By: Ernest Gurulé
In April 2015, nearly two hundred nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement, a treaty aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions as a means of limiting the global temperature increase in this century to 2° Celsius. The agreement also encourages countries to go even farther and limit the increase to 1.5 degrees. The United States officially entered the agreement in September 2016.
But in keeping with a campaign promise, in 2019 former President Trump publicly announced plans for the U.S. to pull out of the landmark agreement. Trump’s reasoning, as conveyed by then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, was based on the “unfair economic burden on American workers, businesses and taxpayers.” Pompeo went on to explain that the U.S. has already cut back “all types of emissions, even as we grow our economy and ensure our citizens’ access to affordable energy.”
But because of the maze required to navigate such international agreements, America’s withdrawal could not actually take place until November 4th, 2020, one day after the Presidential Election. So, on his first official day as America’s new President, Joe Biden officially signed an executive agreement to reenter the pact.
But in the seven years since the Eiffel Tower was illuminated in green on the day the agreement was signed along with the words “Accord de Paris c’est fait!”, the ‘agreement is done,’ flashing bright, there are signs that progress in meeting its lofty goals is moving in fits and starts. While some progress has been made, there is evidence, say analysts, that some signatories to the pact are failing to live up to their word. Worse, scores of researchers lament that not only is the world falling short in meeting the 2° degree commitment but that the earth’s temperature could actually rise to 2.6° by century’s end.
Metropolitan State University-Denver Geography and Human Environment Professor Lauren Gifford is disappointed but not surprised by the less than auspicious start.
“The Paris Agreement is like any agreement,” she said. “It’s non-binding.” Also, she said, there is no recourse “if parties do not follow through.” Historically, Gifford said, it is the major polluters who “don’t follow through.”
The world’s two biggest culprits in the emission of greenhouse gases are the U.S. and China. Together they are responsible for 40 percent of global emissions. Greenhouse gases water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluoro-carbon and nitrous oxide. The impact of each is the trapping of heat and creating the warming effect. This condition also is connected to the increasing number and severity of tropi-
cal storms.
The effect of a warming ocean can be seen in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef where a higher water temperature and increased acidic levels are causing a bleaching and decline in the health of the reef’s coral. But you don’t have to travel all the way around the world to witness the impact of global
warming.
“We saw it in Louisville when a thousand homes burned,” said Giffords, referring to Colorado’s recent Marshall Fire and winter weather patterns. An extremely wet warm weather season combined with a similarly dry cold season produced too little moisture that created perfect conditions for the fire to carve its own path of destruction. A warming planet has also been identified as the nexus to a carpet bombing-like deforestation of high country timber across the West. It’s estimated that Colorado alone has lost as much
as 3.5 million acres of forest to the beetle.
The world, say scientists, is waging a dangerous and, perhaps, prolonged war with the burning of fossil fuels—oil, coal and gas—on the environment where we are reminded daily of the damage. “We see it in the coastal communities when we see sea water in the fresh water…we see it in more unprecedented weather patterns,” said MSU-Denver’s Gifford. “It’s already left its mark.” And for the foreseeable future, the mark will continue to grow.
The world’s fastest growing economy, China, is coal-powered. Nearly sixty percent of China’s energy is generated by coal and in 2020 it was estimated that China burned more than three billion tons of coal. Its air quality has paid a steep price, as well. China, said the World Health Organization, (WHO) is the dirtiest on the planet with the air on many days considered too dangerous to even venture outside.
There are ways to reverse the damage, said Giffords, but it will take more than signing treaties that have no enforceable mechanisms. “Just transition away from fossil fuels,” she said. In fact, the U.S. is already moving in that direction. Clean energy jobs are fast outpacing coal jobs by a nearly three to one ratio. Additionally, many of the jobs the ex-president so enthusiastically promised to bring back on visits to coal country, no longer exist. One example is the giant trucks used to move coal. Because of self-driving mechanisms, they no longer need drivers.
Vanishing opportunities in coal and other fossil fuel industries are nothing more than a revisitation of the past.
Lamplighters, once a generational source of employment, lost their jobs to electricity; buggy whip manufacturers disappeared with the growth in the auto industry. History is replete with countless examples of technology’s impact on employment.
A drive across the country is also a journey through history books. Where once endless fields dominated landscapes there now stand forests of wind turbines all spinning and harvesting a clean and endless supply of energy powering homes and industry. But there is also another, darker side to this equation.
It is not hard to find a location in just about any region in the world where there aren’t demonstrable signs of man’s war on the environment. In some places, the signs are flashing red, in others they’re warning to simply slow down. Either way, say environmentalists, ignoring the signs is a sure way to learn first-hand if climate change is real.
