EDITORIAL:National boundaries meaningless in fight against 'carbon summer'

All organic life on this planet depends on oxygen in some form. What is the volume of carbon dioxide emitted by all living creatures on Earth? An estimate is given in a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a scientific body that won last year's Nobel Peace Prize.

It calculated that the carbon content exhaled by living creatures on land comes to about 120 billion tons per year. On the other hand, the amount of carbon produced by burning oil and coal comes to a mere 5 to 6 percent of that volume.

Lopsided CO2 balance

But that doesn't mean it is OK to continue living as we do. Practically all exhaled natural breath returns to the biological world through photosynthesis by plants and other means. However, the volume of CO2 produced by burning oil and coal upsets nature's CO2 balance.

Carbon dioxide blankets the Earth to keep it warm. When there is too much CO2, the planet becomes overheated. That is what global warming is about.

Today, the density of CO2 in the atmosphere is more than 30 percent higher than the pre-Industrial Revolution level. The IPCC predicts that unless equilibrium is restored to the CO2 balance and the rise in average temperatures is kept within 2 to 3 degrees above the 1990 level, the resultant damage will reach global proportions.

We humans exhale CO2 without causing any immediate obvious damage to our environment. But danger mounts gradually as emissions from each factory in every country take their toll on the Earth's atmosphere. This is a different kind of danger from environmental pollution that spews fumes or discharges toxic effluents into the oceans and rivers.

Curbing emissions in one's own country is not enough. The problem cannot be resolved without the cooperation of other countries. It is important to keep a global perspective in addressing the problem.

From Cold War to 'Warm War'

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the IPCC, used the expression "carbon summer" in his acceptance speech. He equated the danger of global warming with that of the "nuclear winter"--complete destruction of the ecosystem in the wake of nuclear war. Both the carbon summer and the nuclear winter would be global catastrophes. It will require unity by the entire world to avert these crises.

In 1992, the international community took a major step forward in battling global warming. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted, and Brazil hosted the Earth Summit that year. The aim of the UNFCCC was to reduce the harmful effects of greenhouse gases, such as CO2. The Soviet Union had collapsed in December of the previous year, and the East-West Cold War was replaced by the "Warm War" between the human race and carbon.

The international community has since gradually acquired the wisdom to fight global warming. One example is the understanding that countries that recklessly produce CO2 should be made to pay a price.

The idea was to curb emissions by setting rules by which the more one emits, the more one stands to lose. Specifically, there are environmental taxes on fuel and other things, and the so-called emissions trading system, under which parties whose emissions exceed the prescribed limit are required to buy "credits" from those whose emissions are below the prescribed limit.

Another wisdom gained was the move to implement emission control measures across national boundaries. The thinking behind this is that helping other countries to reduce emissions should be deemed just as commendable as reducing emissions in one's own country.

The wisdom thus gained is reflected in the Kyoto Protocol, whose commitment period began this year. The protocol specifies emissions trading between nations. It also allows advanced nations to incorporate parts of the reduced volume into their own reduction quotas if they help developing nations reduce theirs.

When the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997, the concept of emissions trading between nations was not well received. This was because it smacked strongly of allowing nations that are reluctant to reduce their emissions to "buy" their way out of the problem.

More recently, however, the emissions trading system has come to be regarded in a positive light and as an efficient means for curbing emissions.

If a country diligently reduces its emissions and amasses credits to be traded away, another country that buys those credits effectively supports that country's reduction efforts. When it is less expensive to buy such credits than to reduce emissions in one's own country, this system can be considered efficient from the global perspective.

However, if a country has enough credits to sell off from the start, the trade could offer a loophole for countries that just want to pay their way out of their problems. The key to this system's successful functioning lies in how it is designed and operated.

Support developing countries

Attaining the target of reducing the world's greenhouse gas emissions by half by the middle of this century will require the sort of mentality akin to that of an achievement-oriented student who not only is a model student but also raises the academic standard of the entire class by helping others perform better. This is the target that the Group of Eight nations swore to pursue in earnest during last year's G-8 summit.

The G-8 summit to be held at Lake Toyako in July will be an opportunity to explore what sort of framework should be set up to continue reducing greenhouse gas emissions after the commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012. The biggest task there will be to find ways to urge nations such as China and India, which are still categorized as developing nations and thus are not yet obliged to share their burden, to curb their own emissions.

Overcoming global warming is a mega-project that requires advanced nations to restructure their domestic industries and way of life while enabling developing nations to develop their economies without adding to global warming.

From the global perspective, advanced nations will not be able to avoid footing a greater part of the overall bill. Their role is to provide capital and technology to their less developed counterparts.

Will we be able to avert the coming of the carbon summer and hand over our planet safely to the next generation? Our generation is being tested now.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 6(IHT/Asahi: May 8,2008)