Controlling Global Warming is also a “Jumla”

The Modi government always talks with seriousness in respect to commitments towards the arrest of global warming, however its commitment starts with solar energy and ends with cursing to developed nations.

Recently, a report brought out by scientists at Australian-German Climate and Energy College at University of Melbourne, Australia tells that if the national action plan of India on climate Change and Global Warming is adopted by all the countries of the world, the global warming linked temperature rise would exceed up to 2.6 degree Celsius from pre-industrial era at the end of this century.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that it should not be more than 1.5 degrees. Our neighboring countries never publicize their supremacy in this field, but the fact is that if national action plan of any of the countries among Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka is adopted worldwide the temperature rise would be only 1.2 degrees by the turn of this century.

India always displays leadership in this field through the group BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). The same report tells that if action plan of either China or South Africa is adopted internationally the temperature rise would be as high as 5.1 degree Celsius, however for Brazil the estimation is somewhat lower at 3.7 degree Celsius. These figures simply tell that the action plan or commitment given to UN for global warming by these countries is not perfect, and IPCCs target cannot be met.

India has taken a stance that developing countries emit minimal greenhouse gases responsible for global warming but are ready for ambitious actions in this field and developed countries should fulfil climate obligations expeditiously, mainly in terms of economic grant. In 2015, when Trump announced to leave the Paris Agreement on Climate Change after blaming India and other developing countries have made it a tool to extort money from USA and other developed countries, Mr Modi told the reporters that we do not want money from them and we will meet our targets with own resources.

Recently, addressing the ministerial meet of BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries hosted by the Union Environment Ministry, Harshvardhan said developed countries must take the lead in the fight against climate change by their actions as well as by their provision of enhanced financial support and other aid to developing countries. Harshvardhan said developed countries are “far from realising” their climate finance commitment of mobilising $100 billion by 2020 and asserted the developed nations should not only make urgent efforts to honour this commitment but also progressively and substantially scale up their financial support in post-2020 period.

Nobody is sure now about the role of Brazil in climate change negotiations now. Brazil’s new foreign minister believes climate change is a Marxist tactic to instill fear, stifle the economic growth of western countries, and benefit China.

Writing on his blog during Mr Bolsonaro’s election campaign last month, in a post titled “Hijack and pervert”, Mr Araújo described climate science as a “dogma” which ignored “evidence” showing the opposite of rising temperatures and greater concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. “The left has sequestered the environmental cause and perverted it to the point of paroxysm over the last 20 years with the ideology of climate change, climate change,” he wrote. “The climate scientists gathered some data suggesting a correlation between rising temperatures with increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, ignored data suggesting the opposite, and created a “scientific” dogma that no one else can contest on pain of being excommunicated from good society.”

He added: “This dogma has served to justify an increase in the regulatory power of states over the economy and power of international institutions over national states and their populations, as well as to stifle economic growth in democratic capitalist countries and foster China's growth.” Mr Araújo’s views closely echo those of Donald Trump, who has previously called climate change a “hoax” and a “con-job” which was “created by the Indians and Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive”.

Amidst all these controversies and inactions by the governments world over, the greenhouse gases driving climate change have reached highs not seen in at least 3 million years, prompting UN scientists to warn the “window of opportunity” to tackle emissions is rapidly closing. Carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane are all still on the rise, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has said, and there has been a resurgence in ozone-depleting CFCs. “The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of carbon dioxide was 3-5 million years ago, when the temperature was 2-30C warmer and sea level was 10-20 metres higher than now,” said WMO secretary general, Petteri Taalas.

In its annual bulletin on greenhouse gas levels, the WMO said there is no sign of a reversal in the trend in increasing emissions which are driving climate change, sea level rises, extreme weather and making oceans more acidic. “The science is clear,” Mr Taalas said. “Without rapid cuts in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, climate change will have increasingly destructive and irreversible impacts on life on Earth.