What Failure Means
Posted on 03. Oct, 2010 by astark in U.S.A., bits
Yesterday I said that now is a pivotal moment in the UNFCCC’s 16 year history. This means that the Tianjin conference, and alter the conference in Cancun, offer many opportunities for negotiators to seize some forward momentum and make progress on saving the planet from disastrous levels of warming. But the converse possibility also exists: that failure at these conferences will leave the UNFCCC process in a permanent mire.
To give you a sense of the urgency of the UNFCCC process, I thought I’d give you just a few examples of what failure will mean.
According to the IPCC, climate change will mean decreased agricultural yields in many parts of the world due to higher temperatures and water shortages, leading to increasing hunger and starvation. It will mean increased intensity and duration of heat waves in cities (anyone who lived in Washington, DC this summer knows exactly what I mean).
It will mean an increase in severe flash floods, like the ones we saw in Pakistan this summer, where about 21 million people are now injured or homeless as a result. It will mean an increase in devastating hurricanes like Katrina, which had a permanent and devastating impact on an iconic American city. It will mean an increase in the number of deaths from disease, poverty and hunger- if we can’t tackle climate change, then forget about the Millennium Development Goals.
It will mean increase water stress for many people, most severely in Africa, where by 2020 between 75 and 250 million people will be exposed to water stress.
Sometimes it’s hard for Americans to face up to what climate change will really mean for us. After all, if you don’t live on a coast, and you live in an area that is water-rich or cooler and won’t be as severely affected by climate change’s impacts, you might think that you can get off by continuing on like business-as-usual. But you may be surprised to hear that even military leaders in the United States agree that climate change is very worrisome. In the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review released by the Department of Defense, it was stated that “climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration. While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world.”
So it’s not just environmental activists who should care about the outcome of these negotiations. It’s also farmers, whose land may be permanently affected by these impacts. It’s also military personnel and their families, who could conceivably be deployed to intervene in a foreign conflict sparked by climate change in the near future. It’s also development activists, who don’t want to see a large chunk of the global population slide back into desperate poverty.
In other words, increased conflict around the world will directly involve the United States, as the military and diplomats decide how to respond. In my day job back home in DC, I spend a lot of time thinking about the consequences for the United States of increased conflict around the world due to climate change, and the results are not pretty (read more here).
I could go on for a very long time listing all of the terribly consequences that the world (not just one nation, or the developed countries, or just the developing countries) will face if all of our negotiators fail to recognize the urgency of making concrete, tangible, fair and ambitious progress in Tianjin and Cancun. But the point is that they must not become complacent, thinking that if the citizens of their own country don’t seem to care, then they shouldn’t either. We must show them that we understand the urgency of taking action against climate change and that the United States absolutely must become a global leader on this issue.
Excellent summation… Thank you for this posting!