PERSPECTIVE: Much ado about nothing?

Stephen Mpofu                                                                      
Is it all about humankind’s survival, or is it all about comparative advantages in international trade?

That is the intriguing question developing countries in particular must be asking when nations, big and small put their heads together to review global warming and plan the way forward to save mother Earth and its inhabitants from catastrophic global warming.

Atmospheric temperatures having sharply risen over the years to peak at between two and three degrees  Celsius, the globe is sick and in agony with most of its notorious polluters paying lip service instead of prescribing real antidotes to cure the human induced sickness.

President Mugabe could not have been more to the painful point when at the 21st UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris earlier this week he sharply criticised developed nations for their superficial commitment to previous global agreements on strategies to end global warming and with that save humanity from certain disastrous consequences.

Reports to the effect that France had offered the United States of America a key concession on the eve of the summit promising that the new global climate accord will not be called a treaty and might not contain legally binding emission reduction targets, clearly vindicate the concerns of President Mugabe, chairman of the African Union.

The said concession is clearly aimed at torpedoing any practical measures intended to effectively combat global warming.

If therefore the Paris summit is disabled and fails to come up with a legally binding agreement to succeed the Kyoto protocol, the deliberations in the French capital — famed for being the city of light — will have been nothing other than the Shakespearean play, Much Ado About Nothing.

The marrow in the bone of contention concerning effective measures to reduce if not altogether eradicate atmospheric pollution is that developed nations, the US et al adamantly want to go for broke in trade by achieving comparative advantages over other nations.

For that reason, countries that make up the developed world have always been reluctant to modify their factory chimneys, for instance, fearing that the expenses will make their products more expensive and therefore less competitive on the world market.

Add to that the country’s pussyfooting on the need to scale back emissions from coal as a source of energy in order to reduce carbon gases spewed into the atmosphere and you “yes, you” have a clear picture of why the polluters play hide and seek with smaller, less developed nations that do not possess equivalent technologies to mitigate the effects of global warming and climate change.

Stated otherwise, the big boys do not care a damn whether less developed nations in Africa including Zimbabwe and elsewhere suffocate to death from atmospheric pollution as long as they the big offenders stay alive.

Then there is this unmitigated aberration whereby the rich nations  pay lip-service to the equality of humankind, thereby failing to walk their talk by not funding smaller, needy countries to tackle the effects of global warming such as those now prevalent in Africa. These (global warming effects) are in the form of recurrent droughts that eventually wipe out food crops and pastures for livestock or wash away crops in floods also ravaging some nations that are left holding the begging bowl to the rich who tie political strings to arms to strangle recipients who refuse to kowtow to nefarious demands of some donor nations.

And come to think of it, African countries whose economies are agriculture-based are suffering the worst brunt of global warming for which they are not responsible, because richer nations that are also major culprits in atmospheric pollution remain tight with their funding which would otherwise go a long way in the fight against the fallout from global warming.

In the circumstances, is the world witnessing a culture of survival of the fittest while at the world body’s headquarters in New York City nations, both small and big, speak and behave as though they are for the unity and commonality of all people who after all stand as equals before the Creator?

But a world pregnant with pretences and make-belief antics is unlikely to survive and prosper as it ought to do marching together in unity into a brave new economic political and political future.

It is time, particularly for bigger, richer nations, to turn the corner of selfishness so that all the nations on earth stick together and survive adversities of whatever nature as one people regardless of the colour of their skin, religion or creed.

Unfortunately, however, the polluters — and they know themselves — do not seem ever inclined to atone for their horrendous crime against greater humanity.

In retrospect, therefore, one really wonders how these head-in-the-sand global environmental offenders will explain themselves before the judgment seat of God.