While individual companies are working on the three promising technologies, the current pace of development and projections for reaching full capacities are too slow to stop climate change in time to prevent worldwide catastrophes. Shouldn't that realization prompt a crash program to develop these technologies that can stop climate change? But that isn't happening.
The world continues to place its bet on commitments by governments and industries to accomplish net zero emissions--a strategy that has repeatedly failed and will continue to fail. Not only because the commitments are inadequate, to begin with, but also because of the serious political, economic, and social constraints. Consider too, the periodic disruptions in the energy supply chain--disruptions that revive the use of high carbon-emission sources. We have seen that recently. Sanctions blocking oil purchases from Russia following Putin's invasion of Ukraine resulted in countries resuming coal production and other atmosphere-poisoning practices. Similar disruptions in the future can be expected to compromise commitments. And despite the Paris agreement, signed in 2016, requiring countries to reduce emissions, carbon levels, as just noted, have increased since then in each successive year according to National Geographic.
Making matters worse, some countries refuse to make climate change a priority. In May 2022 The Democratic Republic of the Congo announced that it will allow oil drilling in their rain forests and other protected sanctuaries. This decision will not only diminish the forests' lung function for the atmosphere but will add significantly to carbon emissions. The Congo rainforests are critical to defeating climate change. They remove as much as 1.5 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually. A spokesperson for Greenpeace warned of a global climate catastrophe if this new policy is enacted. On August 9, 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken urged the Congo to reconsider its decision.
The Congo's action illustrates the notorious unreliability of commitments made by countries. The New York Times reported that at a Climate Summit in Glasgow held ten months before Congo's disastrous policy was announced, Congo's president, Felix Thisekedi, endorsed a ten-year agreement to protect its rainforest.
In the U.S., the media is cheering President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which includes what has been hailed as a historic climate initiative with the goal of a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. Will it achieve that goal? A close examination invites skepticism. Similar to other commitments around the world, for governments to get consensus to adopt policies that reduce greenhouse emissions, compromises must be made to appease those who profit from industries that poison the atmosphere. That's why Biden's bill will fund green technologies, but at the same time will allow coal power plants to keep operating. Another concession requires the government to auction some public lands and waterways for oil drilling. Most discouraging, much of the astonishing nearly $400 billion that is allocated for climate actions is designated for relief from the effects of climate change disasters. The bill also offers tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles and for encouraging businesses to develop low-carbon energy technologies. Although ambitious and generous these programs are the same ones that have repeatedly failed to stop climate change.
Even if this bill were to accomplish its goal it would not prevent climate change disasters. The climate crisis can't be solved locally. To stop climate change the entire world must be on board with extreme conservation measures. That is not happening and is unlikely to happen anytime soon, if ever.
Can the business world be counted on to drastically reduce carbon emissions? The Economist reported in 2021 that two thousand of the world's biggest publicly traded firms have embraced net zero emission goals for their operations. And in the U.S. "about a quarter of firms in the S&P 500 index have done so." Yet Microsoft, which earlier committed to a net zero carbon emissions program, reported a whopping increase of 21.5 percent of greenhouse gases from their operations in the twelve months ending June 2021. For the business world, in a faceoff between profits and conservation measures, the buck seems to always come first.
That's why science offers the only realistic possibility for stopping climate change short of nature's timetable for a climate apocalypse.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
