By Didier Hubert MADAFIME
It seems that “old age is a shipwreck”. It regularly plays dirty tricks on the person concerned.
The latter may forget himself from time to time, and not be able to remember a decision made or a thought immediately. It is not unique to some people. It is an obligatory passage, for all those who have old bones. We can therefore have compassion for them. And even if this is the case, there are nevertheless things that cannot be forgotten, especially if they involve the lives of thousands of people.
That’s what the President of the United States did when he broke his campaign promise not to allow any more drilling in order to preserve the climate. A few days ago, however, the Biden administration gave the go-ahead for a major oil drilling project in Alaska on March 13, 2023, just a few days before the presentation of the synthesis report on the assessment of global warming.
We are in 2020 and in order to secure a lease on the White House, Joe Biden, facing his challenger Donald Trump, made a few promises to the climate actors. The first, the guarantee that once elected, the United States will return to the Paris Climate Agreement, an agreement from which Uncle Sam’s country had been previously withdrawn by his predecessor Donal Trump.
The second promise relates to drilling. Joe Biden had sworn that there would not be one more drilling rig opened during his mandate. His election, of course, was a cause for rejoicing in the climate world. Once installed in the presidential chair, it is true, the old President quickly fulfilled the first part of his promise. He took the act that returns his country in the Paris Agreement on climate. But very quickly, his acts thereafter begin to be unreadable. There is the episode of the COP 26 in Glasgow.
All the climate actors expected the Americans to take the opposite side of the countries that want to continue exploiting coal mines. Not only does Joe Biden not blush, but he supports this diabolical venture in a sibylline way. We understand what happens next. The American President is secretly interested in the important oil drilling project in Alaska.
This is what he did on March 13, 2023, confirming in fact what his predecessor had started. In developing countries or dictatorships where the word of the leader is worth executing, this project would have passed like a letter in the post.
A great victory for the climate
The gigantic drilling project authorized by the Biden administration is located in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. This reserve is considered a natural refuge for the world’s largest species. Joe Biden has thus put the financial interest of the United States ahead of the protection of the planet, thus violating the Paris climate agreement. That’s millions of barrels a day but also millions of tons of CO2, one of the greenhouse gases that spend more time in the atmosphere.
Fortunately, the permit was rejected by a U.S. federal judge, “who criticized the way the federal government had assessed the environmental impact, including how it could harm polar bears.” This is a major setback for Joe Biden, who for now has put the project on hold. “A full analysis of the environmental consequences of concessions will be conducted and the U.S. administration will decide based on the results,” says the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This is a victory for American environmentalists, reminding their President that under their skies “a promise is a promise” even if it is made during an election campaign.
Politics kills the environment
It will be explained to tomorrow’s children, but they will not understand the reasons why their elders and their parents left them a totally ravaged planet. The most striking example comes from Europe. The countries that make it up continue to tear each other apart over the end of gasoline-powered cars. Some of them no longer agree on the 2030 deadline and want to push it back to 2035.
And yet global warming is here, and does not take into account any deadline. It is eating away at everything: our lifestyles, our ecosystems, our oceans, our land. The policies in place in 2020 would lead to a global warming of 3.5°C by the end of the century. It is not me who says this.
This conclusion is drawn from the synthesis report published on Monday, March 20 by the UN experts on global warming. Two things have remained constant since the first assessment report on the effects of climate change in 1990 until the last one: climate change is a reality and beginning of the human origin.
four things noted in this report are:
– Accelerated increase in global warming
-Continuous increase in greenhouse gas emissions
-Worsening vulnerability of populations and ecosystem
-Impacts continue to intensify
To face this phenomena, mankind must reduce the greenhouse mission and proceed to two things. These include putting in place adaptation and mitigation system as the global warming currently hits 1.1°C according to the summary of the IPCC report; and finding “bulldozer strategy” if we are not working to stop global warming.
The hope of the change is possible because humanity wont create the problems that are beyond its resolving capacity. This is what I believe!
