Points to Ponder. COP26; Coping or Copping Out?

After hogging headlines for over two weeks, the 26^th Conference of Parties (COP26) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Glasgow, where almost 200 countries came together to find ways to prevent global temperature rising beyond the critical threshold, has concluded. In terms of outcome, however, it is a case of mountains labouring for 15 days to deliver a mouse! The Conference has yet again failed to break through the vexed issue of climate justice, namely making rich countries which have, for the most part, piled up carbon emissions into the atmosphere, finance the transition of the rest of the world to greener fuels and other ‘green’ technologies. The much talked about transfer of US $100 billion to developing and poor countries remains a pipe dream. We can not erase the fact that countries comprising the US, EU-27, UK, Canada, Japan, Australia and Russia and now joined by China have consumed 70% of the carbon budget, that is, the space available in the atmosphere for CO2 emissions to keep the rise in world temperature within 1.5C. Yet regions with some 70% of the world’s population are still in dire need of a modicum of development. As these regions grow they will add emissions to take the world to catastrophic levels of temperature. Hence climate justice is not just a political bargaining chip, but an integral part of the required solution. As of now, only Germany, Norway and Sweden are paying their share to the climate finance fund.

In spite of the real and immediate peril confronting humanity, COP26 was bogged down in semantics when it came to time bound phasing out of fossil fuels. Whether to “phase out” or “phase down” coal was a major point of contention. India which insisted on “phase down” was called out as being obstructionist. It is true that India accounting for 6% of the global CO2 emissions is the third largest polluter, after China (27%) and the US (11%). But its emissions per capita are the lowest in the world. But it is cold comfort since these numbers do not take us anywhere close to the required solution except providing myopic politicians some debating points at international fora.

COP26, however made two important commitments. One to end deforestation and two, to drastically reduce methane emissions. This requires the fossil fuel sector as a whole, namely, coal, oil and gas to take time bound steps to curb methane emissions. But prevailing animal husbandry, fishing and agricultural practices which are major contributors of methane emissions have not been called out given that these activities affect the livelihoods of vast number of people who, populist politicians would claim, as relatively disadvantaged, glossing over the fact that in reality they are exploited by big corporates. But then we get the politicians we deserve. How many of us would give up eating meat and fish knowing fully well that our food habits are largely responsible for perilous exploitation of land and the oceans, destroying their capacity for “carbon sequestration”?

It is becoming increasingly clear that we humans, despite our achievements in art, culture and philosophy and even science and technology, are cursed with what Richard Dawkins calls the “selfish genes”. It seems we are wired to self-destruct. Given our myopic understanding of the environment, predominated by a short term anthropocentric view, we are condemned to choose a path that inexorably leads us to a denouement which is annihilation life on this good earth. Science indicates that about 3800 million years ago life became evident on earth.  But humans as a species with their mastery over nature, have multiplied with scant regard to the carrying capacity of the environment. In the space of just 50 years, since 1970, world population has increased 121% while the average decline in the population size of vertebrate species has been 58%. This ruthless human domination has exerted such pressure on earth’s resources, many of which are non-renewable, that ecologists kept alerting us to the limits to growth imposed by the carrying capacity of an increasingly fragile environment. Today informed and concerned citizens of the world talk of what is known as “earth overshoot” day. Earth overshoot day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what the earth can regenerate in thar year. This year it fell on July 29^th. It is a warning that we are breaching the carrying capacity of the environment. As per the report, “Limits to Growth” published by the Club of Rome as far back as in 1972, a population growing in a limited environment can approach the ultimate carrying capacity of that environment in several ways as shown below.

It can adjust smoothly to an equilibrium below the environmental limit by means of a gradual decrease in the growth rate as shown in Figure 1. It can overshoot the limit and then die back in a smooth or oscillatory way as in Figures 2 and 3. Or it can overshoot the limit and in the process diminish the ultimate carrying capacity as indicated in Figure 4.

Given the telltale signs of global ecological overshoot, such as melting of ancient glaciers and the permanent inundation of many an island and coastal land, loss of bio-diversity, extreme weather events such as extended heat waves even in places like Canada and Northern Europe, devastating forest fires, desertification, unseasonal rains, hurricanes and floods, it is becoming increasingly clear that we are in the midst of the stage indicated in Figure 3. How close are we to the catastrophe delineated in Figure 4 where mankind permanently destroys the carrying capacity and causes its own extinction?  Already the numbers are frightening. According to the World Bank, over 13 million people could become “climate” refugees by 2050. In Bangladesh alone, nearly 700,000 people were displaced each year over the last decade because of climate change. ILO estimates that India alone could lose as many as 34 million jobs due to climate change by 2030. A whopping 740,000 Indians die every year due to abnormal temperatures. And we are talking of only of humans. Climate change often manifests itself in ways so subtle that they remain inscrutable for a long time.  Ornithologists, for instance, have observed higher “divorce” rates in Albatross, a socially monogamous bird species which now are forced to go farther afield to find food for the young ones because of rise in water levels due to increasing temperature!

There are, of course attempts to harness science and technology as also social engineering to find solution to the climate crisis. There is a sliver of hope that springs forth when we see youngsters like the 14 year old Vanisha Umashankar from Tiruvannamalai, who on realizing the destructive link between charcoal and deforestation, designed a solar powered ironing cart for the itinerant ‘dhobis’ in Tamil Nadu. Then there is the case of Vidyut Mohan, who also won the US $ 1 million Earthshot Prize at COP26 along with Vanisha. He along with his partner Kevin Kung from the US has built a low cost machine that farmers can attach to tractors. It can process agricultural and forest waste into fuels and fertilizer, enabling farmers to derive value from crop residue rather than burning it. There are also scientific establishments who have come up with innovative and promising approaches to cope with the crisis. As per the Economist, a technology that is likely to enter real world trials in 2022 is a scheme called SCoPEX, developed by a team at Harvard University, which involves launching a balloon in the stratosphere to release 100gms to 2 kgs of material (speculated to be calcium carbonate), and then measuring how it dissipates, reacts and scatters solar energy. Could technology like this reflect away sunlight and keep the earth cooler for longer? The idea takes its inspiration from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, which shot a cloud of dust and ash into the atmosphere and cooled a substantial portion of the earth by as much as 0.5C for the subsequent four years. There is also the nascent proposal discussed at COP26, for a global green grid for distribution of solar energy. This could enable one half of the hemisphere that is basking in sunshine to provide energy to the other half that sleeps.

But given the enormity of the threat, steps taken so far to contain environmental damage fall far short of the required scope and scale. Multilateral diplomacy by its very nature is designed to progress incrementally. But the imminence of climate crisis calls for an immediate overhaul of how global governance and diplomacy works.  Possible? Is there hope?  Well, mankind is fast running out of time without realizing that overdraft on time shrinks with time.