Climate Change: An Existential Threat

COP26 has been a failure

With the latest COP26 and G20 meetings heavily focusing on fighting against Climate Change. It seems as though climate advocates and climatologists have yet again been disappointed with world leaders who are unwilling to do more. Many countries have committed to reducing emissions, but the question of whether or not they will is difficult to answer (including Canada). For young people, scientists, and future generations; yet again, the change required from our current global governments to mitigate eventual catastrophic effects of climate change is nowhere to be found. Look no further than the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Climate Accord, and now COP26 as evidence. Very few countries have actually met their targets to reduce emissions from the two historic agreements. As a result, how can we expect COP26 to be any different? If countries like Canada and Norway - which are by far on the smaller side of OECD economies - cannot meet their targets. Then how can we expect the biggest emitters to reduce emissions? How can we expect the world to reduce emissions?

The biggest emitters: Russia, China, the USA, and India all have their own issues that doubt any of their commitments on tackling climate change. Let’s go by each country and explain why none of these countries will be reducing emissions and/or phasing out fossil fuels in our lifetimes. After that, we’ll be discussing about COP26 and the general prospects for the future of climate action

Russia is one of the biggest exporters of oil, gas, and petroleum in the world; as a result, they have a large say on current fossil fuel supply chains. The world is dependent on their oil, so much so that they have the ability to reduce or increase prices on a whim for competition against Saudi Arabia. Fossil fuel extraction also constitutes a large part of their total exports (nearly 50%). Thus, it is unfathomable to imagine Russia reducing these exports any time soon as well as curbing emissions with the risk of reducing export production that their economy relies on.

Let’s be honest with China and India, both of these countries are future superpowers who will use anything within their ability to make sure they can ensure economic prosperity in their countries. Without fossil fuels, both of these countries will have a very difficult time developing their eoconomies. With an increasingly larger middle class coming into force in both of these countries, the demand for energy increases proportionally. Much of this energy demand is fulfilled by fossil fuels, without fossil fuels; the middle class is at risk in both India and China. On another note, much of their growing industries rely on fossil fuels for infrastructure development, logistical hurdles, electricity, manufacturing, resource extraction, etc Trying to convince these countries to phase out fossil fuels, coal, or even cut emissions would mean a massive setback for their economies.

The US has other problems, outside of its growing fracking and natural resource extraction industries. The US’s biggest hurdle is on the legislative side, the obstructionism of Republican Senators and Congresspersons disallow ambitious legislation that tackles climate change. See the latest Reconciliation bill as evidence, two Democratic Senators and all Republican Senators forcing the Congressional Democrats to significantly cut down the contents of the bill that would have included record investments in tackling climate change (as well as other provisions cut including parental leave, free community college, Medicaid expansion). Although the bill does contain some investments for cutting emissions, it is not nearly enough in proportion to how much the US emits in total compared to the rest of the world.

And don’t even get me started on corporate donors funding both the Democrats and Republicans that would loathe ambitious climate investments that could potentially lower corporate profits. In short, the US political system is broken for any progressive climate action momentum.

Overall, the biggest emitters and consumers of fossil fuels are likely not going to be tackling climate change. For the rest of us, it’s a mixed bag. Australia’s government still seems to be in denial that climate change is a big deal. Canada has been one of the worst emitters in the developing world but is committed to one of the more ambitious climate plans when compared to other developed countries. Europe seems to be doing fine outside a few major outliers like Russia, Turkey, Norway, Poland, and some others. The developing world is likely not going to be embracing renewable energies any time soon due to the nature of their developing economies being reliant on fossil fuels.

For the final nail in the coffin, climate experts have largely said that COP26 has not been adequate enough and the future of our planet is looking quite grim as a result. Scienitists absolutely agree that the pledges made during COP26 is a start, but its not enough to gurantee the safety of the planet and its inhabitants - both animals and humans alike.

Even the young activist Greta Thunberg has considered COP26 to be a failure (although she isn’t an expert). In addition, young people all around the world are protesting for climate action, demanding their governments and leaders to do more. In the midst of a very uncertain future where young people have witnessed wars, pandemics, genocides, mass inequality and are on the brink of a climate catastrophe. Its no wonder young people want change. Who can blame them? Its to be expected.

So what can we do? What work needs to be done at the individual and nation level? For me, the answer is to put pressure on our governments at all levels; municipal, provincial, and federal. Through our activism on campuses, voting, writing articles, spreading climate change awareness through social media, talking to our friends and family, studying the effects of climate change, donating to NGOs who support climate action, criticizing those who deny climate change; the list could go on and on.

The goal is any action that can make our governments and legislators acknolwedge the issue of climate change. Climate change must be a big issue for a voters, to such a degree that climate inaction can potentially convince voters to vote for one party over another simply based on climate action policy. And so far, I would this method has worked. Canadians consistently view Climate Change as a top 3 issue for voting intentions at the federal level. As a result, all of our federal parties have some policy position on what they will do to tackle climate change. Although some parties are better than others, its a step in the right direction to normalize the climate change issue amongst voters.

And there’s still so much to do. Convincing Canadians is a baby step, but convincing the world is a kangaroo jump. No matter how difficult the kangaroo jump may be, we must try and leap ourselves forward as otherwise the planet and its people will be at dire straits.