Climate Support

Determined to reduce the current level of CO2 emissions from the U.S. by 32 percent by 2030, Barack Obama continues to surprise the world with steps that have put into question the term lame duck, which is foisted upon U.S. presidents in their final terms in power, as they tend to lose influence and the ability to maneuver.

In effect, two equally important initiatives in domestic policy are to be added to successes in foreign policy (the diplomatic re-establishment of ties with Cuba and the nuclear agreement reached with Iran). On one hand, the reform of the U.S. criminal code, which is extremely discriminatory and keeps 25 percent of the world’s inmates behind bars (most of them of African or Latino descent), despite the fact that the U.S. population only represents 5 percent of the global population. And, on the other hand, the aforementioned attempt to limit carbon dioxide emissions from the second largest polluter on the planet, a fundamental step in the fight against climate change.

With respect to this last question, it goes without saying that the United States was the main emitter of greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere for decades, and is, for that reason, the principal country responsible for global warming. However, in recent years China, which generated 9,900 metric tons of CO2 in 2012 according to the Joint Research Centre of the EU, has taken this sad distinction away from the United States, whose emissions this very year reached 6,526 metric tons of CO2. (Altogether, the EU countries contributed with 3,700 metric tons of CO2.)

That is why the fact that a U.S. administration has, for the first time, decided to limit its level of emissions constitutes a transcendent step to bring about a global agreement in the Paris Conference of 2015, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol; this determination will help other countries such as China, India, Russia and Brazil to also make commitments to the fight against global warming.

For years, these and other emerging countries have rejected mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases, citing their right to develop and to do so on a much greater scale than Western countries. This argument carries weight, but nonetheless conveniently forgets that this desire for progress is based on the overexploitation of natural resources, a system that is causing an unprecedented ecological crisis, which threatens to destroy our way of life as we know it. In this sense, putting Obama’s announcement into practice will embody the main contribution to the actions he has taken in favor of the planet. As he himself has pointed out, there is no Plan B for global warming, which at the present represents “the greatest threat” to the future of humanity.