[Only when China and the United States elevate the threat of
climate change above their geopolitical rivalry will it be possible to
avert disaster.] [[link removed]]

HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD (FROM A CLIMATE ARMAGEDDON)  
[[link removed]]

 

Michael T. Klare
October 16, 2021
Tom Dispatch
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

_ Only when China and the United States elevate the threat of climate
change above their geopolitical rivalry will it be possible to avert
disaster. _

The Florida Bugaboo Fire May 15, 2007, Mark Wolfe/FEMA

 

This summer we witnessed, with brutal clarity, the Beginning of the
End: the end of Earth as we know it — a world of lush forests,
bountiful croplands, livable cities, and survivable coastlines. In its
place, we saw the early manifestations of a climate-damaged planet,
with scorched forests, parched fields, scalding cities, and
storm-wracked coastlines. In a desperate bid to prevent far worse,
leaders from around the world will soon gather in Glasgow, Scotland,
for a U.N. Climate Summit
[[link removed]].
You can count on one thing, though: all their plans will fall far
short of what’s needed unless backed by the only strategy that can
save the planet: a U.S.-China Climate Survival Alliance.

Of course, politicians, scientific groups, and environmental
organizations will offer plans of every sort in Glasgow to reduce
global carbon emissions and slow the process of planetary
incineration. President Biden’s representatives will tout his
promise to promote renewable energy and install electric-car-charging
stations nationwide, while President Macron of France will offer his
own ambitious proposals, as will many other leaders. However, no
combination of these, even if carried out, would prove sufficient to
prevent global disaster — not as long as China and the U.S. continue
to prioritize trade competition and war preparations over planetary
survival.

In the end, it’s not complicated. If the planet’s two “great”
powers refuse to cooperate in a meaningful way in tackling the climate
threat, we’re done for.

That harsh reality was made clear in September. The United Nations
then issued a report on the likely impact of pledges already made by
the nations that signed the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement (from which
President Trump withdrew
[[link removed]] in
2017 and which the U.S. has only recently rejoined
[[link removed]]).
According to the U.N.’s analysis
[[link removed]],
even if all 200 signatories were to abide by their pledges —
and almost none have
[[link removed]] —
global temperatures are likely to rise by 2.7 degrees Celsius (nearly
5 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by century’s end.
And that, in turn, most scientists agree, is a recipe for
catastrophically irreversible changes to the planetary ecosphere,
including the kind of sea level rise that will inundate most American
coastal cities (and many others around the world) and the sort of
heat, fire, and drought that will turn the American West into an
uninhabitable wasteland.

Scientists generally agree that, to avert such catastrophic outcomes,
global warming must not exceed, at worst, 2 degrees Celsius over
pre-industrial levels — and preferably, no more than 1.5 degrees
Celsius. Mind you, the planet has already warmed 1 degree Celsius and
we’ve only recently seen just how much damage even that amount of
added heat can produce. To limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, by
2030, scientists believe
[[link removed]],
global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions would have to be reduced by 25%
from 2018 levels; to limit it to 1.5 degrees, by 55%. Yet those
emissions — driven by strong economic growth in China, India, and
other rapidly industrializing nations — have actually been on an
upward trajectory, rising on average by 1.8% per year
[[link removed]] between
2009 and 2019.

Several European countries, including Denmark, Norway, and the
Netherlands, have launched heroic efforts to lower their emissions to
reach that 1.5 degree target, setting an example for nations with far
bigger economies. But however admirable, in the grand scheme of
things, they just won’t matter enough to save the planet. Only the
United States and China, by far the world’s top two carbon emitters,
are in a position to do so.

It all boils down to this: to save human civilization, the U.S. and
China must dramatically reduce their CO2 emissions, while working
together to persuade other major carbon-emitting nations, beginning
with fast-rising India, to follow suit. That would, of course, mean
setting aside their current antagonisms, however important they may
seem to U.S. and Chinese leaders today, and instead making climate
survival their number one priority and policy objective. Otherwise,
put simply, all is lost.

THE U.S.-CHINA CARBON JUGGERNAUT

To fully grasp just how central China and the United States
(the largest carbon polluter
[[link removed]] in
history) are to the global climate-change equation, you have to grasp
their present roles in both carbon consumption and CO2 emissions.

Buy the Book
[[link removed]]

In 2020, according to the BP Statistical Rev_i_ew of World Energy
2021
[[link removed]] (a
widely respected source), China was the world’s top user of coal,
the most carbon-intense of the three fossil fuels. That country was
responsible for a staggering 54.3% of total world consumption; India
came in second at 11.6%; and the U.S. third at 6.1%. When it came to
petroleum consumption, the U.S. took first place with 19.9% of world
usage and China came in second with 15.7%. The U.S. was also number
one when it came to consumption of natural gas, followed by Russia and
China.

