{"id":1477706,"date":"2024-02-02T06:50:18","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T06:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=312240"},"modified":"2024-02-02T06:50:18","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T06:50:18","slug":"the-planet-is-under-siege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/02\/02\/the-planet-is-under-siege\/","title":{"rendered":"The Planet is Under Siege"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image by Markus Spiske.<\/p><\/div>\n

How bad must it get before the politicians and corporates act in a way commensurate to the scale and urgency of the environmental emergency?<\/p>\n

Imprisoned by an economic ideology that demands insatiable consumption and short-term profit; moral weakness in the face of populist pressures from the far right and a staggering degree of self-denial, greed and personal ambition, these cowards in office remain impotent, year on year, despite the warning, despite the impact.<\/p>\n

2023 was the hottest year on record with the average ground temperature passing 1.5\u00b0C for the first time; hot air brought low air humidity, crops failed, forests burnt rivers dried, bio-diversity and water supplies were threatened.<\/p>\n

The longest lasting cyclone ever recorded battered South-East Africa killing 200 people in Malawi and Mozambique; Antarctic sea ice cover crashed; storm<\/a> Daniel swept across the Mediterranean killing 11,300 people in Libya; floods hit Honk Kong, Brazil, Turkey, Bulgaria, Spain and various US states including Florida. And on and on it goes, and still the politicians and big business continue with short-term policies of destruction.<\/p>\n

Climate fuelled disasters were the single biggest cause of internal displacement over the last decade, driving<\/a> around 32 million people from their homes in 2022. Mostly from countries in Sub-saharan Africa (20 million were displaced by drought), South-east Asia (25% of the total were the result of flooding in Pakistan) \u2013 and the Middle East. Not, it should be loudly noted, western developed nations, where climate change and the Ideology of Geed and Consumerism, which is driving the catastrophe, originated and is still worshipped.<\/p>\n

Apathy reigns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Written by a team of international climate scientists, \u2018The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory\u2019 <\/em>concluded that life on planet Earth is under siege\u2026.Earth\u2019s vital signs\u201dthey state, \u201care worse than at any time in human history.\u201d We are now, the authors state, in an uncharted territory.<\/p>\n

Scary stuff that, if we were living in a sane world, would fire coordinated radical action, but no. Still the men and women in grey suits look the other way, prioritise war and \u2018the economy\u2019 over saving the planet. Recognising not it seems, that without a viable planet there will be no economy.<\/p>\n

According to Former Nasa scientist James Hansen, 2023 will be remembered<\/a> as the moment when failures became apparent: \u201cwhen our children and grandchildren look back at the history of human-made climate change, this year and next will be seen as the turning point at which the futility of governments in dealing with climate change was finally exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2015 at the COP meeting in Paris an unprecedented, legally binding agreement was signed by all nations to hold \u201cthe increase in the global average temperature to well below 2\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels\u201d and pursue efforts \u201cto limit the temperature increase to 1.5\u00b0C \u201d, by 2100. A much trumpeted noble statement; a common-sense aspiration, which has been met with apathy and indifference, duplicity and evasions.<\/p>\n

As a result, 1.5\u00b0C appears now to be impossible to reach; many researchers believe<\/a>, \u201cthere’s now a 66% chance we will pass the 1.5C global warming threshold between now and 2027.\u201d Hansen says<\/a>, \u201cWe are now in the process of moving into the 1.5C world.\u201d The impact of which would, or will, be devastating, causing extreme and irreversible effects, particularly in countries in the global south, who shoulder little or no responsible for climate change.<\/p>\n

Who is responsible<\/strong><\/p>\n

As everyone must know by now, climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions, principally Carbon dioxide (CO2) and Methane (CH4), clogging Earths lower atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Energy use, including all forms of transportation, business and residential electricity\/gas supply, results<\/a> in 70% of global GHG emissions. Next is animal agriculture, this produces 19% of GHG\u2019s; Industry spews out 5% and 3.5% comes from waste, which is a colossal amount.<\/p>\n

