One path ahead: For climate change, the only thing that matters is ... - New York Daily News

For climate change, the only thing that matters is the result

The Earth’s atmosphere is shared by all the planet’s inhabitants, so Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pledge that “the path, method, pace and intensity to achieve [peak carbon emissions by 2030] should and must be determined by ourselves, and will never be influenced by others” does not seem very cooperative with the billions outside of China.

Mother Nature and the broader laws of physics and chemistry care little for anyone’s dearly held principles of self-determination, and are sure to be unimpressed by Xi’s attitude, as the climate of our single home is heating up due human activity of burning to produce energy.

It’s fine for Xi to want to carry on his own path, and if that path can really take his country to its climate objectives, we’ll all be the better for it. But there are really only a number of ways through which carbon reductions are physically possible, and no amount of optimism, wishful thinking or willfulness can change that. What we need is a significant cutback in emissions produced from dirty power generation, heavy manufacturing, transportation, industrial agriculture and other polluting sectors, which in turn means an increased comfort with tempering consumption and a re-examination of our commitments to growth at all costs. Nobody wants to say it, but again, physics doesn’t care about our preferences.

Sure, we can hope that we discover sustainable fusion or powerful carbon-capture technologies that can effectively turn back the clock, but that’s like sitting on the deck of the Titanic and hoping that a passing pod of seals will ferry you to safety. Sure, it could happen, but it’s not a real plan and waiting around for it to happen is practically a death wish.

Let’s hope that it is the message of science that got through in U.S. climate envoy John Kerry’s meetings with top Chinese officials this week in Beijing. Let’s also hope that our own political leaders hear it loud and clear, particularly a far-too-large GOP contingent that still, against all available evidence, waves away the risks of climate change or even goes as far as to deny they’re real.

To say that we face unprecedented climate calamities is to already have missed the boat; the calamities are here. From this country to Europe and beyond, unprecedented heat is sweeping the globe, and it’s killing people and destroying infrastructure. Canada’s raging wildfires are destroying forests and spewing smoke and smog all through the Eastern seaboard. Vermont has been flooded and no one knows what will be next.

Around the world, countries are seeing climate impact ranging from drought to flood to freezes to heatwaves, which makes the commitments by the world’s two largest polluters — the United States and China — critically and even existentially important.

There’s a lot of work left to be done. Kerry’s four days of meetings seem to have resulted in no firm additional commitments, with the envoy saying only that he had “a very extensive set of frank conversations.” There are more supposedly intensive meetings on the horizon, and these must yield real, firm expectations that both countries will adhere to. The sad truth is that our current climate crises could have been avoided if we’d acted sooner. Let’s not say the same in 20 years.