Climate change agenda being imposed on developing countries

While most scientists are in consensus that climate change is being caused by anthropogenic factors, there’s a volume of written work that suggests the contrary. It would be judicious to engage in the debate before we embark on deciding that the climate change agenda crusaders are the final word on the subject.

According to NASA statistics, the current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity, since the mid-20th century, and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia…

Global sea level rose about 8 inches in the last century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century.

The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years.

However, the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), a coalition of 140+ climate scientists, economists, and engineers has written that “Global climate is always changing in accordance with natural causes, and recent changes are not unusual… Carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions from human activity – energy production, transportation, cement production, heating and cooling, etc.- appear to have only a very small impact on global climate.”

H. Sterling Burnett, PhD, Research Fellow at the Heartland Institute, in a Jan. 9, 2017 article for the Heartland Institute blog titled “Climate Change 101: The Evidence Humans Aren’t Destroying the Climate,” wrote: “Climate change is real and has happened throughout history on local, regional, continent-wide, and global scales, driven by a variety of atmospheric, cosmic, geologic, and meteorological factors…

“[A]t the worst, humans are having a modest effect on Earth’s climate, with the increase in carbon dioxide possibly having a net beneficial effect (due to the enhanced plant productivity resulting from higher carbon-dioxide levels)…”

William Happer, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Princeton University and former Director of Energy Research at the US Department of Energy, in a Feb. 7, 2017 opinion piece for the Post Bulletin titled “William Happer: Climate Change Is Being Used as a Political Hobgoblin,” wrote:“Climate has been changing since the Earth was formed – some 4.5 billion years ago. Climate changes on every time scale – whether decades, centuries or millennia.

“The climate of Greenland was warm enough for farming around the year 1100 A.D., but by 1500, the Little Ice Age drove Norse settlers out…

“But none of the climate change of the past was due to humans. The very minor warming in the past few centuries is mostly from non-human causes as well… Yes, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but much less important than the major greenhouse gas, water vapor, H2O, and clouds.”

Tim Ball, PhD, former Geography Professor at the University of Winnipeg, stated the following in his July 7, 2008 article “Alarmists Use Weather to Promote Global Warming Hoax.”: “Claims that recent severe weather and flooding in the US are proof of human CO2 impacts on global climate are scientific nonsense…

“Those who perpetrated possibly the greatest deception in human history that CO2 is causing global warming/climate change are scared. Events are driving them to extreme, unsubstantiated and even ridiculous claims and threats.

“Proponents of human caused climate change will… continue their practice of claiming natural events as unnatural. Unless people understand the basic science they will continue the fraud and pressure politicians into even more damaging energy and environmental policies.”

Whether it is the climate change advocates that are right in their cheerless projections or the naysayers, one cannot be certain at this juncture. But what can be prudently said is developing nations simply cannot risk stifling economic progress to pacify climate change proponents. Rich nations of the world have used up their resources and polluted the atmosphere to achieve their wealth. Poorer, developing countries need to have the option to utilise resources and arrive at a certain standard of living for their masses before they engage in an explicit climate plan.

Rich nations must by no means expect poor countries to embrace the climate change agenda with alacrity. They cannot solicit contriteness from less developed nations when they have displayed no compunction themselves.

Even today, according to a Carbon Footprint by Country report for 2021, the top10 CO2 emitters of the world are China at 9.3 GT, the US at 4.8 GT, India at 2.2 GT, Russia at 1.5 GT, Japan at 1.1 GT, Germany at 0.7 GT, South Korea at 0.6 GT, Iran at 0.6 GT, Canada at 0.5 GT, and Saudi Arabia at 0.5 GT.

It would be noteworthy to mention here, that India is the only lower middle income country to figure in the list of top 10 worst carbon emitters.

As for carbon emissions by per capita, it is the rich countries that take top positions, led by Saudi Arabia at 16.85 tons, Australia at 15.83 tons, United States at 15.53 tons, and Canada at 15.32 tons. Large lesser developed countries like Brazil (2.17 tons), Mexico (3.66 tons), Indonesia (1.72 tons) and India (1.58 tons) come way down the list.

However, China is the world’s largest CO2 emitter by total production. Despite China’s rapid growth in generation from renewables, output from coal-fired power plants has increased by 330 TWh, or nearly 7%, between 2019 and 2021.

On the contrary, total CO2 emissions in India, the third largest CO2 emitter, are now broadly on par with emissions in the European Union at 2.35 GT, although they remain two-thirds lower on a per capita basis and 60% below the global average. India’s population is at 1.4 billion, while the total population of the EU is about 447 million. This must put things in perspective.

Between 1751 and 2017, as much as 65 per cent of the carbon emissions has come from the United States, the UK, the European Union, Canada, Japan, and Russia. This is the reason why the contention by many developing countries that they cannot replace economic agenda for climate agenda is valid, when developed countries have already achieved theirs by burning up fossil fuels.

Richer nations have no right to ask poorer countries to cut down their carbon emissions when they polluted the earth for decades as they grew, developed, and industrialised. The onus of climate finance should, therefore, be on rich nations. And what about ensuring that developing nations get access to cleaner technology at reasonable prices?

At the the Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in 2015, it was agreed that rich nations would transfer US $100 billion annually, through to 2025, to developing and poor countries to help them tackle climate change. It would be noteworthy to mention here that only Germany, Norway, and Sweden fulfilled their part of the promise.

At the COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, India and China used their clout to force changes in the final draft and ensured that coal is to be phased down and not phased out.

While China must be excoriated for being the largest CO2 emitter by a far margin, India’s position must be respected. At COP26, India emphasised that it could not sacrifice its economic interests, and got the final draft to be changed to allow it to continue using coal and not immediately work at phasing it out. China has a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of US$ 10,500, while India has a GDP per capita of US$1,900 in nominal terms. That, perhaps, should be the reason why India can be excused and China cannot.

For the time being, fossil fuels are cheap and are available to developing countries. Renewable energy projects are costly to build and not as economically feasible as fossil fuels. For poor countries, immediate survival is more exigent than climate change

It is only reasonable that poor countries attain a degree of affluence before they earnestly pursue the climate change agenda. Once they develop, they will be able to afford and divert resources towards climate change and be one with the developed world to embark on a united front in furtherance of a climate plan. Climate change agenda should not be imposed on developing nations.