Excerpt: "'The drums of war are beating. Count on climate change being
drowned out.' The assumption is reasonable enough. While many politicians
pay lip service to the existential urgency of the climate crisis, as soon as
another more immediate crisis rears its head - war, a market shock, an
epidemic - climate reliably falls off the political map."
Climate change is a growing cause of displacement and conflict where land
has been devastated by drought. (photo: B. Bannon/UNHCR)
Why a Climate Deal Is the Best Hope for Peace
By Naomi Klein and Jason Box, The New Yorker
28 November 15
Soon after the horrific terror attacks in Paris, last Friday, our phones
filled with messages from friends and colleagues: "So are they going to
cancel the Paris climate summit?" "The drums of war are beating. Count on
climate change being drowned out." The assumption is reasonable enough.
While many politicians pay lip service to the existential urgency of the
climate crisis, as soon as another more immediate crisis rears its head-war,
a market shock, an epidemic-climate reliably falls off the political map.
After the attacks, the French government stated that the COP21 climate
summit would begin as scheduled at the end of November. Yet the police have
just barred the huge planned marches and protests, effectively silencing the
voices of people who are directly affected by these high-level talks. And
it's hard to see how sea-level rise and parched farmland-tough media sells
at the best of times-will have a hope of competing with rapid military
escalation and calls for fortressed borders.
All of this is perfectly understandable. When our safety feels threatened,
it's difficult to think of anything else. Major shocks like the Paris
attacks are awfully good at changing the subject. But what if we decided to
not let it happen? What if, instead of changing the subject, we deepened the
discussion of climate change and expanded the range of solutions, which are
fundamental for real human security? What if, instead of being pushed aside
in the name of war, climate action took center stage as the planet's best
hope for peace?
The connection between warming temperatures and the cycle of Syrian violence
is, by now, uncontroversial. As Secretary of State John Kerry said in
Virginia, this month, "It's not a coincidence that, immediately prior to the
civil war in Syria, the country experienced its worst drought on record. As
many as 1.5 million people migrated from Syria's farms to its cities,
intensifying the political unrest that was just beginning to roil and boil
in the region."
As Kerry went on to note, many factors contributed to Syria's instability.
The severe drought was one, but so were the repressive practices of a brutal
dictator and the rise of a particular strain of religious extremism. Another
big factor was the invasion of Iraq, a decade ago. And since that war-like
so many before it-was inextricable from the West's thirst for Iraqi oil
(warming be damned), that fateful decision in turn became difficult to
separate from climate change. ISIS, which has taken responsibility for the
attacks in Paris, found fertile ground in this volatile context of too much
oil and too little water.
If we acknowledge that the instability emanating from the Middle East has
these roots, it makes little sense to allow the Paris attacks to minimize
our already inadequate climate commitments. Rather, this tragedy should
inspire the opposite reaction: an urgent push to lower emissions as rapidly
and deeply as possible, including strong support for developing countries to
leapfrog to renewable energy, creating much-needed jobs and economic
opportunities in the process. That kind of bold climate transition is our
only hope of preventing a future in which, as a recent paper in the journal
Nature Climate Change put it, large areas of the Middle East will, by the
end of the century, "experience temperature levels that are intolerable to
humans."
But even this is not enough. The deepest emission reductions can only
prevent climate change from getting far worse. They can't stop the warming
that has already arrived, nor the warming that is locked in as a result of
the fossil fuels we have already burned. So there is a critical piece
missing from our climate conversation: the need to quickly lower atmospheric
CO2 levels from the current four hundred parts per million to the upper
limit of what is not considered dangerous: three hundred and fifty parts per
million.
The implications of a failure to bring carbon down to safer levels go well
beyond amplifying catastrophes like Syria's historic drought. The last time
atmospheric CO2 was this high, global sea levels were at least six metres
higher. We find ourselves confronted with ice-sheet disintegration that, in
some susceptible areas, already appears unstoppable. In the currently
overloaded CO2 climate, it's just a matter of time until hundreds of
millions of people will be displaced from coastal regions, their
agricultural lands and groundwater destroyed by saltwater intrusion from sea
rise. Among the most vulnerable areas are broad swaths of South and
Southeast Asia-which include some of the world's biggest cities, from
Shanghai to Jakarta-along with a number of coastal African and Latin
American countries, such as Nigeria, Brazil, and Egypt.
