Opinion: Beating global warming requires international collaboration

For many people, dealing with natural disasters is no longer a once in a lifetime event. 

More and more countries are suffering massive loss from the increasingly frequent abnormal weather pattern. An overwhelming number of scientists agreed that a buildup of greenhouse gases, chiefly caused by burning fossil fuels, is to blame for record-breaking droughts, oppressive heat and unpredictable rainstorms.

Even Exxon, an energy company, acknowledged that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is related to an increase in temperature. However, some people have different interpretations of that statement.

A construction worker takes a drink of water in Nagoya, Japan on July 25, 2018. /VCG Photo

Myron Ebell, the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said that the rate of warming is fairly modest. “It’s much lower than predicted by the UN and computing models,” he said. “The impact of global warming has been vastly exaggerated.”

As for the widely discussed heat waves and wildfires, Myron proposed causes other than climate change. The heat waves in the 1930s, as he suggested, is much worse than it is today. Also, if the federal has managed the national forest well, the wildfires would not be so bad. But this view is restricted to the minority group.

More scientists have argued that many secondary disasters, such as the rise of sea level, are too severe to be ignored. The planet has been one degree Celsius warmer than it was a century ago, and is predicted to increase by one or two degrees more this century.“If we allow the temperature to go up another one degree Celsius, the sea level may rise ten meters,” said John Englander, an oceanographer, an expert on sea level rise.

“There is actually no more debate about global warming.” Reactions to the issue are distinct among different countries. Strong respondents, like China and Germany, devoted themselves to the Paris Climate Accord in 2015 and made great efforts to meet the goal. The US, however, is among those who pulled themselves out of the accord and drew worldwide criticism.

“China is now turning the coal titanic, and it’s not an easy transition,” said Jennifer Turner, the director of the China Environment Forum at the Wilson Center. According to her research, Chinese coal miners went down to two million from five, a massive step that no other countries are taking. The Chinese government sees the climate change not just a negative factor to its economy, but more as a matter of “life and death.”

Air pollution is now the first and foremost health concern of the nation. More importantly, China sees the transition from a coal-based economy to a renewable economy as a huge business opportunity, creating new job opportunities and sustainable way of using energy, whereas the Trump administration sees it as a hinder to its economy.

Myron claimed that the current additional in renewable energy are not replacing the conventional power like coal and gas, but instead of adding up energy bills. Germany, for example, is charging 40 cents/ kWh because of its low energy production efficiency. Besides, given the rapid growth of global energy demand, the percentage of coal, oil and gas consumption remains ultimately unchanged in the increasing pie of energy.

An Indian train passes by as dust covers the skyline on the outskirts of New Delhi, in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh on June 14, 2018. /VCG Photo‍

“A few workers in the coal industries produce a large amount of energy, and that’s called economically efficient; many people in the renewable energy industry produce a small amount of energy, and it’s economically inefficient,” said Myron. The US president announced in a public speech that even if the Paris Accord is fully implemented, its impact on reducing temperature is “very tiny,” only some two-tenths out of one degree.

“Nonsense,” said John. “Admitting the fact that sea levels are rising around the world should give us pause.” And he also gave credit to what China has achieved. “They think long-term,” he said. “To plan ahead of a century is well within the Chinese culture, but not in the American culture, unfortunately.”

Relying heavily on fossil fuels, Middle East countries are especially concerned about climate change. Wael Hmaidan, the executive director of the Climate Action Network International, said that the Middle East has realized that they must give up oil sometime in the future, but need to react more actively.

“When we say spending money, it gives a wrong picture because it looks like additional cost,” he argued. “But you have money in hand and have to invest anyway. The question is which economy are you investing, coal-based or renewable?”

Just as thousands of his fellows, he waked up every day with one mission in mind, worked tirelessly to solve the issue, and saw it as a growth opportunity that can provide everyone on the planet with a “safe, secure, healthy and prosperous future.”

The Heat with Anand Naidoo is a 30-minute political talk show on CGTN. It airs weekdays at 7:00 a.m. BJT and 7:00 p.m. eastern in the United States.

Source: news.cgtn