Combine all three kinds and China and the U.S. were jointly
responsible for 42% of total global fossil-fuel consumption in 2020.
No other countries came even remotely close. Rising fast in the energy
realm, India accounted for 6.2% of global fossil-fuel consumption and
the European Union for 8.5%, which should give you some idea of the
way the two countries dominate the global energy equation.

Not surprisingly, since they’re responsible for such a large share
of fossil-fuel consumption every year and the combustion of those
fuels is responsible for the overwhelming majority of global carbon
emissions, China and the U.S. also account for a comparably large
share of those discharges. According to BP, China was the world’s
leading source of CO2 emissions in 2020, responsible for 30.7% of the
global total, while the United States came in second with 13.8%. No
other country even reached double digits and the European Union as a
whole accounted for only 7.9%.

Put simply, the heating of this planet can’t be slowed down and
eventually stopped if the U.S. and China don’t slash their carbon
emissions drastically in the coming decades and invest massively —
on a scale comparable to preparing for a world war — in alternative
energy systems. We’re talking about trillions of dollars of future
expenses. But there’s really no choice, not if we want to save our
civilization.

THE MASTODON IN THE ROOM

Any strategy to substantially reduce global CO2 emissions and keep
global warming from exceeding 2 degrees (let alone 1.5 degrees)
Celsius above pre-industrial levels must confront the largest obstacle
to success around: China’s continuing reliance on coal to provide
the lion’s share of its energy supply. According to BP, in 2020,
China obtained 57% of its primary energy
[[link removed]] needs
from coal. No other country comes close to that. If China was
responsible for 26% of total world energy consumption that year, then
its coal combustion alone constituted 15% of global energy usage — a
greater share than Europe’s _from all energy sources combined_.

If China phases out its coal plants in this decade and other countries
followed through on their Paris commitments, meeting that target of
1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius and avoiding a climate Armageddon would at
least be possible. But that’s not the way China’s headed. Not
faintly. According to some reports, that country is actually expected
to boost
[[link removed]] (yes,
boost!) its coal consumption in this decade by adding 88 gigawatts of
coal-fired power capacity. (A large, modern coal-fired plant can
generate about 1 gigawatt of electricity at a time.) Worse yet, its
officials are mulling over plans to sooner or later build another 159
gigawatts worth. Because coal is the most carbon-intensive of the
fossil fuels, to construct and operate so many new coal-powered plants
will add monstrously to China’s CO2 emissions, making a sharp
reduction in global emissions impossible.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has indeed spoken of building an
“ecological civilization” and has also promised to halt the rise
in China’s carbon emissions by 2030. For a time, it appeared that he
was even prepared to take stern measures to halt the growth of
China’s coal consumption. He did, in fact, pledge
[[link removed]] that
his country would reach peak oil consumption by 2025 and halt
[[link removed]] the financing of
the construction of coal plants abroad as part of its globalizing
“Belt and Road Initiative,” a major shift in policy. But it seems
that his government has otherwise turned a blind eye
[[link removed]] to
efforts by provincial governments and powerful state-owned energy
firms to rush the construction of new coal plants at home.

Western analysts believe that Chinese leaders are desperate to propel
economic expansion in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Offering cheap
energy from coal is one obvious way of facilitating investment in new
infrastructure projects, a standard tactic for boosting growth. Some
analysts also suspect that Beijing has allowed coal production to
increase in response to U.S. trade sanctions and other expressions of
Washington’s hostility. “The recent U.S.-China trade war has
further heightened Chinese concerns about energy security, given that
the country imports roughly 70% of its oil needs and 40% of its gas
requirements,” Daniel Gardner of Princeton’s High Meadow
Environmental Group pointed out
[[link removed]] in
the _Los Angeles Times_, adding, “Coal — abundant and relatively
inexpensive — seems to many a reliable, tried-and-true energy
source.”

WHY A U.S.-CHINA CLIMATE SURVIVAL ALLIANCE IS ESSENTIAL

Recently, during a meeting with top officials in Tianjin, President
Biden’s global climate envoy, former Secretary of State John Kerry,
chided the Chinese for their addiction to coal. “Adding some
200-plus gigawatts of coal over the last five years, and now another
200 or so coming online in the planning stage, if it went to fruition
would actually undo the ability of the rest of the world to achieve a
limit of 1.5 degrees [Celsius],” he reportedly
[[link removed]] said
to them during their interchange.