A climate summit taking place against the backdrop of climate-fuelled
violence and migration can only be relevant if its central goal is the
creation of conditions for lasting peace. That would mean making legally
enforceable commitments to leave the vast majority of known fossil-fuel
reserves in the ground. It would also mean delivering real financing to
developing countries to cope with the impacts of climate change, and
recognizing the full rights of climate migrants to move to safer ground. A
strong climate-peace agreement would also include a program to plant vast
numbers of native-species trees in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, to
draw down atmospheric CO2, reduce desertification, and promote cooler and
moister climates. Tree planting alone is not enough to lower CO2 to safe
levels, but it could help people stay on their land and protect sustainable
livelihoods.
We knew that the Paris summit wasn't going to achieve all of this. But just
days ago, bold collective action on climate seemed within reach: the climate
movement was accelerating, winning tangible victories against pipelines and
Arctic drilling; governments were strengthening their targets, and some were
even starting to stand up to fossil-fuel companies.
Enough pressure existed, it seemed, to achieve the main goals of the
conference: an enforceable and binding international treaty to ratchet down
carbon emissions once and for all. But the movement believed that keeping
the pressure up during the summit would be critical. That just got a lot
harder.
The last time there was this much climate momentum was in 2008, when Europe
was leading a renewable-energy revolution and Barack Obama was pledging, as
he accepted the Democratic nomination, that his election would be "the
moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to
heal." Then came the full reverberations of the financial crisis. By the
time the world met at the Copenhagen climate-change conference, at the end
of 2009, global attention had already shifted away from climate to bank
bailouts, and the deal was widely considered to be a disaster. In the years
that followed, support for renewables was slashed across southern Europe,
ambitions dwindled, and pledges of climate financing for the developing
world virtually disappeared. Never mind that a decisive response to the
climate crisis, grounded in big investments in renewables, efficiency, and
public transit, could well have created enough jobs to undercut the
discredited logic of economic austerity.
We cannot afford to allow this story to be repeated, this time with terror
changing the subject. To the contrary, as the author and energy expert
Michael T. Klare argued weeks before the attacks, Paris "should be
considered not just a climate summit but a peace conference-perhaps the most
significant peace convocation in history." But it can only do that if the
agreement builds a carbon-safe economy fast enough to tangibly improve lives
in the here and now. We are finally starting to recognize that climate
change leads to wars and economic ruin. It's time to recognize that
intelligent climate policy is fundamental to lasting peace and economic
justice.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Climate change is a growing cause of displacement and conflict where land
has been devastated by drought. (photo: B. Bannon/UNHCR)
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-a-climate-deal-is-the-best-hope-
for-peacehttp://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-a-climate-deal-is-the-b
est-hope-for-peace
Why a Climate Deal Is the Best Hope for Peace
By Naomi Klein and Jason Box, The New Yorker
28 November 15
oon after the horrific terror attacks in Paris, last Friday, our phones
filled with messages from friends and colleagues: "So are they going to
cancel the Paris climate summit?" "The drums of war are beating. Count on
climate change being drowned out." The assumption is reasonable enough.
While many politicians pay lip service to the existential urgency of the
climate crisis, as soon as another more immediate crisis rears its head-war,
a market shock, an epidemic-climate reliably falls off the political map.
After the attacks, the French government stated that the COP21 climate
summit would begin as scheduled at the end of November. Yet the police have
just barred the huge planned marches and protests, effectively silencing the
voices of people who are directly affected by these high-level talks. And
it's hard to see how sea-level rise and parched farmland-tough media sells
at the best of times-will have a hope of competing with rapid military
escalation and calls for fortressed borders.
All of this is perfectly understandable. When our safety feels threatened,
it's difficult to think of anything else. Major shocks like the Paris
attacks are awfully good at changing the subject. But what if we decided to
not let it happen? What if, instead of changing the subject, we deepened the
discussion of climate change and expanded the range of solutions, which are
fundamental for real human security? What if, instead of being pushed aside
in the name of war, climate action took center stage as the planet's best
hope for peace?
The connection between warming temperatures and the cycle of Syrian violence
is, by now, uncontroversial. As Secretary of State John Kerry said in
Virginia, this month, "It's not a coincidence that, immediately prior to the
civil war in Syria, the country experienced its worst drought on record. As
many as 1.5 million people migrated from Syria's farms to its cities,
intensifying the political unrest that was just beginning to roil and boil
in the region."
As Kerry went on to note, many factors contributed to Syria's instability.
