http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0728-05.htm
Published on Monday,
July 28, 2003 by the Guardian/UK
Global Warming is Now a Weapon of Mass
Destruction
It Kills More People Than Terrorism, Yet Blair and Bush do Nothing
by John Houghton
If political leaders have one duty above all others, it is to
protect
the security of their people. Thus it was, according to the prime
minister, to protect Britain's security against Saddam Hussein's
weapons of mass destruction that this country went to war in Iraq.
And yet our long-term security is threatened by a problem at least
as dangerous as chemical, nuclear or biological weapons, or indeed
international terrorism: human-induced climate change.
As a climate scientist
who has worked on this issue for several
decades, first as head of the Met Office, and then as co-chair
of scientific assessment for the UN intergovernmental panel on
climate change, the impacts of global warming are such that
I have no hesitation in describing it as a "weapon of mass
destruction".
Like terrorism, this
weapon knows no boundaries. It can strike
anywhere, in any form - a heat wave in one place, a drought or
a flood or a storm surge in another. Nor is this just a problem
for the future. The 1990s were probably the warmest decade in
the last 1,000 years, and 1998 the warmest year. Global warming
is already upon us.
The World Meteorological
Organization warned this month that extreme
weather events already seem to be becoming more frequent as a
result.
The US mainland was struck by 562 tornados in May (which incidentally
saw the highest land temperatures globally since records began
in 1880),
killing 41 people. The developing world is the hardest hit: extremes
of climate tend to be more intense at low latitudes and poorer
countries
are less able to cope with disasters. Pre-monsoon temperatures
this
year in India reached a blistering 49C (120F) - 5C (9F) above
normal.
Once this killer heat
wave began to abate, 1,500 people lay dead
- half the number killed outright in the September 11 attacks
on the World Trade Center. While no one can ascribe a single
weather event to climate change with any degree of scientific
certainty, higher maximum temperatures are one of the most
predictable impacts of accelerated global warming, and the
parallels - between global climate change and global terrorism
- are becoming increasingly obvious.
To his credit, Tony
Blair has - rhetorically, at least - begun
to face up to this. In a recent speech he stated clearly that
"there can be no genuine security if the planet is ravaged
by climate change". But words are not enough. They have to
be
matched with adequate action. The recent announcement of a
large-scale offshore wind generating program was welcome,
but the UK still lags far behind other European countries
in developing renewables capacity.
The latest report on
energy and climate change by the royal
commission on environmental pollution addressed the much more
demanding global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that
will be required over the next 50 years (in addition to the
Kyoto agreement) and how these could be achieved. Given that
the UK needs to take its share of the global burden the
commission recommended that we should aim for a cut in
these emissions of 60% by 2050.
It also pointed out
the urgent need for an adequate mechanism
for negotiating each country's emission target and advocated
a globally implemented plan known as "contraction and convergence".
The energy white paper published earlier this year accepted the
royal commission's 60% reduction target, but it is disturbing
that it provided no clarity on UK policy regarding the framework
for international negotiation.
Any successful international
negotiation for reducing emissions
must be based on four principles: the precautionary principle,
the principle of sustainable development, the polluter-pays
principle and the principle of equity. The strength of
"contraction and convergence" is that it satisfies all
these principles. But it also means facing up to some
difficult questions.
First, world leaders
have to agree on a target for the
stabilization of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at
a sufficiently low level to stave off dangerous climate
change. Second, this target, and the global greenhouse
gas budget it implies, has to form the framework for an
equitable global distribution of emissions permits,
assigned to different countries on a per-capita basis.
Countries with the largest populations will therefore
get the most permits, but for the sake of efficiency
and to achieve economic convergence these permits will
need to be internationally tradable.
This is the only solution
likely to be acceptable to most
of the developing world, which unlike us has not had the
benefit of over a century of fossil fuel-driven economic
prosperity. And it also meets one of the key demands of
the United States, that developing countries should not
be excluded from emissions targets, as they currently are
under the Kyoto protocol.
Nowadays everyone knows
that the US is the world's biggest
polluter, and that with only one 20th of the world's population
it produces a quarter of its greenhouse gas emissions.
But the US government, in an abdication of leadership of
epic proportions, is refusing to take the problem seriously
- and Britain, presumably because Blair wishes not to offend
George Bush - is beginning to fall behind too. Emissions from
the US are up 14% on those in 1990 and are projected to rise
by a further 12% over the next decade.
It is vital that Russia
now ratifies the Kyoto protocol
so that it can at last come into force. But while the
US refuses to cooperate, it is difficult to see how the
rest of the world can make much progress on the much tougher
longer-term agreements that will be necessary after Kyoto's
mandate runs out in 2012.
Nor does the latest
science provide any comfort. The
intergovernmental panel on climate change has warned
of 1.4C to 5.8C (2.5F to 10.4F) temperature rises by 2100.
This already implies massive changes in climate, and yet
the current worst-case scenarios emerging from the Met
Office's Hadley Center. envisage even greater rises than
this - a degree and speed of global warming the consequences
of which are hard to quantify or even imagine.
So Blair has a challenge.
The world needs leadership, and
the British prime minister is well placed to stand at the
head of a new "coalition of the willing" to tackle this
urgent problem. He is also uniquely placed to persuade
Bush to join in this effort, given their joint commitment
to making the world safe from "weapons of mass destruction".
But even if he fails
to persuade him, there are other allies
who would still respond to his leadership - even if this means
opposing the US until such time as it no longer has an oilman
for president. If Blair were to assume this mantle, history
might not only forgive him, but will also endorse Britain's
contribution to long-term global security.
· Sir John Houghton
was formerly chief executive of the
Meteorological Office and co-chair of the scientific
assessment working group of the intergovernmental panel
on climate change. He is the author of
'Global Warming: the Complete Briefing'.
© Guardian Newspapers
Limited 2003
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