Compared with the extraordinary fanfare before the global-warming summit in Copenhagen a year ago, the meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that starts in Canc?n next week has gone unheralded. That is partly because of a widespread belief that the publicity build-up to last year?s summit contributed to its failure, but also because expectations have changed dramatically. In the wake of the Copenhagen summit, there is a growing acceptance that the effort to avert serious climate change has run out of steam.
Perhaps, after a period of respite and a few climatic disasters, it will get going again. It certainly should. But even if it does, the world is going to go on getting warmer for some time.
Acceptance, however, does not mean inaction. Since the beginning of time, creatures have adapted to changes in their environment. Unfortunately, such adaptation has always meant large numbers of deaths. Evolution works that way. But humankind is luckier than most species. It has the advantage of being able to think ahead, and to prepare for the changes to come. That?s what needs to happen now.
Russian summer
Even if the currently moderate pace of emissions reduction steps up, the likelihood is that the Earth will be at least 3?C warmer at the end of this century than it was at the start of the industrial revolution; less warming is possible, but so is more, and quicker. Heatwaves that now set records will become commonplace. Ecosystems will find themselves subject to climates far removed from those they evolved in, endangering many species. Rain will fall harder in the places where it falls today, increasing flooding; but in places already prone to drought things will by and large get drier, sometimes to the point of desertification. Ice will vanish from Arctic summers and some mountaintops, permafrost will become impermanent, sea levels will keep rising.
These changes will benefit some. As the melting ice allows access to the Arctic, Russia will become richer still in fossil fuels. For many, though, the prospects are grim. Drought and flood will put the livelihoods of hundreds of millions, mostly in developing countries, at risk. So the question is how to limit those risks.
Those who can adapt will do so mostly through private decisions: by moving house, say, or planting different crops. But governments have a role too.
The best protection against global warming is global prosperity. Wealthier, healthier people are better able to deal with higher food prices, or invest in new farming techniques, or move to another city or country, than poor ones are. Richer economies rely less on agriculture, which is vulnerable to climatic change, and more on industry and services, which by and large are not. Richer people tend to work in air-conditioned buildings. Poor ones tend not to.
But development is hardly an easy solution to the problem. There are already plenty of good reasons for poor-country governments to put sensible economic policies in place, stop stealing money and do the manifold other things necessary to get their economies on the right track; and if they haven?t done those things already, the threat of climate change will not spur them into action. Climate change does, however, provide an extra reason for rich countries?which caused the problem in the first place?to find ways to help poor countries develop. That is a matter of justice, not just humanity.
There is another problem with relying on development: although it can help protect poor countries from climate change, it also threatens to make the problem worse, because as economies grow, they consume more and more energy. Here again, rich countries can help, by offering poor countries support for greener energy technologies, and thus allowing them to make use of their capacity for generating renewable energy from water, wind and sunlight.
Beyond encouraging climate-friendly development, governments need to take some focused measures in three areas: infrastructure, migration and food. The Dutch, who have centuries of experience of protecting themselves against high water, are already working out how to adapt and build infrastructure to minimise the risks of flooding as sea levels rise and the rain-fed Rhine grows friskier. Elsewhere, politicians need to assess the vulnerability of their cities to changes in peak temperatures, in rainfall, in severe-storm frequency and in sea level, and act accordingly.
As life gets harder in vulnerable places, people will need to migrate both between and within countries. Rich people can help make life easier for poor ones by allowing larger numbers across their borders. Within rich countries, governments should stop subsidising insurance in vulnerable areas?such as the Florida coastline?and thus stimulating development there. People need to be encouraged to migrate away from vulnerable areas, not into them.
Going with the grain
Food security will become a crucial issue. Drought-resistant seeds are needed; and, given that the farmers least able to pay will require the hardiest varieties, seed companies? efforts should be supplemented by state-funded research. Since genetic modification would help with this, it would be handy if people abandoned their prejudice against it.
Even with better crops, better soil conservation, better planting patterns and better weather forecasts, all of which are needed, there will still be regional calamities. To ensure that food is always available, the global food market will have to be deeper and more resilient than it is now. That means abandoning the protectionism that bedevils agriculture today.
None of this will make climate change all right. It remains the craziest experiment mankind has ever conducted. Maybe in the long run it will be brought under control. For the foreseeable future, though, the mercury will continue to rise, and the human race must live with the problem as best it can.
?? The Economist Newspaper Limited
