Countries rushing to replace Russia’s import of energy sources such as gas and oil with any fossil fuel alternative could end up accelerating the “mutually assured destruction” of the world through climate change, warned the secretary-general of UN, António Guterres, this Monday (21).
For him, the strategy of the main powers to seek all possible energy options to end the import of fossil fuels from Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine could kill hopes of keeping global warming under control. He claimed that the world was “walking like a sleepwalker towards climate catastrophe”.
“Countries could become so consumed by the short-term gap in fossil fuel supplies that they would neglect or bring to their knees policies to reduce the use of fossil fuels,” he said in a video at an event in London organized by The Economist magazine. “This is crazy. Fossil fuel addiction is mutually assured destruction.”
Mutually assured destruction is a concept borrowed from military doctrine, which describes the situation where two enemies have enough nuclear bombs to destroy each other and therefore may choose not to use them.
Germany, one of Russia’s biggest energy buyers, plans to increase its purchases of oil from the Gulf and accelerate the construction of terminals at seaports to receive liquefied natural gas. But the country also seeks to accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources.
In the United States, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said earlier this month that the war in Ukraine had been a reason for American oil and gas producers “to look for more supplies in our own country”.
For Guterres, “instead of stopping the decarbonization of the global economy, now is the time to accelerate towards a future of renewable energy”.
Rich vs Emerging Countries
The UN secretary-general nominally criticized Australia and “a handful of resistant” for not having presented “significant” plans to cut emissions, and pointed out that countries such as China, India and Indonesia, as well as other “emerging economies”, have more difficult to make ambitious commitments due to their development needs and economic structures.
He further stated that rich countries should offer money, technology and knowledge to support these emerging economies in giving up coal. “Our planet can’t afford to watch a climate blame game. We can’t just point fingers while our planet burns.” The G20 countries account for about 80% of the emissions that cause the greenhouse effect.
Guterres defended that developed countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) stop using coal by 2030, and all other countries in the world by 2040. China and India, which are heavily dependent on this source of energy, resist to commit to the goal of restricting warming to 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era. China, however, has committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, and India by 2070.
1.5 degree target “breathe through appliances”
The UN chief’s comments came as scientists from the IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) began a two-week meeting to finalize their latest report on global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A separate report released in February found that half of humanity is already at serious risk from climate change, and that share will increase with every tenth of a degree warmer.
Guterres said the Paris climate accord’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C was “breathing for appliances” because countries weren’t doing enough to reduce emissions. Meeting this target would require a 45% reduction in emissions by 2030, and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, according to the IPCC.
With temperatures already about 1.2 degrees Celsius higher now than before industrialization, meeting the Paris target would require a 45% cut in global emissions by 2030, he said.
But after a drop in emissions in 2020, in the first year of the pandemic, they started to grow again last year. “If we continue with more of the same, we can say goodbye to 1.5 degrees,” he said. “Even 2 degrees could be out of range. And that would be catastrophic.”
