More hot air

This time, he’s gone to a conference that will probably affect all our lives, for better or for worse, depending on the outcome; the latest UN climate change conference in Paris. It would only require one delegate, with a good secretary to brief and organise him, but that delegate should be able to sit through a full day in the conference hall without falling asleep. Clearly our man hasn’t got the stamina this requires any more than he has grasped the message about the dangers of increasing global warming by burning carbon, especially fossil fuels.

The message is simple; we have already raised average temperatures across the globe by burning those fuels and thereby increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide absorbs more of the sun’s heat than the other gases in our atmosphere, so increasing carbon dioxide increases average temperatures, which has complicated effects on our atmosphere and climates all over the world, one of which is a sharp reduction in our annual rainfall here in Zimbabwe.

We’ve seen very little real effort by any politicians to reduce global warming. In Rio de Janeiro in 1992, agreements were made that the rich countries should reduce their carbon emissions to specified limits, but the countries considered poorer were not asked to do anything. As a result, Europe has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions as agreed, but now the three biggest offenders are China, the USA (whose government, dominated by big oil companies and arms manufacturers, resists most international agreements) and India, in that order. Many companies got round government targets by moving their dirtiest factories to China, so this time everyone will have to make cuts and far more people will need to change their lifestyles if we are to avoid being forced to much more unpleasant changes within the lifetime of most people alive today.

Our rulers can’t go on blaming the West for all our problems when their own lifestyles would be considered extravagant and wasteful even in America. If we all work together we can make some difference.

But what can we hope for from a government whose response to electricity shortages is to promise big dirty diesel generators, and whose response to impending food shortages is to ban imports of food? Have we got a government at all? These crazy and erratic reactions aren’t even “crisis management”. They are about as intelligent as the kick you can get a dead frog’s leg to make if you give it an electric shock.

If only we could bring back our own experts we could make a start on genuine homegrown efforts to tackle these problems. The experts are there, trained in our schools and universities, but now you’ll find them among the four million Zimbabweans (out of a total fourteen million) living abroad and using their skills for the benefit of their host countries. But our lack of a serious government does nothing to encourage them to return.