The irony of climate change

Two of the countries most affected by global warming are also two of the countries with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per person in the world: Nepal and Bangladesh. It is a bitter irony that these countries suffer the consequences of what we do in the west – Nepal’s Himalayan glaciers are already retreating at alarming rates and weather patterns have started to change, in particular the timing and severity of the all-important monsoon. Bangladesh, essentially the world’s largest delta is set to be submerged by even minimal rises in sea level, not to mention the cyclone prone area being subject to ever more violent and damaging storms.

Living in Kathmandu one can experience first hand the effects of climate change. Nepal’s primary electricity source is hydroelectricity: renewable, clean and carbon neutral but unfortunately renewable energy sources like this have already fallen victim to global warming, due to changing weather patterns there is less snow in the Himalaya this year and therefore less water in Nepal’s mighty rivers (despite increased melting of the glaciers), not enough to meet the energy supply of the capital and therefore power cuts have been increased from two hours a day to six hours a day. Nepal’s environmentally friendly solutions are thwarted by western greed, ignorance and apathy as people are forced to run petrol driven generators that churn filthy fumes into the air.

The Himalaya supply water to around one third of the world’s population: most of China, India and Bangladesh (as well as Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan) and shrinking glaciers and decreases in precipitation during the dry season threaten not only the electricity supply but also the access to water for these peoples. In Bangladesh the government has banned plastic bags, the vehicles in the vast city of Dhaka are banned from running on petrol and instead are driven on the more environmentally friendly LPG (liquid petroleum gas) or other alternatives – but to what avail if the country is doomed to an underwater fate because of the west?

Nepal is home to some 30 million people, Bangladesh is the eight largest country in the world and the most densely populated with around 150 million inhabitants whose fate and that of tens of third world countries lies in our hands.

American kowtowing to vested interests and corporate greed, the blinkered Chinese worship of the consumer society and European unwillingness to accept responsibility will be the death of us all. Copenhagen was more than a failure it was probably the greatest tragedy in history – never before has a species knowingly chosen its own extinction. Nothing short of a radical shift in economic policy and an acknowledgement of global social responsibility would have been a satisfactory outcome and that was never on the cards. A social and economic revolution on a global scale is the only means of saving the planet and implementing the necessary measures required to stem climate change. Everyone must take action individually and collectively and every government must make the tough decisions that prioritise the future of the people. If they fail to do so then citizens have a duty to take to the streets and cripple the apathetic establishment.

But what signals are necessary to compel people into action, have we not seen enough evidence already? Perhaps we are suffering from a collective denial so great that we are truly blind or is there an invisible greater Darwinian force guiding us to extinction in order to preserve the rest of the planet?

The recent cold spell in Europe is nothing compared to the weather they will experience when (not if) the gulf stream is stopped in its tracks by climate change, I just hope it happens sooner rather than later in order to give the rest of the world a chance of survival.