Global Warming and Kyoto Conference
Nearly 1,500 delegates from 160 nations along with 3,500 representatives from
various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) assembled in Kyoto, Japan, on
December 1, 1997, for a ten-day long negotiations to rein in the industrialized
nations emission of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases (GHG) causing
the global warming. Another purpose of this UN-sponsored “Kyoto Conference on
Climate Change” was to take stock of the situation since they had met five
years ago in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
Carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and three other gases, mostly
by-products of burning fossil fuels, allow the incoming sunrays to reach the
earth and trap the heat the earth emits back to space, just as the glass roof
and walls of the greenhouse trap the heat. This blanketed heat raises the
temperature of the earth, which in turn changes in climate pattern and other
very grave consequences. The rise in global temperature would melt the polar ice
caps leading to a rise in sea level and hence the coastal lands, all over the
world, be inundated. Scientists predict that such cities as New York, Mumbai,
Hong Kong, Singapore and others would be flooded while a large portion of the
land mass of low-lying countries like Bangladesh would be submerged by sea water
and the small island nations like Maldives would go into extinction.
Apart from that, the global warming would drastically alter the present
climate pattern causing severe damage to agriculture. According to the
Scientists, Africa would be hit by continuous droughts, while China, Southeast
Asian countries and India would experience torrential rains and floods. “
Everything we know about climate system tells us that the climate is going to
change”, says Shri Benjamin Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
California. “It would be unwise and potentially dangerous to ignore global
warming”, warns chief executive of British Petroleum. A change in climate will
have devastating effect on agriculture causing mass starvation in some parts of
the world, as agriculture feeds 80 million extra mouths every year in addition
to the present six billions.
In 1995, the global emission of GHG was nearly 6.2 billion metric tons and by
2000, the figure, it is feared, would rise to 7.2 billion metric tons. Since the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the level of carbon dioxide has
increased by 30 per cent, nitrous oxide by 15 per cent and methane by 100 per
cent in the earth’s atmosphere. Today, USA is the biggest emitter of the GHG.
With only five per cent of world’s population, the US accounts for 23 per cent
of world’s carbon emission. While the 34 industrial nations of the West,
including the US, contribute to 75 per cent of the total emissions and on per
capita basis the discharges are even more skewed. According to an estimate by
the UNO, their emission over the past 100 years have already raised the global
temperature by 0.60C. It may be mentioned here that a lowering of
global temperature by 30C. Brought about the most recent ice age and
without any greenhouse effect the earth would have been cooler by 330C.
When in 1987, Shri James Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space
Science, USA, said, “the warming has begun”, many ridiculed it as a
premature warning, but at present, the warming has started to become palpable.
The year 1995 has been recorded as the hottest year in the history of humankind
and spring in the northern hemisphere has started to come a week earlier. Fishes
and birds, adapted to a cooler weather, have started migrating to the north. The
UNO warns that the temperature of the earth may rise to 3.5 to 50C.
by the end of the 21st century, if the emissions of the GHG are not
curbed. In additions to that, the moisture content in air has increased by 10
per cent over the past 20 years, which would also affect the climate pattern
adversely.
The resolutions adopted at the UN Frame Work Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCC) in Rio was that by 2000 the industrial nations would reduce their
emissions of GHG at their 1990 level. In spite of this voluntary commitment no
country other than Germany and the UK are going to meet the target. By the turn
of the century, world’s discharge of GHG will instead be 14 per cent higher
than that in 1990. The treaty members recognized this shortcoming at the Second
Conference in July 1996 as declaration issued in Geneva called for a “legally
binding protocol” to rein in the emissions. Thus the agenda of the Kyoto
Conference was to negotiate legally binding cuts on industrialized nations
output of GHG in a protocol signed on December 11. The European Union (EU)
proposed to cut emissions to 85 per cent to that of 1990 level, but the
negotiators from USA denied undergoing any treaty unless the larger developing
nations (like China, India and Indonesia) also agreed to reduce their emissions.
The developing countries, on the other hand, considered it an effort on the part
of the developed West to arrest their present economic growth. So the Chinese
negotiator, Shri Chen Yaobang, said, “It is not possible for the Chinese
government to undertake the obligation of the reduction of greenhouse gases
until China works its way out of the third world poverty.” He also pointed out
that it was the lack of foresight of 34 industrial nations that had pushed the
entire humanity towards a peril.
