PARIS.- In 2015, 200 countries pledged in Paris to do not exceed global warming by more than 2 ° C. That promise came to nothing and the thermometer continues to rise, despite countless scientific reports warning that the more than 1.5 million deaths caused by the Covid-19 pandemic is just a sample of what will happen with climate change. After Donald Trump And from the pandemic, will the world be able to come back to reason and act once and for all?
On December 12, 2015, the Climate Conference (COP 21) closed in Le Bourget, on the outskirts of Paris. For two weeks, under the aegis of the UN, representatives of 200 countries, civil society and science reached that historic agreement for the good of Humanity. The final ceremony was marked by cheers, applause and the sharp blow of a wooden hammer with a head carved in the shape of a green leaf.
“It is a small hammer, but I thought it could do great things,” said Laurent Fabius, president of the French conference and foreign minister.
A few days later, 2015 was declared the hottest year in the history of Paris. And 2020 in turn is announced as a record year, with a long list of climate “unpublished”. It is enough to mention two: 38 ° C in Siberia last June 20; more than 1.6 million hectares of forest burned in California, double the preceding 2018 record.
The image of the polar bear stranded on a piece of ice navigating the increasingly temperate waters of the Arctic has become the emblem of the dramatic consequences of climate disorder. But it is also the health of humanity that is at stake with global warming, says a report published last Thursday.
“Climate-induced shocks cause fatalities, affect health and disrupt livelihoods in all regions of the world right now,” warns Ian Hamilton, executive director of this fifth annual report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. . If the pandemic collapsed health systems, this health crisis is just one example of what awaits the world with the climate crisis, warns the study, carried out in collaboration with 35 institutions, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and numerous universities.
No country – rich or poor – is sheltered from the effects of climate change on health. First, the constant increase in global temperature causes a multiplication of heat waves. “During the last 20 years, mortality related to canicular episodes increased 54% in those over 65 and 296,000 people died in 2018”, according to the report.
Some 128 countries experienced increased exposure of their populations to forest fires since the beginning of 2020: United States, the first of them. According The Lancet, the predicted rise in sea level It could displace 565 million people and expose them to countless health problems.
Rising temperatures and increasingly numerous extreme weather events also threaten the food safety. The use of fossil fuels, especially coal, is responsible for global warming, but also for seven million deaths a year due to air pollution.
For scientists, the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change “They represent convergent crises.”
“The pandemic showed us that when health is threatened on a global scale, our economies and our ways of life can collapse,” said Hamilton.
Only half of the countries studied by that report have developed national plans that establish a link between health and climate. And only four of them have adequate national funding. Meanwhile, two thirds of the world’s cities surveyed believe that climate change will seriously compromise their health infrastructure.
And yet. Experience seems to show that, pulled by economic demands, lobbies, and electoral arguments, governments make promises that they cannot keep. However, some good examples exist.
After the departure of Britain from European Union (EU) next January 1, Denmark It will become the block’s leading hydrocarbon producer. But in three decades that will be over. On December 3, the Danish government and its Parliament announced the end of hydrocarbon exploitation on its North Sea continental shelf by 2050. By then, Copenhagen will suspend oil and gas exploration activities.
Under pressure from its environmental allies in Parliament, the Social Democratic government, in power since June 2019, followed the recommendations of an independent body, the Climate Council, according to which the continuation of operations contradicted the climate ambitions of the country. Denmark is in effect trying to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and become a pioneer of the ecological transition.
Surprise
On September 22, for the first time in history, China the objective of achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. This was announced by the president Xi Jinping before the UN Assembly. The world’s leading polluter, responsible for a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, China also commits to peak its CO2 emissions by 2030, and not “around” 2030, as indicated in its climate plan preceding.
The announcement caused surprise and left the specialists doubtful, because China continues to build coal-fired power plants.
“Xi leaves the problem to future generations. In 2018, your country consumed 4.84 billion tons of coal. So the promises for 2060.“, analiza François Godement, especialista de Asia en el Instituto Montaigne.
On July 21, in the midst of a pandemic, the EU agreed to the largest reactivation plan ever financed by the bloc. Some 1.8 trillion euros will be allocated to rebuild post-coronavirus Europe. Main goal: a greener Europe. More than 30% of that money will go to the climate transition, the highest budget percentage in the history of the EU.
On December 3, the British premier, Boris Johnson, announced for its part to have increased its ambition, by setting as a goal a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of “at least 68% “before 2030, in relation to the level of emissions in 1990 (against 61% so far). The United Kingdom thus assumes the leadership of the most demanding countries in Nationally Determined Contributions, established within the framework of the Paris Agreement.
The latest good news in the climate field is the arrival of the Democratic president-elect, Joe Biden, to the White House. On November 4, the day after the elections, the United States officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement by decision of the current president, Donald Trump. His successor’s reaction was immediate: “Today, the Trump administration officially left the Paris Climate Agreement. In exactly 77 days, the Biden administration will reinstate it.” For the avoidance of doubt, one of his earliest nominations was for his future “climate czar”, former Secretary of State John Kerry.
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