Globalizing Action on Climate Change

Globalization! A new word – a process as old as the wheel. Ever since concepts of organized agriculture first began emanating from the Middle East 80,000 years ago, borne by traders on the world’s first carts, new ideas have sprung up across the planet, and over time become globalized. There has been Christianity and Islam, mathematics and science, trade and colonialism, industrialization, democracy and globalization itself. This has been a constant process throughout history, with both positive and ill effects, and as the world faces up to perhaps its first truly global challenge – that of climate change – it remains to be seen how this increasingly interdependent world will respond. Global greenhouse gas emissions rose 70% from 1970 to 2004 (IPCC 2007a), of which there has been a 25% increase since 1990 (IEA 2006). The effects now appear obvious to even the ordinary citizen: 11 of the warmest years since 1850 occurred between 1995 and 2004, glaciers are in retreat, there are increased drought and storm events (IPCC 2007a). Despite the warning signs, the rate of emission increase has actually accelerated since 2000, with 74% of the growth coming from booming emerging markets (Field 2007). Globalization has made its contribution: one study found that 23% of China’s greenhouse gas emissions were emitted producing product for western consumption (Tyndall 2007), with the rest coming from changing land use and rapidly rising domestic energy consumption by the country’s burgeoning urban population – itself a product of this export-led boom. Wealth transfer is one of the great benefits of Globalization, and we cannot begrudge the extraordinary rise of these economies. But we must all recognize that Globalization means emissions can be exported, something that now requires action beyond the traditional industrial powers who signed the Kyoto Protocol.