OUR prayers and hearts go out to the victims of the unspeakable tragedy at the Resorts World complex last week. There are no words to adequately console and give comfort to those who lost loved ones.
However, we will refrain from speculating on what happened and why until a proper and complete investigation have been made by government authorities and the private sector. We will leave it to others to offer their theories and conclusions based on current information.
Almost simultaneously, President Donald J. Trump in Washington, D.C., was announcing that the United States was withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. The stated aim of this global agreement is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels…recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that all the environmental concerns for the Paris Accord are valid. This agreement is based on the groundwork of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol Treaty, which the US also rejected raising the same global anger as now.
In his speech, Trump said: “For example, under the agreement, China will be able to increase these emissions by a staggering number of years, 13 [until 2030]. They can do whatever they want for 13 years. China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So, we can’t build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement. India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. We’re supposed to get rid of ours. Even Europe is allowed to continue construction of coal plants”.
The US opted out of the Kyoto Protocol because both China and India were excluded from the protocol requirements as they were “developing” economies. The per-capita economic output for China and India in 1997 was $1,800 and $650, respectively. Today, those numbers are $6,500—a 260-percent increase—and $1,750, a 170-percent gain. Interestingly, to get the US onboard, it too was “excluded” from the requirements as long as the financial commitments were met.
Further, the Paris Agreement assumes that the countries that do most of the polluting—China, the US, India, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Indonesia and Australia—will eventually and voluntarily reduce carbon pollution without any binding enforcement mechanism or specific penalty or fiscal pressure to discourage bad behavior.
In 1928 the Kellogg-Briand Pact—also known as the “Paris Pact”—was signed by members who promised not to use war to resolve “disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them.” That agreement is still in force with the nation of Barbados finally signing in 1971. In some ways, it was effective. Cuba was one of the original signatories and they never went to war against a neighbor since then.
Actually, it would probably be in the best interest of the Philippines for the Paris Agreement to push through as the Green Climate Fund could provide billions of dollars to “poor developing countries” like the Philippines.
But what if the Paris Agreement signatories got serious and decided that all nations “cut domestic greenhouse-gas emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025” as former President Obama pledged the US would do? The demand for Filipino workers who could build nipa huts would increase significantly. To misquote US President Gerald Ford, “A global government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have”.
1 comment
Always thinking of the PH as a poor country? Well, the people aspiration is to improve our economy from where it is now. If we work together for a better PH am sure we can get there. No good simply fitting in to a label.