God has nothing to do with rising global temperatures | Biology
We are nearing the midpoint of the annual meeting of the 197 countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 or later. This 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27), in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, will last two weeks.
That original Framework aimed to hold global temperatures to no more than 2℃ (3.6℉) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. The 2015 Paris agreement lowered that target to 1.5℃ (2.7℉). The world is already 1.1℃ (2.0℉) above pre-industrial levels. That trend is rising.
Twenty-three, rich developed countries have emitted half of all historical human greenhouse gases. Over 150 other, less well-developed, poor countries have emitted the rest. Many of those poorer countries, including some that have emitted the least, are suffering the most current climate change damages.
Pakistan, for example, received almost twice its normal amount of “monsoon” rainfall in June-August this year. Floods covered one-third of the country, and much of it remains flooded.
Flooding killed over 1,700 Pakistanis, about half of them children. Floods displaced 33 million people, one in every seven Pakistanis. Damages have reached $40 billion, more than 10% of Pakistan’s entire GDP.
The rapidly advancing technique of climate change attribution suggests that periods of Pakistan’s monsoon were 75% more-intense than they would have been without human caused climate change.
The monsoon flooding was preceded by unprecedented heat waves in April that triggered a glacial lake outburst. That threatened crop yields and damaged crucial infrastructure.
For all of this, Pakistan contributed less than one half of one percent of all historical, human-caused global greenhouse gas emissions.
Pakistan currently chairs the Group of 77 (G77) at the United Nations. Originally founded by 77 developing nations, the group has expanded to include 134 countries. The G77 successfully petitioned to add for the first time in COP meeting history an agenda item to discuss “Matters relating to funding arrangements responding to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including a focus on addressing loss and damage.”
Efforts to address the disproportionate impact of climate change on poor, developing nations led developed countries, including the United States, to pledge a total of $100 billion a year by 2020 and until at least 2025. This “Green Fund” will address climate change mitigation and adaptation in poor nations experiencing the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, the developed countries have fallen short on their commitments to the fund.
Those same countries have hesitated to address explicitly “loss and damage” that Pakistan and similar countries experience. They don’t want to be held financially liable for climate change damages in other countries.
It’s increasingly difficult to call all climate change disasters, like those in Pakistan, as "acts of God." Climate change attribution studies make that increasingly clear. Those disasters were once unintended acts of humans emitting massive amounts of greenhouse gases since the start of the Industrial Age.
More recently, we have learned that greenhouse gas emissions from obtaining and burning fossil fuels causes climate disasters. We can no longer claim naiveté about the cause.
Even the Bible expects anyone who damages their neighbor’s property should make restitution (Luke 19:8-10).
Amen to that.
Steve Rissing is professor emeritus in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at Ohio State University. steverissing@hotmail.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Climate change no 'act of God' | Rissing
