A few weeks ago, I received a National Geographic Traveler magazine with the cover story “10 places to visit while you still can.” (November 2015 issues). When I flipped to the article, it started out with the line something like “While air travel is a major contributor of greenhouse gases, tourism can also be part of the solution.” But then the article went on to mention very little about how flying to distant beautiful places in the world could be done in a more environmentally-friendly way. It was more of the tone of “30% of the coral cover in the amazing Great Barrier Reef in Australia has been bleached out in the past 25 years so might as well go see it while you can afford it” (ok that is my own very loose paraphrasing). I came away with the alarming feeling that maybe instead of working harder to slow down climate change, the we are just starting to accept that climate change is inevitable and we might as well get what we can while we can.
It actually prompted me to look up the Paris agreements and what was accomplished there. The way it was featured in the press, it was a major diplomatic victory. Reading the headlines (but admittedly not diving into the article), it gave me comfort to know that world leaders had finally been able to put together a plan to get us back from the brink, to be able to leave a habitable Earth to future generation, to prevent outright disaster for people living in flood-prone areas (mostly in poor countries), and to deter outbreaks of diseases and severe weather events.
So what I found that the main achievement of the Paris agreements is that each country will put forth their own voluntary carbon emission target and set up a system of measuring where they are against those targets[1]…. ok… whaat?[2]
There are no carbon emission budgets by country that were negotiated and set. There were no mechanisms for enforcement, except “name and shame”. There were no transfers from wealthy countries to poorer ones to help them transition to cleaner energy. My understanding is that there’s not even a standard way to measure emissions.
The current political situation in the US has definitely contributed to the Paris Agreement having no teeth (really more like a pair of mushy gums). While Republicans were the original champions of cap and trade policies to control other pollutants like leaded gasoline (Reagan) and sulfur dioxide emissions (George H.W. Bush)[3], now we are back to arguing whether greenhouse gases effect the climate at all. Any agreement with actual commitments would have to have been ratified by the US Senate and that appears to be impossible right now.
I know there are those who are much more knowledgeable than me on this topic. Other than take individual actions to curb our own level of greenhouse emissions (eating less meat, driving/ flying less, using less heating and AC – see here and here for some ideas), are there other things that can be done? Can states or cities set their own targets or cap-and-trade systems? It’s hard to ask companies to take steps that would make them uncompetitive with others – what would be better is to change the rules of the game so that everyone has to operate and compete on a more sustainable basis.
I feel alarmed that we are clearly behind where we need to be on climate change. It is terrible what we are on track to pass onto future generations.
[1] http://www.latimes.com/world/la-na-sej-climate-agreement-points-20151212-story.html
[2] Here is the actual text of the resolution. In my humble opinion, these resolutions are written in the most confusing way, perhaps to help it be more palatable to different parties. https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf
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