Abu Dhabi

Source: mufakiru Alemarat

Dr.. Ali Mohamed Al Khouri

Climate change has become one of the hot topics in the global arena, and the civil and international community is trying to present it as the greatest danger facing humanity and life on planet Earth. Despite this global mobilization; Then the question arises whether developed countries really want to come up with real solutions, or provide only temporary remedies, such as those proposed regarding financing losses and damages caused by carbon emissions in low-income countries.

Countries appear divided among themselves amid the intensification of commercial and industrial competition between major countries, such as the United States of America and China, which are the two largest countries responsible for environmental pollution, and the lack of any indications from the Group of Twenty – responsible for 80 percent of global emissions – to provide definite guarantees to reduce the rate of pollution. emissions, as well as the richer countries’ abdication of their responsibilities in terms of targets and aid; What was evident in the existing tensions and positions regarding compensation funds, financing poor and developing countries in order to deal with the effects of climate change, and help them transition to renewable energy.

Although the decisions of the Climate Summit 27 in Egypt included the establishment of a fund to support the most vulnerable regions in the world; The incomprehensible paradox is that the sources of funding for this fund and the mechanisms for its implementation are not specified. Also, the summit, which brought together more than 200 countries, did not reach a binding agreement on reducing the rate of gas emissions from burning coal, gas and oil. Which is the most important thing for which the world gathered!

The issue that is still lost in the orbit of the international community is how the global commitment is to limit global warming, reaching, according to the Paris climate conference agreement in 2015, the level of 1.5 degrees as an upper ceiling that should not be exceeded – a level that is equivalent to pre-industrial levels. And in the midst of the international events taking place; Achieving this may have become an impossible goal amid the global state of competition. As all countries seek to deal urgently with the urgent development requirements. Which means more consumption of traditional energy sources.

International Report Alerts

International reports are still sounding alarms that climate change has reached a very dangerous stage, and will destroy life on the planet at a much faster rate than expected. Most reports indicate that the Earth’s surface has warmed faster in the past 50 years than in any other time period over at least the past 2,000 years.

According to the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued on August 8; Human influence has warmed the climate at a rate unprecedented in at least the last two millennia. The report also showed that in 2019 the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached its highest level ever in at least two million years, and that the concentration of methane and nitrous oxide (nitrogen dioxide) was higher than at any time in the past 800,000 years. Last.

The report makes disturbing mathematical conclusions, including, for example, that temperatures in the last decade (2011-2020) have exceeded those that spanned several centuries in the warm period about 6,500 years ago, and that the average global sea level has risen since 1900 by about faster than any previous century in the past 3,000 years.

The report shows that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are responsible for about 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming between 1850 and 1900, indicating that the average global temperature rise in the next 20 years will reach or exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Many international studies indicate that a rise in atmospheric temperatures of more than four degrees Celsius may, in its simplest form, swallow entire cities, such as Alexandria, Shanghai, Miami, and other cities and islands that may become under the sea.

international positions

Although most countries in the world have set goals to reduce carbon emissions by 2030, and to reach a “zero carbon” level by 2050 as advocated by the United Nations; The issue may still be “on paper” in the absence of a binding mechanism to review the environmental performance of countries according to a strict timetable for phasing out the use of coal, for example.

It is entirely up to the major countries that are still expanding oil and gas production and consumption, and finally returning to dependence on coal. And the biggest affected again – it seems – will be the developing and poor countries that do not have sufficient capabilities to deal with environmental disasters or the damage that may befall them, whether they are floods, droughts, or a rise in sea levels. In contrast to the major industrial countries that have great economic and technological capabilities that enable them to deal better with such crises.

For example, Russia announced that it aims to reduce emissions by 2060, and India announced that it will commit to reaching carbon neutrality in 2070, amid the condescending and frustrating voices of climate scientists saying that climate disasters may appear in the next few decades. But in light of the high demand for energy in China, and the evidence confirming that it has increased coal production; It is not expected that any of the emissions reduction targets will be achieved according to the dates demanded by the United Nations and climate organizations.

The production and technological capabilities and costs required for the transition to green societies, or the green economy, are still far from the ambition of countries, whether it is to produce electric energy from alternative energy sources, or to use environmentally friendly liquid fuels capable of operating machines, machines, and vehicles. In the face of this challenge, the expenditures allocated for the development of such equipment and devices seem insufficient for development and mass production, and profit and competition criteria are still the only criterion that governs government orientations in general, far from the obligation to pay risks as a priority that precedes profit-making.

The international community has only one option, which is to have binding international laws to reduce carbon emissions and reduce environmental pollution practices and rates. However, things will not happen – it seems – according to these goals in the global energy battle, in which major countries tend to expand and influence, and developing countries to achieve their national development agendas. Poor countries will be the most affected. What we really know is that the planet Earth will face difficult challenges in the coming decades, and the price will be heavy at that time, and it will undoubtedly be paid by our children and future generations.