The US has historically put the greatest volume of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and has for the last four years been claiming that climate change is a hoax. America is still today a huge contributor to global warming and stands as the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases globally, behind China.
The US had initially signed the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change mitigation, adaptation and finance under the Obama presidency, only to cease all participation in it under the Trump presidency in 2017.
This happened before when, in 1997, the Clinton presidency joined the Kyoto Climate Protocol and, three years later, the Bush administration rescinded it.
The new US President, Joe Biden, has announced that the US will re-enter the Paris climate accord by as early as the end of this month.
Soon after his election victory, Biden appointed John Kerry as his climate envoy. Kerry has since said that “the goal of achieving a 1.5 degrees Celsius limitation on the rise of earth’s temperature is absolutely the appropriate goal but the current promises of countries, through the Paris agreement, are insufficient to get the job done”.
This is the same Kerry that represented the US in 2015 in Paris and had then urged nations to set ambitious goals to curb greenhouse gases, warning climate change deniers that gambling with the earth’s future was a risky business as “there is no Planet B”. It seems that, for the next four years, the US is on board.
The Paris climate pact was endorsed by 186 nations, Malta among them. It set non-binding targets to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial times with ambiguous provisos of 33 per cent to 50 per cent failure rates.
The accord did not specify whether it did or did not include ocean surface temperatures although the oceans cover 71 per cent of the world’s surface. The agreement also conspicuously disregarded pollution coming from the entire airline, shipping, military and space industries.
In the last five years the Paris signatory nations have not met their commitments and greenhouse gas emissions have increased globally year on year since.
The seven per cent reduction in 2020 due to the virus outbreak is expected to be undone when the world goes back to business as usual.
The Paris agreement has been a failure because of its vague targets, lack of enforcement and lack of political will to act. It did, however, provide a framework within which more meaningful and urgent action could be taken. The next opportunity for this is COP26, in Glasgow in November.
It is hoped that participating nations understand they also need to look to nature for solutions, such as rewilding and reforestation of degraded habitats and the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices. Nature would do the job better and at no cost for all future generations.
Carbon is not only released into our environment through gas emissions but also in the form of plastics, petrochemical products and supply chains based on deforestation and monoculture – these products must also be phased out.
Every nation must play its part and there is no need to wait for Glasgow. Island states, such as Malta are unique and can lead by example. A lot can be achieved in nine months.
The expectation of American climate leadership should not be used to justify inaction. Scientists warned policymakers three years ago that there were 12 years left to avoid irreversible and catastrophic consequences. We now have a bigger problem and only nine years remaining.