[ad_1]
WASHINGTON – One day after the announcement by the United Nations of its most urgent call to arms for the world to deal with the threat of climate change, President Trump embarked on Air Force One for Florida, a state directly on the trajectory of this future calamity. nothing says about it.
This was the last most striking example of Mr. Trump's dissent on an effort that had galvanized much of the world. While the United Nations warned of widespread forest fires, food shortages and coral reefs dying as early as 2040, Trump spoke of the success of his battle in the Supreme Court rather than the way in which the high seas already flood Miami in sunny weather.
The president's isolation is not limited to the world: in California, New York, Massachusetts and other states, governments and businesses are advancing regulation and technological innovation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse.
This rising militancy is a source of hope for those who have been witnessing desperation since last year, when Mr. Trump said that he would withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement on the climate. But experts say it does not replace the world's largest economy and the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide, giving up the fight.
"There is a huge imbalance between the White House and everyone else," said Johan Rockström, director of the Institute for Climate Impact Research in Potsdam, Germany. "The leaders in Washington are really going against the whole agenda."
The UN report paints a much more alarming picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought, and says that avoiding such damage requires transforming the global economy at a speed and speed. unprecedented scale documented.
It describes a world of worsening food shortages and poverty; no more wildfires; and a massive disappearance of coral reefs by 2040 – a period well understood in the life of a large part of the world population.
Among climate change scientists, there was a growing concern that Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which initially appeared to be a solitary defiance, might encourage other countries to leave as well.
The announcement made by Trump last year prompted the other 194 signatory countries to show their solidarity, not to mention American political and economic leaders who rallied under the slogan "We are still here!" . But for populists like Mr Bolsonaro, Mr Trump's demands for the United States to benefit from a better deal could be attractive.
"To the extent that we get these populist, so-called nationalist and narrow-minded leaders, we could have a big problem," he said. John P. Holdren, who was senior scientific advisor to President Barack Obama. "Brazil, with its huge area of forests, will suffer terribly from climate change."
Beyond the domino effect, Holdren, who is now a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, said what he called "the waste of American leadership on an acute global problem" would have an immediate cost.
Mr. Trump, who has made fun of the science of climate change caused by humans, has reduced the US contribution to a global fund that supports efforts to mitigate climate change and reduce climate change. assistance in developing countries to one billion dollars. He has tried to reduce government funding for climate research – an effort that Congress has so far resisted.
The White House has not publicly responded to the UN report released Monday in South Korea at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists gathered by the United Nations to guide world leaders.
"Not today," said Bill Shine, director of communications at the White House. "It's a Kavanaugh night."
After returning to Trump, Florida, on Monday in Orlando, Florida, where he spoke at a meeting of police chiefs and referring to the hurricane that is now approaching this state, he attended a ceremony at the White House seeking to swear Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as deputy judge of The Supreme Court.
Following the ceremony, Lindsay E. Walters, Deputy Press Secretary, said: "The United States is the world leader in providing affordable, abundant and safe energy to our citizens, while protecting the environment and reducing emissions through creative job innovations. "
She noted that carbon dioxide emissions have decreased by 14% in the United States between 2005 and 2017, while they have increased by 21% worldwide during the same period.
On Saturday, a US delegation to South Korea joined more than 180 countries to accept the report's summary for policymakers, but a statement from the State Department added that this "does not imply that the United States agrees with the specific conclusions or the underlying content of the report. report."
The report "is shocking and a source of worry," said Bill Hare, author of the previous reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Physicist of Climate Analytics, an organization with non-profit. "We were not aware of this a few years ago."
The authors found that if greenhouse gas emissions continued at the current rate, the atmosphere would warm up to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.5 degrees Celsius, more than pre-industrial levels from here 2040.
The Paris agreement aims to prevent global warming by more than 3.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels – long regarded as a threshold for the most severe social and economic damage caused by climate change. But the leaders of small island nations, fearing rising sea levels, had also asked scientists to look at the effects of 2.7 degrees warming.
Without aggressive action, many effects expected by scientists will occur by 2040, and at the lowest temperature, the report says.
"This tells us that we need to reverse the emissions trends and revitalize the global economy," said Myles Allen, a climatologist from Oxford University and author of the report.
According to the report, greenhouse gas emissions are to be reduced by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and by 100% by 2050. It has also been established that the greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and by 100% by 2050. use of coal as a source of electricity is expected to increase by almost 40%. per cent today at 1 to 7 per cent by 2050.
"This report clearly shows that it is impossible to mitigate climate change without removing coal," said Drew Shindell, a climatologist at Duke University and author of the report. Mr. Trump is committed to increasing the burning of coal.
"It makes me angry when I think of the US government," Shindell said. "My children have the impression that their future is being destroyed." He observed the grounds of his son's high school in Durham, NB, and the roads that surrounded him were flooded. last month after Hurricane Florence.
Dr. Allen said there was little talk of the report being ignored in Washington. "The current administration does not seem to be interested in all this," he said, although he added that as a scientist, he takes a long-term view. term.
"In one way or another," he said, "the facts prevail."
Trump recently encouraged scientists to appoint Kelvin Droegemeier, a respected meteorologist and extreme weather expert, to head the White House's Bureau of Science and Technology Policy. The position was vacant since Mr. Trump took office.
But it is unlikely that Mr Droegemeier will change the president's views on climate change and other influential aides will hardly challenge him.
For example, the Trump administration's anti-terrorism strategy, released last week, makes no mention of climate change as a cause of extremism. The Obama administration has consistently cited it in threat assessments because of its effects on migration and competition for food and water.
"I do not think climate change is a cause of international terrorism," said National Security Councilor John R. Bolton.
However, scientists said they saw some sunlight in the clouds. A democratic takeover of the House would increase the chances that Congress will continue to block cuts in research. And despite his criticism of the Paris deal as "very unfair" to the United States, Mr. Trump left the door open to stay in agreement if conditions were improved.
"I have always been of the opinion that we can really see the United States in the Paris agreement, even under Trump," Rockström said.
Legally, he noted, the United States can not officially withdraw from the pact before 2020 and the terms of the agreement are voluntary.
"He can stay at the White House and develop his own plan," Rockström said.
Report by Mark Landler in Washington and Coral Davenport in Incheon, South Korea. The reports were provided by Somini Sengupta.
