A gift from God

I walked into my brother’s New York apartment after midnight. It was deliciously warm, although nobody had been staying in it for many weeks.

The temperature outside was below seven degrees Celsius. I had been silently dreading entering an icebox, which is what would have greeted me if it were London or most places in Europe.

My misgivings were based on the coldest October I can remember experiencing. During five long weeks in Europe, I never managed to warm up, simply because every building was underheated.

That is not true of New York, and probably nowhere else in the temperate US. How we choose to use Earth’s resources for creature comfort is down to a question of culture and will.

COP29, the 2024 climate summit, ended last week in Baku in Azerbaijan, a country where fossil fuels account for 90 percent of its exports. According to one international broadcast media report, the smell of oil is constantly in the air.

Strange place indeed, then, to host a summit on cutting global carbon emissions, especially since its president refused to discuss reducing production and regards fossil fuels as “a gift from God,” and therefore his country’s divine duty to exploit.

We all know by now that the burning of fossil fuels is the main reason for global warming, which scientists say endangers the planet and many forms of life. God has therefore given us the tool for our own destruction.

Christians believe that He also gave us the will to do the right thing. It seems that we are not keen on exercising that will, even when we are staring the terrible consequences straight in the face.

It amazed me to learn that Azerbaijan itself faces particularly bad times from global warming. It lies on the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water, which is rapidly growing shallow as Russia diverts water upstream from the great Volga River.

And with global warming of two degrees intensifying evaporation, the sea level is expected to drop by 15 metres in 75 years. Not only Azerbaijan’s economy will be affected when its oil rigs and ports get stranded in a shallow sea, but fishing and plant and animal life will be stranded too, assuming life on Earth survives till then and Azerbaijan does not manage to diversify its economy.

The president’s death wish is no more surprising, though, than many other people’s and countries' seem to be. Here we must recognise the tension between the rhetoric of politicians and what is happening on the ground. The latest Global Carbon Budget report suggests carbon emissions rose a record two per cent on 2023’s, driven by fossil-fuel burning, deforestation and wildfires, but the rate at which emissions are rising, overall, is trending downwards, even in China, which generates a third of the global total, and India, too.

We could assume that is due to policies implemented by some government agencies and perhaps the private sector, but it is not enough, say the experts. We have to slam on the brakes to avoid calamity.

How do we each do that when governments speak out of both sides of their mouths and we hear mixed messages? How are we to believe President Biden, who advocates for anti-global warming policies while uselessly arming Ukraine to supposedly defend itself, and arming the Israeli government to the hilt to wage outright war, when armed conflict is a major contributor to global warming, one where governments refuse to measure emissions or divulge them if they do?

Trust is a casualty of these contradictory positions and it has an effect upon us and society.

Doing the right thing is difficult for us without governments providing incentives as well as the structures to enable our active participation in global efforts.

In Europe, energy is so costly that all homes are heated on timers, whereas in the US, where it is cheap, large apartment blocks, such as the one I am in, are centrally heated around the clock.

The US state and federal governments could demand and partially fund eco-friendly heating systems, as happens in the UK.

In TT, where homes increasingly rely on air conditioning as temperatures rise, the government could, for example, tax homes designed for A/C use and allow tax breaks for those that are energy-efficient and designed for the future. Other countries have taken similar steps.

Alas, TT is in the unbothered US mode and we, too, have God’s gift.

In the end, it is a matter of changing both culture and attitude, which is a very difficult task unless there is a personal engagement with the facts. If one believes that the biblical end of the world is well in hand, it seems pointless to make any personal effort unless encouraged to do so.

Change will only come when individuals equate ill health with ambient temperature, flooded houses with the abundance of cars, and turbulent plane journeys with the widespread use of air conditioning and other ways in which we are profligate in our use of energy.

The old folk used to warn, if you can’t hear, you have to feel. We are being reminded of that.