There was, however, no way Chinese leaders were going to respond
positively to his entreaties, given the growing hostility between the
U.S. and China. Even more than during the final Trump years,
Washington under President Biden has voiced support for Taiwan —
considered a renegade province by Beijing — while seeking to
encircle China with an ever-more-militarized network of anti-Chinese
alliances. These include the newly formed “AUKUS
[[link removed]]” (Australia, the United
Kingdom, and the U.S.) pact that also involved the ominous promise to
sell American nuclear-powered submarines to the Australians. Chinese
leaders have responded angrily that any progress on climate change
must await improvement in what they consider more critical aspects of
their relationship with America.

“China-U.S. cooperation on climate change cannot be divorced from
the overall situation of China-U.S. relations,” Foreign Minister
Wang Yi told
[[link removed]] Kerry
during his September visit to China. “The U.S. side wants the
climate change cooperation to be an ‘oasis’ of China-U.S.
relations. However, if the oasis is all surrounded by deserts, then
sooner or later, the ‘oasis’ will be desertified.”

In theory, the two countries could pursue the goal of radical
decarbonization on their own — each independently spending the
necessary trillions of dollars on domestic energy transformation. It
is, however, essentially impossible to imagine such an outcome in
today’s world of intensifying military and economic competition. In
March, for instance, China announced
[[link removed]] a
6.8% increase in military spending for 2021, raising the official
budget of the People’s Liberation Army to $209 billion. (Many
analysts believe the actual figure is much higher.) Similarly, on
Sept. 23rd, the U.S. House of Representatives authorized
[[link removed]] defense
spending of $740 billion for Fiscal Year 2022, $24 billion more than
the staggering sum requested by the Biden administration. Both
countries are also moving to “decouple” their critical supply
lines, while investing vast amounts in the race to dominate
technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and
microelectronics assumed to be essential to future success, whether in
trade wars or actual ones. Neither is planning to invest anything
faintly comparable in efforts to slow the pace of global warming and
so save the planet.

Only when China and the United States elevate the threat of climate
change above their geopolitical rivalry will it be possible to
envision action on a sufficient scale to avert the future incineration
of this planet and the collapse of human civilization. This should
hardly be an impossible political or intellectual stretch. On January
27th, in an Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis, President
Biden did, in fact, decree
[[link removed]] that
“climate considerations shall be an essential element of United
States foreign policy and national security.” That same day,
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a companion
statement, saying
[[link removed]] that
his “Department will immediately take appropriate policy actions to
prioritize climate change considerations in our activities and risk
assessments, to mitigate this driver of insecurity.” (At the moment,
however, the thought that Republicans in Congress would support such
positions, no less fund them, is beyond imagining.)

In any case, such comments have already been overshadowed by the Biden
administration’s fixation on dominating China globally, as have any
comparable impulses on the part of the Chinese leadership. Still, the
understanding is there: climate change poses an overwhelming
existential threat to both American and Chinese “security,” a
reality that will only grow fiercer as greenhouse gases continue to
pour into our atmosphere. To defend their respective homelands not
against each other but against nature, both sides will increasingly
be compelled [[link removed]] to devote ever
more funds and resources to flood protection, disaster relief,
fire-fighting, seawall construction, infrastructure replacement,
population resettlement, and other staggeringly expensive,
climate-related undertakings. At some point, such costs will far
exceed the amounts needed to fight a war between us.

Once this reckoning sinks in, perhaps U.S. and Chinese officials will
begin forging an alliance aimed at defending their own countries and
the world against the coming ravages of climate change. If John Kerry
were to return to China and tell its leadership, “We are phasing out
all our coal plants, working to eliminate our reliance on petroleum,
and are prepared to negotiate a mutual reduction in Pacific naval and
missile forces,” then he could also say to his Chinese counterparts,
“You need to start phasing out your coal use _now_ — and
here’s how we think you can do it.”

Once such an agreement was achieved, Presidents Biden and Xi could
turn to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and say, “You must
follow in our footsteps and eliminate your dependence on fossil
fuels.” And then, the three together could tell the leaders of every
other nation: “Do as we’re doing, and we’ll support you. Oppose
us, and you’ll be cut off from the world economy and perish.”

That’s how to save this planet from a climate Armageddon. There
really is no other way.

_Copyright 2021 Michael Klare_

_Follow TomDispatch on Twitter
[[link removed]] and join us on Facebook
[[link removed]]. Check out the newest Dispatch
Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel, Songlands
[[link removed]] (the
final one in his Splinterlands series), Beverly Gologorsky’s
novel Every Body Has a Story
[[link removed]], and
Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War
[[link removed]],
as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century:
The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power
[[link removed]] and
John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since
World War II
[[link removed]]._

_Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular
[[link removed]], is the five-college professor
emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and
a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the
author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose:
The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change
[[link removed]].
He is a founder of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy
[[link removed]]._

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web [[link removed]]
Submit via email
Frequently asked questions [[link removed]]
Manage subscription [[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org [[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]