Only party moving in climate change battle is Mother Nature

A PRESTIGIOUS British report says that it is too late to limit the rise in climate change to 2 degrees — so all the changes the increase in temperature will bring are now inevitable.

So several countries will disappear as the sea rises and places where millions live will become uninhabitable as drinking water disappears, irrespective of what action is taken.

It will get worse if nothing is done, however. But the UN organised meeting in Cancun this week looks likely to achieve very little.

Following the failure at the summit in Copenhagen last December talks of waiting a year for the Mexico meeting were almost incomprehensible.

But here we are, a year later, and nobody has moved much — except for Mother Nature, the one party nobody can negotiate with but the one the politicians are largely ignoring.

Last year the EU felt it was leading the negotiations and got a shock when they and everyone else were left out in the cold and the US finally did a deal of sorts with China to ensure virtually no progress was made.

The European Parliament believes the EU should show leadership and rather than cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, they should go to 30% unilaterally. It’s good idea in that at least there will be some reduction in the amount of emissions being pushed into the atmosphere. But this will not encourage any of the big countries to take similar action.

In fact, some seem to be regressing. Canada, for instance, allowed its Climate Change Act to be killed by the unelected senators in their upper house. It committed the country to 25% cut in greenhouse gases by 2020. And Canada is one of the most industrialised countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Their prime minister has claimed that cutting emissions could be economically devastating and throw possibly millions of people out of work.

And in another indication of just how unconcerned world leaders are by climate change, they have pledged just €22.5bn of the estimated €280bn needed by 2030 to help poorer countries address the problems.

Overall 130 of the developing countries that need such help are responsible for just 15% of global emissions.

It’s all about money at the end of the day, according to the politicians. They believe that the private sector will produce magic solutions. But the private sector is waiting to see the colour of the money from countries.

Luckily not everyone is playing this waiting game. China, which having gummed up all progress in Copenhagen, is working on manufacturing more energy efficient products and items like windmills and solar panels.

And even though the US has been playing a stalling role, California for instance has been taking a lead globally. Its voters, despite massive lobbying by oil companies, refused to overturn the state’s global warming act. Now four years later the state has attracted more investments in alternative energy start-up companies than anywhere in the world. The result in a boom in employment in the clean energy sector and investments this year alone has topped $3bn.

The world market in carbon energy is expected to treble over the next ten years and be worth more than €2 trillion by 2020. Among those countries battling for a slice of this lucrative market will be the US and China.

Hopefully mother nature can be bought off. Otherwise the world’s population is in for a tough time.