored on the left by
an environmental apocalypticism. Many seem to assume that whatever
political battles we might fight in the short term, in 30 or 40 or 100
years the jig will be up for the planet and for humanity. And so,
partly because of that, there is remarkably little political activism
on this issue of paramount importance.
Of course, global warming is an overwhelming threat and fully
addressing it would require transformation of the entire planet’s
industrial base and mode of energy production. And some of the damage
that has already been done and that will accumulate over the next few
decades will be difficult or impossible to undo.
And, in fact, the United States is in complete denial over this issue,
to the point that global warming through human-produced carbon
emissions is generally presented, in the mainstream media, as a
debatable hypothesis, and on Fox News as left-wing hysteria. The
current administration’s plan on global warming has included denying it
exists, censoring sections dealing with the threat out of government
reports, and even shamelessly promulgating a fatuous new standard –
that what should be measured is not carbon emissions but carbon
emission divided by GNP, as if the planet cares about our artificial
conventions about the value of various pieces of paper.
But there is political hope on this issue, and a great deal of it,
precisely because, contrary to how it sometimes seems, the United
States is not the whole world. Delegates from over 190 countries have
gathered
in Buenos Aires to celebrate the enactment of the Kyoto
Protocol. Ratified by 130 countries and international blocs, its recent
ratification by Russia pushed it over the threshold so that it will go
into effect on February 16, 2005.
Even though United States, in this as in so much else, is a rogue state
(in 1997, under Clinton, Kyoto was unanimously rejected by the Senate),
when Kyoto does go into effect it will affect U.S. corporations. Du
Pont,
for example, has 40% of its production and 50% of its sales outside the
United States; once those are subject to Kyoto restrictions, there will
be increasing incentive to retool the rest of their operations the same
way. And even our country is not a complete area of darkness;
California will be regulating carbon emissions from automobiles.
Not to overstate; Kyoto is a mere band-aid. It requires, for example,
that the United States’ emissions in 2012 be 7% lower than its 1990
emissions -- not exactly earth-shattering stuff.
The need to go much further is recognized throughout the European Union
and in many Third World countries, especially China, which, for
example,
reduced
emissions by 19% between 1997 and 2000 even while
undergoing massive economic growth.
In going further, one supposed weakness is actually a strength. The
protocol does not regulate the emissions of Third World countries. And,
notwithstanding China’s example, those emissions are substantial,
although the First World still has the lion’s share and the U.S. the
lion’s share of that. There will be no solution of the global warming
problem without at least taming the growth in Third World emissions.
The First World will have to make significant concessions in order to
gain consent of the Third World. Those concessions should include not
just transfer of green technologies but also large indemnities paid for
excessive First World carbon emissions historically and for those
continuing while the slow process of reduction begins.
So far, the effects of global warming have hit Third World countries –
quite severely, with effects like the massive drought in southern and
eastern Africa in 2002. But there are numerous scenarios, including
catastrophic climate change, in which there is a credible threat of
massive environmental consequences in the First World even in the
medium term.
At some point soon, even U.S. politicians will be forced to recognize
the threat and try to catch up with the rest of the world in addressing
it – if we create the necessary pressure.