Al-Ahram Weekly | International | Ripple before the storm

"This meeting will be remembered as the moment when governments abandoned the promise of global cooperation to protect planet Earth," blasted the environmental NGO Greenpeace, following the breakdown of negotiations at the UN-sponsored climate conference in The Hague, Holland, on Saturday. After a two-week marathon session pitting the European Union (EU) against the United States, Canada and Japan, talks broke down without any resolution.

The EU is demanding the ratification of an agreement under the 1997 Kyoto Environmental Conference protocol, stipulating that 38 developed countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) to 5.2 per cent of their 1990 levels by 2012. The US, on the other hand, opposes the Kyoto protocol -- claiming that it should get credit for its forests, which absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), the main culprit behind GGE.

The byproduct of burning fossil fuels -- mainly oil, gas and coal -- greenhouse gases build up in the earth's lower atmosphere, causing heat from the sun to be stored in the oceans and land masses and ultimately inducing increases in atmospheric temperature. Scientists say that the 20th century was the hottest in the millennium, and for some time now, they have been ringing the alarm bell about "global warming." Although temperatures need only rise between 1 and 3.5 degrees Celsius per century to be defined as global warming, the situation is critical. The last Ice Age was brought on by temperatures only 4 or 5 degrees lower than those to which we are accustomed.

And yet, despite the threat of looming disaster, the environmental conference in The Hague flopped by all accounts -- the US and ever-present transnational corporations made sure of it. Besides pointing their fingers at a defiant US as the world's biggest polluter, UN environmental bodies have been focusing on the transnationals, responsible for over roughly 50 per cent of GGE. This includes half of the oil production business, virtually all the production of road vehicles, and significant portions of electricity generation and use. It is this gargantuan corporate sector, with its powerful and potent US lobby, that engineered the failure of The Hague conference from behind the scenes.

Represented by the Global Climate Coalition -- an industry association made up of giant oil, coal, electric utility and auto manufacturers -- corporate delegates at the conference dismissed the moderate European platform as a "fantasy" and "an exercise in futility." This should come as no surprise, since Exxon Mobil -- the seventh largest carbon producer in the world, and a leading board member of the Global Climate Coalition -- has launched a well-padded campaign in the US to convince Americans that global warming does not exist.

Writing off reduction of GGE, however, will have disastrous consequences for everybody -- including the Exxon Mobil bigwigs. As a result of global warming, the scientific community estimates that current sea levels will rise by 1.25 metres over the next century. This may not sound like much to you and me, but scientists predict that rising water levels of only one metre could submerge entire countries like The Netherlands, and some of the world's major cities, including Alexandria, London, New York, Tokyo and Bangkok. A similar rise in sea levels will compromise up to 30 per cent of the world's agricultural land. And if this is not bad enough, keep on reading. Scientists warn that a more devastating scenario is in the making.

Dutch police hold back demonstrators on their way to the US Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands, to protest against CO2 pollution last week. Environmental activists timed their protests to coincide with the failed world climate conference, held in The Hague 13-25 November
(photo: AFP)

Concentrated at the poles, global warming has already caused massive fissures in some of Antarctica's major ice sheets. In the mid-1990s the inevitable finally happened: some of the ruptured fissures cracked, and an ice shelf designated as "Larsen A" broke away. Measuring a colossal 800 square kilometres in surface area, Larsen A is currently sitting on submerged west Antarctic islands -- but not for long. As water temperatures rise, Larsen A could, and probably will, be pushed into the ocean, where it will be broken up and result in devastating global consequences. Three million cubic kilometres of melting ice will raise ocean levels worldwide by six metres, destroying life as we know it.

The nitty gritty of determining the make-up of ocean currents and climates are highly complex, but knowledge of impending weather disasters caused by global warming has trickled down from the scientific community to the public at large. For one thing, we know that hurricanes only happen when ocean temperatures rise above 27°C -- pushing up a vortex of saturated air with sufficient velocity to initiate a storm system.

Between 1995 and 1998, 33 hurricanes hit the western Atlantic region with a vengeance. This established a horrendous global record, reported the British-based environmental watchdog Corporate Watch. Hurricane Mitch, which devastated the large swathes of Central America in October 1998, was designated as the worst hurricane to hit the western hemisphere in 200 years. When Mitch finally subsided, it left 10,000 dead and three million homeless in its trail. Another memorable cyclone that devastated Orissa, India, last year, also killed an estimated 10,000 people and was the worst to ravage the Indian subcontinent in the last century.

While the havoc wreaked by man-made global warming has left a path of destruction across the globe, the pristine islands of the Pacific were perhaps less dramatically, but more insidiously, affected. Celebrated for their iridescent white beaches and transparent turquoise waters, the Pacific islands are often described as "pearls of priceless beauty" and "paradise on earth." But the "paradise" is threatened with extinction. The Marshall Islands, in particular, are at risk. It is projected that 80 per cent of the main island and its capital will be submerged within the next century, spawning an inescapable plan for total evacuation.

The changing climate and rising sea levels are affecting the water supply, food production, fisheries and coastline of these small island states. In Kiribati, two tiny islets have already been submerged in the rising waters of the Pacific. And in 1998, increased temperatures caused massive droughts and crop failures in Micronesia, Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga. Fiji's sugar crop suffered extensive damage and the island lost two thirds of its income from sugar exports, a principal source of hard currency. In neighbouring Tonga, the squash crop was halved.

Besides flooding entire islands and creating freak droughts, rising temperatures and water levels are also damaging the region's fertile topsoil. Salt-water infiltration from rising sea levels is destroying local agricultural production. As a result of the soil's increasing salinity, the islanders can no longer grow root crops, the main regional staple. A pattern of changing ocean currents has shifted the location of fisheries so that islanders can no longer rely on their traditional knowledge to catch fish -- a main source of protein intake.

Even more disturbing is the continued decimation of coral reefs in the Pacific. Corals are highly sensitive to heat and cold and can only survive in water temperatures of 18-30°C. A slight rise of water temperature by even one degree could cause bleaching -- a discoloration of the coral that is usually followed by death. Once a reef is gone, it can take as long as a century to replace it. Corals only grow by two centimetres a year.

To the layperson, corals are merely a pretty flourish for hordes of Northern holidaymakers who invade the islands. But coral reefs have an essential ecological function: they provide a vital source of food for coastal marine populations, accounting for the sustenance of an estimated 25 per cent of the fish caught in the South. In addition, reefs play a crucial role in maintaining the delicate balance of ecosystems because they serve as natural barriers to damage from storms and stave off flooding. Corals also form a sheltered habitat for fish, providing them with essential nutrients -- the nurseries of 90 per cent of commercial fish species are actually found around coral reefs. Their preservation is thus essential in maintaining the fragile coastal eco-balance on which many people depend for their livelihoods.

The irreversible damage caused by global warming was confirmed by a recent Greenpeace study. Appropriately entitled "Pacific in Peril," the study warns that the loss of coral reefs is threatening the survival of entire cultures. Unless current global warming trends are radically reversed -- which seems unlikely in the wake of The Hague conference -- Greenpeace estimates that the livelihood of the region's 13 island nations will be gravely compromised by the year 2020. But the danger is not restricted to the South Pacific, according to Greenpeace, "Floods, droughts, wildfires and extreme weather will get worse and no country will be immune."

		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 30 Nov. - 6 Dec. 2000 Issue No.510