The moral questions around the use of fossil fuels in the next decade can be based on contemplation of how we respond to the “love your neighbour” advice of the major spiritual movements.
 |
| Reduce GHG for health |
Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is a Canadian and an atmospheric scientist and professor of political science at Texas Tech University, where she is director of the Climate Science Center. And as a Christian, she deeply cares about the ways that climate change impact the world, the poor, the unreached, and the ways that we try to share good news in a world where the environment itself is crying out for salvation.
But today there's more to it than just recognizing that there are physical and spiritual needs. Today there are what the U.S. Military actually calls “threat multipliers.” There are exacerbating factors that are actually increasing the needs that face people today. There are factors that are actually acting to increase hunger, to enhance poverty, leading to more polluted water, more polluted air, more refugee crises. What are these threat multipliers? We have to understand them in order to be effective in today's world…
So when we look around the world and we see that there's about a billion people who live in what they call energy poverty today, who don't have electricity, who don't have access to power. When we look at people, we have to recognize that we have profited, we have benefited enormously, from getting our energy from all of those resources under the ground, digging it up and burning it. So we say naturally—and this is one of those popular arguments in Christian circles, you may have heard this—we say well naturally if there's such a problem, and these people don't have access to all the resources we do, what's the best thing we can do? They need access to the same resources. So there are entire websites, entire books, entire movies, entire videos, entire organizations, set up around the moral case of providing fossil fuels to poor people who need them. There are three problems with that..1
A summary statement from Environment and Climate Change Canada comments that the science is conclusive: Warming is unequivocal and human influence on the climate system is clear.
 |
| CO2 and Global Temperature |
Impacts of a changing climate are already being felt, and they will increase with further warming. Adaptation will be needed to manage the risks. The cumulative total emissions is what determines the ultimate level of warming. To avoid exceeding 2°C, global GHG emissions need to decrease rapidly. GHG emissions need to become net zero in order to stabilize climate at any temperature.2
An ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe.
A paper authored by Glenn Althor, James E. M. Watson & Richard A. Fuller studies the global mismatch between greenhouse gas emissions and the burden of climate change. Countries export much of the harm created by their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions because the Earth’s atmosphere intermixes globally.
In line with the results of other studies, we find an enormous global inequality where 20 of the 36 highest emitting countries are among the least vulnerable to negative impacts of future climate change. Conversely, 11 of the 17 countries with low or moderate GHG emissions, are acutely vulnerable to negative impacts of climate change. In 2010, only 28 (16%) countries had an equitable balance between emissions and vulnerability. Moreover, future emissions scenarios show that this inequality will significantly worsen by 2030. Many countries are manifestly free riders causing others to bear a climate change burden, which acts as a disincentive for them to mitigate their emissions. It is time that this persistent and worsening climate inequity is resolved and for the largest emitting countries to act on their commitment of common but differentiated responsibilities.4
The work on the inequality of climate change finds many countries are manifestly free riders causing others to bear a climate change burden. Our moral reflection needs to consider if Canada is a free rider and if so, are we morally obligated to seriously reduce our GHG emissions?
References
No comments:
Post a Comment