Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Poor people in Asia are rejecting the great renewable energy opportunity.
‘The world is losing the war on climate change’
10/08/2018 – by Dr Maarten van Aalst, Director, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
For those of us working on the humanitarian impacts of climate change, last week provided some very gloomy reading, including a stark headline above an Economist leader that ‘The world is losing the war against climate change’.
The authoritative weekly was not asserting that climate has suddenly become a binary issue of victory or defeat but referring to a direction of travel; it argued that on climate, the direction of travel remains the wrong direction.
‘Three years after countries vowed in Paris to keep global warming “well below” 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels, greenhouse gas emissions are up again. So are investments in oil and gas. In 2017, for the first time in four years, demand for coal [the dirtiest of the fossil fuels] rose.’
The main reason? Soaring demand for energy in the booming economies of Asia, where in the decade to 2016 this rose no less than 40 per cent, met almost entirely by coal, gas and oil.
…
The coming months will feature some significant milestones for international climate policy. In October the IPCC’s long-awaited report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is due, while negotiations on the rule book for the Paris Agreement are scheduled to be completed at the next COP meeting in Poland in December. But it’s already clear we need action way beyond what’s currently happening, and fast, as many of the extremes we are experiencing now are just a taste of what’s to come.
I continue to see strong media coverage of both current extremes and the risks we are getting locked into as a critical factor, and I’m glad to see The Economist, for one, all but taking words out of our mouths. A shift from carbon may eventually enrich economies, their leader last week concluded, but (my emphasis) ‘[p]oliticians have an essential role to play in making the case for reform and in ensuring the most vulnerable do not bear the brunt of the change.’ The humanitarians’ point exactly!
Read more: https://www.climatecentre.org/news/1035/a-the-world-is-losing-the-war-on-climate-changea
Clearly the humanitarian solution is for rich countries like the USA to provide financial assistance to China and other developing countries in Asia, to help wean them away from their reliance on fossil fuels for economic growth, without them having to “bear the brunt of the change”.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Clearly the Red Cross doesn’t need any more donations.
Maarten van Aalst
The ultimate serial liar and cherry picker: https://twitter.com/mkvaalst
Ex South Africa (which has brownouts) sub Saharan Africa has 16% of the world’s population and 53% without electricity. And our cruel and venemously stupid Church of England plans to ‘dis invest’ in fossil fuels.
before we fight the war it should be shown that there is a war to fight
https://chaamjamal.wordpress.com/2018/05/06/ecs-equilibrium-climate-sensitivity/
yeah i guess if they had power and the ability to cook food chill food and have clean water etc the redx n crescent might be outta some billions in funding?
the insignificant factor of happier healthier peoples not in the plan
Guess where the Red Cross / Red Crescent came from
Three problems here – both expanded on by the late great Hans Rosling (his book Factfulness is very interesting).
1. Red Cross continue with a “them” and “us” position – need to think of te world more as 4 levels.
2. It’s wrong to say the “them” can’t develop to the level of “us”
3. Reducing CO2 emission in the large per person emitters is much more effective than preventing the low per person emitters
See graph here for per person emitters and hopefully you are surprised and not fearful afterwards (as Red Cross/media etc continue to be….)
https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2005&delay:180;&entities$filter$;;&marker$axis_x$domainMin:null&domainMax:null&zoomedMin=199&zoomedMax=42642;&axis_y$which=co2_emissions_tonnes_per_person&domainMin:null&domainMax:null&zoomedMin=-2.7251&zoomedMax=136;&size$which=yearly_co2_emissions_1000_tonnes&domainMin:null&domainMax:null&extent@ur momisugly:0.022083333333333333&:0.4083333333333333;;&color$which=world_6region;;;&ui$chart$trails:false;;&chart-type=bubbles
If you follow the logic of Factfulness, then allowing/helping level 1 move to level 2 and so on, solves many of the other humanitarian problems/lefty worries such as overpopulation etc.
Why do these agencies have a climate centre?
“Clearly the humanitarian solution is for rich countries like the USA to provide financial assistance to China and other developing countries in Asia, to help wean them away from their reliance on fossil fuels for economic growth, without them having to “bear the brunt of the change”.”
Tosh. Any country wishing to industrialize or step into the 21st century technologically can do so without having to re-invent the wheel or start with steam engines. All the efforts of those involved in the Industrial Revolution, over at least 15 generations, has provided a vast repository of knowledge for how it’s done. This has allowed China to Industrialise in 1 generation to the point where they now export goods, including solar cells. However China also exports enough [steel] to cause first industrial nations to close [steel] plants and lose jobs that have been there for generations. China has done this in spite of being colonised (and being resistant to manufactured goods) and more importantly, in spite of decades of Communism. The first industrial nations achieved huge transformations for the majority of their inhabitants and this involved huge amounts of work and effort of generations of those same inhabitants working in the mines, power stations, factories etc. It was a people’s revolution as it did not come from Royal and Government decree.
Both India and China own or are key suppliers to numerous companies in the UK. I think it is a bit rich if the steel workers at Port Talbot in Wales have to help fund India’s economic growth as they are now owned by Tata (India).
The framework for this ‘wealth distribution’ is based on the premise that the wealth of the 1st Industrial Nations is built on ill-gotten gain. Tell that to all the descendents of the coal miners, oil drillers, steel workers, power station workers etc. as they earned every penny they worked for. Of course, none of the Industrial Revolution would have been possible without the individuals inventing and making scientific discoveries or the individuals who worked out how to capitalise all this new knowledge. However, it is those in the middle and lower who will bare the biggest burden in this ‘redistribution of wealth’ as it will come from their pay packets while the public services they rely on will be reduced. The ‘developing’ countries have already had huge assistant in the form of jobs that have either moved from 1st IR nations or where they have bought 1st IR nation businesses.
The most liberating and transformative human action in history is the production of power and electricity. This is where the extraordinary wealth and opportunity of the West has come from and the knowledge for how to do that is free for all, including non carbon based technology, if that is what floats someone’s boat.
I did not know that the red cross was a member of the climate fraud gang.
From this day forward I will never donate another cent to an organization that helps crush the poor by joining an international organised crime cartel that intends world domination by creating a dictatorship of energy.
Every where I travel and see a red cross building I will enter and deliver a protest.
Any one I know I will encourage to do the same.
Love of money will pollute the best of intensions.
“I’m glad to see The Economist, for one, all but taking words out of our mouths.”
That sounds neither very hygienic nor very appetizing.
Harald Lesch describes us humans as “carbon units”.
that suits us “polluters”.
https://www.google.at/search?q=Harald+Lesch+alpha-centauri+warum+ist+das+Universum+so+kalt&oq=Harald+Lesch+alpha-centauri+warum+ist+das+Universum+so+kalt&aqs=chrome.
Wen’s interessiert :
Njema Problema ist indogermanisch und bedeutet Nicht EIN Problem.
Indogermanisch JA bedeutet
Meine Stimme + zählen
as in 104 – ten4.
Njema Problema bedeutet
Nicht 1 Problem.
Go ahead, nothing to see here.
[Njema Problema is Indo-European and does not mean a problem.
Indo-European means YES
Counting my voice +
as in 104 – ten4.
Njema problema means
Not 1 problem.
From Google translate. .mod]