Virtual Climate Summit Biden commits to reduce US emissions by up to 52% by 2030
Report 2020, a record year for heat and rain in Europe
Promising is free. Although some are stingy even for that. The first day of the summit of Heads of State and Government convened by the White House on the occasion of Earth Day ended with a race of promises by several large economies -especially, the United States- to cut the emissions of gases that they cause. climate change, while some countries - most notably China, which is the world's largest producer of these gases - made
grandiose gestures without any
real
meaning
.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, harassed by the unbridled collapse of his popularity as his denial of Covid-19 threatens to turn that nation into the one that has suffered the most deaths from the pandemic, lived his peculiar road to Damascus, at the fall off your horse and accept that climate change is real. Although Bolsonaro
asked that, as far as possible, the decarbonizing crusade of the largest economy in Latin America be paid for by the rest of the world
. At least, as regards the safeguarding of the Amazon rainforest, in which the Government of Brasilia has publicly pledged to eradicate illegal logging activities and the creation of pasture areas for cattle within nine years.
The second largest economy in that Ibero-America,
Mexico
, gave the most discordant note, when its president, the left-wing populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador,
reaffirmed his commitment to oil,
and why the country's oil is not pumped by private or foreign companies but the state monopoly Pemex.
Finally, the world leader in emission reduction among industrialized economies, Great Britain, took the hook with a speech, delivered by its Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, reaffirming his commitment to cut emissions by three-quarters in 14 years, before introduce an unexpected element at the summit, when he declared that the economic question is essential to combat climate change, since
"it is not about petting bunnies".
Johnson's phrase set his sights on what is really at stake: money. Shortly after the intervention of the British Prime Minister, the Secretary General of the United Nations,
António Guterres, demanded that the reconstruction of the economies after the Covid-19 be done on criteria of
environmental
sustainability
that do not aggravate the climate crisis. The problem is that nobody knows how to translate the magic words sustainability and digitization into a coherent economic policy.
That leaves plenty of room for promises to be often mathematical games.
The best example of this is the one that grabbed the headlines yesterday: Joe Biden's commitment to cut emissions by between 50% and 52% by 2030. In principle, the figure sounds spectacular, because Obama had promised to reduce them until 26- 28% by 2025. So we are talking about doubling the target.
That is in theory.
The reality is different.
For one thing, Obama's promise is impossible to achieve.
On the other hand, the level of emissions that the US takes as a starting point is not what it is producing now, but 16 years ago.
In other words, the plan is to emit between 50% and 52% less in 2030 than it did in 2005.
The point is that the US already emits less.
In 2019, the last year of normal economic activity, prior to Covid-19, the world's leading economy produced 13% less climate-changing gases, meaning that half of Obama's targets for 2025 and a quarter of Biden's by 2030. It is, therefore, about moving the goalposts. That does not imply that there is no effort to reduce dependence on fossil fuels - especially coal, natural gas and oil - but it does mean that the numbers are misleading.
The point is that the US is already emitting less.
In 2019, the last year of normal economic activity, prior to the bolts of economic activity that triggered Covid-19, the world's leading economy produced 13% less gases that change the Earth's climate, which means that already Half of Obama's 2025 targets and a quarter of Biden's 2030 targets had been met.
Thus, it is a matter of moving the goal posts.
That does not imply that there is no effort to reduce dependence on fossil fuels - especially coal, natural gas and oil - but it does mean that
the numbers are misleading.
In addition, the whole debate forgets, very opportunely, one of the largest methane generators in the world: the agricultural sector.
The same is true of other promises. Bolsonaro keeps the promise to make Brazil have neutrality in emissions in 205, and yesterday promised to double the budget allocation of the country's environmental protection agencies, a promise to say the least questionable if one takes into account that in 2021 those organizations have the lowest budget in history.
Equally speculating was the intervention of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who made an emotional call for global cooperation although, yes, assuming "the differentiated responsibilities" of each country.
responsibilities that mean that China will continue to increase its emissions until 2030, as planned.
Because, obviously, Beijing has money to launch astronauts into space, to annex the South China Sea, to threaten to invade Taiwan, or to build nuclear aircraft carriers.
But not to curb your charcoal consumption.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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