Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come

Click here to access article by Justin Gillis from The New York Times (free registration required).

I try to avoid articles that lie behind paywalls and registration-walls; but given that this crucial topic is causing all kinds of headaches for the ruling capitalist classes, I thought it best to see how a leading Empire publication reacted to another report just released from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a prestigious UN research group. (Other current postings of this report are here and here.) 

First of all, I found no mention in this article (or any other articles) that the capitalist system is any kind of factor driving this threat to human existence. That causal factor is clearly off the table around which sit representatives of the dominant ruling capitalist classes. So, how do they deal with a report that predicts so many dire consequences of climate change destabilization that are already starting to happen in many parts of the world?

The emphasis is all on adaptation with some general comments thrown in about the need to reduce the use of fossil fuels. But their record during the past 20 years regarding fossil fuel usage makes it obvious that our masters have given up on the latter option simply because their system requires growth which, in turn, requires easily available, and relatively cheap fossil fuels. So we find reassuring paragraphs like the following in this NY Times' article:

The experts did find a bright spot, however. Since the group issued its report in 2007, it has found growing evidence that governments and businesses around the world are starting extensive plans to adapt to climate disruptions, even as some conservatives in the United States and a small number of scientists continue to deny that a problem exists.

“I think that dealing effectively with climate change is just going to be something that great nations do,” said Christopher B. Field, co-chairman of the working group that wrote the report, and an earth scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif.

So, what do they have in mind as adaptations? I could find only two examples in this article: build higher walls to protect critical infrastructure from rising sea levels, and "improved crop varieties and farming techniques". In a Guardian article, one fellow recommended insurance policies!

Then I noticed that authorities were so concerned about some dire parts of this report that they simply deleted them from reports that would be read by the "deciders".

[The report] cited a World Bank estimate that poor countries need as much as $100 billion a year to try to offset the effects of climate change; they are now getting, at best, a few billion dollars a year in such aid from rich countries.

The $100 billion figure, though included in the 2,500-page main report, was removed from a 48-page executive summary to be read by the world’s top political leaders. It was among the most significant changes made as the summary underwent final review during a dayslong editing session in Yokohama.

The edit came after several rich countries, including the United States, raised questions about the language, according to several people who were in the room at the time but did not wish to be identified....