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CLIMATE CHANGE: At Least the Glass is Not Empty

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Feb 14 2005 (IPS) - In the morass of statistics on global warming, consider just the broad figures of the story so far, and the story that leading scientists would like to see unfold.

The Kyoto protocol comes into force this week more than seven years after it was agreed. It envisages a reduction of emissions from industrialised countries to 5 percent below 1990 emissions levels by 2012. Not everyone is committed to the goal – the United States stands out as a giant exception. And those who are agreed are nowhere near this modest goal.

But if global warming is to be curbed, principally by curbing the emission of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane (the greenhouse gases) that lead to atmospheric warming, new scientific wisdom suggests that emissions of such gases will need to be cut by 80 percent by 2050 relative to 1990 levels.

After a patchy and uncertain advance of at best 5 percent until 2012, the new target sets another 75 percent cut in emissions by industrialised countries over the 38 years following 2012. The global target for 2050 is a 50 percent cut in emissions relative to 1990 levels.

The targets raise that ‘but how’ question far louder than most other targets.

But they raise also that ‘or else’ question. Or else, new evidence suggests, global warming will pass that tipping point of a two percent rise. A rise of 1.3 percent would be bearable, but two percent would bring catastrophe in the shape of extreme heatwaves, droughts, floods, disruption to agriculture and a lethal rise of sea levels.

The debate on climate change and the Kyoto Protocol rests on how heavily the second question can come to bear down on the first.

Environmentalists see the coming into effect of the Kyoto protocol Wednesday this week as no more than the tiny step it is. They cannot look to a half-full part of a glass for reassurance, but one with even a few drops of water is better than an empty glass. More, they see the Kyoto Protocol as showing the way, if not significant progress so far.

"Britain, for example, has set its own target of 60 percent reduction in emissions by 2050, and a number of other countries are making the right kind of sounds they’re going that way," Catherine Pearce from Friends of the Earth International told IPS. "Scientists have provided evidence that this problem is not going away. What is emerging is that the sooner decisions are made, the easier it will be for all of us."

That consensus is emerging not just among non-governmental organisations and green groups but also in industry and business, she said. In the United States too several states are taking steps to cut emissions despite the decision by the Bush administration to stay out of Kyoto, she said.

There is a movement towards "some real tangible policies in energy efficiency, in questioning our demands, and in using energy," Pearce said. There is a closer examination now of clean, renewable energy sources, and for the need for countries like China, India and Brazil to cut emissions from their rapidly growing energy industry, she said.

Nicola Saltman from the environment group WWF says "what is required is a rapid shift from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy." That must go with "improving efficiency and reducing demand." Governments will need to produce powerful political will to stay with reduction targets by moving to energy sources such as wind power and solar power, Saltman said.

Many changes will be required at the people level, Saltman said, such as switching off lights when not absolutely necessary, using efficient light bulbs and efficient brands of appliances such as washing machines, and introducing clean and efficient energy in public transport.

These recommended changes add up in substance to a combination of new efficiency, renewable energy and a change in lifestyle. But no one has quite worked out whether such measures, whether now or in the offing, can add up to an 80 percent reduction in emissions in industrialised countries by 2050 relative to 1990.

What is missing at present is the in-between calculations on the extent of steps that need to be taken to add up to that level of reduction. Controlling climate change will need revolutionary production and efficiency, and drastic lifestyle changes in the West. There is little indication of that yet even on the distant horizon.