It is hardly a coincidence that they go together in the climate change issue, the united states, saudi Arabia and Russia. These three countries placed first, second, and third in the list of the world’s largest producers of climate villain number one, fossil fuels.
These three oljejättar – with assistance from Kuwait, another on the top ten list – marked in the middle of the summit remotely to the latest report from the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change. The report had warned of serious consequences in the event of a rise in temperature of over 1.5 degrees, but these four states did not agree that the meeting would “welcome” the report’s conclusions, but only that it should ”be noted”.
, a columnist in the New York Times, Monday baptize these countries of the ”axis of evil”, a nod to the original “Axis of Evil” as George w. Bush pointed out in 2002: Iraq, Iran and north Korea.
Whether the new klimatförnekande axis will run the rope out to stop a decision to raise the ambitions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases is difficult to predict, according to the experts I ask in Katowice.
A european diplomat said that the strong voices – mainly in the united states and saudi Arabia, but now also in Brazil – is out to undermine the international process.
, and the wavering between supporting climate change and that, as now in the week, ally themselves with klimatförnekarna.
China, the world’s most populous nation and on the way to go if the united states as the largest economy, emit the most carbon dioxide, but has an ambitious plan to draw down their emissions.
saudi Arabia is playing a more destructive role than is generally acknowledged, ” says the diplomat to the DN. He says he is also surprised by how large the influence of the sunni dictatorship is allowed to get. Saudi arabia is a long-term commitment to sabotage the fight against climate change, he says, but whether it is due mainly to the moons if its petroleum based power or of ideological-religious motives he will let be unsaid.
authoritarian-controlled regimes in Riyadh and Moscow have not much in common ideologically, but they find each other in the resistance against the western democracy as against environmental restrictions against fossil energy sources. Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Vladimir Putin is also in the same rickety boat through the accusations for the political murder of dissidents in the rest of the world. A community in which they manifested by a hearty high-five greeting at the G20 summit last week.
president of the united states Donald Trump has, for its part, said that he does not ”believe in” the unanimous scientific warnings of global warming.
But the US is not an indivisible whole, and it shows here in Katowice.
the ordinary american negotiating delegation from the state department to work in a constructive manner, according to informed analysts.
He believes that the official the united states is a ”spoiler”. But under the radar continues the delegates to work for the united states will have lost all influence in the day, Trump is out of the picture.
On the other side is in the White house, broadcast, as in the beginning of the week, arranged a side event where the message was “no to climate alarmism”. One speaker said that “the united states should not sacrifice its economic growth through agri-environment measures”. The setting is fully in line with the Trumps tributes to the “beautiful, clean coal”.
to fossil fuels was mentioned at all, while nuclear energy was highlighted as a good complement to coal, gas and oil.
In this situation, suspended the speaker of a loud hånskratt from a hundred protesters in the audience, went out in the cry: ”Leave the coal in the ground!”
There is also another America, on the climate summit, inter alia, is represented by the group “We are still in”, a coalition of u.s. political leaders, business leaders, and universities who oppose the united states turns its back to the international community’s efforts to tackle climate change.
that you do not accept Trump’s decision to take the united states out of the paris agreement.
Lou Leonard, active in the group and the climate chief at the world wildlife fund (WWF) notes that the USA’s actions have weakened the administration’s credibility on climate issues.
” We represent a very large part of american society, many states and half of AMERICA’s population and gross domestic product. And we are actively discussing with other countries ‘governments and tell them that California has set a target of becoming carbon-neutral by the year 2050,” he says.
is that despite Trump’s kampanjande of the carbon so as to reduce the use of coal in the united states at the same rate as it did under Obama. There are two reasons for the decline: Coal is becoming less competitive, and at the same time some of Obama’s environmental rules – those that are not climate-related – yet in force.
thus, It is possible to be an optimist, says Lou Leonard. An example of this is that during the last four years, the largest part of the new energy capacity in the united states come from renewable sources.
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