I walked into my brother’s New York apartment after midnight. It was deliciously warm, although nobody had been staying in it for many weeks.
The temperature outside was below seven degrees Celsius. I had been silently dreading entering an icebox, which is what would have greeted me if it were London or most places in Europe.
My misgivings were based on the coldest October I can remember experiencing. During five long weeks in Europe, I never managed to warm up, simply because every building was underheated.
That is not true of New York, and probably nowhere else in the temperate US. How we choose to use Earth’s resources for creature comfort is down to a question of culture and will.
COP29, the 2024 climate summit, ended last week in Baku in Azerbaijan, a country where fossil fuels account for 90 percent of its exports. According to one international broadcast media report, the smell of oil is constantly in the air.
Strange place indeed, then, to host a summit on cutting global carbon emissions, especially since its president refused to discuss reducing production and regards fossil fuels as “a gift from God,” and therefore his country’s divine duty to exploit.
We all know by now that the burning of fossil fuels is the main reason for global warming, which scientists say endangers the planet and many forms of life. God has therefore given us the tool for our own destruction.
Christians believe that He also gave us the will to do the right thing. It seems that we are not keen on exercising that will, even when we are staring the terrible consequences straight in the face.
It amazed me to learn that Azerbaijan itself faces particularly bad times from global warming. It lies on the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water, which is rapidly growing shallow as Russia diverts water upstream from the great Volga River.
And with global warming of two degrees intensifying evaporation, the sea level is expected to drop by 15 metres in 75 years. Not only Azerbaijan’s economy will be affected when its oil rigs and ports get stranded in a shallow sea, but fishing and plant and animal life will be stranded too, assuming life on Earth survives till then and Azerbaijan does not manage to diversify its economy.
The president’s death wish is no more surprising, though, than many other people’s and countries' seem to be. Here we must recognise the tension between the rhetoric of politicians and what is happening on the ground. The latest Global Carbon Budget report suggests carbon emissions rose a record two per cent on 2023’s, driven by fossil-fuel burning, deforestation and wildfires, but the rate at which emissions are rising, overall, is trending downwards, even in China, which generates a third of the global total, and India, too.
We could assume that is due to policies implemented by some government agencies and perhaps the private sector, but it is not enough, say the experts. We have to slam on the brakes to avoid calamity.
How do we each do that when governments speak out of both sides
