Much back-slapping, whopping, hollering after Paris, but now we need action

-       Robert McLean.

Paris ended among much back-slapping, whopping, hollering and claims that global temperatures had been contained at two degrees or less.

Paris climate conversations ended with much
 back slapping, whooping and hollering.

Many said agreements arising from talks involving most of the world’s nations, among them the trio described as the “three gorillas” – America, China and India - were less than perfect, however they were unquestionably a step in the right direction.

Maybe the applause, and in some cases sobbing, was really about a moment in which, for the first time ever, the world community was as one in its acknowledgement that climate change was real and that it was the result of human behaviour.

The “less than perfect” barbs were directed at the fact that many targets were somewhat rubbery and were more about the plasticity of accounting than the hard, unavoidable and measurable facts of actual carbon dioxide emissions.

For some time now many reputable international organizations have said that global temperatures of at least two degrees above pre-industrial temperatures are locked-in and unavoidable regardless of what evolved from the Paris discussions.

Interestingly, the populist view of what happened in Paris would probably be that the world is poised to achieve less than two degrees and probably as low as 1.5 degrees.

That in itself is worrying for an almost certain by-product is a “job done” self-congratulatory rub of the hands that would almost certainly be followed by a return to our carbon-polluting ways.

In the rush of information flowing from Paris, it seems little has been said about the understanding that even if all the promises made by the world’s nations’ in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) were adhered to global temperatures would rise to an unsettling 2.7 degrees.

Any understanding about how the world would or could cope with a 2.7 degree increase in temperatures would be little more than an educated guess for it is something humans, in their relatively short history,  have never experienced.

Rather than rhetoric, it is a time we should be listening to our scientists who are saying that not only do we need to completely eliminate our carbon dioxide emissions, but we should be achieving negative emissions, meaning we should be removing them in some revolutionary fashion from earth’s atmosphere, and not, as some are suggesting, in some as yet unproved and possibly catastrophic geoengineering idea.

Considering that, we must remember that our arrival at this nexus is the outcome of the massive geoengineering activity by humans prosecuted in ignorance.