In order to reduce GHG\u2019s emissions burning fossil fuels must stop; this much is crystal clear. But despite the fact that this has been common knowledge for decades, discussions around fossil fuels were excluded from COP<\/a> meetings for 26 years – until COP26 in Glasgow. This is shocking, but is indicative of the weakness of \u2018the Parties\u2019 and the power of the fossil fuel machine.<\/p>\n

It was not until COP28 (last year) in Dubai that a commitment of sorts was made to \u201ctransition away from fossil fuels\u201d – ambiguous terms like \u2018transition\u2019, \u2018phase out\u2019 or \u2018phase down\u2019, which barely have any meaning at all, are favoured by cowardly politicians, and act to feed delay and facilitate evasion.<\/p>\n

If governments were serious about Saving Our Planet they would make \u2018the environment\u2019 their top priority, and every policy they introduced would firstly consider the impact it had on the planet, on the natural world, on the air, the seas and the soil.<\/p>\n

As the accounts of extreme weather events show, climate change impacts everyone everywhere, but it doesn\u2019t effect everyone to the same degree and not all of mankind are equally responsible, far from it.<\/p>\n

\u2018Big Oil\u2019 (the world\u2019s largest\u00a0oil and gas companies<\/a>), rich industrialized countries, and carbon billionaires are the principle culprits, together with the richest members of the richest nations – men and women who own influential stakes in the worlds largest corporations. Research<\/a> by Oxfam found that, \u201cthese billionaire investors were responsible for more carbon emissions than 5 billion people \u2013 the equivalent of 66 percent of humanity\u2014in 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The major historical emitters are the 19\/20 Century industrialised nations \u2013 Europe\/UK, Japan, USA. Analysis<\/a> by the New York Times\u00a0found that, \u201c23 rich industrialized countries are responsible for 50 percent of all historical emissions and more than 150 countries are responsible for the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the move by western nations to outsource production to South-East Asia, in order to reduce labour costs and maximise profits, China and India have become large scale emitters. In so doing, western nations have to a large degree exported there GHG emissions.<\/p>\n

However, despite drastically cutting its manufacturing base the US is still the world biggest per capita emitter of GHG\u2019s, and by some margin. The global average per capita rate is 6.5 tC02e, in the USA its a staggering 17.6. Given the high level of consumption, travel and diets centred around animal produce it should be no surprise that the US is the worlds biggest per capita polluter.<\/p>\n

China, which is routinely criticised by western leaders over its emissions, and does indeed produce the highest total, has a per capita rate of 8.6, less than half the US. India, which has the largest population on the world now, with a mere 3.5 is the lowest of the top ten emitting countries.<\/p>\n

Sub-Saharan Africa produces only 2.17 tCO2e, or 4% of the global total. The poorest people, living in the poorest nations of the world are not responsible for climate change at all, but they are the most severely effected. Economic exploitation, cultural colonisation and now climate injustice, perpetrated by industrialised western nations on the global south. It is shameful.<\/p>\n

Rich countries must pay for the loss and damage being experienced by communities in developing nations, and as Oxfam rightly state, \u201ccarbon billionaires must shift their investments to funds with stronger environmental and social standards\u201d; in fact they should be forced to do this by governments.<\/p>\n

To have any impact on climate change and the wider environmental catastrophe collective unified, committed action is needed. Everyone has a part to play, but no amount of recycling by individuals, ethical shopping, conscientious travel, responsible eating (reducing animal produce), will save our planet, we are way past that. Unless policy makers take the issue seriously and respond, She, the Earth, will continue to burn, until one day, one day soon, the damage will be irreversible – if its not already.<\/p>\n

The post The Planet is Under Siege<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How bad must it get before the politicians and corporates act in a way commensurate to the scale and urgency of the environmental emergency? Imprisoned by an economic ideology that demands insatiable consumption and short-term profit; moral weakness in the face of populist pressures from the far right and a staggering degree of self-denial, greed More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post The Planet is Under Siege<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":234,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1477706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1477707,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477706\/revisions\/1477707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1477706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1477706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1477706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}