The US and BP: World's Largest Carbon Emitter is in No Position to Throw Stones

No one could disagree that the oil spill is a terrible event, blighting the lives and livelihoods of many and threatening the ecosystems of the region. But the spill is just 'a drop in the ocean' compared to the impact of America's contribution to global atmospheric pollution resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels. We wrote recently, in the Global Edition of the New York Times , about the response of the American public and its leaders to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Our letter was provoked by seeing President Obama and other American leaders lambasting BP day after day, seemingly completely oblivious to the fact that the human and environmental damage the USA is causing is almost infinitely greater than that resulting from the oil spill, terrible though that is. The US has one of the highest rates of emissions in the world - about 20 tonnes of CO2 per capita per annum (Britain produces about 11 tonnes - Bangladesh about a quarter of a tonne). Although China has now overtaken the USA as the world's biggest emitter it still only produces about a quarter of that produced per capita in the USA. The USA is also unique in being the only developed country to refuse to ratify the Kyoto Treaty to limit greenhouse gasses and, even now, under Obama, is only offering to cut its emissions, by a grotesquely inadequate 17%, by 2020.

Our dependence on carbon-based fuels is bringing about changes in climate that will impact on the lives and livelihoods of countless millions--indeed, it is doing so already, particularly in the low-income countries. This will get much worse and even the industrialised countries will not be able to hide. We must act now with clear determination to make things different.

The evidence is clear. Climate scientists argue that global warming is beyond reasonable doubt. In addition to direct measurements of temperature, warming can be seen in changes in the world around us. To take just one example: on 15th May 2008, the leading science journal, Nature, reported that "95% of the 829 physical changes [observed between 1970 and 2004] have been in directions consistent with warming, such as glacier wastage and an earlier peak in river discharge." Similarly, "90% of the approximately 28,800 documented changes in plants and animals are responding consistently to temperature changes...." The article's lead author, Professor Cynthia Rosenzweig, from Nasa's Goddard Institute in New York, says, "We're getting a sense that climate change is already changing the way the world works... It's real and it's happening now".   The scientific consensus is going from strength to strength and a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA this June reveals that 97-98% of active climate researchers support the mainstream view on the human role in global warming.

According to the Global Humanitarian Forum, led by Kofi Annan, global warming is already killing an estimated 300,000 people each year.  Looking ahead, climate change poses the biggest threat to world health, according to a joint statement by 18 of the world's leading medical organisations on 16th September 2009. It asserted that failure to adequately address this issue will result in a 'global health catastrophe' and will 'put the lives and wellbeing of billions of people at increased risk', with those in poor and tropical nations suffering first and worst.

This situation is the responsibility of all industrialised countries - we write from the North East of England, an area which first fuelled the industrial revolution! But the USA is in a special position.

President Obama could perhaps return for inspiration in this fight to the stirring words that he used before the vote in Congress on healthcare reform (20th March, 2010): 'Every once in a while a moment comes when you have a chance to vindicate those best hopes that you had about yourself...where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made. We are not bound to win, we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.'

Elizabeth Oughton, Marian Raley, Sharon Joyce, Sara Maioli

The authors are all members of Academic Staff at Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne England

Photo: Powerplant: http://www.flickr.com/photos/d1v1d/2577412530

Photo: BP sign http://www.flickr.com/photos/fibonacciblue/4657166859