December 09, 2019
Although the use of coal will probably increase
Many observers are not much worried about Trump leaving the landmark accord but
fear that his team might sabotage the progress. US President Donald Trump speaks
about the U.S. role in the Paris climate change accord. (Photo: AP) With US
President Donald Trump announcing earlier this month that the United States had
decided to walk out of the Paris accord on climate, the world was stunned but by
no means bowed down.
By sending the message, Mr Trump has isolated his country,
and the leadership of the Paris Agreement has passed onto China and the European
Union. And the ability of the Trump administration to influence the outcome is
limited by several large US cities and some key states vowing to stick to the
Paris climate deal.
Mr Trump had named China and India as the countries that
stood to gain the most from the aborted agreement, contending that the countries
would benefit from the relaxation in using coal. He further added that China
will be allowed many coal plants, and India will be allowed to double its coal
production by 2020, but not the US. At stake, he explains, are 70,000 jobs in
the US. This is like inverting the argument for new energy sources because the
shift to solar and wind energy will create many more jobs than will be lost in
coal mines.
India, for instance, has announced big plans for clean energy,
proposing an addition of 175,000 MW for solar and wind capacity, more than
enough to take care of any additional energy needs. The country uses 60 per cent
of the coal extracted for power generation. Coal is a polluting source of
energy, releasing more greenhouse gases than any other source and a major reason
for climate change. This has to change.The Paris climate change agreement is
different from earlier negotiations like the Kyoto Protocol as it has a
"bottom-up†approach — a flexible framework that gives every country the leeway
to meet the climate challenge as it sees fit, and not as imposed by the
negotiations.With its emphasis on consensus-building, the Paris pact allows for
voluntary and nationally-determined targets and specific climate goals are
politically encouraged, rather than legally-bound. Indigenous production of
solar cells in India is likely to suffer because Chinese manufacturers will cut
prices further to get a greater share of the Indian market, as they lose part of
the US market.
Although the use of coal will probably increase, specially with
the private sector making inroads into it at the cost of government-owned
companies, the Indian initiative to concentrate on solar and wind power is more
revolutionary than it seems. These sectors call for a completely different set
of skills, mainly in the small-scale service sector, and will require several
hundreds of thousands of people, including miners, to be retrained to fit into
the new economy. There has not been enough emphasis in the Paris accord on the
training for the new jobs, which will be necessary.China, being the factory of
the world, has the dirtiest industry — steel — that shifted from economies such
as Japan and the US largely because of environmental concerns. For China and
India to rebalance their economies and to mitigate the loss in agriculture will
require considerable investment. The Paris deal makes it possible by having a
fund of $100 billion a year to help adjust to the change.Another relevant fact
is that the role of government agencies will be limited in most instances. The
private sector will take the lead by expanding its investment in "clean tech,
low-carbon ventures†and innovative companies which pursue environmentally-sound
corporate strategies and thus will play a greater role than governments.In the
US, the former steel town of Pittsburgh joined 210 other cities representing 54
million Americans in pledging: "We will intensify efforts to meet each of our
cities’ current climate goals, push for new action to meet the 1.5 degrees
Celsius targetâ€. Additionally, 12 states representing 97 million Americans — 30
per cent of the population — have decided to continue their efforts to fight for
lower greenhouse gas emissions despite what the US government does.But it is
getting too late, and the target of stopping a rise in temperature beyond two
degrees Celsius by the end of the century may be unattainable.
According to the
UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the emission cut targets in November 2016 will
result in temperature rise by three degrees Celsius, which is above the
preindustrial levels and far above the two degrees Celsius target of the Paris
agreement.In addition, a study published in the reputed journal Nature in June
2016 observes that the current country pledges are insufficient to meet the
Paris agreement goal of keeping the global temperature rise "well below two
degrees Celsiusâ€.Many observers are not much worried about Mr Trump leaving the Hanging
vacuum storage bags Factory landmark accord but fear that his team might
sabotage the progress.
The vacuum in leadership left by the exit of the US
requires a greater role for other countries. China and the EU, being the largest
polluters, should form the new leadership.India too can play a major role but it
must show that it is capable of such a vision, instead of being consumed by
matters of Hindutva mobilisation.Having taken the initiative in shifting to
clean energy technologies, it has the size and the market power to make a
difference to the world as well as its own economy.
Posted by: cubebag1 at
06:27 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 915 words, total size 6 kb.
14kb generated in CPU 0.0058, elapsed 0.0296 seconds.
33 queries taking 0.0258 seconds, 48 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
33 queries taking 0.0258 seconds, 48 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.