The Urgency of a Climate Deal

INTRODUCTION

“Given the seriousness of the climate crisis, the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is of the utmost importance and urgency: the planet has just experienced the 10 hottest years on record.”

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As global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and the planet continues to warm, the gigantic and perennial ice fields and glaciers of the Arctic, Antarctica and the Tibetan Plateau and its environs – known by their extension and importance as “the Third Pole” – are melting. Their fast-motion demise will have far-reaching consequences for humanity. Asia could be in the forefront of disaster.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035, and perhaps sooner, is very high if the earth keep getting warmer at the current rate.” The IPCC report predicts that, at least, the total area of glaciers in the Himalayas will shrink from 193,051 square miles to 38,000 square miles by 2035.

The Himalayan glaciers and snowfields feed almost every major river system of Asia – from the Indus in the west to the Yellow in the east, with the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong and Yangtze Rivers in between – and support as many as two billion people. Their rapid melting will first cause widespread flooding. But over time, there will be water shortages, droughts and massive environmental problems. These will have national security consequences as countries compete for ever scarcer water resources supplied by transnational rivers.

On the other hand, a warmer Arctic is simultaneously a sign and a factor of climate change. Carbon dioxide emissions into the earth’s atmosphere make ices melt, and, in a vicious circle, the North Pole ice melting accelerates global warming. Thawing is releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. At the current pace, the Arctic may be ice-free in less than a decade and the consequent climate changes could be globally catastrophic.

“Climate change is the preeminent geopolitical issue of our time,” wrote the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in an article published in the New York Times last September 17. He adds, as explanation: “It rewrites the global equation for development, peace and prosperity. It threatens markets, economies and development gains. It can deplete food and water supplies, provoke conflict and migration, destabilize fragile societies and even topple governments.” Ban Ki-moon emphasizes that he is not using a hyperbole.

Warmer temperatures will mortgage our future: plants and animals that are not able to adapt or move to find their desired conditions – such as the polar bear which has nowhere to go – will perish; rainfall will diminish affecting agriculture and water availability; sea levels will rise increasing the number of ecological refugees, especially in the Pacific region. On top of all these, natural calamities may occur with more frequency and intensity harming people’s lives and property.

Given the seriousness of the climate crisis, the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, where governments will gather to negotiate a new global climate agreement in December, is of the utmost importance and urgency: the planet has just experienced the 10 hottest years on record. The conference is seen by environmentalists as a crucial diplomatic opportunity to create an international agreement on meaningful cuts in emissions that will prevent the worst consequences of climate change. Let us keep our fingers crossed so that, if a new protocol is not achieved, at least some important practical steps may be taken to ensure our future. That is inseparable from the health of the intricate ecosystems that make habitable our common home, the Earth.

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