Climate change concern: Too little, too late

A BODY of 2500 scientists had recently gathered in Paris and made a clarion call about an impending climate disaster, noting the likelihood of human activities led by burning fossil fuels causing most of the warming over the past 50 years.

Among other things, the report warns of a new ice age engulfing the earth, while hurricanes, droughts and other apocalyptic disasters may play havoc with our planet.

Good talk. We have nothing but praise for the eminent men and women of science and conscience who want to save our planet for future generations. One thing, however, that bothers us is why these scientists failed to invite their sceptic counterparts. We know there are other respected scholars who doubt the conclusion of the climate doomsayers and believe that the climate change we experience is nothing new. It was always happening from day one of the earth and will continue to happen.

Why then did the Parisian scientists chose to be the coalition of the willing? Why did they act condesceningly in colonial mentality? Why paternal Europe is still telling us what to do?

Argument on the geopolitical side is more plausible. Since the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, many developing countries have joined the ranks of oil producing countries and started to climb the ladder of development. Russia, China, India and a score of African, Asian and Latin American countries are striking oil whereever they find it and getting richer. The market has become congested. The European Union and America face aggressive competition from countries like China and India which are more generous in their offers and less concerned about what their clients do with their money. Fossil fuel markets are showing a shift to Asian markets and Western super majors are experiencing the ugly reality of developing countries demanding more and fairer share of their natural wealth.

With Europe becoming worried about energy supplies from Russia, the world’s largest oil and gas producer, as well as other former Soviet Republics and the volatile Middle East, it doesn’t surprise the acute observer to fathom the agenda behind the EU’s declaration of the post industrial revolution. It is about time, isn’t it?

Therefore, despite our trust in the honesty of the eminent scientists and their fear for the future of the planet, we in the developing world have also the right to receive this advice with great suspicion. Our first question is why now? The answer is easy. The industrial world senses the balance of trade power shifting. They want to maintain the lead and find no better than to trash the old commodity and technology and usher in a new age of clean energy and technology. A technology that the developing world has to wait another 200 years to catch up to.

The beef of the matter is that the political and scientific elite of the industrial world do not want to see the world as flat. They should have the higher ground and whenever anyone comes closer to where they stand they have to move a bit higher and describe the lower rung as the gutter and the source of all waste and evil.

Fossil fuels have nurtured their development for generations. They were the masters of its drilling, its processing, its pricing and its consumption. Back then carbon emissions were greater than they are today where CO2 capture and sequestration techniques are more advanced. Even back then the world was experiencing droughts, hurricanes, and spikes of heat. But the politicians and their coalition of the willing scientists preferred to remain silent. It is only when lucky ones from the third world started benefiting from what the West enjoyed for generations that the fruit seems to have suddenly become rotten and harmful.

By the same token when nuclear technology was only in the hands of the industrial countries, it was a deterrent arm and highly efficient source of energy, but when the know-how found its way into the developing world, it has suddenly become a source of disaster; it is like saying: “oh! Boy, don’t touch it, this is only for the grown ups.”