Earth's double jeopardy
Published 8:56 pm, Thursday, December 13, 2012
• The following is from an editorial in the Baltimore Sun:
One can just imagine the future "Jeopardy" TV quiz show answer: The name of the international conference that took place in early December 2012 that critics universally panned for accomplishing little despite overwhelming evidence of a global ecological catastrophe on the horizon.
"Alex, what is the Doha Climate Change Conference?" would be the winning question and surely worth a lot to the right contestant. After all, the planet is already in "double jeopardy" — not only from climate change but from the continuing failure of the wealthiest nations to do much about it.
As President Barack Obama is looking to come up with $60 billion to $80 billion to offset the worst effects of Hurricane Sandy, one would think the call to avoid more such costly catastrophes in the future would be deafening. After all, $60 billion is pocket change compared to what global warming could do to the United States and other countries from rising sea levels and harsher weather events alone.
It's certainly not a question of uncertainty in the scientific community. The evidence of record-high carbon dioxide levels is overwhelming. It's not just that climate change exists, the studies point out that it's getting worse far faster than previously anticipated.
Yet only the most Pollyanna-ish of diplomats could see U.N. climate negotiations as producing anything of more lasting consequence than hot air. What emerged from Doha, Qatar, was little more than another round of promises — to stick to Kyoto Protocol and to do more in the future.
What's needed now is an extra incentive for change, or at least a fair accounting of the cost of pollution. The United States and other nations must either institute a tax on carbon or offer emissions "cap and trade" systems to create an economic incentive for alternatives like conservation and non-polluting "green" energy like solar and wind power.
Admittedly, this is a challenging issue. These policies inevitably produce winners and losers. Coal-producing communities are upset while those invested in renewable energy prosper. Foreign aid never wins a popularity contest at the polls. But the difficulty and complexity of the challenge can't be used as an excuse for inaction.
Doha is history, but it doesn't require a United Nations full of negotiators for the United States and other countries to take more forceful action. A line needs to be drawn in the sand — even if that wasn't possible in Qatar.