Scientists
at an Antarctic research station recently recorded a one-day air temperature of
just under 70 degrees, a balmy afternoon in a region of the world unaccustomed
to them.
In
fact, as far as researchers can tell, it has never been that warm in Antarctica
before. The record was set against an increasingly scary global backdrop of
rising temperatures and seas; more powerful storms, droughts and floods; a
reduced Arctic ice cap, and accelerated melting and movement of glaciers around
the globe - including Antarctica.
The
culprit behind this crisis is the nearly 200 years that humans have spent
burning fossil fuels - primarily coal and oil - for energy. So it was mildly
heartening to see that BP, the London-based oil and gas giant, has promised to
achieve “net-zero emissions” for its operations by 2050. That doesn’t mean BP
is getting out of the oil-and-gas business. Rather, the corporation pledged to
eliminate some emissions from its drilling, processing and business operations,
and to compensate for others through investments in green technologies,
reforestation projects and similar offset strategies. The announcement followed
earlier pledges by such European-based oil companies as Royal Dutch Shell,
Total and Equino to reduce emissions from their operations, though the BP
pledge goes further.
None,
of course, goes far enough. And new BP CEO Bernard Looney acknowledged the
corporation had not settled on a strategy to achieve its net-zero emissions
goal. Those details will come in September.
But
at least the goal was set, which is far more than has been done by
American-based oil companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron, which have
acknowledged the role of greenhouse gas emissions in propelling climate change
but have done little to address their contribution. Both are part of the
corporate-driven Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, whose stated purpose is to
reduce “our collective methane emissions by more than one-third” by essentially
stopping leaks and moving the captured methane to where it could be burned.
Of
course, baby steps by a handful of oil and gas companies aren’t going to do
much to combat overall emissions. Similarly, the Trillion Trees Initiative,
which President Trump touted in his State of the Union address, won’t do an
awful lot, either. In fact, it’s one of those fig-leaf solutions that offer a
pretense of significant action against global warming while ignoring the most
pressing problem - the burning of fossil fuels in the first place.
Which
is not to suggest that reforestation is a bad idea; in fact, continued forest
clearing in the Amazon is exacerbating global warming and must stop. Because
forests store carbon, restoring them could help capture and slow the accretion
of carbon in the atmosphere, where it traps heat. One study found that the Earth’s
ecosystems could handle an additional 25% of forests above what it holds now
(though increased droughts and desertification related to climate change could
whittle away at that), compensating for about 20 years of human-produced
carbon. So large-scale reforestation falls in the category of “couldn’t hurt.”
Nevertheless,
far, far more needs to be done, beginning with converting our global reliance
on energy from fossil fuels to renewables as fast as is humanly possible. The
best way to reduce carbon in the atmosphere is to not put it there in the first
place.
So
in that regard, the danger of the Trillion Trees Initiative is that pro-oil
business conservatives will wave it around as a solution to global warming. But
that’s like someone hoping to lose a lot of weight by taking daily walks while
still eating the same calorie-rich foods.
The
nation, and the world, need sober and aggressive policy changes if we are to
stand any chance of mitigating the worst effects of global warming. Despite
heightened awareness and national pledges under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try
to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above
pre-industrial levels, global carbon emissions continue to rise. It will be
expensive to adapt to the new climate reality and to fundamentally change the
way humankind produces and uses energy, but it must be done before the
supposedly most intelligent of the animal species manages through greed and
willful ignorance to propel the collapse of global ecosystems.
Guest
Editorial
