US absence and wars cast dark clouds over international climate talks

Washington: Political leaders and experts from almost 200 countries are meeting in Turkey this week for yet another attempt for global action to cut down on the use of fossil fuel that cause global warming. Absent again: an official delegation from the United States, which for years has pumped more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other country.

The lack of an official American presence at the gathering came as no surprise. U.S. President Donald Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and sustainable energy policies a “con job driven by stupid people”. He has voiced particular anger over wind-generated energy, saying the noise from windmills causes cancer.

America’s absence can be seen as evidence that Trump, whose Republican Party lost control over Congress last week in a crushing defeat, will not change his foreign policies in the final two years of his term. As a “lame duck”, his domestic agenda is likely to run into a wall of resistance from the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and Senate, but there will be few constraints over foreign policy initiatives.

Even apart from Trump as a serious roadblock for climate success, there is no room for optimism that COP 31 will produce a breakthrough where previous meetings of the Conference of Parties (COP) failed. The meeting on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast comes at a time when a combination of events makes arguments for cleaner emissions difficult.

Trump’s war of choice on Iran and the shortages resulting from Iran’s closure of the Straits of Hormuz has nations around the world scrambling for oil and firing up coal plants to meet sharply rising demand for power to satisfy the need from Artificial Intelligence projects.

Keenly aware that climate change has dropped close to the bottom of priorities in most countries, the first two days of the 12-day meeting featured a novel argument for decisive action for a shift to renewable energy. It would bring down the cost of living, COP leaders say.

Simon Stiell, head of the UN's climate office, said, "Today, chaos in global energy markets and climate disasters are supercharging inflation, slamming government budgets, pushing household bills up and living standards down.” The political costs of fossil fuel dependency are unforgiving. Climate action can help relieve the pressures."

COP31’s goal is very ambitious: electrify more than a third of the global economy by 2035. It stands at round a fifth today – in other words, huge progress would be needed in the next decade.

You have to be an optimist to believe that the necessary reduction in the use of fuel-powered vehicles, cook stoves, furnaces, boilers and a variety of other greenhouse gas emitting equipment could happen by 2035.

There is, of course, the possibility that the staggering cost of natural disasters caused by changes in normal climate patterns will help to convince even staunch opponents that moving away from fossil fuel would be a net economic benefit.

In the U.S. for example, disastrous floods have become more frequent, and television images of houses ripped from their foundations and swept away have become familiar – as have dramatic rescues by helicopter of people sitting on top of their cars stuck in deep water.

Cumulative inflation-adjusted costs for all U.S. weather and climate events tracked by Climate Central, a non-profit based in Princeton and run by scientists, surpassed $3.3 billion this year.

The United States was not the only country hit by severe weather events. In Asia, the list includes India, Nepal, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Japan. In Europe, France, Spain, Greece, Switzerland and Britain suffered heatwaves, droughts, floods and wildfires estimated to result in what officials call 30,000 “preliminary excess deaths.”

Spain was hit by severe flash floods, Turkey and Greece were plagued by dangerous heavy rainfall, and extreme temperature swings.

Africa and the Middle East were not spared, with deadly floods the most devastating natural disasters. In the Americas, Bolivia declared a national state of emergency due to severe droughts.

Developing countries suffer most from the continued global reliance on fossil fuel. “Three-quarters of humanity live in countries that import fossil fuels, hostage to price shocks they did not create and cannot control," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his opening speech.

Recent conflicts make clear that this is a recipe for chronic insecurity and a cost-of-living meltdown. The clear solution is a shift to renewable energy.