emmott38_MANDEL NGANAFP via Getty Images_bidenxi

Crises cruéis

Dec 14, 2021 Bill Emmott

LONDRES – Aqueles que estão desapontados com os resultados inconclusivos da reunião sobre as alterações climáticas da COP26, a recente cimeira virtual do presidente dos EUA, Joe Biden, e do presidente chinês, Xi Jinping, ou os esforços para alcançar a igualdade nas vacinas contra a COVID-19 precisam de acordar para o mundo em que vivemos. Nas atuais circunstâncias, a governação global certamente irá desiludir.

Num novo relatório, intitulado Our Global Condition, eu e os meus colegas da Comissão Global de Política Pós-Pandemia atribuímos essas dificuldades ao facto de estarmos nas garras não de uma, mas de quatro crises. O único caminho a seguir é reconhecer as ligações entre saúde pública planetária, alterações climáticas, declínio da confiança pública e legitimidade democrática, e instabilidade geopolítica. Estas questões estão interligadas. Tratá-las como campos de ação separados não nos levará a lugar nenhum.

As tensões que o ambiente sofre aumentam a probabilidade de doenças zoonóticas se propagarem aos humanos e se tornarem pandemias. Por conseguinte, as tensões sociais, políticas e económicas introduzidas por uma pandemia estimulam atitudes e comportamentos que prejudicam a solidariedade social, tornando mais difícil para os governos garantir apoio público para assegurar fortes medidas de descarbonização. Em países e sistemas políticos onde a confiança nas instituições e na autoridade da competência foi prejudicada pelo legado da crise financeira de 2008 e pelo crescimento das redes sociais, lidar com novas crises continua a ser uma luta árdua.

We hope you're enjoying Project Syndicate.

To continue reading and receive unfettered access to all content, subscribe now.

Unlock additional commentaries for FREE by registering.

Already have an account? Log in

Support High-Quality Commentary

For more than 25 years, Project Syndicate has been guided by a simple credo: All people deserve access to a broad range of views by the world's foremost leaders and thinkers on the issues, events, and forces shaping their lives. At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, that mission is more important than ever – and we remain committed to fulfilling it.

But there is no doubt that we, like so many other media organizations nowadays, are under growing strain. If you are in a position to support us, please subscribe now.

As a subscriber, you will enjoy unlimited access to our On Point suite of long reads, book reviews, and insider interviews; Big Picture topical collections; Say More contributor interviews; Opinion Has It podcast features; The Year Ahead magazine, the full PS archive, and much more. You will also directly support our mission of delivering the highest-quality commentary on the world's most pressing issues to as wide an audience as possible.

By helping us to build a truly open world of ideas, every PS subscriber makes a real difference. Thank you.

Subscribe Now

new comment has been posted. new comments have been posted.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 2 Comments on this article

Tony Ph Dec 30, 2021

global wealth distribution is too slant and still continue exacerbating, is it not a major crisis?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Mirek Fatyga Dec 16, 2021

It is curious, though common, that this article does not mention the primary intertwined crisis: the world population.

The population of the world nearly tripled in my lifetime. This rather rapid population growth is neither good nor bad, but it has very clear consequences.

If one wanted to extend North American oil consumption per capita to 8 billion people, the world oil production would have to increase by ~600%. To the EU level, by ~300%. This is just one resource.

It is not that this population cannot be ultimately accommodated. It probably can be. But it can be said without hesitation that the pace of population growth outran the capability of present day industrial civilization to accommodate. Major changes are required and cut and paste will not work.

While these changes are occurring, there are tensions. Downward pressure on living standards in the developed world, invisible lid on the development in the developing world. Both lead to a varying degree of social frustration and destabilization.

This is why COP26 had to fail and future COPs will fail as well. Asking developing countries to abandon fossil fuels means asking them to stay poor. In fact, Western Left may face some charges that it is thoroughly unfamiliar with, namely engaging in neo-colonialism. Trying to force the developing world to limit the use of fossil fuels and stay poor, while the West continues to use them and stays rich, since democratic forces will give a boot to politicians that do not react to declining standards of living.

All of this would be perhaps justified if there was some sort of planetary emergency related to carbon dioxide. But there is none. There is essentially zero evidence outside of computer models that carbon dioxide is the primary driver of the climate change. The assumption that it is the primary driver is forcibly implanted into the models through a factor called climate sensitivity. Such models are useless as a predictive tool, and socially dangerous if taken seriously.

One cannot reform governance if the reform is based on false representation of the actual world, thought up in elite echo chambers. This gets even worse if the elites can be shown to personally benefit, aka get rich, from the narrative.

The greatest imperative is to return to sobriety and honesty:

1. Oil, among other resources, is not just running out. It has run out already. Under the rosiest scenarios of oil production there is not enough oil to accommodate 8 billion people into decent standards of living.

2. The West has to start moving away from fossil fuels because of (1), not imaginary global warming.

3. During the transition period it is critical to maintain the production of fossil fuels. Politically motivated suppression of fossil fuels production will lead to an energy crisis which will deepen social instability. Living people cannot be parked on the shelves, waiting for times to improve. Destabilized society falls apart and times never improve, or improve only after much bloodshed, this time around with nukes in hand on day one.

4. If the energy crisis in (3) is explained by claims of planetary catastrophe that is not really in evidence, Elites will further loose their credibility and social instability will deepen. Democracies may finally fall.

5. In fact, (4) has already happened to a considerable degree. Right wing has been saying, for quite some time, that global warming theory is really an instrument of social control in furtherance of the goals of dismantling free markets and the Capitalism in general. Public health measures due to Covid19 have been interpreted in the same light. Much of the resistance to public health measures and the vaccine comes from this conviction. If you don't believe me, go to the websites and see for yourselves. It is, actually, a rather convincing narrative. What is worse, it is not just propaganda. There is an element of truth in it.

So, before you devise new governance structures in your think tanks, behind closed doors, let us, please endeavor to return to reality and, first and foremost, honesty.

Shall we?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.

https://prosyn.org/l7k7qXEpt

Crises cruéis

To continue reading and receive unfettered access to all content, subscribe now.

Support High-Quality Commentary

New Comment

Email this piece to a friend

Contact us

Log in/Register

Crises cruéis

To continue reading and receive unfettered access to all content, subscribe now.

Support High-Quality Commentary

Edit Newsletter Preferences

Set up Notification