Climate Links: 08/18/2017

More fire, more fury: Canada is ablaze amid record heatwave. Joe Romm, Think Progress. Aug. 17, 2017.

Massive wildfires are raging in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories.

G20 Climate Commitments and China’s One Belt One Road. Yves Smith, naked capitalism. Aug. 18, 2017.

It is enormously frustrating to read posts like this. 

On the one hand, the author is correct to say that Paris Accord handwaving is far from enough to address climate change, that serious and coordinated action needs to take place. And that is an extremely tall order, since we already have attained dangerous CO2 levels as a result of advanced economies reaching their current level of development.
On the other hand, emerging economies want their citizens to have first world middle class lifestyles…which would require the resources of a large integral multiple of what the Earth actually has. And the US has a big role in stoking these desires, since our exports of Hollywood movies showing supposedly middle class people typically better housed than even generally overhoused Americans actually are isn’t helpful. Nothing like misplaced international status envy. 

The idea that we can somehow have an environmentally responsible Silk Road, now called One Belt One Road, is barmy. China is seeking to construct a massive transportation system and new supply chains. A major objective is to secure the resources needed to move Chinese lifestyles closer to Western levels. That aim in and of itself is destructive. There’s no way to pretend otherwise. 

The only hope of steering out of our climate change tailspin is radical energy conservation efforts, pursued with the intensity of war mobilization. Nothing even remotely like that is happening. Pundits like Wolff are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

G20 climate commitments must be turned into action. Guntram B. Wolff, Bruegel. Aug. 17. 2017.

The G20 is just about holding together in difficult times, but the world's leading economies need to make good on their climate promises. Major projects such as China's One Belt One Road initiative and the G20 Compact for Africa must incorporate sustainability criteria, or it will be impossible to meet the Paris goals.