As gimmicks go, Earth Hour was on a truly grand scale. Perhaps as many as one billion people across 88 countries in 4,000 cities spanning 24 time zones switched off nonessential lights in a daylong energy-saving marathon. It was billed the biggest climate change protest ever attempted but it can also be described as a symbolic and largely meaningless gesture.
The aim of this energy-saving exercise as it unfolded across the globe was to call for action to avert potentially devastating climate change. The action was three-fold: To encourage people to cut their energy use and curb greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels; to urge governments to work out a strong new UN deal to fight global warming by the end of 2009; and to create a huge wave of public pressure to influence a meeting in Copenhagen later this year which seeks a new climate treaty for after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol for cutting carbon emissions expires.
There is no doubt concerning the seriousness of the issue. World emissions have risen by about 70 percent since the 1970s. The UN Climate Panel says rich nations will have to cut their emissions to a level between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid the worst effects of warming. Developing nations will also have to slow the rise of their emissions by 2020. The panel says greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet and will lead to more floods, droughts, diseases, heat waves, rising sea levels and animal and plant extinctions. Global warming caused by burning fossil fuels on a massive scale could devastate the planet, hitting the poorest countries hardest.
The figures say there is danger and also state that more people are aware of the situation. Last year, only 400 cities participated. Earth Hour has since grown to include 3,929 cities, villages and localities across the globe.
What the statistics don’t say is what people are doing about the problem besides participating in a one-off attention-grabbing “global election”, in which switching off the lights supposedly means a vote for the Earth and failure to do so a vote for global warming.
Much hypocrisy is involved. American cities participated in Saturday’s close of lights, although the US is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol of 1992, never ratified it, which makes the treaty nonbinding on a country which up until at least 2005 was the largest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. President Bush did not submit the treaty for Senate ratification, not because he did not support the Kyoto principles, but because of the exemption granted to China that now is the world’s largest gross emitter of carbon dioxide, recently overtaking the United States and ahead of the European Union, Russia and India. Yet China, too, participated in switching off. That these countries involve themselves in a movement which calls for environmental change yet overtly act not in the interests of the environment but only of themselves is duplicity.
Earth Hour grabbed people’s attention for about one hour. That briefest of durations is not going to change the world’s climate. What happens beyond that one hour?
G-20 can effect global change
The Observer yesterday commented on G-20 summit, saying in part:
Given the weight of expectation that has built up around the G-20 summit in London this week, it is bound to be declared a failure in some quarters.
But in one respect, it is already a success. Last November, world leaders met in Washington to coordinate their response to the emerging economic crisis. They agreed to reconvene in April, by which time progress would have to be made toward reform of the world’s financial architecture. Two years ago, global market regulation would never have made it on to a major summit agenda. This week, it is the explicit goal of every major power. That is progress.
The G-20 will almost certainly commit to some reinforcement of the International Monetary Fund, both in terms of the capital reserves it holds and its powers to identify and police future threats to economic stability. There is also broad agreement on the need to impose rules on banks and other financial institutions, requiring them to hold greater stores of capital in proportion to the risks they take. Some consensus is emerging around the need to force transparency on offshore financial centers. Measures will be mooted to rein in bonuses that incentivize recklessness. The fact that such items are being seriously considered is extraordinary. If it is measured against some hypothetical grand bargain that irons all iniquity out of global capitalism, the summit will fail. Compared to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 that introduced the postwar financial system, the G-20 is not up to much. But the comparison is unfair. The delegates at Bretton Woods had their minds focused by years of Depression and war. Today, at least, world leaders are doing deals before events have taken a turn for the truly catastrophic.
