31 December 2023
It is very easy to sign off with a note of optimism in usual times. However, the previous days that club to become this 2023 have been any thing but usual. In 2022, no one thought that Ukraine would continue to be on the boiler, but now we face the opening up of a second front in the Middle East which now threatens to become wider involving Ansar Allah and the US Navy with two helicopter gunships downing the dinghies that ferry these insurgents who are trying to choke the Red Sea, a few hours ago, even as this 2023 draws to a close in this part of the world. This was apparently American retaliation for an attack with missiles on a Maersk Shipping vessel in this channel.
From 2020, when briefly the Covid 19 Pandemic forced humans to step back and shutter themselves, the cause for climate action has only seen a steady erosion due to diversions and distractions that the human race has witnessed. It would seem prophetic actually that the last great plague to hit us, the Spanish Flu Pandemic was also in the concurrent shadow of a epoch of conflict, the terrible World War I and so it appears that we are condemned to follow suit now as well. First there was the Drone War of Nagorno Karabakh, then came Ukraine and now Gaza. Even before any of these gets wound up, Senator Lindsay Graham says on Fox News that the time has come to wipe Iran off the map!
Remember those images, videos of ducks and dolphins reclaiming our beaches and rivers, the gondolas of Venice were berthed, the ships were off the coasts, the factories emitted no smoke and the clear blue sky reclaimed our city canopies? It showed us a possibility of how our Earth would reclaim the spaces once humans withdrew and dramatically in that brief period of lockdowns. Now the biggest casualty post the official close of this pandemic has been Climate Action. All efforts to meet Climate Targets were promptly shunted, pushed further down the road, while scientists braced for a 1.5 degree rise in global average temperature that could cause an perceptible increase in sea levels and loss of coastal areas. NASA has run a veritable scenario game of sorts as described in this webpage of how the 1.5'er will affect us all, from climate as in bearable weather, to water availability to agricultural output to coastal and riverine biodiversity and over all losses of what we have taken for granted as our Ecosystem.
The problem is how our politics is run largely by executive fiat. Democracy is now sidestepped by a bureaucratic web, that has led to Secretary of State Blinken bypass Congress for transferring munitions and armaments to Israel. The edifice of government has become unhinged every where, not just in USA, because of a narrative of compulsion that questions the key assumptions which predicated human progress- justice, equality, liberty, which heralded our commons from the French Revolution. In the name of some not so obvious common good, we have seen the Democratic Alliance of the West lead the world into conflict through Ukraine and now Israel and the scope of this engulfing the Pacific through Taiwan has only grown with each passing week. This contestation with Russia in Europe, with China in Asia Pacific has meant that the biggest loser has become Climate Action. In Ukraine, we just barely escaped Nuclear spills and suffered one hydroelectric dam burst the effects of which will be felt for decades in what was once the 'granary of Europe and Africa'. The conflict has now reached a stage where even if Ukrainian leadership and Russian leadership would want to reconcile in the future, the seeds of these 24 months of attritional warfare dubbed ' meat grinder' would not allow non Russian Ethnic Ukrainians to have a rapprochement with Russians, ethnic and by nationality for the next hundred years. The recent shelling in Belgorod that killed children and civilians who were celebrating Yuletide is a grim reminder to Russia that the buffer it needs from Ukraine could not end with just the West Bank of the Dnieper River. That may be it would end only when Ukraine is only on Western maps and not an entity to the West of Russian mainland? Exactly this is what escalatory cycle by which the NATO is arming Ukraine with more lethal and more long range weaponry is doing- ridding Russia of choices and the space for diplomatic resolution of this conflict.
As long as Russia Ukraine war continues, the EU is going to use wood chips, coal and petroleum for its heating, for its energy and import costlier LNG from its transAtlantic partner which will affect the bottom line of EU manufacturing. At its heart, EU manufacturing was the first with the best bet of a zero carbon footprint, innovative and recycling, with clear sustainability goals. These are now lost for the near future. The re-wilding will now be under pressure as more citizens seek wood to keep themselves warm in winter, particularly those in rural and semi urban clusters. The Russian grain guarantee to Africa, the pushing out of French influence from African Sahel and the renewed pressure to mine mineral resources in Africa will now see lesser and slimmer prospects for enlightened citizens to intervene and enforce sustainability and reduce their environmental impact, exactly because Europe which led the global action on these fronts will now carry lesser importance in Africa.
The War is fought through a hybrid mix of conventional and non conventional matrix, as it advances closer toward China. Till date the Chinese have cleverly stood behind the Russians and sound very concerned Global Leaders even as they do every thing in their power to weaken Europe and America. Americans have done equally so. And in this competition also dubbed the New Cold War, the biggest loser is Climate Action. Soon we will hear calls for restoring American manufacturing, and this last decade has already seen the emergence of the weakest EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) since it was founded. If Trump Presidency was wrecking havoc by repealing clean power generation laws of the Obama Presidency, Biden Presidency has been accused of all manner of concessions to the Republican Right Wing Neocons to get financial bills passed by Congress and avoid debt ceiling crises. The truth is actually more nuanced. The US in a bid to restart its manufacturing would wind up repealing most of the progressive legal provisions that helped heal her rivers and soils, her woodlands and lakes. Further with the outfall of the Arab and Oil Exporting countries now from American influence, the OPEC Plus will force the US to reduce import of cleaner fossil fuel sources and opt for renewed cracking or offshore drilling or prospect in Alaska, each of which can be detrimental to the global environment.
If China and Thailand open the Kra Isthmus by a land bridge this project too will have its carbon footprint and environmental cost. The Chinese and Thai appear to have largely accepted that a canal over the isthmus is not as feasible as a multi modal land bridge with rail and road connectivity that would include High Speed Rail for freight. This is because of largely strategic concerns that the Malacca straits would be choked to contain China at the advent of hostilities over South China Sea or Taiwan or both in the larger game of Thucydides Trap between the USA and China.
Amidst grieving mothers and fathers in Gaza who have lost thousands of their children in these 90 days, the world seems to have found a champion in South Africa that has taken Israel to the International Court of Justice over 'genocide'. The rallies in Western cities and towns over weekends have continued that demand a ceasefire in Gaza. However the salience that environmental causes had before the Pandemic of 2020 is now gone completely. The urgency to ban single use plastics, to recycle batteries and smart device components, to protect raw open mining for rare earths that smart devices cannot do without, the words 'sustainable, recyclable, biodegradable, green' etc have simply dropped off our dictionaries in 2023.
It is not as if we didn't have extreme weather events in 2023. It is not as if forest fires didn't consume us the way it did before 2023. It is not that drought, floods, viral outbreaks, respiratory illnesses did not overwhelm our administrations and health care centres in 2023. It is just that humans witnessed more voluntary harm to humans in 2023 than they did in 2020, 2021, and 2022. So now war weary and resource challenged, humans are dreading a further withering of resolve to address key Planet Issues of Climate Challenge in 2024 as well. While we can transfer monetary debts for future generations to bail out our present, how to we propose to make that future possible for these future generations in the first place? Without an earth that can sustain human life for our billions, without us being water or air challenged, without us suffering chronic malnutrition, how do we on earth hope that our future generations will grow more prosperous and pay off our debts?
2024 rings in with bleak prospects. Not because we don't know what needs to be done, not because we don't know largely how to do them, but because we are preset with engagements that distract from the health of our Lonely Planet, our Pale Blue Dot... It seems like the distracted child is busy using an eraser to rub off our presence...and eager parents that we are, we are cheering the effort!
No comments:
Post a Comment