Fixing Global Warming – Resistance from Developing Nations

Every year, farmers in India and Pakistan clear their post-harvest fields by burning. Smoke pours out of the various farming tracts, raising air pollution to unbreathable levels, often drifting to nearby cities and towns, where vehicular emissions, smoke from cooking fires, unchecked industrial effluents and wind-blown dust often make breathing dangerous. For example, India Today (10/14/19) reported air quality between 300 and 400 (and which can exceed 500!): “The Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) issued a health advisory, asking people to reduce heavy exertion.

Every year, farmers in India and Pakistan clear their post-harvest fields by burning. Smoke pours out of the various farming tracts, raising air pollution to unbreathable levels, often drifting to nearby cities and towns, where vehicular emissions, smoke from cooking fires, unchecked industrial effluents and wind-blown dust often make breathing dangerous. For example, India Today (10/14/19) reported air quality between 300 and 400 (and which can exceed 500!): “The Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) issued a health advisory, asking people to reduce heavy exertion.

“According to the advisory, ‘people with heart or kind diseases and children should avoid longer and heavy exertion. Everyone may experience health effects, significant increase in respiratory problems.’… An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered 'good', 51 and 100 'satisfactory', 101 and 200 'moderate', 201 and 300 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor' [many nations measure “hazardous” anything over 300], and 401 and 500 'severe'. [Particulate and noxious gas measurement, based on “parts per million” metrics].” Beijing (pictured above), Delhi and Mumbai air quality can exceed 500. As Brazilian populist President Jair Bolsonaro encouraged the recapture of Amazon rain forests for mining and farming, the fires used to clear land raged, pumping horrific amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Without some rational and massive commitment to contain greenhouse gasses by all relevant nations, climate change (and concomitant global warming) will continue to threaten the ecological and environmental disasters that have only accelerated in the past few years. Donald Trump attempted to roll back limitations on the extraction and use of fossil fuels, particularly in the arena of electrical power generation. Despite his efforts, car manufacturers continued high levels of pollution controls and a shift away from gasoline and diesel fuel. Further, the shuttering of coal mines in the US only accelerated despite Trump’s promises to the contrary. There still is no such thing as commercially viable clean coal; the effluents from “clean coal” powered electrical plants are simply pumped underground for future generations to deal with.

Even as President Biden has rejoined the Paris climate accord, the United States has a lot of catching up to do… and there is still massive resistance to an all-out effort to move out of fossil fuels and into alternative energy. Despite the surge in jobs that would accompany this shift, incumbent mega-corporations are so heavily invested in legacy power generation that they used political pressure against reasonable greenhouse gas containment, and many states also are rich in fossil fuels and do not want to deny the owners of these resources denied the obvious economic benefits of those assets. But that form of resistance exists in a developed nation with the capacity to create viable technical solution is still significant, try and convince peasant farmers and legacy industrial facilities in second and third world nations to stop their traditional burning and use of fossil fuel… and well… good luck with that one. 

But what is even worse, especially given the rise of climate change-denying populist leaders in those second and third world nations, is the growing trend to reverse environmentally sound policies to end the reliance on fossil fuels, especially the biggest polluter of them all: coal. This includes our neighbor to the south, where effluents not only exacerbate climate change containment but also create pollutants that can blow across a porous airspace that does not recognize a “border.”

Writing for the April 11th Los Angeles Times, Kate Linthicum tells us: “Mexican] President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in late 2018 and started turning back the clock… The president has halted new renewable energy projects, mocked wind farms as ‘fans’ that blight the landscape, and poured money into the state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, including $9 billion for construction of a new refinery… Last month, he pushed legislation that requires that the energy grid first take power from state-run plants — fueled in large part by crude oil and coal — before less expensive wind and solar energy.

“Shortly after the president announced last summer that his government would again start buying coal from Mexico’s producers, [put laid-off coal miners were] called back to work… López Obrador’s devotion to fossil fuels and rejection of cleaner energy at a time when most nations are moving in the opposite direction have dismayed environmentalists, who warn that Mexico will be unable to meet its emission reduction commitments under the Paris climate agreement , as well as business leaders, who warn that energy costs will rise because coal and gas cost about twice as much as wind and solar.

“Experts say his policies are rooted less in climate change denial and more in nationalism and nostalgia… A populist, López Obrador is playing on Mexico’s proud history as a fossil fuel powerhouse…

“Every five years, members of the Paris agreement are expected to raise their targets for cutting CO2 emissions. But last year, under López Obrador, Mexico declined to boost its target, maintaining its original commitment of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 22% by 2030 compared with how much it would be releasing if it had done nothing at all… And while Mexico produces just 1% of the world’s greenhouse gases, environmentalists say it’s important that it pulls its weight, in part because it will set an example in the region.

“‘It does matter what Mexico does,’ said Carolina Herrera, a Latin America analyst with the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council… Ironically, López Obrador’s biggest constituency, the working class, may suffer the most from droughts, floods and other effects of a warming climate. ‘The people who López Obrador says he’s looking out for are the ones who are going to be really vulnerable,’ Herrera said.” The unfortunate reality is that without global cooperation, unless even poorer less developed nations join in the effort, global warming does not have an “adjustment” for those unwilling to cooperate. The problem just gets worse… and actually on an accelerated basis. And once that tipping point occurs, which is very close, the planet and every living thing on it will irretrievably be altered for the worse.

I’m Peter Dekom, and at some time in the near future, the richer nations on earth may just have to provide economic support and incentives for those countries pushing back against stemming the use of fossil fuels.