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Floods, drought, heat: why don't we just save the climate?

2021-07-18T06:44:57.855Z


The most recent weather disasters put global warming at the center of politics. To be really effective, an alliance of the largest polluter countries would have to be formed. Sounds unrealistic? Maybe it isn't at all.


Enlarge image

Boxberg lignite power plant in Saxony

Photo:

Florian Gaertner / Photo library via Getty Images

When

the envoys from the G20 countries meet in Naples

on

Thursday

, the main causes of climate change will once again be sitting together. Actually, they could draw a line and decide to exit the carbon economy. So far and no further. In the coming decades, emissions will have to be reduced to net zero anyway. Only "net zero", that is to say only blowing as many greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as the earth can absorb, opens up hope that the warming can still be slowed down, say the climate researchers.

Wouldn't this be an opportune moment for a global climate deal? In any case, the shock of the most recent extreme weather conditions is still fresh: extreme heat in the American West and at the Arctic Circle, now flood disasters in West Germany with more than 100 fatalities, to name just the closest events. Climate protection is progressing far too slowly, the economy is always in the foreground, said TV doctor Eckart von Hirschhausen last Thursday at "Maybrit Illner", that "pisses me off". He must have spoken from the hearts of many.

There is great indignation, at least among some of the German citizens.

Majorities, however, are anything but enthusiastic about the idea of ​​having to limit themselves for climate protection.

A survey published recently by the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy shows that most of those questioned rely on technological innovations, the protection of rainforests, international agreements and stricter regulations for industry.

Introducing a speed limit on German autobahns may be a symbolic act driven by a sense of responsibility that deserves respect.

The world climate, however, is not getting any better.

It is this dichotomy between the desire to act responsibly and the individual impotence in the face of the major planetary problem that causes frustration, disappointment and anger.

Between current responsibility and historical guilt

If anything can be done at all, then the biggest polluters would have to pull together.

Together, the G20 emit around 80 percent of the carbon dioxide currently emitted.

Their shared historical guilt is even greater: since the beginning of industrialization, the 19 most important countries (plus the EU) have produced 85 percent of the exhaust gases that have accumulated in the earth's atmosphere.

However, the positions of the G20 countries are quite different. The US is responsible for 14.5 percent of current emissions, the EU for 8 percent. But if you add up the total emissions of the past two centuries, the US and the EU (including Great Britain) each come to about a quarter. China's position is exactly the opposite: Today, the capitalist People's Republic is by far the largest emitter (28 percent of global CO2 emissions), but because of China's late development, only 13 percent of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere is due to Beijing's account.

A right to catch-up pollution could be constructed from the difference between current responsibility and historical guilt.

Nations that started burning coal, oil and gas later in their history should therefore still be allowed to exhaust their budgets.

But that would be difficult.

If every country were entitled to the same cumulative per capita emissions, then the biosphere would be lost.

An average Chinese woman currently causes only 40 percent of the CO2 emissions of an American, an Indian only 11 percent.

The planet could hardly support billions more people at today's US emissions level.

Petro-State Pumping Pumps

In addition, there are very different interests.

Russia, for example, built its economy on oil and gas.

A dwindling global demand for fossil fuels would completely call the model of the Kremlin economy into question.

In addition, the country could even benefit from climate change: The thawing of the North Pole opens up new transcontinental shipping routes.

Siberian permafrost is turning into usable agricultural land.

Thanks to lower subsidy costs, the Gulf States can hope to remain in business even with falling demand and rising climate taxes in the consumer countries.

The United Arab Emirates, for example, have expanded their production capacities and want to pump significantly more into the market than before.

There is even a threat to get out of the Opec oil cartel.

A conflict that shows that the fight against climate change can provide the perverse incentive to bring climate-damaging oil to consumers even faster and cheaper - in order to make money from mineral resources as long as possible.

It is conceivable that there will be a pumping bet by the petro-states.