After contentious bargaining and brinkmanship that continued for 11 days
the US and other industrialized nations reached an agreement that calls for the
US to reduce its emissions of GHG to 7 per cent below what was in 1990. While
Europe and Japan would make cuts to 8 per cent and 7 per cent respectively,
below 1990 level. The accord has been duly approved by 160 participating
nations. The above reductions will have to be effected in the 2008-2012 time
frame. The Clinton administration officials and mot of the environmentalists
believe that, such reductions can be achieved by the US only by developing less
polluting as well as energy efficient technologies.
The US President Bill Clinton has hailed the accord as “a huge first
step” and said, “I did not dream that we would get this far.” He has also
promised an annual fund worth $ 1
billion for developing the less polluting technologies. But the Republican
critics in the US Congress denounced the agreement and predicted that it would
not be ratified by the Senate. “ We will kill this if the President signs
it”, says a Republican Senator. So it seems that it would be very hard for
President Clinton to get the agreement passed by the Senate, since the majority
of the Senators are Republicans. They are also planning to oppose Clinton’s
promise for providing $ 1 billion
for research as stated above.
Environmentalists, on the other hand, are not so happy with the outcome
of the conference and feel the agreement will have a very marginal effect on the
accumulation of GGHG in the earth’s atmosphere. Without any accord the annual
emissions of GHG, it is feared, will rise to 8.7 billion metric tons by 2020,
while the agreement will hardly be able to bring it down to only 7.9 billion
metric tons. They also feel the US has the capability of reducing its emissions
by at least 30 per cent by enforcing more fuel-efficient laws. However, we can
console ourselves by saying, “even a feeble agreement is better than none”.
Scenario keeping in view the US “war against terrorism” is the fact
that the major ally in this war Britain does not appear to be aware of the
development that Islamic terrorist groups operating in J&K are openly
raising funds at Mosques in Britain. According to a report in The Sunday
Telegraph, banned Kashmiri terrorist groups raise around five million pound from
Britain every year. The report reveals that Abu Hamza, the Imam of Regent Park
mosque, the biggest in Britain, said that if funds were raised for terrorism, he
would support the fund raising activities. “These people are fighting to
defend their Islamic brothers”, he said.
In the 10 months since 9/11, the British people have deluded themselves
with the thought that America was the sole target of AI Qaida network. It was
not. The US might be the “great Satan” to these Islamic fanatics, but Great
Britain ranks equally as high in their warped thinking. An editorial “Unholy
Warriors” in The Yorkshire Post (12-6-2002) writes : “According to Rohan
Gunaratna (a Research fellow at St. Andrew University in Britain), Britain is
one of the safest havens for the AI Qaida terrorists. Their tentacles have
spread to the large immigrant populations, to the mosques and madras’s,
especially in Central London and Midlands, and their recruits number not only
the Arab and Middle Eastern fanatics who move freely among these communities,
but home-grown militants and recent converts to Islamic fundamentalism like the
would be shoe-bomber Richard Reid. All these people are united by a terrifying
willingness to die for the cause, and more blindness to inflicting death and
suffering on innocent civilians”.
Meanwhile there is relieving factor that another western country Holland
has launched a criminal inquiry into Muslim clerics accused of inciting violence
from mosques in Holland. According to a report in The Telegraph (UK), the
unprecedented move by the Justice Ministry comes after leading Imams in
Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague were caught secretly on tape calling for the
“destruction of the enemies of Islam” and encouraging Muslims to
“disobey” Dutch law. Inflammatory prayers at the EL Taw heed mosque in
Amsterdam included recitations of “Allah make your enemies” lives an
unbearable hell” and denunciations of President George W. Bush and Ariel
Sharon, the Israeli prime minister.
Meanwhile the us too is going to take measures to counter the terrorist
threat in US. The Justice Department is to propose new regulations requiring
tens of thousands of Muslims and Middle Eastern visa holders to register with
the government and be finger printed. A report in The New York Times quoting
official sources said the initiative, the subject of intense debate within the
administration, is designed for “individuals from countries who pose the
highest risk to our security”, including most visa holders from Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan and many other Muslim nations. The proposal ignited a raging debate in
the Bush administration. While House officials supported the Justice proposal,
but the State Department lodged objection, fearing diplomatic repercussions with
allies in the war on terror, administration officials said.
“Allies in the war on terror” is of course the “good terrorist”
Musharraf and his Pakistan.
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