World gone cold on global warming

Projections are that there will be a doubling, to about 1,000 ppm, towards the end of the century. But well before this level is reached, by around mid-century, extreme weather patterns of drought and heavy rainfall causing floods will begin to disrupt world food production. The heat expansion of ocean waters and the loss of polar ice sheets and glaciers will raise sea levels that will threaten low-lying landmasses. Southeast Asian port cities such as Bangkok and Singapore fall into this category. They also have to worry about their port status if an Arctic cargo route – that will reduce traversal between North Asia and Europe appreciably – is made possible in relatively ice-free summer months.

The world is by now convinced of the need to reduce the use of fossil fuels in favour of cleaner alternatives. Pressure is strongest on the United States, Western Europe and China, but the mix of historical and present-day culpability has proved impossible to reconcile, beginning with the Kyoto Protocol. Governments understand also the risks of deforestation, as has occurred in lumber-rich Brazil and Southeast Asia. The lure of profit with little attention being paid to forest regeneration – the much-abused notion of carbon sinks and tradable credits – is another intractable issue.

Successive rounds of UN climate talks have reinforced the view that industrially advanced nations and rivals aiming for parity are shifting around the responsibility to reduce carbon emissions so as to preserve their permanent interests. If such thinking persists, the global community must ask itself whether modern human progress and sustainable planetary conditions are compatible. If not, what are the options? Changing patterns of increased aridity and storms, unusual seasonal changes and the thinning of aeons-old ice caps have been acknowledged by governments as warnings. When will they show the will to act?

The last big leap in public concern about climate change came in the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the United States. While no one could show a causal link, the extreme weather and the terror it unleashed was enough to put global warming on the world’s agenda. Now, the political temperature has cooled as the world grapples with more immediate concerns. Hopefully it will not take another Katrina-scale catastrophe to focus minds again on the challenge at hand.