The Moment Is Now

Amid gloomy prognostications that the climate conference to be held in Copenhagen from Dec. 7 to 18 will fail to result in a legally binding treaty, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that delays in reducing greenhouse gas emissions could lead to devastating global consequences. In an open letter to the U.N. General Assembly, he emphasized that “the moment is now” to conclude a binding treaty. The urgency stems from the fact that the noxious increase in emissions affects virtually every aspect of life on the planet, from poverty and economic growth to food security and clean water.

The primary purpose of the Denmark gathering is to create a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the U.N. endeavor to reduce global warming that expires in 2012. But the nations of the world do not agree on how to proceed. Neither the Clinton nor the Bush administration submitted the Kyoto Protocol to Congress for ratification, and in 1997 the Senate resolved by a vote of 95 to 0 not to ratify the treaty, if presented, unless China and other major developing countries accept binding limits on carbon production first.

Unfortunately, it is clear that the current Congress will not come forth with legislation on greenhouse gas emissions before the Copenhagen meeting. The United States will thus remain the only developed nation with no established target for carbon reduction. Per capita, we are the major producer of greenhouse gases, far exceeding even China.

Major challenges facing the 192 nations represented in Denmark include: How far are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions; how much are major developing countries, like China and India, willing to cut their own emissions; and how will developing countries receive the financing needed to reduce theirs and to implement low-carbon green technologies? The National Religious Partnership for the Environment and the Catholic Campaign on Climate Change have been vigorous advocates for integrating the world’s poor in a climate covenant with funding for both adapting infrastructure to meet the hardships of changing climate and for transferring green technology.

In some respects, the funding issue is “the key,” as Ban Ki-moon put it. The European Union is willing to give $100 billion a year toward green technology transfer to help poor nations mitigate the impact of global climate change, but development groups have estimated that at least $400 billion is needed. At a meeting in October in Barcelona to prepare for the Copenhagen gathering, a bloc of African countries threatened to boycott sessions if rich countries do not pledge more for climate change mitigation and technology transfers. Without adequate funding African nations and countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America will suffer the most from global warming, though they are far less responsible for the emissions.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, pointed out to the General Assembly in November that delay is all the more worrisome because poor nations are already bearing the brunt of the planet’s warming. As ice caps melt and seas rise, vulnerable low-lying nations like Bangladesh will be seriously affected. Indeed, at the Commonwealth summit on Nov. 27 in Port of Spain, in Trinidad and Tobago, speakers noted that many of those least able to withstand adverse climate changes live in the small states of the Commonwealth.

Rampant deforestation is adding greatly to the increase in emissions. Large swaths of forests have been destroyed in Brazil’s Amazon region to make room for money-yielding crops, and the same is true in Indonesia and Congo. Living trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Once they are cut down, they release carbon dioxide, so deforestation amounts to a double loss.

But environmentalists emphasize that preserving forests must go hand in hand with protecting both indigenous communities and fragile biodiversity. Thus far each country has been free to set its own limits on deforestation. Some developing countries, like Brazil, have begun to make serious commitments in this direction, as well as in development of alternative energy sources.

By next year’s meeting in Mexico City, as evidence mounts of the harm done to regional ecologies, animal habitats and human settlements, especially among the poor, the need for an agreement will grow still more urgent. If the planet is to survive, as Pope Benedict XVI concluded in Caritas in Veritate, all nations must accept binding reductions in carbon emissions and construct an equitable structure for energy consumption and for sharing the development of green technology among rich and poor nations—for the sake of this generation and generations to come. p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }

Read this article in Spanish. Translation courtesy Mirada Global.

This article appears in December 14 2009.