Last year there was already a foretaste of it when G20 members Saudi Arabia and Russia fought for market share.

Too little too late?

This imbalance in the initial situation makes negotiations so difficult - and has so far prevented the G20 from agreeing on bold joint steps in matters of climate protection.

At best, the announcements are enough to stabilize global emissions by the middle of the century and then slowly reduce them, researchers at Oxford University calculate.

Too little too late.

In order to limit the mean rise in temperature to 2 degrees, global emissions would have to be more than halved by 2050 compared to today.

The US and the EU have promised to reach net zero by then.

China has announced that it will follow suit by 2060.

Other poorer countries might be even later.

Catching up pollution, at least a little.

However, there is a lot going on at the moment. Last week the EU specified its “Green New Deal” and presented a program with the curious title “Fit for 55” (which means reducing emissions of climate-damaging gases by 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990). Europe is thus pursuing a new approach: the world's largest single market wants to export its own climate policy. The central instrument for this is a CO2 tax, which is levied on imported goods in whose countries of origin no such instrument is used.

The ruling Democrats in the USA are now considering introducing such climate tariffs as well.

Even China, which launched an emissions trading system based on the EU model at the end of last week, is unlikely to be able to avoid introducing such border taxes in the future.

Ideally, the three major emitters, the USA, EU and China, which are also the world's largest trading powers, would join forces and found a climate club that could have an enormous pull on other countries.

So far, such considerations may sound very visionary.

But at least a climate chord is moving into the realm of the conceivable - despite increasing geopolitical tensions in other areas.

International division of labor in climate protection

If, on the other hand, climate tariffs led to protectionism and fueled trade wars, that would be tragic. Because the transition to a climate-neutral economy and way of life will be all the easier if it relies on the international division of labor. Sunny petro-states could produce green hydrogen on a large scale with solar energy and transform themselves into exporters of climate-neutral substitute fuel. Former oil companies could extract CO2 from the atmosphere there and store it in pumped-out oil and gas fields. Preserving the rainforests in Brazil or in the Congo Basin could become a global task - and a lucrative source of income for the states there.

We're not that far yet.

But at least: Since 1990, Germany's CO2 emissions per capita have fallen by a third.

In the USA, where there has not even been a stringent national climate policy to date, the decline is ten percent (based on consumption) and 20 percent (based on production).

In China, the output is 2.5 times over in the same period

gone up.

However, emissions there have also remained more or less constant over the past decade.

Of course, none of this is by far enough.

But the development shows how continuous technical progress and the cross-border exchange of knowledge and ideas can gradually reduce the energy and climate intensity of the economy.

The task now is to accelerate this trend.

The most important business dates of the week ahead

Open assembly area

Luxembourg -

GDP, GDP

- The statistics agency EUROSTAT publishes key figures on the EU gross domestic product and its components.

London -

Freedom, on trial

- England ends almost all remaining corona measures, despite high and rising numbers of infections.

Expand Tuesday area

Reporting season I

- Business figures from UBS, Remy Cointreau, Alstom, Electrolux, Easyjet, Anglo American, Kühne & Nagel, Netflix, United Airlines, Halliburton.

Expand Wednesday area

Reporting season II

- business figures from SAP, Daimler, Sartorius, Iberdrola, Akzo Nobel, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola.

Expand Thursday area

Frankfurt -

Wrestling for the new-old course

- ECB Council meeting with monetary policy decisions.

The central bank has just given itself a new strategy.

Now it is a question of using them for the first time.

Should monetary policy remain extremely loose or should it be tightened in the foreseeable future?

Intensive discussions between council members are expected.

Naples -

Epoch

issues - Start of the G20 round on the subjects of the environment, climate and energy (until Friday).

Reporting season III

- figures from Unilever, Valeo, Roche, ABB, Intel, Twitter, AT&T.

Open area Friday

Reporting season IV

- business figures from Vodafone, American Express, Volvo Cars.

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-07-18

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