Europe: The failure to tackle climate change

The stakes could not be higher, said Marcel Hänggi in the Zurich Die Wochenzeitung. The planet is warming rapidly. Scientists now believe that unless the world radically curbs emissions of greenhouse gases, the planet’s temperature will rise by 11 degrees Fahrenheit before the end of the century. In just a few decades, “southern Europe could become as inhospitable as the Sahara.” In the long term, the Greenland ice sheet will melt and the sea levels will rise by several meters, swamping millions of people who live in low-lying coastal regions. When the glaciers in the Alps, the Andes, and the Himalayas melt, the water supplies of more than a billion people will be at risk. The world faces “wars over resources, famines, and the total collapse of state structures.”

That’s why it is “absolutely imperative” that the U.N. replace the Kyoto Protocol, said the Munich Süddeutsche Zeitung in an editorial. The treaty limiting greenhouse-gas emissions expires next year. But the U.N. summit intended to craft its successor, which opened in Durban, South Africa, this week, already looks like a failure. The 20,000 or so scientists, energy experts, business leaders, advocates, politicians, and bureaucrats are not expected to come up with even a rough draft of a new treaty. And “climate change has already begun,” with devastating effects for millions. Over the past few years, catastrophic floods have hit Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Thailand, and Cambodia. Droughts have parched Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the countries of western Africa. Typhoons have ravaged Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

The planet may be warming, but interest in that process “is cooling,” said the London Times. This is partly because, in a time of global recession and austerity, nobody wants to be “burdened with costly green initiatives.” But it’s also because of flaws in the way the original treaty was crafted, dividing nations into the rich north, which had to make painful cuts in emissions, and the poor south, which got aid. Nowadays, with developing countries like China, India, and Brazil producing more than half of emissions, that distinction is “unhelpful—especially when China plays the poor south card.”

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You can’t just blame China, said Audrey Garric in the Paris Le Monde. China and India might play along if only the U.S.—still the world’s biggest polluter—would take the lead. But Washington refuses to ratify any legally binding agreement. The eight years of George W. Bush “were fatal to the climate,” in the words of one climatologist. And President Obama “is unlikely to be any more proactive,” since “his hands are tied” by the Republican majority in Congress. As long as the U.S. refuses to change its ways, no amount of summitry can save the planet.