The severe drought was one, but so were the repressive practices of a brutal
dictator and the rise of a particular strain of religious extremism. Another
big factor was the invasion of Iraq, a decade ago. And since that war-like
so many before it-was inextricable from the West's thirst for Iraqi oil
(warming be damned), that fateful decision in turn became difficult to
separate from climate change. ISIS, which has taken responsibility for the
attacks in Paris, found fertile ground in this volatile context of too much
oil and too little water.
If we acknowledge that the instability emanating from the Middle East has
these roots, it makes little sense to allow the Paris attacks to minimize
our already inadequate climate commitments. Rather, this tragedy should
inspire the opposite reaction: an urgent push to lower emissions as rapidly
and deeply as possible, including strong support for developing countries to
leapfrog to renewable energy, creating much-needed jobs and economic
opportunities in the process. That kind of bold climate transition is our
only hope of preventing a future in which, as a recent paper in the journal
Nature Climate Change put it, large areas of the Middle East will, by the
end of the century, "experience temperature levels that are intolerable to
humans."
But even this is not enough. The deepest emission reductions can only
prevent climate change from getting far worse. They can't stop the warming
that has already arrived, nor the warming that is locked in as a result of
the fossil fuels we have already burned. So there is a critical piece
missing from our climate conversation: the need to quickly lower atmospheric
CO2 levels from the current four hundred parts per million to the upper
limit of what is not considered dangerous: three hundred and fifty parts per
million.
The implications of a failure to bring carbon down to safer levels go well
beyond amplifying catastrophes like Syria's historic drought. The last time
atmospheric CO2 was this high, global sea levels were at least six metres
higher. We find ourselves confronted with ice-sheet disintegration that, in
some susceptible areas, already appears unstoppable. In the currently
overloaded CO2 climate, it's just a matter of time until hundreds of
millions of people will be displaced from coastal regions, their
agricultural lands and groundwater destroyed by saltwater intrusion from sea
rise. Among the most vulnerable areas are broad swaths of South and
Southeast Asia-which include some of the world's biggest cities, from
Shanghai to Jakarta-along with a number of coastal African and Latin
American countries, such as Nigeria, Brazil, and Egypt.
A climate summit taking place against the backdrop of climate-fuelled
violence and migration can only be relevant if its central goal is the
creation of conditions for lasting peace. That would mean making legally
enforceable commitments to leave the vast majority of known fossil-fuel
reserves in the ground. It would also mean delivering real financing to
developing countries to cope with the impacts of climate change, and
recognizing the full rights of climate migrants to move to safer ground. A
strong climate-peace agreement would also include a program to plant vast
numbers of native-species trees in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, to
draw down atmospheric CO2, reduce desertification, and promote cooler and
moister climates. Tree planting alone is not enough to lower CO2 to safe
levels, but it could help people stay on their land and protect sustainable
livelihoods.
We knew that the Paris summit wasn't going to achieve all of this. But just
days ago, bold collective action on climate seemed within reach: the climate
movement was accelerating, winning tangible victories against pipelines and
Arctic drilling; governments were strengthening their targets, and some were
even starting to stand up to fossil-fuel companies.
Enough pressure existed, it seemed, to achieve the main goals of the
conference: an enforceable and binding international treaty to ratchet down
carbon emissions once and for all. But the movement believed that keeping
the pressure up during the summit would be critical. That just got a lot
harder.
The last time there was this much climate momentum was in 2008, when Europe
was leading a renewable-energy revolution and Barack Obama was pledging, as
he accepted the Democratic nomination, that his election would be "the
moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to
heal." Then came the full reverberations of the financial crisis. By the
time the world met at the Copenhagen climate-change conference, at the end
of 2009, global attention had already shifted away from climate to bank
bailouts, and the deal was widely considered to be a disaster. In the years
that followed, support for renewables was slashed across southern Europe,
ambitions dwindled, and pledges of climate financing for the developing
world virtually disappeared. Never mind that a decisive response to the
climate crisis, grounded in big investments in renewables, efficiency, and
public transit, could well have created enough jobs to undercut the
discredited logic of economic austerity.
We cannot afford to allow this story to be repeated, this time with terror
changing the subject. To the contrary, as the author and energy expert
Michael T. Klare argued weeks before the attacks, Paris "should be
considered not just a climate summit but a peace conference-perhaps the most
significant peace convocation in history." But it can only do that if the
agreement builds a carbon-safe economy fast enough to tangibly improve lives
in the here and now. We are finally starting to recognize that climate
change leads to wars and economic ruin. It's time to recognize that
intelligent climate policy is fundamental to lasting peace and economic
justice.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
