Rich countries not doing enough to tackle climate change

Rich countries are still not doing enough to tackle climate change. From the current point of view it looks like the world leaders still hope for some kind of miracle that will drive climate change away but sadly "a miracle to save the day" doesn't look like the possible scenario. The obvious truth is that without the strict and legally binding climate deal that would oblige countries to drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions very little (if anything) can be done to tackle climate change.

Politicians on the other hand do not look to be to much concerned about what is going to happen to our future climate. I mean who cares whether our future generations will struggle to survive or not because of our mistakes when there's so many bigger questions that need to be resolved, like for instance where do we go this year on holidays?

This world is so selfish, and each person looks only for its interests, thinking only about current good times, and not thinking about the heritage we will live to our children and grandchildren. If climate change continue to further strengthen its impact how will our future look like? Do we really want to make a life as hard as possible for our future generations, and why in the God's name do we care so little for our planet?

Rich countries have all the power in the world but yet they are acting as if climate change is somebody else's problem. They still fail to see that climate change is global problem that will affect all countries, and thus the petty differences between developed and developing countries are not the right reason to delay new climate deal agreement.

In the last year or so I have been increasingly frustrated with these differences between developed and developing countries that look to be the main obstacle towards the new climate deal. Global problem like climate change requires global responsibility, and global responsibility requires more flexibility from both parties.

Can world finally act as one?

Climate law this year - Likely or unlikely?

Will Congress pass this year new climate legislation? Difficult to tell, and based on previous experiences it is perhaps wise not to expect miracles. In any case, changes are coming too slow, and legislators still look to be kind of afraid with the fact that this new climate bill could hurt domestic industry.

I do not look at climate change issue in that way. New climate deal will perhaps have some short-term negative consequences for domestic industry but on the long run we could actually see some economic benefits. Of course, in order to achieve this U.S. will have to fully reshape nation’s economic, environmental and legal standards.

There are many political analysts who believe that new climate bill take plenty of dramatic twists and turns, and that President Obama will have to increase its efforts by pushing Congress to come up with the adequate climate legislation.

Industry won't sit back and wait, and they will probably use their huge influence on politics to challenge every single climate change legislation that they do not like.

The role of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will also be one of the key battles. Will EPA be able to regulate the emissions under the Clean Air Act? Many expect that there'll be long legal fight, and the winner is still uncertain (though odds are in favor of EPA, especially after the Supreme Court upheld the EPA’s authority to regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide in 2007).

One thing is sure though, expect lot of political turmoil, promises, excuses, delays, you know the usual political stuff. And don't be surprised if everything once again ends up with huge disappointment. After all we are talking about climate change issue, and up to this point, climate change was only connected with huge failures, both on domestic as well as on international level.

Can we fix climate with geoengineering?

Since world leaders still cannot agree on how will new climate deal look like there is increased number of scientists who believe that we should give geoengineering a shot. The simplest geoengineering definition would be injecting sunlight-reflecting gases (aerosols) into the upper atmosphere to counteract the effects of global warming from greenhouse gas emissions.

Can geoengineering really turn out to be a right solution for climate change? Well, if are to believe the latest study from Kate Ricke, a climate physicist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and her colleagues then the answer is no it can't.

This group of scientists has concluded that using geoengineering to counteract climate change effect isn't connected with certain outcomes because not only could solar-radiation management lead to declines in rainfall in the long term, but geoengineering effects would also very likely vary by region, meaning that some places would likely be over-cooled by atmospheric changes that are on the other hand too small to be effective for their neighbors.

Scientists believe that geoengineering supporters do not take regional effects into consideration when discussing this topic. According to Ricke's modelling, levels of sulphate that kept China closest to its original climate were so high that they made India cold and wet. Those that were best for India caused China to overheat. In other words what's good enough for my neighbor doesn't have to be also good enough for me.

The scientists have also concluded that these effects tend to worsen even further over long-time periods, and as Ricke concluded "the longer you do it, the more imperfect it becomes".

Thus, Ricke and her colleagues concluded that geoengineering is at best temporary solution against climate change, even more temporary than some scientists had expected.

Are we still blind to see the climate change?

The recent reports say that global temperatures in the first half of the year were the hottest since records began, and this is a clear indicator which shows the strengthening of climate change impact. This however doesn't look to be giving lot of sleepless nights to politicians because global climate deal is still far, far away.

Rich countries protect their own interests, developing countries feel like rich countries should do much more than they propose to do, and the result of this is one big nothing, just another disappointing delay.

Both rich and poor countries fear that climate deal might slow down their economic development by hurting competitiveness of their domestic industries on global level. The sad truth about our civilization is the fact that despite living in the 21st century we still haven't learned one very important thing, namely setting our priorities.

What is bigger priority? Saving our planet or saving our industries? Isn't Earth our only home? If that is the case then saving our planet should be our top priority but sadly when it comes to our planet we seem to be taking everything for granted.

Instead of making everything in our power to protect our planet we only think about how to make more money like having lot of material goods is the ultimate goal of our existence. If this is the case then we really deserve the worst that can happen to us.