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G7
OpinionLetters

LettersWhy less is more for rich nations in battle against climate change

  • The effort to reduce carbon emissions by switching to renewable energy sources is well and good, but does not address the problem of unequal energy consumption between rich and poor societies

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Climate change protesters demonstrate outside the Science Museum in London on June 20. Protesters were angered by the museum’s decision to accept sponsorship from fossil fuel giant Shell. Photo: EPA-EFE
Letters
The communique released by the G7 on June 13 at the conclusion of its three-day summit ran to 25 pages and addressed a wide range of issues, including climate change. Since 1995, the Conference of the Parties of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have met annually to discuss climate change – COP15 held in 2009 produced the “Copenhagen accord” and COP21 in 2015 produced the “Paris agreement”, both of which have not so far produced any tangible results.

The Group of Seven summit can be thought of as a prelude to the COP26, which is expected to be held later this year in Glasgow.

The G7 countries represent about 10 per cent of the world population but contribute about 24 per cent of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the world. In their communique, the group pledged to achieve net zero emissions as soon as possible and by 2050 at the latest. How this can be achieved without some sort of self-sacrifice remains to be seen.
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Climate change is driven by two main factors. One is population explosion and the other is per capita energy consumption. Covid-19 has reduced the world population by about 3.8 million, but around 140 million births take place every year. This important factor is not receiving the attention it deserves.

Secondly, there is a tremendous disparity in the per capita energy consumption in the world. For example, per capita energy consumption in advanced nations like Iceland, the US and Canada are many tens of thousands of times that in the Gaza Strip. So where is equality and fairness?

Kids cool off in the water of an open fire hydrant, on a hot summer day in New York City on June 6. Advanced nations like Iceland, the US and Canada consumer more energy per capita than the less developed world. Photo: ZUMA Wire/dpa
Kids cool off in the water of an open fire hydrant, on a hot summer day in New York City on June 6. Advanced nations like Iceland, the US and Canada consumer more energy per capita than the less developed world. Photo: ZUMA Wire/dpa

The emphasis on combating climate change in the communiqué is mainly on production of energy from non-fossil sources. Even if energy production in the future is from non-fossil sources, the emission of green house gases depends on the consumption of energy as the energy produced is used to drive machines of all sorts. When energy is converted to work in driving machines, there is always some loss of energy, normally in the form of heat, which escapes as some form of greenhouse gas.

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