WITH THE rhetoric over Kyoto treaty gaining steam, the gulf across the Atlantic is just getting wider. The storm over Europe’s continuing support of Kyoto and US President George W. Bush’s singular disdain for a treaty, which he claims does not go far enough to sustain American interests, is not willing to abate or disappear.
What Europe had hoped for was at least a minimal support from Bush during his much-hyped first visit to the continent. But with Bush categorically claiming that it would not be possible for US to adhere to the 1990 levels of decreasing carbon emissions by 2012, the line was drawn unequivocally. With Europe too willing to go it alone by renewing its intention of ratifying Kyoto, the battle lines were joined.
Europe will now hope that a revived environment movement in the United States, involving science community and industry, will apply pressure on the Bush administration to descalate the war of words before the Bonn meeting in July. They will be also hoping to stay united in face of such direct opposition from the US, for neither side are willing to give way without losing face. Though prestige is primarily on line here, the fallout of the word war could be high. And again it will the world’s poor who will bear the brunt.
This is borne out by a recent report from the world’s premier lending agent — the World Bank. An official of the World Bank said that farmers, fishermen and indigenous peoples will suffer the greatest impact from changes in the Earth’s atmosphere due to man-induced global warming.
At a special conference on the subject recently, the bank’s chief scientist, Dr. Robert Watson, who chaired the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that released a report earlier this year, said he expected “tens of millions” of people to be displaced by rising seas. Diseases could become more prevalent and crop production could decline significantly in parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia as small island states and low-lying regions of developing countries in South Asia, the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean, are inundated.
Despite the IPCC report emphasizing that the poor are the most vulnerable to climate change, the developed world is still spewing hot air on the issue. While experts have urged policymakers in the developed world to immediately agree on efforts to limit the magnitude of human-induced climate change, politicians and energy companies are still following their own agenda.
The IPCC report found convincing “observational evidence” that the Earth is warming up at a faster rate than at any other time in the last 10,000 years. Access to fresh water for agricultural and drinking needs also will be affected as sea water invades coastal areas, alpine glaciers shrink and winter snowpacks are less than previous levels.
In face of such alarming portents, it is tragic that a schism in the developed world would prove enough to rip apart the protocol, which is on knife-edge. A treaty without the US would achieve nothing, while a watered-down protocol will also amount to nothing. Thus, the period prior to the Bonn meeting, where it was hoped that the mechanism of the treaty would be thrashed out, would prove crucial.
