Living in a New Climate
Bandung (ANTARA) – The flash flood on the Nepal-China border on 26 August is further evidence that people on Earth are now living in a new climate. The Earth’s climate has truly changed.
Experts from various disciplines have long predicted that rising surface temperatures would bring more disasters, from floods and droughts to fires far larger than those seen when the climate was still considered normal.
A “normal” climate refers to the Earth’s surface temperatures before industrialisation. The global climate agreement currently in force is the Paris Agreement, under which the aim is to keep the rise in the Earth’s surface temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the safe limit. At the very least, it should not exceed two degrees, to prevent the planet from reaching a critical state.
The incident on the Nepal-China border once again shows that efforts to keep global temperatures within the ideal range have already been lost. Or, in more optimistic terms, it should serve as a reminder that the campaign to improve the climate must be pursued with far greater determination.
The long journey of global climate policy began with the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. That historic meeting produced the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Its main goal was to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to prevent dangerous disruption to the climate. The initial commitments were voluntary, with few penalties for countries that increased their emissions.
In 1997, world leaders tried to strengthen climate protection through the Kyoto Protocol, which required developed countries to cut emissions. But the effort fell apart after the United States rejected it.
When the Kyoto Protocol was adopted, the US accounted for 25 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Without its participation, the protocol was effectively powerless.
The rejection weakened political commitment and prompted developing countries such as India and China to resist curbing their emissions.
The breakdown of the agreement’s idealised plan was compounded by the frequent misuse of carbon-market mechanisms as little more than a means of trading pollution permits.
Major industrialised countries continued using fossil fuels without meaningful energy transformation. They bought carbon credits as though buying permission to pollute.
After the Kyoto period ended, global emissions instead soared to new record highs. This failure showed that past climate diplomacy prioritised each country’s economic interests over the safety of the planet.
The fears have become reality. The Earth has entered a hotter new climate.