Europe and China lead the global fight against climate change

More than 25,000 participants from 196 countries will discuss climate change from Monday to December 13 in Madrid. Four years after the historic Paris Agreement, the first to require measures to prevent the planet’s temperature from rising above 1.5 degrees by the end of the century, not only are the signatories a long way from meeting that goal, but the IPCC, the international panel of experts advising the UN, warns that, at this rate, warming will exceed three degrees. The most pessimistic scientists even fear that we have already passed the point of no return in global warming.

At the COP25 Climate Summit organized by Ifema in record time, the presence of 50 heads of state and government is expected, but will have the notable absence of the leaders of the two largest polluters in the world: the United States and China. While Europe goes to Madrid with the aim of achieving “energy neutrality” by 2050, the plans of emerging countries such as Brazil, Russia and India have not just taken off due to the lack of ambition of their respective governments.

AMERICA

The case of the United States is paradigmatic, since the presence of representatives of the Democratic opposition, led by the President of Congress, Nancy Pelosi, will be more numerous than the official delegation sent by the Donald Trump Administration, which has begun the procedures to leave the Paris Agreement, whose entry into force, precisely, coincides with the presidential elections of November 2020.

Among the 70 unofficial speakers, Bill Peduto, mayor of Pittsburgh; Mayor Latoya Cantrell of New Orleans; Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of Native Americans; or Mandela Barnes, lieutenant governor of Wisconsin. All of them want to demonstrate in Madrid that Trump’s denialism contrasts with the commitment of local and state authorities to the future of the planet.

CHINA

Faced with the vacuum left by Washington, the Asian giant intends to gain international weight by leading the fight against climate change. This was proclaimed by President Xi Jinping after meeting in early November with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and proclaiming his “firm support” for the Paris Agreement, which they described as an “irreversible process”. Both pledged to “intensify international efforts” and demanded that developed countries invest $100 billion annually until 2025 to finance those actions.

China has also decided to stop being the world’s landfill and has banned the import of garbage from other countries, while timidly beginning to introduce regulations on recycling in large cities.

However, the achievements in air quality are not so promising. In Beijing, the average levels of PM 2.5 particles (the most harmful) have fallen from 89.5 micrograms per cubic meter to the current 42, but remain above the official target of 35 and even more so of the World Health Organization (WHO) standard, set at 10.

On the other hand, the current trade war between Beijing and Washington is tarnishing the will of the Asian giant to promote clean energy. In this sense, the Chinese government is increasing the weight of coal in its economy. According to EndCoal, over the past 18 months, China has increased its coal capacity by a total of 42.9 gigawatts, which hardly squares with the Paris targets.

EU

Europe presents itself as the vanguard of the global fight against global warming and aspires to go beyond the goals set in Paris. Specifically, the Twenty-seven hope to announce at the European Council to be held in Brussels on December 12 and 13 (just at the close of COP25) the “energy neutrality” in 2050. So far, the European commitment foresees a reduction in emissions of 40% by 2030. The opposition of three Eastern countries (Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic) so far prevents the EU from going faster in its energy transition.

The new president of the European Commission, the German Ursula von der Leyen, announced during her investiture speech in the European Parliament that climate change will be one of the priorities of her mandate and promised to launch in its first hundred days an ambitious Green Plan, whose main lines will be outlined on December 11. For Frans Timmermans, vice president in charge of Climate Change, “the longer we take to embrace the potential of this transition, the more damage we will do to our industry and the employment potential of the new economy.” In a symbolic decision, the European Parliament declared last Thursday the “climate emergency”.

The new Commission has also announced that it will turn the European Investment Bank (EIB) into a climate bank that from 2021 will stop financing investments in fossil fuels (with some exceptions for gas) and that, from 2025, it will devote 50% of its funds to climate projects.

In the final stretch of the year, the Member States of the European Union must present the final versions of their national energy and climate plans (PNEC), the roadmap for the energy transition between 2021 and 2030, with the improvements that the European Commission proposed when receiving the drafts last semester.

Brussels then assured that all these programs fell short and pointed out that only five countries (Spain, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania and Portugal) contributed to this collective effort contributions “significantly higher” than the whole of the Twenty-eight.

RUSSIA

From Moscow, the promises to take on the fight against climate change do not seem to be translated into concrete measures. In fact, Russia has not yet ratified the climate treaty. In a recent speech, President Vladimir Putin said that “we intend to comply with all obligations under the Paris Agreement. We will do everything we can to change the economy so that it becomes green.” “We will change the industry and introduce sanctions against those who do not use modern technology. First, we will change everything in major industries and big cities,” Putin said.

However, the Kremlin leader’s good intentions seem to stay at that, in good words. The NGO Climate Action Tracker (CAT) describes as “critically insufficient” targets for 2025 that do not even require the reduction of current greenhouse gas emissions.

BRAZIL

The country’s situation is bleak in the face of the growing deforestation of the Amazon, considered one of the green lungs of the earth, and the scarce environmental commitment of President Jair Bolsonaro. This nature reserve has lost 9,762 square kilometers of vegetation (about 10,000 football fields) from August 2018 to July 2019, 30% more than the same period of the previous year. Environmentalists have not hesitated to accuse Bolsonaro of being responsible for the deterioration of the Amazon with a policy that has favored the timber industry and agricultural exploitation.

The Government of Rio de Janeiro, represented in Madrid by its Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, will demand a definition of the item that corresponds to it from the aforementioned fund of 100,000 million dollars per year to support emerging countries to launch green projects.

INDIA

With 20% of the world’s population and 4% of water reserves, India will be one of the countries most affected by the consequences of climate change. However, the nationalist government of Narendra Modi is not willing to move until it knows the international aid it will receive in return. Consequently, it does not plan to update its climate plan until 2023. Like other developing economies, New Delhi fears its green efforts will slow its development.

This detachment contrasts with a public opinion that pressures its government to make a decisive commitment against climate change. The combination of the toxic smog that periodically envelops the capital, the demands of state governors and business concern are pushing Modi to abandon his equidistance.

India assumed the Presidency of the Conference of the Parties (COP14) against desertification in August just in a year when the problems of water supply and land degradation became more evident. According to the Indian government, 29 per cent of land is degraded, a serious problem that has not diminished in recent years.

AFRICA

Despite being the continent that pollutes the least, as it is responsible for only 4% of emissions, it is the most vulnerable to climate change. Despite this reality, African leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris agreement at the recent Durban Summit (South Africa), whose declaration insists that “developed nations must provide financial resources to assist developing countries”, given the “intrinsic relationship” between the response to climate change and “equitable access to sustainable development and the eradication of poverty”. Africa receives only 3% of international funds for the fight against global warming.

Of the ten countries in the world most threatened by the climate crisis, seven are African: Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea. All of them shaken by recent episodes of drought, famine, desertification and floods.

Source: Reason