The science is in. A Nobel prize- winning panel of 2,500 of the world’s leading climate researchers last week spoke with one voice in describing the devastation that will be caused if the world continues to spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at the current rate.
Now, it’s time for the politicians to take up the charge.
Next month, representatives from 130 nations will meet in Bali, Indonesia, to begin urgent talks about crafting the successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called it the “defining challenge of our age.” That should be a call to action for government leaders. Unfortunately, the United States has been missing in action when it comes to national leadership on the climate change issue.
President Bush recently has come out of denial on climate change, but still offers only half-hearted support and proposes only voluntary compliance with carbon caps. We deserve better from the leader of the free world.
Encourage state efforts
Furthermore, the president’s administration ought to remove the roadblocks it has erected to keep individual states from pursuing policies designed to curb carbon emissions. The dire effects of rising tides and ever-warming temperatures, detailed in the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, makes it abundantly clear that we should be encouraging states that have taken bold steps forward, not impeding them.
Earlier this month, California and 14 other states sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for authority to regulate automotive tailpipe emissions in an effort to reduce greenhouse gases.
This month, Gov. Bill Ritter announced a climate action plan that aims for stricter emissions standards for cars, new farming practices and cutting electric-utilities emissions 20 percent by 2020. And just this week, a coalition of Colorado environmental groups began a push for Colorado to adopt a “Clean Cars Program,” a package of three laws that would reduce smog and cut global warming pollution.
The plan, proposed by the Colorado Climate Action Network, already has generated significant push-back from auto dealers. We think all sides deserve a fair hearing on the issues and specific effects of the program, but it’s clear that neither Coloradans nor the rest of the world can afford to do nothing.
The status quo will result in rising air and ocean temperatures and widespread melting of snow and ice, according to the climate panel report, which was a synthesis of prior reports. There will be heatwaves and more intense tropical cyclones. If the worst-case scenarios were to come to pass, perhaps a third of the world’s plant and animal species could be at risk for extinction.
The West is at risk
Colorado and the West would be particularly at risk from unstable water supplies as snow pack decreased and droughts became more frequent and longer-lasting.
“Colorado is really in the bullseye of a lot of predicted climate changes,” said David Dittloff, regional representative for the National Wildlife Federation. “A lot of these come down to water.”
Unchecked global warming could reduce mountain snowpack and effect the ski industry. It would harm the trout fisheries, which are sensitive to water levels and temperatures, and it would harm agricultural and ranching operations that are dependent on rainfall and mountain snow runoff.
The hope embedded in the international climate change report is that the world can turn around the warming trends. The technology exists. It’s possible to stop the syndrome before it’s irreversible.
But nations big and small must work toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That includes China, India and the developing world, as well as the U.S., Australia and Europe. It will require compromise, expense and, above all, leadership.
